August 3, 2018

From the Borscht Belt to Carrot Hummus

Leave a Comment / Food / Yamit Behar Wood

You may find it odd that a person who lives in East Africa and spends so many of her waking hours in a hot kitchen can’t stand the heat of a New York City summer.

But just because I no longer live in New York doesn’t mean I’ll ever give up the right to complain about the dog days of the soul-wilting, humidity-heavy tourist season. I firmly believe it is a hard-earned privilege for life once you have lived in the city for more than a few summers to do so.

Instead, finding myself in the throes of a genuine heat wave in Manhattan, rather than a crowded, Hamptons beach getaway, I did what midcentury American Jewry did for decades — I escaped to the Catskills, otherwise known as the heart of the Borscht Belt, named after the dietary staple of the throngs of Eastern European Jews who used to vacation there.

A mere two-hour drive from the city, the oppressive heat gripping concrete sidewalks gives way to the cool, shaded, green Xanadu that is Sullivan County. I arrived on a Friday night, just in time to watch movie stars and local residents pack themselves into the Callicoon Wine Merchant’s new tapas bar. The area, now known for its rural pursuits such as its annual tractor pull, contains only a few relics of the resorts that, in their heyday, launched the careers of many of the great Jewish stand-up comedians. (It also was where Baby was taught all the right moves by Patrick Swayze in “Dirty Dancing.” )

It’s rather surprising to be drinking Spanish Rioja and eating what is arguably the most innovative food to hit the Borscht Belt since Mel Brooks was a headliner here. You would have a hard time convincing a Manhattanite that a small town like Callicoon, in agriculturally minded Sullivan County, would be home to such a feat, but that’s because you don’t know the bar’s proprietor, chef Robin Mailley.

In the early 2000s, I was living in the city and working at The New York Times. One of my best friends and co-workers began dating a chef originally from Rhode Island, who owned a highly acclaimed restaurant in Midtown’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. Market Café was a cross between a diner and a cafe — retro and cool, hip and innovative, and the food was utterly fresh and original. Mailley was tough — a typical, temperamental, perfectionist chef, battle-tested in the hot, 4-by-4, pressurized, nuclear stress zones of New York restaurant kitchens. He lived next door to the restaurant and on weekends, after his and my friend’s relationship got more serious, I followed him around like a puppy just to get to do something — anything — so he would let me hang out with him and watch him cook.

One day, out of the blue, perhaps sensing I was obsessed with his cooking style, Mailley said to me: “How about this Sunday afternoon, you come to Market Café and take over the kitchen? I’ll give you the keys and you can come cook all day. Then in the evening, invite your friends and we’ll have a party with your food — drinks on me.”

I was so flabbergasted I almost declined the offer. As a home cook, I was worried I’d do something typical of me — like explode a pressure cooker or burn down the block.

After a fitful night’s sleep, I got to the restaurant at 6:30 a.m. on Sunday after shopping for all the ingredients the night before. I still remember what I cooked in minute detail: an Israeli meal with sophisticated family recipes and an endless prep list.

That affirmation of my skill and the passion I felt in the Market Café kitchen never left me from that Sunday forward.

Twelve hours later, our friends arrived at the restaurant to 15 different dishes I had prepared, yet, for me the whole day had passed as though it was a moment. It was exhausting and satisfying and completely transformative. I can still connect with that younger me, that non-chef me, that me who had no confidence in Mailley’s kitchen and no clue how to turn on the salamander or light his grill.

After I served the food, I noticed Mailley watching me out of the corner of his eye. Eventually, I asked him what he was thinking. “You, my friend, are a chef. I don’t know what you have been doing in an office all these years, but you are a chef — you just don’t know it yet.”

That affirmation of my skill and the passion I felt in the Market Café kitchen never left me from that Sunday forward.

Almost 20 years later, I’m now the boss of my own kitchen, have chefs who work under my supervision, and two restaurants under my belt. While I’ve been cooking for diplomats for five years at the American Embassy in Uganda, Mailley married my friend, sold Market Café and moved to upstate New York to raise a daughter they adopted from China.

Once there, he opened a boutique wine-and-cheese shop, having fallen in love with wine during his restaurant days. “Here is where I wanted to be,” Mailley told me. “The only caveat: They just didn’t have the wines I wanted to buy up here.” So he sought out independent wine growers and producers and filled his shop with a large selection of organic and biodynamic wines.

Recently, Mailley decided to end his cooking hiatus and get back to being where all chefs love to be: in their own restaurant kitchen. The Callicoon Wine Merchant expanded its offering, moved into new digs, and opened an expanded shop, bar and restaurant.

One small plate after another came out of Mailley’s kitchen, each one created with the best of the week’s organic produce from the market. Smoked duck with fennel and cranberries, pot roast with pickled vegetables and horseradish cream, and my favorite, this luxe carrot hummus with olive oil and roasted Japanese turnips.

You can’t go wrong making this vegan recipe as a starter to a light meal or serving it as a side dish at a meat-heavy barbecue. I would however, be remiss if I didn’t warn you that if you ever decide to visit Mailley’s wine and tapas bar, and meet him in person, you may find yourself becoming enamored by the idea of blowing up your life to go in search of your own dreams.

And you won’t regret it for a second.

CARROT HUMMUS WITH ROASTED JAPANESE TURNIPS

Roasted Turnips
1 pound Japanese turnips (or regular turnips or radishes), washed well and cut in half or quartered; trim the roots’ tips and tails but do not remove
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Hummus
5 medium carrots, peeled and cut in half
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons tahini paste
1/2 cup olive oil (not extra virgin)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon Calabrian pepper (or ground black pepper)
1/4 of a preserved lemon or 2 tablespoons
lemon juice
2 tablespoons flat leaf parsley chopped
(for garnish)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Toss turnips or radishes in olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast for 40 minutes. Gently turn the vegetables halfway through cooking to brown them evenly on all sides. Set aside when done.

Meanwhile, poach carrots in a small amount of water. When fork tender, drain and put into a blender with remaining ingredients (except for parsley).

Blend until smooth. Let cool until just warm. Divide the hummus on 4 plates and spread evenly. Pile on roasted turnips and garnish with chopped parsley.

Serves 4 as a starter.

Yamit Behar Wood, an Israeli-American food and travel writer, is the executive
chef at the U.S. Embassy in Kampala, Uganda, and founder of the New York Kitchen Catering Co.

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Nationality Law Calls for Reason Over Hysterics

Leave a Comment / Israel, Rosner's Domain / Shmuel Rosner

Israel’s new Nationality Law proves that we Israelis are ruled by clowns.

One of them is Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who fought for this legislation tooth and nail, issuing threats such as “If there is no law, there is no coalition.” Then, merely a week after the law was approved by the Knesset — and amid protests against it by the Israeli Druze — a tweet came from the never-flinching minister: “The government of Israel must find a way to heal the rift.” That is, the rift caused by a bill that Bennett could have blocked.

Then there is Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon. Opponents of the nationality bill had high hopes for Kahlon. They thought he would be the one senior member of the coalition to prevent the bill from passing. But Kahlon disappointed them. He was firm in his support of the new law — until about a week after it was passed. Then, Kahlon suddenly discovered that the government was acting in “haste” and the law needed fixing.

There is no way to describe Bennett’s action other than calling it folly. The law was first proposed a decade ago — and this was still not enough time for Bennett to take care of this little inconvenience of not creating a rift with the Druze. This law was debated for many months and the focus of attention for many weeks — and this was still not enough time for Kahlon to pay attention to what the law says.

These ministers are an embarrassment. And so are many others who defended and attacked the law without ever bothering to seriously ponder its meaning and consequences.

Last week, a group of 180 authors and intellectuals sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding that the law be canceled. One of them, an author of popular books, was invited to explain her position on a radio show. She was humiliated when it was soon clarified that she was confusing the Nationality Law with another law and clearly had not read both. Her confusion still did not stop her from signing a petition that claimed the law “explicitly permits racial and religious discrimination.” Read the law and find this “explicit” line. I will save you the trouble: it does not exist.

Keep it all in proportion: Israel did not change with this law.

The law is “shameful but not discriminatory,” as professor Alexander Yakobson described it. It declares that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.” This is neither racial nor religious discrimination — this is national definition. A “nation-state” must define the “nation” to which the term refers. The law does that: Israel is the nation-state of “the Jewish People,” and theirs alone.

Of course, one does not have to agree with such a definition, nor with any of the other items specified in the law: the flag is white and blue, the anthem is “Hatikvah,” Jerusalem is the capital, Hebrew is the language. One would clearly be right to wonder about the convoluted formulation of Israel-Diaspora relations: “The state shall act within the Diaspora [emphasis added] to strengthen the affinity between the state and members of the Jewish people.” It is aimed at avoiding the interpretation that Israel must alter its own character to “strengthen the affinity” with other Jews. All of these elements of the law can be changed with a 61-vote majority in the Knesset, and all are subject to Supreme Court interpretation. None of these — whether you agree or disagree with them — justifies a hysterical response.

Yuval Shani, the vice president of Israel’s Democracy Institute, had it right when he said that this law is “not a game changer and has very little problematic implications, but it causes anxiety.”

Anxiety is about the way we feel, not about what the law says. Anxiety is what happens to us when we perceive something to be terrible. In some cases, it is necessary and justified. In other cases, it is misplaced and a cause for, well, even more pointless anxiety.

The Nationality Law does not justify hysterics nor anxiety.

Frustration? Yes, for both supporters and opponents.

Objection? Sure, for some.

Puzzlement? I am certainly puzzled about some aspects of the process.

But keep it all in proportion: Israel did not change with this law. Israeli realities did not change. This law did not save us from any menace. It is also not a prelude to any menace.

Shmuel Rosner is senior political editor. For more analysis of Israeli and international politics, visit Rosner’s Domain at jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain.

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A Woman of All Faiths

Leave a Comment / Israel / Deborah Danan

Above the ancient port of Jaffa, next to a lighthouse, is the house of Simon the Tanner, where, according to Christian tradition, Jesus’ apostle Peter had a divine vision in which he was told it was OK to eat nonkosher animals, and which he interpreted as permission to forgo Jewish law and preach Christianity to Jews as well as pagans.

Today, an elderly Armenian Christian woman lives in the house. Her husband’s family, the Zakarians, have maintained and operated the fabled lighthouse for generations. t is perhaps ironic then, that Mrs. Zakarian’s grandchildren grew up keeping kosher. All but one of her grandchildren from her daughter, Miriam, converted to Judaism.

That one is Sylvia Garaysa. Her choice to remain a Christian was not an obvious one. Then again, nothing in her childhood home was obvious. Her mother, Miriam, married Shlomo Zazon, a traditional Jew from Fez, Morocco, and out of respect for her husband, Miriam kept a kosher home. Her children were told they could fast on Yom Kippur if they wished. The matzo, bitter herbs and shank bone on their seder table were flanked by a bowl of pastel-colored Easter eggs. At Christmas, her father would bring home a pine tree for the children to decorate.

Later, well-meaning neighbors would tell Garaysa that living in the Jewish state would be much easier if she were to follow in her five siblings’ footsteps and convert. “But I refused. I was born this way,” she said. “It’s not right for me, spiritually. It’s not a part of my destiny.”

Destiny is a word that comes up frequently in our conversation. Garaysa firmly believes she was put on Earth to fulfill a higher purpose particular to her, but that doesn’t nullify any one religion in her mind. “If I believe in God, then I have to believe in these three religions,” she said.

She interlaced her fingers. “It’s a puzzle that connects to itself.”

In her house once owned by a rabbi, Sylvia Garaysa, daughter of an Armenian Christian and a Moroccan Jew, wife of an Arab, has a kindergarten with children of different faiths.

But it didn’t always. When she was a young girl, her multiple and often clashing identities would leave her confused. “When you’re a child, it’s a great weight [to bear]. Who am I? What am I? And why do I need to go through this?”

Garaysa was lucky enough to marry Rami, an Arab Christian who loved and accepted all of her sparring identities. They live in a house that belonged to a rabbi, which, she said, is no coincidence. “There are hidden things here, which help us along the way,” she said, her eyes welling up. Garaysa frequently becomes emotional, a trait that seems at odds with her strong-willed persona but that also endears her to those who know her.

Fifteen years ago, after the birth of her eldest daughter, Aline, Garaysa dreamed she would open a kindergarten. It would be a seismic career shift from her job as a bookkeeper. Today, in her house once owned by a rabbi, Garaysa, daughter of an Armenian Christian and a Moroccan Jew, wife of an Arab and mother of four, has a kindergarten with children from Arab, Muslim, Christian, Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Ethiopian, religious and secular families — not an easy feat in a place as politically charged as Jaffa. Yet, in a decade and a half, not a single parent has had a politics- or faith-related objection to the way she runs her kindergarten.

Garaysa said her pupils are her spiritual children, and they are part of one heart.

In springtime, the children hold a mock seder with matzo and a seder plate and, yes, Easter eggs. On Yom HaAtzmaut, they paint an enormous dove with the colors of the rainbow.

“You’re all a part of Israel,” Garaysa tells the children,. “It is my country the same way as it is yours. And what’s beautiful about it is that it is full of color.”

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Is Inflexibility the Death of Judaism?

Leave a Comment / Columnists, Opinion / Meni Even-Israel

Throughout the Tanakh, God models extraordinary behavior and spotlights key virtues for the benefit of humankind, simultaneously sparing us pain and setting an example worth following. In fact, from the very first interaction with man, God establishes a precedent for acting and reacting with patience and compassion and emphasizes the importance of living a life that is not bound by rigidness.

After creating Adam, God imbued him with great powers, granted him dominion over all other creatures and even fashioned a mate for him out of his own flesh and blood. The pair were then given free rein in the Garden of Eden, with one small limitation: They could not eat from the Tree of Knowledge.

When they inevitably eat from the forbidden tree, God does not choose to abandon his humanity project. Instead, Adam and Eve are banned from the garden, God creates human awareness to subtly illustrate his disappointment, and the new laws and limitations of their new world are made known. God’s punishment is harsh but fair and fits the crime. Most importantly, God’s actions highlight the need for flexibility in even the direst of circumstances.

Several generations later, when humanity proves to be truly corrupt, God recognizes the need to hit the reset button but refuses to wipe the slate clean entirely. Noah is chosen as humanity’s steward, and God lays the groundwork for a second chance of global proportions, once again showing the Divine attribute of flexibility.

And when the Jewish nation tests God’s patience repeatedly over the course of their 40-year journey in the wilderness, God forgives their insolence and indulges their insubordination just to keep them on track, literally and spiritually. In response, they grow bolder and increasingly rigid, unable to emulate the godly trait that ensures their very survival generation after generation.

Indeed, even a cursory reading of the Tanakh makes it abundantly clear that inflexibility is a man-made foible.

At several points in our history, Jews were able to see the shades of gray that colored the world and acted in kind, walking along Ruth’s path of acceptance. The story goes that Jewish communities in Eastern Europe simplified and expedited the conversion process for non-Jews who had fallen in love with young Jews to avoid assimilation and strengthen Jewish adhesion and identity. They found a way to include rather than shun, to make it work rather than making it more complicated. Practically, this makes perfect sense, as all the Torah’s laws and guidelines are intended to be “ways of pleasantness” (Proverbs 3:17), and we are meant to mirror this paradigm through our own behavior.

By disallowing adaptation with the passage of time, we have put Judaism as we know it in jeopardy.

But somewhere along the line, we lost the ability to act and react with patience and compassion, and knowingly chose to live our lives bound by the letter, rather than the spirit, of the law. In doing so, we distanced ourselves from the Torah’s “paths of peace” and created spiritual barriers to keep others out at times when we should have been drawing them in. By disallowing adaptation with the passage of time, denying the clarity presented by technological advancements and disregarding societal need, we have put Judaism as we know it in jeopardy.

Thankfully, it’s not too late to course correct — assuming we understand where we went wrong in the first place.

I believe it stems from a fear of corrupting or diluting our heritage by utilizing modern information and contemporary commentary to update our understanding of our core texts. In an effort to maintain the strength and centrality of these Masoretic texts, we shunned original thinking and rejected textual analysis based on scientific findings and historical evidence, even when the suggested explanations provide brilliant new insights and strong answers to issues that have been troubling scholars for generations.

For example, in Tractate Sanhedrin (47 a-b), when discussing burial procedures and the period of mourning, the medieval commentaries argue about the definition of the phrase setimat ha-golel – “when the golel is sealed.” Rashi believes that the golel is the cover to a casket, while the Tosafists suggest that the item in question is actually a rounded stone that was used to seal a burial cave. Over the last century, several such stones have been found near ancient burial caves in Israel, thereby proving the Tosafists interpretation to be more factually accurate.

So, was Rashi wrong? No, he simply was limited by time and place, and he provided the most lucid commentary possible using the information available to him. Having never actually been to Israel and having witnessed only traditional interment, Rashi could only speak about that which he knew to be true. While the explanations provided by both Rashi and the Tosafists are integral to our study of the Talmud, modern findings have helped us clarify the original intent.

Our problems began when a vocal minority insisted that Rashi and other classic commentators are always right, no matter how many times they were presented with undeniable scientific, archaeological or historical evidence to the contrary. This rigidness and inability to accept new ideas trickles down from factual analysis to the interpretation of Jewish law, where it is most dangerous and divisive.

The painful irony is that Rashi’s own grandsons had opinions that often contradicted his own, yet he still loved and respected them tremendously. Rashi knew that debate, analysis and innovation have kept us alive — physically and spiritually — and brought us together through good times and bad. He understood that Jews need to ask questions in order to grow as individuals and thrive as a nation.

That’s why it is so troubling that, in many circles, stringency is observed for the sake of stringency alone. This practice is lazy and closed-minded and threatens the very foundations of Judaism. If the answer is always no, nothing will ever be accessible. When we close all the gates in fear of intrusive ideas, we create an irreparable divide, locking some in and others out and never allowing all members of the Tribe to converse, connect and create together, as is the Jewish ideal.

My father, Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, has always dared to be flexible, experimenting with numerous ways to make our core texts more accessible. He altered the layout of one version of the Babylonian Talmud, allowing the novice and casual reader to engage with the text like never before. He drew on science, archaeology, history and modern insights to answer age-old questions and make the subject matter more relatable to contemporary students and scholars. And he uncensored talmudic text that had been hidden from the masses due to archaic sensibilities to reintroduce the entirety of our core knowledge for maximum engagement.

Though the backlash for his creativity was intense, my father charged forward knowing that introducing flexibility back into Torah study was essential, as it would breathe new life into our core texts and bring Jews from all walks of life together to learn, debate and build a bright new Jewish future. The realization of this vision was on full display recently at the Steinsaltz Center’s Gala Dinner in Jerusalem, a celebration of my father’s unparalleled pedagogical accomplishments and a testament to his global impact. The sellout crowd was a cross-section of world Jewry, people of all ages from diverse educational backgrounds who had reshaped and rekindled their relationship with Jewish learning and practice thanks to the tools created and example set by my father. In their unique ways, each guest at the dinner approached my father to thank him for exposing the originality that exists within our Jewish tradition, for highlighting the truth behind the talmudic claim that there are, indeed, “70 faces to the Torah.”

The fear that has sapped our creativity and originality for generations, and continues to drive us apart, is rooted in a belief that it is impossible to find new clarity and meaning in our core texts without risking their alteration or abstraction. But, as God illustrated throughout the Tanakh, flexibility doesn’t mean wiping the slate clean. It entails rethinking, reworking and retooling without ever actually changing the core components. It’s about drawing out the light from a closed system so that it no longer feels closed and making foundational concepts the beginning of a vibrant conversation rather than the last word on the matter.

It is time that we relearn the ability to act and react with patience and compassion and lead lives that are not bound by rigidness, so that we not only can emulate the Divine but strengthen our faith, deepen our understanding and unlock the beautiful originality of Jewish tradition.

Meni Even-Israel is the executive director of the Steinsaltz Center, a pedagogical accelerator that develops tools and programming that encourage creative engagement with Jewish texts in order to make the world of Jewish knowledge accessible to all.

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Who Killed Raphael’s Son? Part 5

Leave a Comment / Summer Fiction / Gina Nahai

Editor’s note: This is the fifth of a five-part excerpt from the novel “The Luminous Heart of Jonah S.” by Gina Nahai.

To see if he could learn any more about either the Riffraff or Lorecchio, Leon paid a visit to the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee. Not the most popular person on the block, the trustee and his army of lawyers, forensic accountants and sundry other experts had so far collected close to $80 million by suing every investor who ever withdrew money (whether capital or interest) from the pool. They had also billed the account and received close to $80 million in fees. In return for their services, they had managed to unearth the following facts: a) that Raphael’s Son had lost or misplaced $500 million of “investors’” money; b) that he had kept no written record of how or why the money was lost; and c) that the trustee suspected most of the money was misplaced in overseas accounts, and the rest of it in the accounts of twenty-seven of his family members. Many a page of the Pearl Cannon had been devoted by Angela to the simple observation that the trustee’s $80 million worth of “discovery” could have been related, to any judge with an IQ of ten or above, by any one of Raphael’s Son’s victims. That the only people benefitting from the trustee’s investigation were the trustee and his crew. That the victims should stop fighting each other and trying to make nice with the trustee so he wouldn’t sue them again, and instead band together and demand that the judge who appointed the person rein him in.

Five years later, the trustee’s divide-and-conquer tactics were still paying off (for him), and the judge still took no interest. The office was on the twenty-fourth floor of a tower in Century City, across the street from where Raphael’s Son had been. The ground floor and half a dozen others were occupied by the Creative Artists Agency, hence the frenetic energy in the lobby and the throngs of attractive young men and women, all dressed like Ralph Lauren models, carrying cups of coffee or lugging laundry bags. Like everyone else in LA with a pulse, Leon thought of CAA as a near-mythological place run by diabolical madmen and more difficult to penetrate than the inner bowels of the Pentagon. Before they moved their headquarters from Beverly Hills to Century City, Leon had tried twice to get a close-up glimpse of America’s Forbidden City. Even with a detective’s badge, trying to approach the agency’s gatekeepers had been an exercise in humiliation. This time he did his best not to look toward the (was it really bulletproof glass?) door, but in the short distance from the street to the elevators he caught himself fantasizing that one of the agents who specialized in selling books for film adaptation had intercepted him and was asking him—Leon—for a meeting.

In his office, the trustee sat across from Leon with his elbows resting on a glass desk and his hands touching at the fingertips. He seemed more like a bad therapist, Leon thought, than a good lawyer. He wore a loose white cotton dress shirt over loose black pants, the obligatory two-tone Rolex, the kind of expensive eyeglasses television news anchors were modeling of late because they thought it made them more credible.

He told Leon that, as far as “the trust” had been able to establish, Raphael’s Son had maintained 113 corporations, most of them unregistered, over a twenty-year period. He moved money around from one to the other until it was untraceable, and he didn’t keep written records of the most important ones because he and Eddy were both products of the Iranian education system where memorization was king. “I’m told that over there kids have to memorize entire books, first word to last, including punctuation, to get through school. To pass the college entrance exam they have to retain ten thousand math problems and be able to spew them out instantaneously. They don’t need Quicken to keep track of their money.”

It was true, Leon knew. Especially for someone as bright as Raphael’s Son. Then again, what a waste it had been—all that work so he could be the human equivalent of some kind of bookkeeping software designed to steal from orphans and widows.

“The bookkeeper maintained a log.” The trustee raised an eyebrow to emphasize how much contempt he had for this manner of record keeping. “Written by hand. In pencil. And good luck making sense of it.”

Leon asked about a relationship with Lorecchio. The trustee smiled mechanically. “I don’t know anything about that.”

From a detective’s point of view, this was a case from hell: too many people with a motive, no body, witness, or weapon, and many an interested party still convinced that the victim was not dead at all, just a fugitive.

Leon asked if the trustee had obtained records of a $30 million deposit, circa 2003. “Compared to some others, that’s chump change.” The trustee touched his fingertips again.

“This is a wealthy community.” He said this as if being rich was an automatic sign of corruption.

“This is a wealthy town.” Leon challenged the implied criticism of Iranians for being successful. “You wouldn’t hold it against the people?” The trustee smiled. He didn’t say no or yes. For Leon, that was the last straw.

“In fact, I’m told you’ve become quite wealthy from this one assignment alone,” he spat, then stood up.

He was almost at the door when the trustee said, “I wouldn’t cross Lorecchio over this.”

Leon turned with his most indignant look to the trustee. Was it not his job, for $80 million, to look into the provenance and fate of creditors’ assets?

“You know, Mr. Pulitzer, the Iranians ask me why the Madoff trustee wrapped up that investigation in three years, and mine is still ongoing.”

Leon waited.

“I tell you what I tell them: because Madoff’s plan wasn’t nearly as complicated.”

Before he joined the academy Leon had changed his surname from Pooldar to Pulitzer because he thought other cops would take him more seriously if they didn’t know he was Iranian. He also felt it did a better job of defining him as a person, since pooldar means “one who has a lot of money”; Leon had been close to broke at the time.

He had come to the United States when he was fourteen, part of a group of Jewish boys spirited out of Iran with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to save them from being used as minesweepers on the battlefront with Iraq. Some of the boys were sent to live with relatives in Israel or America; others, who didn’t have family or friends outside Iran, were placed in Ashkenazi homes. That’s when everyone began to notice the great cultural divide between the Mizrahi Jews of the East and their Western counterparts.

Leon’s host family found him polite and shy and grateful for their hospitality. His English was grammatically correct, but his pronunciation and accent made them laugh. He had a habit of standing up, as if at attention, every time an adult walked into or out of a room. He did this in school whenever the teacher came in. The first time his host family took him to see a movie, he asked when the national anthem would play and when the audience would stand up to salute the image of the president. At home, he didn’t laugh at any of the jokes on television, didn’t understand why Archie Bunker was so unhappy about having his daughter and son-in-law live with him and Edith. He said all his prayers in the wrong rhythm and often in incorrect Hebrew, turned beet-red and hung his head anytime an older person addressed him.

The host family set out to teach Leon how to properly “integrate” into American society, and they did a good job of it, so much so that by the time he went off to the University of Baltimore hardly anyoneasked him where he was from anymore.

His choice of law enforcement as a career was unusual for an Iranian Jew. Because he was a man, his aspiration to be a crime writer was even more unusual: while writing seemed to be the weapon of choice for every bored Iranian housewife in New York and Los Angeles, it was not the kind of work self-respecting men willingly engaged in. The housewives could afford to write because they had husbands who paid the bills, and friends who could be co-opted into buying the book and even praising it. The men, on the other hand, risked being laughed out of town if they confused writing with work. Work, for a man, was something that produced a paycheck.

Leon needed a paycheck not just to support himself, but also to care for his parents and sister. They had moved to the United States in 1997, thirteen years after they sent Leon away. They went to live with him in his two-bedroom house on Vanowen Street in Van Nuys. Leon had bought the house as an “investment property” when he still believed he was going to sell a screenplay a year and reach a Hollywood-type pay scale. Now, he slept in the smaller bedroom and had his shirts made by his mother, who had been a seamstress in Iran.

His father was one of the many thousands of Iranian men who had had to choose between living in fear at home or running to safe obsolescence in the West, between being alone in Iran because all their family had moved away, or moving to America to be with his son and, without a job, having to depend on him entirely. He woke up every day and dressed in a suit and tie even though he had nowhere to go. In the afternoon, he took the bus to the Orthodox Iranian shul that was held in a room on the second floor of a strip mall. Then he strolled down to the Persian grocery store on the ground level and spent half an hour selecting the slimmest, crispiest Persian cucumbers. On his way home every afternoon, Leon’s father sat in the rear of the bus and cried quietly for his wasted life and ravaged pride.

On his way out of Century City, Leon took stock of his growing list of possible suspects: There was the wife, Neda; the indentured servant, Eddy Arax; the greedy cousins, the Riffraff. There was the angry gardener, Gerardo; the union boss, Lorecchio; and the random angry creditor. This last category was large and varied. At one end was the example of Raphael’s Son’s father-in-law, Dr. Raiis, a seventy-nine-year-old Iranian pediatrician who had once tried to run over Raphael’s Son with his ancient Volvo and missed. At the opposite end was Mrs. Scheinbaum, an eighty-four-year-old Ashkenazi woman from the Pico-Robertson area who had handed over her entire life savings to Raphael’s Son because she had met him at an Orthodox shul and was impressed by his apparent piety. When she realized that he had “misplaced” her money and was not going to return her calls, and that she was not going to live long enough to see him punished, she opted for the fast track.

One Monday afternoon she put on her nice coat and comfortable shoes, and took the bus downtown. She got off at the Staples Center exit and stood on the sidewalk for a long time, waiting for someone who looked like a murderer-for-hire. When she did see such individuals, however, she was too frightened to approach them. Then, at last, she saw a black man in a dress shirt and jeans get out of a Lexus across the street. He was middle-aged and not very threatening-looking, but he had the other necessary qualifications, so she made her way over to him and asked if he needed “work.”

The black man with the Lexus was the third-highest-ranking administrator at USC. He put little old Mrs. Sheinbaum in his car and drove her home, then told her landlord to keep an eye on her in case she ventures out to look for another assassin. That — through the landlord — is how the entire Pico-Robertson district learned of Mrs. Sheinbaum’s downtown adventure, and why Raphael’s Son sent Eddy Arax to file a police report against her. Two months later, Mrs. Sheinbaum was shopping for spring onions at Benny Produce, the Persian kosher grocery store by Pico and Oakhurst, when she felt a sharp pain in her temples, and dropped dead of a stroke.

From a detective’s point of view, this was a case from hell: too many people with a motive, no body, witness, or weapon, and many an interested party still convinced that the victim was not dead at all, just a fugitive. Leon knew he had been assigned the case because he was Iranian, and that was okay. He knew he could pick up and interpret bits of information that would have taken an outsider a lifetime to understand. You had to know the community, how every person’s story stretched back a few generations, how the past steered the course of events in the present, to figure out where to look or even what questions to ask. You couldn’t apply the same investigative methods to the average Californian—born elsewhere, here temporarily, sees the family once a year for one meal on Thanksgiving and spends six months dreading it; has cousins he doesn’t know about or has never seen; knows nothing about the personal lives of his neighbors or co-workers, and only what his friends choose to reveal about themselves — that you would to people whose lives had been entangled together, their fate dependent on each others’, for three thousand
years. With the Iranians, significant facts might remain concealed simply because the person you were asking didn’t think it was news, or was afraid he would be accused by others in the community as having had ulterior motives for sharing them with the police. Or he’ll know something but keep it to himself
because he thinks it’s bad karma—enough people have been hurt already, why extend the suffering just to exact punishment?

There was all this, Leon knew, and there was also the fact that, had he deemed the case important enough, O’Donnell would have assigned a higher-ranking detective to oversee Leon’s work. Instead, he had left Leon alone, with only Kevorkian to help muddle through. As if summoned by his thoughts, Kevorkian rang Leon at that very moment. For once, she sounded upbeat and pleased with herself. “You’re gonna like this,” she announced. “Methinks the wife has a lover.” n

Who Killed Raphael’s Son? Part 5 Read More »

COVER STORY: Forging Happiness

Leave a Comment / Cover Story / Rabbi Mordecai Finley

What is the Jewish Take on Happiness?

In trying to divine an answer to that question, I decided to examine what the Bible says on the subject. But first, I asked around to get a sense of what my fellow Jews thought.

“Who was the happiest character in the Bible?” I asked.
“Somebody was happy?” went a common reply.
“Define happy,” went another.

Here the problems start.

The Jewish tradition as presented in our founding texts, the Bible and the Talmud, is not a philosophic, reflective tradition. Generally speaking, Jewish scholars began to theorize on such subjects when confronted with the Greek philosophic tradition. Our greatest philosopher, Maimonides (1135-1204), openly admitted his debt to Aristotle and the Greek tradition. The Jewish tradition has a lot to say about “happiness,” but for definitions, we should start with the Greeks and their interpreters.

The Greek word most often used for what we would call happiness is eudaimonia, which literally translates as “good spiritedness” but is often interpreted as “human flourishing” or “spiritual well-being.”

There is an ongoing study of “happiness as spiritual well-being” today that one could say is flourishing. The “Pursuit of Happiness” course at Yale University, developed in response to the perceived unhappiness of the student body, contains an excellent history of how happiness has been understood across cultures and throughout history. The course, a version of which is available online, reaches back to the thoughts of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle; contemplates the philosophy of Buddhism; analyzes the views of American psychologist Abraham Maslow and Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl; and probes recent research rooted in neuropsychology, among other things. It then recommends practices that will lead to happiness.

The consensus gathered by the course is that happiness as well-being is not found in a passing moment of pleasure or gratification, but rather is derived from a sustained sense of living a life of meaning and purpose through some activity “generated from the soul.” In other words, those who profess deep well-being don’t arrive there only from good fortune or anything generated from the outside world. A person can be wealthy, loved and admired, but despite it all, be miserable. Good fortune might set the stage for deep well-being, but does not guarantee it.

The biblical adjective ashrei and hence the noun osher line up very well with the greatest teachings on authentic happiness, how authentic happiness has been understood through the ages and to the “positive psychology” movement today.

One of the most important contemporary thinkers on happiness, psychologist and educator Martin Seligman (whose teaching is rooted in Aristotle), says happiness consists of finding your “signature strengths,” honing them and using them effectively in the service of some higher purpose. For example, a person might discover that they find their greatest meaning in life through parenting. Being a good parent is not easy; great wisdom and virtue are required. There are pleasurable and even blissful moments, but a person’s signature strength as a parent might be manifested in how they handle moments of upset, disappointment or crisis. Having a sense of purpose and knowing that you are channeling that purpose into your life and the lives of others with wisdom (knowing what to do) and virtue (being able to do it) can create a life of extraordinary well-being.

The Hebrew term for what Seligman calls “Authentic Happiness” (one of his book titles) — is osher (rhymes with kosher). In fact, the Hebrew translation of his book is titled “Osher Amiti” — “True Osher.”

However, the word osher is rare in the Bible; much more common is the adjective ashrei.

From the Bible’s perspective, who has achieved the attribute ashrei? Anyone familiar with Jewish liturgy knows the answer: “Ashrei yoshvei veitekha” — “Ashrei are those who dwell in Your abode.” (Psalms 84:5)

Ashrei is usually and inadequately translated as “happy,” “fortunate” or “praiseworthy.” Let’s dig into the use of the word a bit, and then venture a translation.

Let’s start with who “dwells in God’s abode.”

“Oh God, who shall dwell in Your tents; who shall inhabit your Holy Mountain? One who walks unblemished, doing justice, speaking truth in his heart . . .” (Psalms 15:1-2)

Who else bears the attribute?

“Ashrei is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is absolved. Ashrei is the one to whom God does not ascribe iniquity, and in whose spirit is no deception.” (Psalms 32:1-2)

“Ashrei is the one whose strength is in You, (Your) set paths are in his heart. For those who pass through the Valley of Thorns, He has placed a wellspring; enveloping it with the blessed pools of the first rain.” (Psalms 84:6-7)

“Ashrei are those on a wholehearted path, who walk in the teachings of God. Ashrei are those who guard God’s testimonies, who seek him with all their heart.” (Psalms 119:1-2)

A couple dozen more sources could be adduced, but the constellation of biblical verses containing the word ashrei suggests that dwelling in the abode of God refers not, of course, to actually living in the courtyards of the Holy Temple but to a type of spiritual consciousness. In that state of consciousness and generated from that state of consciousness, one lives a wholehearted, righteous and moral life. In that “abode,” one seeks and lives by the moral teachings of God. In that state of consciousness, one’s inner state is not defined by the outside world. The world out there might be dark and scabrous, but deep within, one lives wholeheartedly with the Divine.

It should be clear: Ashrei does not (except in two cases) refer to the ritual law. As we know from Isaiah Chapter 1, God is disgusted with a person who observes the Sabbath and new moons, but who tramples on the poor. Ritual observance might be true, but it might only be superficial. Ashrei refers to a person who seeks God in the heart and whose inner life is connected with the moral law. God sees through superficial lip service. Whatever one’s level of observance, the appellation ashrei refers to moral character.

“The path [to happiness] I teach involves four elements: vision, focused intentionality or will, skill and enlightened reflection.”

The biblical adjective ashrei and hence the noun osher line up very well with the greatest teachings on authentic happiness, how authentic happiness has been understood through the ages and to the “positive psychology” movement today. Moments of gratification and joy in life are good, but authentic happiness is defined by living in a sustained way with a sense of meaning and purpose, and living out God’s moral law. Ashrei, then, refers to something like this: living consciously and actively aligned to God’s teaching.

The biblical notion of ashrei does seem to go against the grain of some of the more exalted religious ideas of happiness, reserved for the elite. Buddhism and the religious teachings of Al-Ghazali, Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas refer to a transcendent experience of ultimate reality. The adjective ashrei seems to eschew that notion. Ashrei refers to something that is not mystical and is not reserved for the elite. Ashrei means speaking truth in the heart, being moral and being conscious of the Divine, even in moments when life is especially hard.

Ashrei is about you.

* * * * *

With all this in mind, let’s return to my opening question: Who was the happiest character in the Bible?

The answer seems clear: Job.

Let me explain.

First, please understand that I see the Book of Job, and the Bible in general, as literature, not a chronicle. Even the historical sections are written with the pen of literary genius. The Book of Job is such a literary gem, and was written with a purpose. The characters — God, Satan, Job and Job’s erstwhile friends — are literary creations, created to reflect something profound about the human condition. Job, in his suffering, represents every person who has suffered terribly and been told that God (or the Universe) is just, and that therefore they must have done something wrong.

Job is introduced to us as being from the land of Utz (Advice). He is blameless and upright, reveres God and turns aside from evil — in short, ashrei.

From reading Chapters 1 and 2, we know that Job has not sinned. The profound sorrows inflicted upon him are the result of a wager between Satan and God. Satan bets that Job is moral and reverential only to derive God’s blessings (Satan seems to have read the books of Deuteronomy and Proverbs). To prove that Job will remain moral and reverential, God permits Satan to afflict Job by taking away all of God’s blessings. After suffering unspeakable catastrophes, Job endures the eloquent if misguided arguments of his friends that he must have sinned. Job argues back over some 30 chapters (see Chapter 13 for the summary). Job insists: Yes, God is just, but I have not sinned. Job finally demands that God must answer (Job 31:35).

Job did not fold — he insisted on the truth that he spoke from his heart.

God finally does speak, out of a whirlwind. However, God sidesteps the question as to whether Job deserves his misfortune, and instead questions Job, saying, “Who is this who gives darkened counsel (machshikh eitzah), words without understanding?” (Job 38:2) God then fulminates about God’s own power and wisdom. After this magnificent oratory, God asks, “Shall the one who contends with the Almighty give instruction? The one who reproves God must answer!” (Job 40:2)

Job admits he is deficient in knowledge (that’s his whole point): “What can I answer God? I’ll put my hand over my mouth and say no more.” Job said it once and he won’t say it again. It might have ended there, but God, is not done with Job and goes back to the awesome-power theme. God wants Job to admit that God has fearsome power — which Job does not deny. And God seems to want Job to infer from that power that he, Job, must have sinned. Job makes no inferences; he wants the truth and holds the line.

Job finally takes his hand down from his mouth and issues his challenge. Now, what follows here are some of the most misinterpreted lines of the Bible. I want to thank Jack Miles, in his masterful book “God: A Biography,” for helping me to see these verses clearly, thereby changing the way I read the book of Job.

In Job 42:1-6, Job begins: “You know that you can do anything, and no purpose of yours can be withheld.” (The original Hebrew text says “You know,” not “I know.”)

Job then paraphrases God’s ridicule of Job back in Chapter 38:2: “(You, God, ask:) Who is this who gives darkened counsel without understanding?” I, indeed, said things I did not understand, mysteries of which I had no knowledge.”

Job says, “Listen, and I will speak! (Job is paraphrasing himself from Chapter 13:6-7.) Job, now mimicking God from 38:3, says, “I’ll ask the questions, and you answer!”

So Job now answers, in perhaps one of the most breathtaking verses in the Bible: “I heard about you, but now my eye has seen you. And I am disgusted, and I pity humanity.”

The Hebrew: Al ken em’as (“Therefore I am disgusted”), ve-nichamti (“and I pity”) al afar ve’efer (“upon dust and ashes,” a biblical metonym for mortal human beings).

Job has seen God, and seen through God. Job realizes that God cannot provide an answer as to the reasons for his suffering. Job realizes that, at least in this case, God is not just. Job is disgusted, perhaps for defending God so passionately. And Job pities the humanity subject to this God.

How does God respond to this stunning and stinging rebuke? God says his wrath now burns against those who argued with Job! God tells Job’s interlocutors that they now must offer sacrifices and that Job will now pray for them, “for I will favor him because he did not join in your perversity, for you did not speak to me correctly, as did my servant Job.”

In essence, God finally admits that all those who said God was just and Job must have sinned were wrong, even perverse. The truth is extracted from God because Job, despite horrible calamity and suffering, does not “curse God and die” (as Job’s wife had recommended). Job holds the line. Job has honed resilience in the service of truth.

There is another chapter in the Bible where God submits to a challenge — in the story of the daughters of Tzelofachad in Numbers Chapter 27. The daughters argue that the Torah’s inheritance laws are unfair. God accepts their claim and changes the law. As is written in the Sifrei (a midrash on the book of Numbers and Deuteronomy):

God says, “The Daughters of Tzelophachad did well in bringing their claim, for this is how the text is written on high. Ashrei is the one whose words are admitted by God.” (Sifrei on Numbers 27:7)

We can add to our definition of who merits the term Ashrei: one who demands of God an answer, and God answers.

Job was fearless and relentless. Job walked through the valley of death and darkness. Job traversed the Valley of Thorns. Job was indeed blameless and upright. He revered God enough to demand an answer. Job turned away from evil, but evil pursued him from an utterly random encounter between God and Satan. Job did not fold — he insisted on the truth that he spoke from his heart.

By any definition, ancient or modern, Job is the happiest character in the Bible.

In sum, what is authentic happiness from a Jewish perspective? Living by your values, no matter what.

* * * * *

Yale’s Pursuit of Happiness course provides great wisdom on the nature of happiness and the practices instituted to achieve it. The Jewish tradition provides profound guidance on cultivating authentic happiness, as do other spiritual and religious traditions. So why are so many people so unhappy?

We know that internal happiness ultimately does not come from anything outside of us. Knowledge about authentic happiness won’t make you happy. Even the practices themselves won’t produce happiness, in my opinion. For example, one can act kindly but unconsciously expect gratitude. One might be committed to a full night’s rest but be deprived of it by night terrors. You may be committed to mindfulness and transcendence but have your thoughts interrupted by constant and painful distractions.

During my life, I have seen many wisdom and happiness programs come and go. I sadly predict that, five years from now, Yale’s approach will produce barely a yawn and most people will be working on the next new thing.

What is missing from all the wisdom and happiness programs that I have seen, ancient to modern, is this: attentiveness to the problems of psychological resistance and inner destructiveness, and to the deficiency of the will to fight them.

If we look at the Book of Job as an allegory of the inner life, we all have a God and a Satan — divine and destructive elements — within us. Sometimes our inner lives resemble the specter of Job. We aim to be upright and blameless, yet carry within us forces that can destroy us and hurt others.

In sum, what is authentic happiness from a Jewish perspective? Living by your values,
no matter what.

As Genesis 6:5 tells us, our inner lives are continually influenced by thoughts shaped by evil. I list 10 such forces in my basic teachings in spiritual psychology: anger, resentment, unresolved grief, despair, guilt (including irrational obligation), shame, fear, anxiety, envy and destructive desire. I can list 10 more, but you get the idea.

What is it that banishes us from the house of God, makes us unable to transform the Valley of Thorns into a wellspring, makes us afraid and alone in the valley of darkness and death, stops us from living moral and upright lives, and prevents us from speaking the truth and standing up for it at all costs?

Human nature.

Solve that, and you can write a manual for happiness.

We, the non-elites who are unable to detach from all into a life of compassion, or achieve bliss by pure knowledge of the Divine, will have to muddle through. You might aspire to the middle path between the extremes, as Aristotle and Maimonides suggest, but those extremes don’t let go so easily.

I’ll share with you my approach to authentic happiness, to osher, eudaimonia.

The main practice — one not covered in the happiness course — is struggle, spiritual warriorship. If you don’t face and fight the destructive forces within, and if you don’t fund your decisions with prodigious amounts of will, all this work will get archived to some neglected corner of consciousness.

The path I teach involves four elements: vision (chazon), focused intentionality or will (kavanah), specific skills (m’yumanut) and enlightened reflection (haskel).

Vision: First, one must have a clear, detailed vision of the person one wants to become. We ought to be able to list the virtues we want to acquire or strengthen, and the flaws we hope to diminish. “Wanting to be a better person” is not enough. We can yearn for authentic happiness, but we have to acknowledge in a detailed way the flaws we want to diminish. We should also have a clear and honest understanding of what our envelope for transformation is, and what that transformation would look like in relevant situations. In our tradition, the literature of Mussar (roughly, Jewish moral psychology) is a treasure house of wisdom regarding virtues to hold and flaws to release.

Intention or will: One must have a clear, strong intention or will to acquire those virtues and to struggle against forces within us that want to keep us trapped in our patterns of destructiveness. As in most difficult work, the will evaporates when we encounter resistance. We have tremendous will for so many things that might come easy to us — our work, our leisure, our political passions, controlling (or hiding from) others. The will to be a better spouse or parent, for example, often dissipates in the face of hurt, difficulty or the complexity of being morally present, in a sustained way, to another human being — or to God. Mastery of the will is required.

Specific skills: One must acquire the specific skills for acquiring or strengthening virtues, weakening flaws and facing down the shape of destructiveness within. There are specific interventions for each of the 10 flaws listed above, but these interventions and rewiring of consciousness require daily, sedulous work. I have notified many counseling clients that if they don’t engage in a daily practice, I can’t work with them anymore. They can’t just stand there peering through the window of the house of God. They must batter down the wall impeding their entry.

Enlightened reflection: And last, for now, we need a certain enlightened, evaluative reflection, the practical knowledge to set markers of behavioral change, inner and outer. We must be able to measure and reflect on our work, to protect us from yet another act of self-delusion.

There is a Jewish idea of authentic happiness, and there is a path — often rocky and dark and inhabited by demons that will our demise. Find your inner Job and suffer through the pain of resistance to live a life of truth. That is the Jewish path to happiness.

Rabbi Mordecai Finley is the spiritual leader of Ohr HaTorah and professor of Jewish Thought at the Academy of Jewish Religion, California.

COVER STORY: Forging Happiness Read More »

With Jobless Rate Low, Why Aren’t Wages Up?

Leave a Comment / Columnists / Ramona Schindelheim

The U.S. labor market works generally on the law of supply and demand. When the unemployment rate is low, and businesses are hiring, employers generally hike wages to attract the workers needed to fill their open jobs. Even with the jobless rate at 3.9 percent in July, and more than 6.6 million job openings, wages are increasing at a relatively slow pace, just 2.7 percent over the past 12 months.

So, why aren’t businesses paying more to get the skilled workers they say they need right now? For some answers, I turned to two economists: one on the East Coast — William Rodgers, chief economist for the Heldrich Center of Workforce Development at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.; and one on the West Coast — Chris Thornberg, founder of Beacon Economics in Los Angeles.

Rodgers said there are definitely jobs that are going unfilled because employers can’t find the workers they want with the right skills. Historically, he said, you would expect to see wage growth to be above-average because of the skills gap, but the talent shortage isn’t having much of an effect yet on overall wages because there is still some slack in the workforce. There are millions of Americans out of work, working part-time but wanting full-time work, or out of the labor pool all together.

“Wage growth has not been as strong as it has been in the past,” Rodgers said. He pointed to pockets of the country where the jobless rate remains between 5 percent and 6 percent, compared with the national average of 4 percent. “The need for workers isn’t even strong enough to induce employers to move people from being part-time to full-time,” Rodgers said. The net effect is that, in these areas, there are more jobseekers than jobs. Employers don’t have an incentive to raise wages to find the people to fill vacancies.

Thornberg believes the workforce problem actually is that we’re in the midst of a labor shortage because of the large number of baby boomers retiring. “While the millennials are the biggest generation ever, they’re only about 2 percent larger than the boomers,” Thornberg said. “So now you have a situation where every time a boomer retires, there’s basically just 1.1 millennials coming into the labor force.”

“If you want to have good people, you’re gonna have to train them.” — Chris Thornberg

There are not enough workers to go around, he said, and “there’s no doubt that the people who are left on the outside looking in are those who are least skilled.” Low skills generally translates into low pay. Employers don’t need to raise wages to entice workers into jobs. Having an unskilled workforce may keep payrolls low, but it also creates a problem for businesses that want to fill some jobs and want to grow.

“Six years ago, this was a great labor market for employers,” Thornberg said. “There were lots of people out there. The unemployment rate was high, which meant it was relatively easy to sit back and just let qualified people walk in your door. Now we live in a time period when, if you want to have good people, you’re gonna have to train them.

“It’s actually a fantastic opportunity for a lot of those unskilled people, because they’ll have the opportunity to get jobs where the jobs will provide them with training that will help them in the short run, but also help them in the long run,” Thornberg said.

Rodgers said employers in need of good workers would have to respond and start raising wages to compete for these newly skilled workers and that would also increase labor participation. “Someone who’s sitting on the sidelines is now saying, ‘Whoa. That wage is now being increased and the prospects for that job also look good,’ in terms of getting in and being there for some time.”

Ramona Schindelheim is the senior business correspondent and executive producer for WorkingNation, reporting on jobs, the future of work and innovations/solutions to solving the skills gap. Follow her on Twitter at @RamonaWritesLA.

With Jobless Rate Low, Why Aren’t Wages Up? Read More »

Satirical Semite: Please, No Marriage!

Leave a Comment / Columnists / Marcus J Freed

A profound miracle takes place when a couple steps under the chuppah. As they emerge from under the marriage canopy, they suddenly are bestowed with the ability to give unrequested marital advice to their single friends.

The last thing the Jewish world needs is yet another dating column written by a single person, unless the writing is highly original, offers impressive insight, swashbuckling wit and egoless constraint.

Here it is.

There are two brilliant questions married people often ask single people. To clarify, by “brilliant” I mean “stupid” or “annoying.” Question One is “Why aren’t you married?” Question Two is “Have you ever thought about getting married?” I have heard both on at least 50 occasions.

Here are my shortest responses in reverse order. “Have you ever thought about getting married?” can be answered with “No! I have literally never thought about that in my entire life. Thank you so much for making this suggestion. You are a genius.”

While these gurus are unlikely to offer to set you up on any dates after your passive-aggressive response, they are as much use for matchmaking as bottles of Manischewitz at an AA meeting.

My usual answer to the question “Why aren’t you married?” is “Because I am lucky. I won the life lottery.”

They look at me as if I am some weird, socially maladjusted Englishman. But then I offer another brilliant insight. I explain how during the past 15 years I have gone through five major relationship breakups, so painful that I am currently taking a sabbatical. From personal experience — and I can confirm this — it was less painful to be hit by a car and have two brain surgeries.

My usual answer to the question “Why aren’t you married?” is “Because I am lucky.”

Their next predictable response is “Aha! But you cannot spend your life avoiding pain!” Another genius piece of wisdom from the well-meaning married person who got his or her ketubah and became a font of wisdom before the ink was dry on his or her marriage certificate, suddenly gaining the ability to pour forth marital insights with the flow of a drunken sailor rapidly emptying his bladder from the rooftop parapet of a portside brothel.

My second answer to “Why aren’t you married?” is to recount the story of my ex-wife and our truly horrible divorce. Our separation is burned into my memory, prompting post-traumatic stress disorder. She betrayed, cuckolded and demeaned me, lied to me, took my home and wrecked my life.

It is beside the point that my ex-wife is imaginary. The minor detail that our marriage never took place is a technicality. The memory is real. Here in the city of make-believe, memory is a valid emotional currency, especially for actors who are routinely encouraged to explore their emotional memory in the great method-acting tradition of Konstantin Stanislavsky.

By inventing my first marriage and subsequent divorce, I experienced the learning curve of seeing where I fell short as a husband, discovered the pitfalls of poor communication with my wife, determined where I could improve as a husband, and decided how I could become a more attentive, adventurous, creative, extraordinary and sensitive lover.

The pain of my imaginary divorce means that I won’t repeat these mistakes in my second marriage, but create a home of harmonious shalom bayit. My second marriage will be a dream because I learned so much from my first marriage, even though my second is technically my first, but who is counting (or even following at this point)?

My wedded friends who go on and on about the joys of nuptial bonds are all correct. From now on I shall stop hiding my desperation to get married behind a veil of sarcasm and preemptive satire, and reveal my vulnerability in the gladiatorial circus of 21st century dating. All I need to do is find a woman who will put up with me — ideally an American, so that I can get my green card and live happily and Americanly ever after.

Marcus J Freed’s website is marcusjfreed.com.

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