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Jewish Journal

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February 6, 2019

Satirical Semite: Virtual Insanity

Leave a Comment / Columnists /

I love L.A. We have sun, sea and 24-hour traffic jams that offer slow scenic drives through the city and mountains, day and night. When I miss the gray skies of England, there is an easy solution: Go on Facebook, compare myself with more successful friends, and create an emotional storm of dark clouds. It is free and does not require air miles.

If you feel left out of the 13 percent of Americans taking antidepressants, social media helps you join the club. Why have self-worth and feel good with high self-esteem when you can begin each day with high anxiety like a good Jew? 

The clever thing about this addiction is that most people cannot see it. Adam Alter’s book, “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked,” charts how social media companies hire psychologists who specialize in addiction so they can reverse-engineer things and get us hooked. Their parents must be proud. “My son the doctor created 2 million addicts!” 

Our dopamine receptors spike when we get approval from a total stranger who presses “Like.” Unlike proper recreational narcotics, this high only lasts a few seconds. At least a good cocaine rush lasts for a few hours. Apparently. 

Vacation photos are fabulous. A wealthy friend of mine says he won’t post family vacation photos out of sensitivity for other families who can’t afford such trips. His values are clearly antiquated in The Age of Human Dignity. What a loser.

“I was weird. I still am. That’s why I moved to Los Angeles.”

If I’m at home on a winter day and experiencing a financial squeeze while friends share tropical beach photos, there is solace in knowing they are unable to fully enjoy the moment because they are continually planning and then adding filters to their next “sunset #blessed” picture. 

One friend posted daily pregnancy photos showing everything except the conception and delivery. Clearly, nobody in the world had ever been pregnant before. It was so exciting I started lactating.

Someone I know bans online images of her children to protect their safety and allow them the freedom to choose what they will share when they are older. This backwards thinking is stuck in The Age of Respect for Your Children.

As for parents sharing vacation pictures of their children semi-naked, maybe they should receive an official thank-you from the Pedophiles of America who circulate similar photos among their sick networks. Seriously folks, stop doing this. It is dangerous. 

Last September, I wrote a song titled “Please Stop Posting Pictures of Your Kids on Facebook.” It hasn’t yet been released, so I can’t tell you what the song is about. 

To be fair, those endless first-day-of-school pictures from paparazzi parents are inspiring. They inspire me to join a lemming colony and leap off a cliff.

Perhaps we need a law firm to help photographically oppressed children sue their parents for breach of privacy. The only downside is that the money kids win will be deducted from their inheritance, but at least it will help two other oppressed groups: the IRS and litigation lawyers.

The No. 1 problem is internet bullying. Micro-aggressions appear to be part of the online zeitgeist, and the anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label reports that 70 percent of “screenagers” admit to having been abusive to somebody online. Following the suicide of Molly Richards, 14, the BBC recently reported that material about depression and suicide were found on her Instagram. The company took control and hashtags like “suicide,” “cutting” and “self-harm” now lead to helplines. Is this the world of “social” media?

I am so glad this wasn’t around when I was a teen. It was horrible enough being called names by my entire class when I was 14. They bullied me for 12 months because they thought I was weird. Thank God there was no Facebook. In retrospect, they were correct. I was weird. I still am. That’s why I moved to Los Angeles.

One question I ask before sharing something online is whether it will contribute to others, be spiritually uplifting, or if I am just seeking attention and validation? Then my dopamine addiction kicks in, I forget everything, stand in front of the Hollywood sign and take a selfie wearing my tefillin and swimsuit. #LosAngelesForever.

Marcus J Freed is a Los Angeles-based actor.

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Israel and the Partisan Divide

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The day I went to hear a panel discuss whether Israel was no longer a bipartisan issue, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) coughed up one of her anti-Semitic gibes, saying Israel was not a democracy. You know, just like Iran.

Thankfully, a new group created by political strategist Mark Mellman, called Democratic Majority for Israel, responded quickly and pointedly that Omar’s “equating Israel, a democracy, to Iran, a theocracy, is absurd.” As support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement mounts in the Democratic Party, one wishes Mellman’s group had been created years ago.

Meanwhile, on Feb. 3, a new Israeli government report, “Terrorists in Suits,” stated that more than 100 links had been found between 13 nonprofit organizations supporting BDS and the terrorist organizations Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). 

At the discussion, co-hosted by the Israel Policy Forum and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) at Temple Emanu-El’s Streicker Center, the panelists represented a wide range of perspectives on the political spectrum; but their remarks were consistent with how the Democratic Majority for Israel called out Omar for her remarks. They also were in agreement that, for nearly 70 years, Israel easily garnered bipartisan support in the U.S. but today that support cannot be assumed from the Democratic Party.

“If you believe that the U.S. has a special mission in the world, then you’re going to believe the same about Israel.” — Michael Doran

On the left end of the spectrum, Michelle Goldberg — now infamous for her New York Times op-ed that tried and failed to make the case that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism — cited the radical anti-Zionist group If Not Now, and her argument went downhill from there. Goldberg did, however, stress an important point: the millennial generation’s disconnect with Israel. But the bigger problem, as I see it, is the way people like Goldberg have created and widened that disconnect by presenting their feelings about Israel as facts.

Thankfully, the rest of the panel was lucid and insightful. 

In direct response to Goldberg, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro forcefully stressed that mainstream Democrats remain pro-Israel and hold Palestinian leadership responsible for terrorism and rejectionism. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt was unequivocal in equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and on seeing any type of boycott as a slippery slope. “We know where boycotts go,” Greenblatt said.

Columnist Mona Charen confirmed these red lines by stating that “Zionism is the idea of Israel’s right to exist as the Jewish homeland.” So, by definition, anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism.

One of the more insightful comments about millennials’ anti-Zionism came from Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. “It has nothing to do with Israel,” Doran said. “It’s about their relationship with society here. How you feel about Israel is a function of how you feel about the United States. If you believe that the U.S. has a special mission in the world, then you’re going to believe the same about Israel.”

In her final comments, Goldberg exuberantly gushed that Israel and the Diaspora were headed for a divorce based on “a different set of values,” that the relationship “can’t be repaired.”

Shapiro immediately countered that “no great rupture” was in the offing, that a shared “moral dimension was deeply rooted.” He added, though, that Americans have a responsibility to teach our younger generation history, context and facts about Israel’s complex situation.

Charen offered additional context: When the U.S. was 70 years old, in 1859, it was about to embark on the Civil War; whereas Israel today is an established fact, here to stay, with a thriving economy,  acquiring new allies daily.

There’s no doubt that a cultural war is underway between liberals and conservatives on one end and extremists on the other. But there’s also a civil war among Democrats: level-headed liberals are fighting often-unhinged extremists for the soul of the party. Wherever we each stand on the political spectrum, I think we can all join together and pray that the former wins out.

Karen Lehrman Bloch is an author and cultural critic living in New York City.

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Feb. 8, 2019

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Feb. 8, 2019 Read More »

Eichner, Apatow and Stoller Team Up For Gay Rom-Com

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There will be Jewish talent in front of and behind the camera when Nick Stoller directs and Judd Apatow produces an upcoming, currently untitled, romantic comedy starring Billy Eichner, who will write the screenplay with Stoller. It’s about two men with have commitment problems who attempt to have a relationship.

Eichner  (“Billy on the Street,” “Difficult People,” “American Horror Story: Apocalypse”) is currently in Netflix’s “Friends From College,” created by Stoller and his wife. Francesca Delbanco. Eichner will voice the role of Timon the meerkat in “The Lion King” this July and just wrapped “Noelle” with Anna Kendrick, Bill Hader and Shirley MacLaine.  

Stoller’s directing credits include “Get Him to the Greek,”  “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” and “Storks,” which he also wrote.

Writer-director-producer Apatow, who won an Emmy last fall for “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling,” will produce the film under his Global Solutions banner for Universal.  He is next set to direct Pete Davidson in a semi-autobiographical comedy, also untitled.

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AJU Appoints Catherine Schneider Chief Development Officer

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American Jewish University appointed Catherine Schneider as the university’s next Vice President for Advancement and Chief Development Officer.

Schneider has spent more than 20 years working as a seasoned fundraising and nonprofit professional. She was selected after a national search and will join AJU officially Feb. 28.

“We are delighted that Catherine will be joining American Jewish University,” AJU President Jeffrey Herbst said in a statement. “She is a highly respected and distinguished professional, and extremely well-known throughout the Los Angeles Jewish community.”

Schneider, herself an AJU graduate with an MBA from the Graduate School of Nonprofit Management, is currently the executive vice president, Donor Experience at The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. “Catherine will be critical to helping develop American Jewish University into a national center for teaching and research based on Jewish principles and ethics,” Herbst said.

“I am thrilled to be coming home to the AJU,” Catherine Schneider said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the president, board, faculty and entire AJU community to support and expand upon the University’s legacy and vision for a vibrant and inclusive community of learning.”

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