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Olympic Crooning by Matisyahu

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:21:00 GMT-5

One day, one day … One day.

“All my life I’ve been waiting for, been praying for …” a Hasidic reggae musician to be the voice of the Olympics. Well the day arrived just this week, when NBC launched their promotion for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics set to the tune of Matisyahu’s recent hit “One Day.”

Check out the video:

Taking the Mickey

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:48:00 GMT-5

In British English the phrase “taking the mickey” means “pulling your leg,” or “making fun of someone’s gullibility.” It doesn’t have any etymological relation to Mickey Mouse but Disney’s favorite rodent is again straining credulity.

The copyright law is an important protector of innovation: inventors need to benefit from their inventions. I’m a proud member of an anti-fundamentalist religion though — one that has made it possible to interject a whole civilization of rabbinical and lay interpretation from life into scripture by providing all its members with the tools to make that scripture accessible. So once a lifetime of benefit has accrued, society needs to be given access to those inventions. Not even Divine provenance and certainly not a cartoon mouse whose inventor has been dead for 40 years should allow texts to escape broad appropriation, interpretation and, possibly, improvement.

So when Disney, a multibillion dollar interest, lobbied hard and successfully to extend their monopoly over Mickey, Pluto, Goofy and Donald. It was an affront to the free exchange of ideas that most Americans claim is their right and a cornerstone of American freedoms. So far legislation has almost doubled the length of time that corporations can hold onto copyrights: from the original 50 to the current 95 years. Individual songwriters, insofar as they are able to police their rights without the support of corporate lawyers, have a measly 70 years.

Now, though, Disney — jealous controllers of the image of Mickey and the deep revenue streams he provides — is changing Mickey in order, the New York Times claims, “to make us like him.” So Mickey will be “cantankerous and cunning, as well as heroic.” So, in fact, nothing like the lovable minstrel figure that we saw in “Steamboat Willie” all those years ago. So nothing like Mickey Mouse?

It appears that Disney can change the image of Mickey to make us like him, or change him into any character they think will sell video games. But, at the same time we can’t use the image that’s been in the public sphere since November 18, 1928? To paraphrase Bill Thompson’s critique of Michael Bloomberg’s bludgeoning of the term limits legislation: “80 years is enough.”

Peter Cole: Poems, Stumbling and Pints

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:55:00 GMT-5

Last night, in the historic surroundings of the Fraunces Tavern, critically acclaimed Jewish poet Peter Cole, gave a reading of contemporary meditations on an age-old struggle.

Cole set the tone for the evening by introducing his first poem ‘Meaning Of’ as a “take on my own Messianic inclinations — not to mention those of my people”. Cole — poet, translator and publisher — proceeded to hold the Tavern audience rapt as he read from his 2008 collection “Things on Which I’ve Stumbled.”

For Cole, resident in Jerusalem, Israel is the thing upon which he stumbles everyday. To move beyond a messianic response he has written and translated poetry that explores the ethical and spiritual dimensions of humanity and his own Judaism.

Alongside this philosophical discussion Cole also contemplates the political realities of the Israel/Palestine conflict — “Things” emphasizes the need for coexistence in a shared homeland whilst criticizing extremists and fundamentalists of all stripes.

Cole’s are important poems and, like most good literature, worth hearing with a drink in your hand!

Cole and his wife, writer Adina Hoffman, run Ibis Editions, a small Jerusalem based book press specializing in literature of the Levant. Born in Paterson, N.J., Cole won the 2004 PEN-America Translation Award was named a MacArthur fellow in 2007. Four of his poems recently featured in Zeek magazine.

Gold, Silver and Rubber: Village Voice’s 'Best of NYC' Awards

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:26:00 GMT-5

“S’iz shver tzu zain a yid,” runs an old proverb: it’s hard to be a Jew; yes, but is it hip? Definitely has been, at times (see this blog for two notable testimonies), but, if you hold Village Voice’s “Best of NYC Awards” to be the barometer of coolness, in 2009 we’re coming in only slightly above the freezing point.

Prominently, though, two Russian Jews were singled out: Eugene Mirman as the Best Stand-Up Comedian, and David Stromberg, who got a shout-out as part of the Melville House’s much deserved Best Small Press award. Stromberg’s book of raucous and darkly humorous cartoons, the Baddies, hit the shelves this month; he’s worked with Zeek magazine, and is a writer/critic. Let’s admit it: Russian Jews have become the absurdist messiahs of the dull American golus. I kept my accent all these years, knowing this day will come.

Also, notably, Jon Singer’s Xylopholks received the “Best Buskers Dressed As Animals” laurel — you may have seen this hilarious rag-time band in oversized costumes on the subway or at random klezmer gatherings. Quality performers Michael Winograd and Benji Fox-Rosen who’ve appeared with Xylopholks, also play with half-dozen klezmer outfits.

There’s also a curious bit on David Rothenberg, a publicist, who turned John Herbert’s play about prison life and condition, “Fortune and Men’s Eyes,” into a Broadway hit, and consequently found the Fortune Society, non-for-profit provider of re-entry services for ex-cons. David Rothenberg was also the first openly gay candidate to run for City Council, back in 1973.

The most endearing award this year, however, is the one for “The Best Place To Get a Spanking,” that opens up with: “Have you been bad? Do you deserve a potch on the tuchus?…”

Amen! We know you’re out there.

Watch the Xylopholks video below. And Eugene Mirman below that!

Matisyahu Squared

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:20:00 GMT-5

Jewish rapper, beach, self-interview. Got it?

It’s clear why he’s a famous singer, not a famous comedian — but it’s cute.

Hat tip Erez and Shemspeed.

Steinhardt Attacks Jewish Leaders

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:41:00 GMT-5

In a surprise move, even noted by the non-Jewish business press, Michael Steinhardt attacked Jewish communal organizations and their complacent leadership. A longtime stalwart of Jewish philanthropy, he accused organizations of disliking change and being satisfied, at least in the case of campus Hillels, with “trying hard” but not being “good enough.”

Too many Jewish organizations don’t change anything, he claimed. People with social studies PhDs doing analyses and surveys achieve “gur nicht” Steinhardt noted but, talking about the new survey which suggests that the massive investment in Birthright has had some success he said that “maybe this one will change something.”

Watch his speech on The Jewish Channel below.

Hat tip to Jordana Horn.

Ethiopian Jewish Festival of Sig’d Goes Mainstream

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:46:00 GMT-5

Of the various immigrant groups in Israel, it’s clear that Ethiopians have it especially tough. There is widespread poverty in the Ethiopian community and the country has not overcome the fact that the educational level of immigrants on arrival was largely lower than that of immigrants from other backgrounds. Still today, the educational standard is often lower than among other Israelis leading to fewer opportunities.

The problem is recognized at the highest levels of the country’s leadership. “Ethiopian Jews’ feeling that they have been wronged is not detached from reality, a reality that we must change,” Ehud Olmert, then-Prime Minister, declared at the end of 2007. In 2008 the state comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss, said in a report that pretty much every state body had failed the Ethiopians in some way — see a report on what he had to say here.

On a cultural level, Ethiopian traditions and practices have largely failed to interest or influence the Israeli mainstream. The community’s major festival has had a bittersweet feel since Ethiopian Jewry started arriving in Israel three decades ago. On the one hand Sig’d, which takes place 50 days after Yom Kippur (November 16 this year), acquired a new poignancy, as the day’s ritual involves calling for a Jewish return to Jerusalem. But while the majority of Ethiopian Jews made it to Jerusalem, or at least to Israel, it was largely ignored by the establishment and the general public.

Throwing Harvey Pekar Into a Valley

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:51:00 GMT-5

Smith — the online magazine that brought you the six word story — now brings you the 90-headed Harvey Pekar beast.

To celebrate Harvey Pekar’s 70th birthday, their “Pekar Project” was to ask a number of artists to draw his head at 70 as a surprise present. Originally there were 70, natch, but so many artists presented their interpretations that there’s nearly 100 and the “heads still keep rollin” they say. One of the heads (pictured here ) was by the Forward’s own Eli Valley.

If you want to see Eli Valley’s own elegant head in motion and his art work explained, he’s playing Joe’s Pub on Monday in a Forward-sponsored event with The Sway Machinery and Girls in Trouble. Also there to accept her prize and read will be Irina Reyn, the newly-announced winner of the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers (for which I was a judge, full disclosure).

For more info about the Forward and the Foundation for Jewish Culture presenting “Eli Valley vs the Sway Machinery in the Temple of Self Hatred” With special guests Girls In Trouble click here.

To buy tickets click here.

Watch the Exchange Between Yoffie and Ben-Ami

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:08:00 GMT-5

In case you missed the exchange between J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami and Union for Reform Judaism president Eric Yoffie — moderated by Forward editor Jane Eisner — at the recently wrapped J Street conference, you can watch it in its entirety here:

Other videos of conference sessions can be viewed here.

Finian's Rainbow

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:32:00 GMT-5

The welcome Broadway revival of Burton Lane (born Burton Levy in 1912) and E. Y. Harburg’s 1947 musical “Finian’s Rainbow,” opening October 29 at the St. James Theatre offers a fresh opportunity to relish its wish-fulfillment overturning of racism and economic inequalities in the mythical American state of Missitucky, when the “Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich” to cite one of its catchiest, most socially conscious tunes. “When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich” is a fierce vision where “all your neighbors/ Are upper class/ You won’t know your ‘Joneses’/ from your ‘Ass-tors.’”

Also the lyricist of 1932’s “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” Edgar Yipsel Harburg, known as Yip, was born Isidore Hochberg to Orthodox Russian Jewish parents on the Lower East Side. Five years ago, the Forward’s doughty “Philologos” addressed the thorny subject of Harburg’s nickname. Biographers Harold Meyerson and Ernie Harburg in “Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz? Yip Harburg, Lyricist” (University of Michigan Press ) quote Harburg himself, claiming that his nickname Yipsel derived from “yipsl…the Yiddish word for squirrel,” since he was a hyperactive boy. As “Philologos” points out, “yipsl” and “yipsel” are not Yiddish words, and the Yiddish word for squirrel is veverke.

To Harburg’s generation, a Yipsel was a member of The Young People’s Socialist League (YPSL), which Harburg, as a lefty blacklisted during the McCarthy era, might have preferred to gloss over later on. Still, the New York Public Library among other websites about Harburg, still reproduces the Yipsel-as-Yiddish-for-squirrel canard as gospel truth.

Harburg was a fire-breathing activist (his 1944 musical “Bloomer Girl” vaunted women’s rights) yet the gentler, more lyrical Burton Lane could be a visionary as well, as seen in his 1966 ESP-psychiatry musical film “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,” starring Barbra Streisand. Together, these disparate Jewish creators managed to produce a lastingly intriguing and ferociously joyful musical.

Watch previews of Lane and Harburg’s “Finian’s Rainbow” in its new Broadway revival below.

and

At the Trump-Kushner Wedding, the Rabbi Sang in ‘Aromatic’

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:36:00 GMT-5

Barbara Walters, who attended the Trump-Kushner nuptials, discusses the Hebrew lettering on the couple’s wedding invitation and officiant Rabbi Haskel Lookstein’s “aromatic” — she means Aramaic — singing, under the chuppah:

And the Rat Sang: Nava Semel's Opera To Open in Canada

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:15:00 GMT-5

Nava Semel comes from a musical family. Her brother, Shlomo Artzi, is one of Israel’s most famous singers. She, however, is a novelist whose 2001 book “And the Rat Laughed” (“Tzchok shel achbarosh”) has yet to find an American publisher but has indeed found a North American venue for it — Toronto’s Opera York.

The Hebrew opera, written by Ella Milch-Sheriff in conjunction with Semel starts off in the future with flashes back to the present, in which a grandmother Holocaust survivor recounts her traumatic story to her granddaughter. Semel tells part of her own grandparents’ story here this week at the Forward.

Sex and Drugs or the Immigrant Experience?

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:39:00 GMT-5

In New York tonight the battle is joined between East and West, downtown Heeb on the East and uptown Columbia University on the West.

Will New York’s dwindling Jewish population plump for a night out with Shana Liebman leading a panel of contributors in discussing the new Heeb book “Sex, Drugs and Gefilte Fish” at 7pm (Barnes and Noble at 86th & Lexington Ave) followed by dinner at Tevere?

Or will they cross the border to listen to Ilan Stavans, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Gary Shteyngart talk about The Library of America’s new anthology “Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing” at 6.30pm (Casa Italiana 1161 Amsterdam Ave) followed by steak at Talia?

Decider question: Is it possible to map “Sex,” “Drugs” and “Gefilte Fish” onto Stavans, Lahiri and Shteyngart in a fair, yet funny way?

Instant Jew's Ear Fungus

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:07:00 GMT-5

Whether this is fungus for an instant Jew or instant ear fungus for the whole tribe, it’s comforting to know that the People’s Republic of China has every little thing covered.

Hat tip Jordana Horn.

At J Street, Yoffie Garners Boos, Applause

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:18:00 GMT-5

It is not every day that Rabbi Eric Yoffie gets booed by a lefty crowd. But that is one of the risks when standing up as a keynote speaker at the J Street conference.

Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism and a leading dovish vote in American Jewry, was one of the earliest critics of J Street. He came out, in an article published in the Forward against J Street’s opposition to the Israeli military operation in Gaza last December.

On Monday, Yoffie stepped into the lion’s den, sharing the stage with J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami for a town hall-style discussion moderated by the Forward’s editor Jane Eisner.

The boos had nothing to do with Yoffie’s disagreement with J Street over the Gaza war. They came after he condemned South African jurist Richard Goldstone for his report accusing Israel of war crimes during the Gaza war. “Richard Goldstone should be ashamed of himself,” Yoffie said. The audience didn’t like the harsh tone, although J Street as a group also expressed reservations about the Gaza report.

JVanka Wedding Recap

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:23:00 GMT-5

Over the weekend, entrepreneur Ivanka Trump (The Donald’s daughter) married her fellow real estate scion boyfriend, Jared Kushner, who publishes the New York Observer.

The lavish wedding was held with the couple’s 500 nearest and dearest at the Trump National Golf Club in Bebminster, N.J. The blogosphere is buzzing with all the gossip tidbits you could hope for: There’s photos of the relatively tzniut Vera Wang dress Ivanka wore, lists of the celebrity invitees in attendance (Barbara Walters and Rudy Guilliani, among others), and many updates straight from Ivanka’s twitter feed (“Just finished a gorgeous hike. The leaves are spectacular and the sun is shining. Everything is simply perfect! I’m getting married today!” she wrote yesterday).

Their two online bridal registries feature everything from extravagant items like a $1,350 silver bowl to the more mundane $9 “flexible spatula.” But amid all the hype, there’s one thing missing. Where are the photos of the chuppah? Where’s the gossip about which designer embroidered the kippot? Ivanka converted to Judaism in preparation for her big day, but although Heeb magazine reports that the couple had an Orthodox ceremony, the Judaism goes almost unmentioned amidst the hubbub over who designed the bridesmaid’s dresses (hint: Caroline Herrera.)

Oy, Ivanka. We wanted to see The Donald in a yarmulke.

Jalestinians End Middle East Strife via Sick Australian Comedy

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:16:00 GMT-5

For those who think Sacha Baron Cohen is a little tame, here comes Australian comedian John Safran. In his latest series, “Race Relations,” he attempts to create a Jalestinian by donating Jewish sperm at a Palestinian sperm bank and Palestinian sperm at an Israeli one.

As Dan Goldberg notes at JTA: “The pasty-faced, bespectacled Safran even visits the grave of his mother, the daughter of Polish Bundists, armed with a spade and a kabbalah book seeking an answer to this question: “When it comes to love, should you stick with your tribe or escape your tribe?””

In Safran’s “Portnoy’s Complaint” liver moment (notable for its denunciation by the Australian Family Association as “the lowest point in Australian television history”) he sniffs underwear he’s stolen from Jewish and non-Jewish women. This will help him determine “scientifically” whether he is simply more attracted to non-Jewish women.

With science like that, who can doubt that peace is near?

To get a sense of the gentle tone and sensitive topics covered by the show, watch the series trailer below:

Watch Safran’s visit to sperm banks below:

Hat tip Eli Valley and, possibly, Digger.

Bald Ambition: Natalie Portman’s Latest Role as a Betrothed Hasid

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:01:00 GMT-5

“New York, I Love You,” which opened October 16, sees Natalie Portman star as a Hasidic bride in director Mira Nair’s (“Monsoon Wedding”) short. Portman’s portrayal of Rifka, an Orthodox 20-something, is a highlight of producer Emmanuel Benbihy’s (“Paris Je T’aime”) patchwork film, made up of eleven New York based romantic vignettes.

Rifka is feisty, self confident and independent. “We don’t come to 47th Street to chit-chat,” she tells diamond seller and Gujarati Jain, Mansuhkhbai (Irrfan Khan), after traveling to midtown Manhattan to haggle prices. Yet the two enjoy a brief cross-cultural intimacy, flirting over their respective dietary restrictions, before Rifka removes her sheitel revealing her bald head, shaved in preparation for impending marriage.

After this unexpected onscreen moment Portman goes behind the camera to make her directorial debut. In a short set in Central Park she focuses on the daughter of a mixed-race couple and a case of mistaken identity amongst New York’s nanny-hiring class.

It is interesting that Nair, a non-Jewish director, looks at ethnicity and endogamy by depicting an Orthodox wedding, whilst Portman analyzes racial stereotypes not traditionally associated with Judaism. Cross-cultural intimacies, indeed.

Watch a clip from “New York, I Love You” below:

Dispatches From J Street: Where Are All the Israeli Officials?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:49:00 GMT-5

A Tight Squeeze

It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. When planning an event, always make sure the room is just big enough or, even better, a little too small for the number of people you are expecting. That way, the room will always be full and you can avoid any embarrassing bald spots in the crowd.

But that was not the case this morning as J Street began its inaugural national conference at a downtown Washington hotel. The rooms were way too crowded to suspect any deliberate underestimation.

Organizers were expecting a little more than thousand participants. They were even very proud of this number. But as the doors opened, the numbers grew. Three hundred walk-ins checked in during the first hours of the day and others showed up the night before. That brought the number of conference participants to 1,500. It was a huge success for J Street, and a big problem for those who actually tried to make it into the breakout sessions that were packed way beyond capacity.

http://משוגעת.com?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:04:00 GMT-5

Ever since Al Gore invented the Internet, Web business has been transacted in the language that was “good enough for Jesus”. Even when the content of the pages has been written in foreign-speak, the url, the addresss of the page has been reassuringly English. That’s all about to change.

Bowing to the democracy that is over 1 billion Chinese-speakers and countless billions of Arabic-speaking dollars ICANN, the body that regulates email addresses, will finally consider the proposal on Friday at its six-day 36th International Public Meeting in Seoul — as Lance Whitney points out on CNET.

I thought we were at war. We can’t have people writing in their own languages while we’re at war. Who knows what sort of secret things they’ll be saying? Where’s the Department of Homeland Security?

Hat tip to Lloyd Trufelman.