36 Jews in Bahrain — and at Least One in Afghanistan — Staying Put
By Allison Gaudet Yarrow
In its second feature about Jews in the Arab-Muslim world as many days, the New York Times has a video about the “Last Jew in Afghanistan,” Zablon Simantov. Jews have a long history in the country — dating back at least to the 7th century Common Era — but today, the vast majority live elsewhere. In the five-minute documentary by Oliver Englehart, Simantov predicts that Jews won’t return to the country until Jihadist groups disperse, and until the nation has a stable government. He says that even though he cannot safely wear a kippah outside of his home, he has no plans to leave Afghanistan.
On Monday, the Times published a story about the Bahrain’s 36 remaining Jews. Among them is its to the United States, Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo. She (yes, she) is apparently the Arab world’s first Jewish ambassador posted abroad.
Below is a photo of Nonoo with former president George W. Bush.
Newspapers Doctor Photos of Israel's Female Politicians
By Allison Gaudet Yarrow
Two Orthodox newspapers ran doctored photos of Israel’s new cabinet. Missing in the altered photos are the cabinet’s female members.
Ministers Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver posed for the official cabinet photo, but the BBC reports that Yated Neeman newspaper added two men to the photo in place of the women, while Shaa Tova simply covered the women in black.
The Orthodox community believes that publishing photographs of women defiles them.
Livnat serves as the country’s Minister of Culture and Sport. The originally Soviet-born Landver made aliyah in 1979, and just days ago was appointed the Minister of Immigrant Absorption.
'Seven Jewish Children' — Provocative Playlet or Agitprop?
By Allison Gaudet Yarrow
Caryl Churchill’s “Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza” is inciting more controversy stateside since it jumped the pond.
Last week, Washington’s Theater J, staged two free readings of the 10-minute playlet that the The Washington Post called “a beautifully crafted cheap shot” and “an effort to compress to black-and-white a question of conscience of infinite complexity.”
Churchill’s work has spurred a couple of critical copycats. Robbie Gringras’s “One Israeli Child” and Deb Margolin’s “The Eighth Jewish Child” mimic Churchill’s format, yet represent opposing political views. Theater J’s director Ari Roth, added the readings of these scripts in addition to “Seven Jewish Children,” and engaged actors and audience members alike in post-show debates.
Before the scripts were read at Theater J, The Atlantic’s Jeffery Goldberg (a Forward alum) argued with Ari Roth about “his decision to provide Churchill’s play with Jewish oxygen” while Theater J posits its mission is to “celebrate the social vision that [is] part of the Jewish cultural legacy.” Roth stands behind his decision. From their conversation on Jeffrey Goldberg’s blog:
JG: [Churchill] says that we’re “better haters.”
AR: Jeffrey, Jeffrey –
JG: That’s Shylock, right?
AR: I want your very, very smart blog readers to understand that the way to discuss this play is not to lift lines from the last page and a half of it. That is not how to fully experience and understand the meaning of any drama. I can’t cede this to journalists who don’t love theater enough to understand what’s going on here. That is not a sophisticated way to regard art, by picking out a sentence here and then going apes—t over it!
JG: It’s not just a sentence.
AR: She could have said worse.
JG: Oh, that’s a great standard to have. She could have said worse.
AR: This is why you don’t work in the American theater.
JG: This isn’t even the line that insinuates the blood libel.
The Forward had hoped to post a YouTube video of a staging of “Seven Jewish Children,” presented by Rooms Productions in Chicago, but the clip was removed Friday morning. Instead of charging admission, the Chicago production facilitated donations to the British charity, Medical Aid for Palestinians, at Churchill’s request.
March 27, 2009, 2:52pm
Yarmulkes on the Basketball Court
By Allison Yarrow
College basketball may madden March, but high school players are making some news of their own — pioneering the latest craze in Jewish headgear. The Boca Raton-based Weinbaum Yeshiva High School Storm are wearing Klipped Kippahs at a Jewish basketball tournament in New York this week. Invented by their coach, Jon Kaweblum, the Klipped Kippah uses two sheitel clips — the kind normally sewn into wigs — on the inside of the kippah, so it stays put courtside.
The idea was born when local basketball officials in Boca Raton outlawed kippah-wearing during games, due to the danger of its accompanying hardware: angular bobby pins and hazardous metal clips that stick up as if gunning to gouge out an eye. Klipped Kippah solves this dilemma, but the trend’s functionality is further reaching than the sports arena.
“People will order one or two kipas online to try it out. Then, three weeks later, they’ll empty their drawers and send in 15 kipas to be ‘klipped,” Kaweblum told The Jewish Week.
The 18th annual Red Sarachek Tournament for Jewish high school basketball teams runs from March 26–30 at Yeshiva University.
Live broadcasts of the games can be found here.
March 17, 2009, 3:00pm
Controversy Surrounds ‘Seven Jewish Children’
By Allison Yarrow
The New York Theatre Workshop will stage three readings of the British playwright Caryl Churchill’s 10-minute play, “Seven Jewish Children” — a quickly written response to the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza.
When the play debuted in February at London’s famous Royal Court Theatre, it had some critics swooning; it has others up in arms. John Nathan of London’s Jewish Chronicle, for one, wrote: “[F]or the first time in my career as a critic, I am moved to say about a work at a major production house that this is an anti-Semitic play.”
In seven abrupt scenes, Jewish elders construct disparate versions of past events including the Holocaust, the founding of the state of Israel, the first Palestinian uprising and recent event in Gaza. Most lines of the play begin with “Tell her” or “Do not tell her” — a device that, while perhaps effective, may also grate at the ear in mere minutes.
“Seven Jewish Children” isn’t the only recent British production to cause a stir over its portrayal of Jewish characters. A recent revival of “Oliver!” — based on the Charles Dickens’s novel “Oliver Twist” — had some critics arguing that the street thief character, Fagin, is an anti-Semitic caricature, much like Shakespeare’s Shylock.
Inside Madoff's 'Penthouse Prison'
By Allison Yarrow
On Friday, the ABC News show “20/20,” aired videos of a polo shirt-clad Bernard Madoff, holed up in his Upper East Side “penthouse prison” — using his MacBook laptop computer, a bottle of sparkling water at his side.
In the segment, former Madoff employee Nader Ibrahim said Madoff’s sons and brother ran the business while Madoff traveled the world for months at a time via private jet. This statement contradicted Madoff’s account that he acted alone in perpetrating the multibillion-dollar fraud of which he stands accused.
Also on Friday, Irving Picard — the court-appointed trustee responsible for liquidating the assets of Madoff’s company — spoke before a group of Madoff investors in Manhattan. The New York Times reported that Picard told the group of creditors that there is no known documentation that, during the 13 years leading up to Madoff’s arrest, the trader bought or sold any of the securities or Treasury bills reflected on clients’ statements.
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