Keeping the Faith

joselitMay 3, 2012November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Determination, persistence and true grit are qualities that we try really hard to instill in our students, but with little success. No matter how often – or how loudly – we tout the virtue of steadfastness, they remain utterly inured to its allure.

When contemporary accomplishments are increasingly measured in terms of fleeting sound bites, undergraduates are hard put to think of spending oodles of time on a term paper, say, or a senior thesis, let alone devoting much of their life to the dogged and single-minded pursuit of a research agenda.

Under the circumstances, the hosannas that have recently greeted the publication of the fourth volume of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson are especially welcome. A consummate stylist with a keen eye for the telling detail, the author has spent years - 36 of them, in fact - accumulating material and insights as well as le mot juste. “It’s not writing that takes Caro so long but, rather, rewriting,” explains Charles McGrath in his recent New York Times profile. Now, that’s what I’d call heroic.

But then, Robert Caro has nothing on Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz who recently completed the very last volume of his monumental translation of and commentary on the Talmud, a project that took him 45 years. Appearing just the other day on the PBS show, “Religion and Ethics Newsweekly,” Rabbi Steinsaltz seemed energized and eager to keep on making the Talmud “available to everyone.”

Feted by the current members of the United States Supreme Court, including Ginsburg, Kagan and Scalia, who some years back held a reception in his honor at the Supreme Court itself, Steinsaltz takes the life of the mind to new and unimaginable heights.

Whether our interests reside in presidential politics or in hermeneutics, may Adin Steinsaltz and Robert Caro continue to hold us rapt.

Students: take note.

Masquerade

joselitApril 23, 2012November 16, 2017Leave a comment

The Sunday Times is generally full of fascinating stories about this and that. This week’s paper featured the unusually choice tale of one Alan Z. Feuer, who, by dint of will and subterfuge, managed to transform himself from a Brooklyn-born Jewish kid into a socialite, an “Austrian blueblood,” whose métier was the fancy dress ball.

Feuer was hardly the first, and probably not the last, Jewish male to envision himself as someone else. Take, for instance, Trebitsch Lincoln, a character so chameleon-like it’s hard to believe that he did not actually spring from the pages of a potboiler.

Born Ignacz Trebitsch in Hungary, he subsequently converted from Judaism to Christianity, becoming, in short order, a missionary in Canada, a British Member of Parliament, a German spy whose double-dealings were duly noted by the FBI and the abbot of a Buddhist monastery in China. The subject of a wonderful book by Bernard Wasserstein, The Secret Lives of Trebitsch Lincoln, this man was as dazzling, and shape-shifting, as they come.

So, too, was Kurban Said, a k a Essad Bey, ne Lev Nussinbaum. Profiled by Tom Reiss in his scintillating read, The Orientalist, this Baku-born Jew, the son of a Russian Jewish woman, exchanged his Western garb and Jewish cultural identity for the flowing robes and turbans of an Arab. Cutting quite the figure in Weimar Germany and interwar Vienna, whose cafes he frequented, Nussinbaum would go on to publish the highly esteemed and widely read 1937 romance novel, Ali and Nino, the story of a knotty love affair between an Azerbaijani Muslim and a Georgian princess.

Feuer had his top hat and tails, Trebitsch his prayer beads and Nussinbaum his turban. And yet, despite their radically dissimilar trajectories, each of these three Jewish men threw over their natal identities in favor of one that was entirely made-up, fashioned from whole cloth.

We’re left to wonder what, if anything, this says about the plasticity of identity in the modern era.

joselitApril 15, 2012November 16, 2017Leave a comment

These days, people (i.e. parents) often ask me about the utility of Judaic Studies, especially when it comes to finding a job in a rocky economy like ours. In response, I go on and on about the ways in which Judaic Studies hones one’s critical skills, facilitates a multi-disciplinary approach to problem solving and brings to bear a global perspective on the world – qualities that would certainly stand any job-hunting candidate in good stead.

If they’re still listening, I also invoke the work of historian Lucy Dawidowicz who, years ago, published a book with the provocative title, What’s the Use of Jewish History? In it, she cited a story by Y.L. Peretz in which two gentlemen, sitting on a park bench in Warsaw, exchange pleasantries about this and that. As their conversation picks up steam, gentleman number one glumly remarks on the recent passing of Heinrich Graetz, the great German historian of the Jews, seeking some measure of shared consolation. But gentleman number two has nothing to say. Having never heard of Graetz, all he can muster is a feeble, “Was he from around here?” ...continue reading "LinkedIn"

Storyboard

joselitApril 9, 2012November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Just in time for Pesach comes word of a new batch of holiday-related materials. No, I’m not referring to the New American Haggadah, which seems to have colonized the American Jewish imagination this year, leaving little room for anything else.

Instead, I have in mind a recent auction in Los Angeles of memorabilia – costume sketches, props (Moses’s staff, anyone?) and storyboards – associated with the celebrated 1956 motion picture, The Ten Commandments. One of the few postwar Hollywood films that continues to be screened regularly, both on television and in college classrooms across America, this widely celebrated, nearly four-hour-long epic drew on the talents of many unsung artists who, working behind-the-scenes, enlivened the silver screen.

Google images/The Ten Commandments movie poster.

Years ago, one enraptured movie-goer allowed how “for centuries, the story of [ancient] Israel had laid frozen in hieroglyphics, manuscripts and books.” But now, thanks to the movies, “it has thawed into something colorful, something fantastic, something real.”

Costume sketches and storyboards made it possible for that “thawing” to occur and for the biblical narrative to come alive and delight the eye. Vividly colored, awash in detail, drawings of a weary Moses leaning on his staff and of a haughty Ramses resplendent in his finery brought the ancient characters into focus, as did storyboards of the Red Sea closing in on the ancient Egyptians.

Rendered in graphite or hand-painted by the costume and production designer, John L. Jensen, these sketches and storyboards were among the items placed on the auction block recently at Julien’s Auctions, along with headdresses, necklaces and the flowing red robe worn by Charlton Heston’s Moses, which fetched a hefty $66,000.

Here’s hoping that a canny and savvy museum will see the potential – and the interpretive value – of this material, which is now in the hands of private collectors, and mount an exhibition that does justice to the complex interplay between text and object, visuality and textuality, tradition and modernity that animates America’s relationship to the Decalogue and its accompanying narrative of exodus, covenant and freedom.

In the meantime, why not while away an afternoon or an evening in the company of one of the most eye-popping American films ever made?

Sister Act

joselitApril 1, 2012November 16, 2017Leave a comment

There’s been a flurry of interest of late in the bat mitzvah, a religious rite of passage that marks the Jewish girl’s coming of age. It takes the form of panel discussions about ritual practice and performances of actual bat mitzvah speeches as well as a national collection effort to gather bat mitzvah paraphernalia. Fascination with the bat mitzvah even culminates in a travelling exhibition, Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age, which was made possible by the National Museum of American Jewish History and Moving Traditions. Wherever you turn, the bat mitzvah is in the news.

Making its debut in New York in March 1922, the very first documented bat mitzvah was that of Judith Kaplan, the daughter of Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, whose lively imagination and innovative spirit left a profound, and enduring, imprint on virtually every aspect of American Jewish life.

Today the bat mitzvah has become so integral a part of the American Jewish landscape that it’s hard to imagine a time when it wasn’t. But ninety years ago, Judith Kaplan’s coming of age ceremony was a modest and unassuming bit of business -- more of an intimate family affair than a provocative, far-reaching communal innovation.

As it gained momentum and increasingly caught on among American Jewish girls and their parents, this newfangled rite of passage -- a 20th century phenomenon, through and through -- occasioned more than its fair share of controversy, especially among traditionally-minded congregants who had not grown up with it. The bar mitzvah, after all, dates as far back as the 13th century. By comparison, the bat mitzvah is a Johnny-come-lately, a ritual without a pedigree. ...continue reading "Sister Act"

Gloom & Doom

joselitMarch 25, 2012November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Teaching a class about the relentlessness of prejudice takes a toll on the soul. Week in and week out, my students and I tackle the thorny, implacable issue of anti-Semitism and the variety of pernicious ways in which it took hold of the public imagination, an exercise that leaves all of us a little worse for wear.

I say “took hold” rather than “takes hold” because most of the time we find ourselves in some faraway land and in some far-off time. So distant are we from, say, Trent in 1475 or Paris in 1898, that we can easily dismiss allegations of ritual murder and treason respectively as expressions of outmoded beliefs.

They dismay us, that’s for sure, dampening our eagerness to think well of people. They leave us scratching our heads, too, at the processes by which anxiety about change all too often translates into hatred of others. But, for the most part, we can put this stuff behind us.

Until now. As the semester progresses and we move increasingly into territory that isn’t quite so removed from us in time, it’s becoming harder and harder to hold anti-Semitism at arm’s length.

Last week, Gal Beckerman, the author of the prize-winning book, When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone, visited our class. He spoke eloquently and movingly about the show trials of the so-called ‘refuseniks’ of the 1970s and 1980s and had us collectively interpret a number of documents from the Politburo that made clear just how deeply entrenched the government’s animus against the Jews was.

Mr. Beckerman’s presentation hit home, especially since some of my students either had parents who had been active in the Soviet Jewry movement or, more dramatically still, had themselves experienced Soviet oppression.

What had once been reserved for History suddenly assumed a new identity and with it a new, and more charged, resonance.

And if that wasn’t enough to set nerves on edge, last week’s horrific events in Toulouse underscored the extent to which prejudice remains as potent a force in 2012 as it had centuries before.

Studying anti-Semitism has never been a mere academic exercise and – much as it pains me to write this – it probably will never be.

Academic Politics

joselitMarch 16, 2012November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Over spring break, while GW students sought out sun and surf, I, too, contemplated the prospect of taking a brief respite by sleeping in, eating out and going to the movies.

Despite the best of intentions, I managed to see only one film – Joseph Cedar’s, Oscar-nominated Footnote – which turned out to be the cinematic equivalent of a busman’s holiday.

Situated within the physical and emotional landscape of the scholarly life, Footnote casts a sharp and knowing eye on the tools of the trade, from the microfiche reader that burns the retina to the barbs that singe the spirit. And everywhere, books, books and more books, whose presence is at once comforting and menacing.

At the same time, the film also movingly conveys the passions and, yes, the joy that scholars derive from their work, even if no one seems to notice. Tending the groves of academe, we come to understand, is a high stakes enterprise.

Little wonder, then, that Footnote has received deservedly lavish praise from the critics. A dark comedy of manners and a domestic drama rolled into one, the film is a must-see.

Bring your favorite professor along for the ride.

Fiddling with Tradition

joselitMarch 4, 2012November 16, 2017Leave a comment

I don’t know about you, but every time I listen to the soundtrack of Fiddler on the Roof, my eyes well with tears and my feet start moving this way and that.

In this, I’m not alone. Arguably one of the most popular of Broadway productions, Fiddler has captured the country’s imagination ever since it made its debut in 1964, firmly embedding “Sunrise, Sunset” and “Tradition” in the American playbook.

What’s more, I suspect that the play and the film that followed have done more to acquaint the American public with the ups and downs of modern Jewish history, as well as with the use of such expressions as mazal tov and l’chayim, than all of the pious references to the Judaeo-Christian heritage combined.

How this tale of East European Jewry, which is based on the writings of Sholem Aleichem, became a staple of American popular culture constitutes a bit of a conundrum. Its success, after all, was hardly a surefire thing. But “wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles,” Fiddler did take hold.

Why it did is the compelling subject of Alisa Solomon’s forthcoming presentation, Fiddler’s Fortunes: The Mighty Afterlife of a Broadway Musical, which will take place on Monday, March 19th, at 7 p.m. at the DCJCC. To register for the event, which is free and open to the public, please go here.

Come one and all.

Repurposing

joselitFebruary 27, 2012November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Just when you think you’ve heard of everything, comes word of a brand new vegetarian restaurant that proudly calls itself “Maimonide of Brooklyn.” Located in the hip Boerum Hill neighborhood, its menu, a paean to healthy eating, offers fig, date, hazelnut and almond sausages, soy nuggets and doughnuts that are steamed rather than fried.

Maimonide also comes equipped with a comic book all its own, Maimonide of Brooklyn: The Awesome Genesis, Volume 1, that tells the story of the restaurant’s origins and its relationship to Maimonides, that great philosopher, communal leader and healer of the 12th century.

Those who an appetite for history will learn that “aside from his extensive philosophical works…. Maimonides was famous for his knowledge of fruit, vegetables and seasoning and how to use them.” Drawing on that knowledge, the restaurant’s owners have “worked for many years in a humble attempt to embody his approach.”

Over the centuries since his demise, Maimonides has been invoked repeatedly: as a model of rectitude and caring, a paradigm of scholarship as well as a beacon of toleration, especially when it comes to interfaith relations.

Little wonder, then, that so many institutions, from Jewish day schools to hospitals, bear his name. And now, in this latest, decidedly post-modern, iteration of an homage, a restaurant grows - and hopefully takes root - in Brooklyn. Surely a first in the annals of Jewish history.

Having not had the opportunity to visit Maimonide of Brooklyn, I can’t comment on the food. But if its name and orientation are any indication of what awaits, those of us who value both gastronomy and Jewish thought are in for quite a treat.

A Man for All Seasons

joselitFebruary 21, 2012November 16, 2017Leave a comment

The modern Jewish experience is awash in fascinating personalities whose imprint extends far and wide. Were you to compile a list of such people, Benedictus (né Baruch) Spinoza would undoubtedly be on it.

Streets are named after him, conferences mark his birthday and both paintings and plays take him as their subject. I.B. Singer introduced readers of the Jewish Daily Forward to his writings while the city of Haifa boasted a Bet Shpinozah all its very own.

Despite Spinoza’s enduring fame – some might even say his notoriety - little about the man – or more to the point, his legacy – remained fixed over time. As The First Modern Jew, the compelling and eye-opening new book by my GW colleague, Daniel Schwartz, makes clear, Spinoza had something to say to just about everyone: Zionists claimed him, as did Yiddishists. The German Jewish champions of Bildung took a real shine to Spinoza and so, too, did East European devotees of the Haskalah.

How so many different ideological and cultural communities kept Spinoza in their sights is the subject of Professor Schwartz’s inquiry, which casts a keen and discerning eye on the complicated process by which a “heretic turned hero.”

At a time when Spinoza’s name was mud in some quarters, Moses Mendelssohn championed him, insisting that the philosopher did not deserve opprobrium but instead should be “decorated with flowers.”

May Daniel Schwartz’s book – his very first – be similarly laureled.