Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By simmons on July 30, 2017

NEW YORK Once pillars of Jewish life in Europe, hundreds of synagogues across the Old Continent had been destroyed in the period around World War II. Now, in New York City, the Museum at Eldridge Street, a landmark synagogue itself, has decided to bring them back to life in an exhibition running through September 8.

The exhibit, The Lost Synagogues of Europe, features a collection of 156 postcards depicting shuls in Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and other countries.

The images, reproduced for the display, date from the last years of the 19th century through just before the start of WWII.

Postcards are very eloquent little things, Nancy Johnson, the museums archivist, told The Jerusalem Post, walking through the narrow exhibit. They really tell you a lot about a time and a place.

Organized geographically, the cards, which belong to Prague native Frantisek Banyai, reflect the vibrancy of the Jewish communities represented and show much diversity of synagogue design. Depending on the time and place in which they were built, they range from humble wooden structures to grand synagogues.

Other postcards show life in the communities that existed around these synagogues including families on their way to worship; men praying; ghetto streets crowded with shoppers; and greeting cards for the Jewish holidays.

Of the 156 synagogues represented in the postcards, only 57 still stand today. And of them, only 14, like the opulent Jubilee Synagogue in Prague, are still Jewish houses of worship. The rest have all been destroyed.

World War II was the biggest culprit, Johnson said. Thirty-eight were destroyed just during Kristallnacht [in 1938], some were destroyed by the communists after the war, especially in the Czech Republic, and there are 11 that we are not sure what happened to them.

There are some that are churches, there are some that were used for storehouses and then kind of abandoned, there is one that is a fitness club, Johnson said.

Banyai, who created the displays himself, grew up collecting vintage postcards on Jewish themes as a way to connect with the past.

He was raised in Prague, after the Second World War, when the communists were in power and so he had no religious education, Johnson told the Post. He started collecting these cards as a way to reconnect with his Jewish past and in the process, became very involved in the Jewish community in Prague.

Banyai believes that in addition to their authentic beauty, these postcards capture a sense of indelible grief, as they reflect a major part of the Jewish world that disappeared almost without a trace.

On many of the images, one may observe Moorish style architecture featuring horseshoe arches, keyhole-shaped windows, bulbous domes, and even minaret towers. This style gained popularity in the mid to late eighteenth century, and is reminiscent of a time when Jews, Muslims and Christians lived peaceably together in Spain.

The Eldridge Street Synagogue, housing the exhibit, was also built in this fashion, perhaps inspired by the European shuls portrayed in the cards.

Today known as the Museum at Eldridge Street, it was the first functioning synagogue built by Eastern European Jews in the United States, in Manhattans Lower East Side, which was once the main hub of Jewish life in the city.

This congregation was unusual in that it brought together immigrants from all over Eastern Europe, not just from one place, Nancy Johnson said. They all spoke Yiddish.

The building opened in 1887, to serve a flourishing community made of Jewish immigrant. By 1924, however, US immigration laws changed and cut off the arrival of most Jews from Eastern Europe. The Eldridge Street congregation started to shrink.

When the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, it also begun struggling financially.

Whatever money the congregation had, they used to share with people who were struggling, Johnson told the Post.

The main space inside was too expensive to maintain and heat during the winter. The congregation stopped using it and it deteriorated over the years with holes in roof, leaks, stain glass falling out of the windows and birds flying around.

It is only in 1986 that a professor who visited the abandoned synagogue initiated its restoration. Twenty years and $20 million later, the process was completed.

Even though the congregation is very small and sometimes struggles to form a minyan, the Orthodox synagogue is functioning. After the space was fixed, it was granted museum status and today hosts various exhibitions, building tours, concerts and festivals.

Several shuls on Banyais postcards have undergone a restoration as well. This common aspect was one of the reasons Johnson and her team decided to host the Lost Synagogues of Europe exhibit.

It was also a way to see into the minds of the early congregants and what they may have worshiped before they came here, or what the architects, who were German-born, may have seen to influence their decisions here, Johnson said.

The exhibit is a reminder of just how much was lost in the Holocaust, she said.

Its harrowing, Johnson said. Everybody knows about World War II, everybody knows about Kristallnacht, but to see places that dont exist anymore because of this, and then to think about the people who would have been associated with those places, its just incomprehensible.

When we first put the show up in the spring, there had been a number of antisemitic acts in the city, and it was kind of scary, she added, looking at one of the panel of postcards. In a way you look at this and you think this would never happen again, but then, maybe it could happen again. You cant just be passive about it.

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New York exhibit revives Europe's lost synagogues - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By richards on July 30, 2017

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Two New Jersey men convicted in the firebombing of North Jersey synagogues in 2011 and 2012 were each sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Anthony Graziano and Aakash Dalal were charged on a 30-count indictment in 2013 with arson and bias-related incidents that occurred from December 2011 to January 2012 in the Bergen County towns of Paramus, Rutherford, Maywood and Hackensack, according to NorthJersey.com, which reported their sentencing Friday.

Aakash Dalal, a resident of the New Jersey borough of Lodi was convicted last November for vandalizing and firebombing synagogues and a rabbis home in 2012. He was convicted by a Bergen County court on 16 other counts, including conspiracy to commit arson, attempted arson, bias intimidation, possession of a weapon and possession of a destructive device.

Dalal, a former student at Rutgers University, was arrested in March 2012. Dalal has been called the mastermind behind the attacks and did not actually participate in them.

Graziano, his former high school classmate, was found guilty of terrorism and 19 other counts in May 2016 for the attacks.

The two, both in their 20s, were sentenced together because they worked as a partnership, Brian Sinclair, an assistant Bergen County prosecutor, told NorthJersey.com.

They saw the world with the same set of eyes. They saw Jewish people not as people but as subhuman and like reptiles, Sinclair said. They were partners in hate, intimidation and crime.

In one attack, Molotov cocktails thrown at Congregation Beth El in Rutherford set fire to a bedroom in the synagogue residence where the rabbis family lived. The rabbi, Nosson Schuman, was injured. He lives in the residence with his wife, five children and his parents, who were sleeping at the time.

At two other synagogues, Graziano spray-painted anti-Semitic epithets, including swastikas and Jews Did 9/11. Graziano allegedly was scared off an attack by an increased police presence.

The men also were charged with the January 2012 firebombing of Temple Khal Adath Jeshurun in Paramus and the attempted arson four days later of the Jewish Community Center of Paramus. The bias intimidation offenses related to Temple Beth Israel in Maywood and Temple Beth El in Hackensack.

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'They were partners in hate, intimidation, and crime' - Arutz Sheva

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Posted By admin on July 30, 2017

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was the dominant language of trade in the Balkans. Carried around the world by Jews expelled from Spain, Sephardic Spanish is quickly disappearing as the number of people able to speak it declines.

The rise of a global economy that favors modern languages and the spread of mass media, which use standard forms of a language rather than dialects, contributes to making Judeo-Spanish obsolete, says Samuel G. Armistead, a professor of medieval Spanish literature at the University of California at Davis. "Today, Judeo-Spanish wouldn't get you into the world of commerce or technology. It is the language of the Sephardic past."

That past includes a rich legacy of storytelling and ballad making that stretches back to medieval Spain. To save those tales and songs, Armistead and his colleagues have been gathering them from Sephardic Spanish speakers in communities as far flung as Seattle, Washington, and Tetun, Morocco, for more than forty years.

Decades of tape recordings have provided the raw material for Folk Literature of the Sephardic Jews, a study of Judeo-Spanish ballads, lyric poetry, riddles, and folktales. Three volumes of Folk Literature have been published so far. The series is slated to include sixteen volumes on ballads, one each on Sephardic lyric poetry, riddles, and folktales, and a one-volume supplement and index. Armistead hopes to have volumes four, five, and six out later this year.

NEH grants have helped support work on volumes two through eight. The NEH is also helping create an online database of the collected materials through the Digital Library Initiative, a program conducted by the National Science Foundation in partnership with the NEH, NASA, the Library of Congress, and other federal agencies. The program promotes the use of computer technology in the humanities and other areas.

Lamenting the amount of time people today spend watching TV and going to movies, Armistead says, " We don't really participate in a creative way. Ballads and folktales and other forms of oral literature take us back to a time . . . when everybody was potentially a poet and everybody participated in this process of traditional creativity."

Storytelling in the Middle Ages involved much more than memorizing and reciting a particular tale. Ballads were sung while harvesting crops and doing housework. They were used to celebrate weddings and to mourn the dead.

Performing stories of family duty and love fulfilled or gone awry was a way for communities to preserve their shared values. It also gave people the chance to be creative by adapting ballads as they were passed down from singer to hearer and from generation to generation.

"For Sephardic Jews, the ballad was a way of affirming their own peculiar Jewish and Spanish culture," says Armistead.

Jews in Spain struggled to preserve their communal values through several periods of persecution often aimed at converting them to Christianity. Many of these New Christians, or conversos, continued to practice Judaism in secret. Fearful of the influence that practicing Jews might have on Christians in Spain, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella finally issued a decree in March 1492 calling for the expulsion of all Jews who refused to convert.

While many Jews converted in order to stay, tens of thousands left Spain for North Africa, Italy, and what was then the Ottoman Empire. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Sephardic Jews emigrated to parts of northern Europe, England, and North America. Approximately twenty-five thousand Sephardic Jews had moved to the United States by 1926. As they settled in communities around the world, Sephardim relied on ballads to help preserve their memories of Spain.

According to Armistead, there was some significant study of this Sephardic oral literature conducted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Second World War and the devastation of the Holocaust created greater urgency among scholars to study and preserve the Spanish-speaking Sephardic culture, which had been virtually wiped out in Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Rumania, and what is now Bosnia.

Folk Literature of the Sephardic Jews is the first comprehensive study of Sephardic literature to consider not only the texts collected by Armistead and his colleagues, but also those previously collected by scholars since 1885.

The immensity of the project is matched only by the painstaking work involved. Each recording, culled from interviews with more than two hundred Sephardic Spanish speakers in the United States, North Africa, and Israel, must be carefully transcribed and then compared with other versions collected in the field or compiled previously by other scholars. This laborious process can help to explain how the structure and content of a text might have evolved over time.

Armistead began collecting material in 1956, while he was an instructor at the University of California, Los Angeles. The following year, the late Joseph H. Silverman, then a colleague on the Spanish faculty, joined Armistead on the project. The university supported them with a modest grant of $17.50 to buy reel-to-reel tape. From its humble beginnings with the large Sephardic immigrant community in Los Angeles, the project grew as the two interviewed more sources in San Francisco, Seattle, and New York.

In 1959, Armistead and Silverman were joined by Israel J. Katz, then a doctoral student in ethnomusicology at UCLA. After transcribing the melodies sung by Sephardic sources and comparing transcriptions of different renditions, Katz determined how the ballad music has changed through years of oral transmission. He now works at UC Davis as a research associate for the Folk Literature project.

According to Armistead, the Spanish ballads, or romances, evolved from epics recited at banquet halls, marketplaces, or other public gatherings. They were particularly influenced by the chansons de geste, heroic French poems that were adapted by peoples across medieval Europe. Chanson protagonists like Roland and Charlemagne, who fought against the Muslims in eighth-century France, and the legendary El Cid, who later battled them in Spain, appear in early Sephardic poems.

Certain scenes from the longer epics were more popular than others, says Armistead. Because of their brevity and compelling narrative, these epic fragments were easily memorized by listeners who went on to adapt and perform their own versions. Epic fragments became independent pieces of poetry.

Over time, the ballad was adapted to narrate stories of family and marriage. Advice, like that in this Moroccan Sephardic wedding ballad, was given in song:

My daughter, if you are departing, Look out and pay attention. On the roads you will travel, There are no cousins or relatives. Unknown women will be your family; Be sure you're not disliked.

Singers also used the medieval ballad form to describe historical events that were in the recent memory of the community. Called romances noticieros, these ballads were being written until relatively recent times by Spanish-speaking Moroccan Jews, says Armistead. There is one, possibly from early this century, that tells of the capture of Jewish muleteers on the road to Tangier by members of the Beni der tribe and their subsequent ransoming and release.

In studying the ballad tradition, Armistead has particularly enjoyed discovering that the tradition is eclectic and far from frozen in the Middle Ages. He recalls that when he began his research, "Many Hispanists who approached this material assumed that everything that the Sephardim sang dated from the epoch of the expulsion. Little attention was directed to material the Sephardim may have acquired after their exile from the diverse peoples among whom they lived."

Armistead, however, has been pondering the ways Sephardic singers adapted new material almost since the beginning of his research. He remembers going to a used-book store in Los Angeles in the late 1950s and coming across a collection of Greek folk poetry, translated into English. The old poems had been gathered in the nineteenth century. While perusing the collection, he ran across a poem that closely resembled a Sephardic ballad that was believed to be from Spain. In the Sephardic version, seven brothers are on the road to Aragon when their thirst leads them to devise a dangerous plan for getting water from a bottomless well.

In 1959, after his experience in the bookstore, Armistead and Silverman collected yet another version of the well ballad in Brooklyn. Their source was an 84-year-old Sephardic Spanish-speaking woman who had been born in Greece. After comparing the Greek poem and the Sephardic well ballad, Armistead concluded that the well ballad was not of medieval Hispanic origin at all. Sephardic singers at some point had simply taken a traditional Greek song and, in translation, put it into the ballad formula that characterizes Sephardic works.

But how does Armistead know that the song traveled from the Greeks to the Jews and not the other way around? Because the well story is known throughout Greece. "Sephardic culture in Greece was largely marginalized," says Armistead. "It would have been hard for the Sephardim to get the poem so widely dispersed," says Armistead.

Armistead has since created a critical text of "The Bottomless Well" from all of the known Sephardic versions of the ballad. It appears in the 1993 essay collection Sephardim in the Americas: Studies in Culture and History, edited by Martin A. Cohen and Abraham J. Peck:

Now the seven brothers depart, Now they depart for Aragon. The heat was intense; they could find no water. Along the way, they found a deep well. They drew lots; it fell to the youngest. Now they tie him to the rope; they lower him into the well. Halfway down that well, the rope broke. The water became blood for them; the stones became serpents. "If my father asks you, tell him: 'He was left in the well!'"

Among the Sephardic ballads many virtues, says Armistead, is its plain, concise language. That plainness is central to the form's vitality because it leaves so much to the listener's imagination. "The ballad appeals to us to participate in the poetic process."

Studying the ballads also show the process of change that languages undergo. Sephardic Spanish would seem familiar to modern Spanish speakers, says Armistead. It retains pronunciations from the Middle Ages as well as words that have since died out, but along the way it borrowed from Arabic and Turkish. Hebrew words usually appear in a religious context.

Sometimes the words used change meaning over time. For instance, the Hebrew phrase 'sheth hayil from Proverbs is translated variously as capable wife, virtuous or wise woman, or woman of valor. Sephardic women in Morocco, who did not know much Hebrew, interpreted these words to mean a woman who is brave and heroic. This mistranslation led to a body of North African Sephardic ballads featuring courageous female characters significantly different from those seen in ballads from Spain.

In terms of music, Katz's analysis has revealed how the melodies of the ballads have changed since exile. The Sephardic Jews who had moved to the eastern coast of the Mediterranean continued to sing medieval Spanish narratives. But they set these stories to the Turkish and Greek tunes they heard after leaving Spain.

Such insights into the history of Sephardic language and literature are threatened by the dwindling resources available to scholars like Armistead. From 1962 to 1963, one Moroccan woman provided Armistead and fellow researchers with about a month's worth of interviews. Luna Elaluf Farache, a champion ballad singer, knew more than sixty ballads and numerous stories, says Armistead. To hear her and others was often a thrilling experience because "we heard things that were never written down from their creation in the Middle Ages. It was like hearing the echo of voices of centuries ago."

For now, the work of Armistead, Silverman, and Katz serves as a crucial resource for the study and preservation of a culture that is being forgotten.

Armistead says that there are currently efforts under way in Israel to revive Judeo-Spanish by teaching it in school and by establishing an organization devoted to preserving both Sephardic and Yiddish cultures.

While he admires these efforts, he is keenly aware of the cultural and economic obstacles that stand in the way.

"Some people in Israel say they can bring Judeo-Spanish back," observes Armistead. "I hope they can."

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Songs of the Sephardim | Humanities

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Posted By admin on July 30, 2017

The Summerville and North Area Jewish Community doesn't have a temple or a synagogue, but it still has a meaningful place to meet.

The community has partnered with Summerville's Community Resource Center and the Charleston Jewish Community Center Without Walls to offer a series of ecumenical programs exploring faith, history and community.

The next will take place Sunday, July 30 from 5-7 p.m. and will focus on the shared struggles of Christians, Jews and Muslims, said Robin Wittenberg Dudley, a volunteer with the community group.

Panel participants will include Abraham Belanger, pastor of the First Fruits Community Church in Summerville, Rabbi Greg Kanter of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston, and Aisha Miller of the .Central Mosque of Charleston

Patrick Labbe, who founded the Summerville and North Area Jewish Community group eight years ago, came up with the idea and will moderate.

"We do have shared struggles," Labbe said. "I liken what is happening to Muslims in our country as similar to what happened to Jews in Germany before the Holocaust: the demonization of people."

Dudley agreed. "We felt like the Muslim community is growing enough in the Charleston area that they need some understanding about the struggles we all face, not just because of religion but because of our heritage and culture."

Muslims remain only a tiny slice of South Carolina's population. The Pew Research Center's recent Religious Landscape Study put the number of Muslims at less than 1 percent. Jews make up about 1 percent of the state's population, while 78 percent identify as Christian.

Labbe said the Summerville and North Area Jewish Communitygroup originally started as a sort of social club to connect Jews in the Summerville area, but it has grown and begun to work with other social justice and community organizations. For instance, next month it will participate in a back-to-school event from 2-5 p.m. Aug. 20 at Doty Park with three local African-American community groups.

"Our purpose is to bring the community together, to make a difference in the community," he said. "I believe the old saying if we don't stand together, we fall separately."

The programs are part of the Summerville CommUNITY Artists Heritage Series.

Sunday's session will take place at the Saul Alexander Masonic Hall, 111 North Main St. in Summerville. The event is free, and food and beverages will be sold there.

Reach Robert Behreat 843-937-5771. Follow him on Twitter @RobertFBehre.

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"Shared struggles" forum to tackle faiths' differences, similarities - Charleston Post Courier

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Posted By simmons on July 30, 2017

Pope Francis.. (photo credit:REUTERS)

ROME Pope Francis danced with a delegation of Hasidic Jews and discussed with them issues including the protection of Jewish cemeteries in Europe and combating child sex abuse.

The pontiff held a 45-minute audience at the Vatican on Monday with the group, which was led by Rabbi Edgar Gluck.

A video on the Yeshiva World News website and also posted to YouTube shows the pope swaying to the music as members of the delegation dance and serenade him with the song Long years shall satiate him.

Yeshiva World News quoted Glucks son Zvi, who was part of the delegation, as saying the pontiff pledged to work toward enacting stronger rules against destroying Jewish cemeteries to build roads or homes.

Zvi Gluck, the founder and director of Amudim, an organization dedicated to helping Jewish victims of abuse and addiction, also tweeted that the pontiff had pledged zero tolerance for the sexual abuse of children and said We need to keep kids safe.

Born in Germany, Edgar Gluck, 80, divides his time between Brooklyn and Poland, where he holds the title of chief rabbi of Galicia. In the United States, where he has long been politically active, he was a co-founder of Hatzolah, one of the largest volunteer ambulance corps.

He has been involved in the preservation of Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe for decades and long served as a member of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of Americas Heritage Abroad.

Gluck and Pope Francis met and discussed the plight of Jewish cemeteries last year when the pontiff visited Krakow for Catholic World Youth Day and, according to Yeshiva World News, the pope invited Gluck to continue the discussion at the Vatican.

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WATCH: Hasidic Jews jam with Pope Francis at Vatican ...

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Posted By richards on July 30, 2017

Making an independent film on-location in Brooklyns Hasidic community, and almost completely in Yiddish, is not the most obvious way to lure people into a theater. When director Joshua Z. Weinstein embarked on his quest to produce Menashe in this very way, his plan was greeted with considerable skepticism, including from his closest ally. Even my mom told me it was a bad idea to make this movie, he laughs. Folks didnt really believe that an all-Yiddish film with non-actors was going to be a good way to spend a Saturday night. They just couldnt comprehend it.

On the eve of its July 28 release (following an enthusiastically received premiere at Januarys Sundance Film Festival), its clear that Weinsteins gamble has paid off. Menashe is one of the years most uniquely engaging films, an ethnographic deep-dive into a closed-off community thats also a nuanced character study. That person is Menashe, a Borough Park widower who finds himself fighting to regain custody of his adolescent son, Rieven (Ruben Niborski), whos now living with his uncle Eizik (Yoel Weisshaus) because Hasidic norms stipulate that a single man is unfit to raise a child by himself. Its a heartfelt tale about a fathers love for his child (and vice versa), the sacrifices required by parenthood, and the difficulty of forging an individualistic path in a conformist environmentand one thats based, in part, on the life of its star, Menashe Lustig.

As Weinstein says, Aside from those two details [that Lustig is a widower, and was trying to regain guardianship of his kid] everything else is fictionalized. Because it wouldnt be interesting, honestly, otherwise. Peoples lives dont make simple narratives. They dont fit well in that box. Nonetheless, he knew from the outset that Lustigs plight was both specific enough to Hasidic life, and yet universal enough to resonate outside those confines, to serve as the basis for a drama. Moreover, he realized that Lustig himself was perfect for the lead roleespecially since finding him was something of a coup. Its hard to cast in that world. Literally out of hundreds of thousands of Hasidic Jews in the Brooklyn-New York area (and maybe closer to a million), we only had about 60 people show up for auditions. So I did auditions early on, and basically, I just wanted to find a great actor. I knew if I had a great actor, I could make this movie.

He did, via his producer, Daniel Finkelman. He introduced me to Menashe, and I did casting tapes, filming him doing simple improv games, and I was just immediately drawn to him, because he had this clown persona, but at the same point, a deep hurt inside him. For me, Im most excited by people who are damaged. As soon as I met him, I knew he could hold a film together.

Despite the fact that hed be plumbing his own experiences, Lustig was eager to take on the challenge of shouldering a secular-world feature. Menashe was excited because I really pushed him as an artist, says Weinstein. Hes always just done these YouTube clipstheyre kind of Charlie Chaplin-esqueand he also does two plays a year that are held for thousands of people in his town where he does, again, huge broad comedies. I think it really excited him that he had a director that could mold him and guide him and give him creative advice. Still, it was a daunting challenge for the amateur actor, given that (like his co-stars, all of whom were non-professionals) he had a decidedly limited base of knowledge about the moviesto put it mildly.

We didnt realize this, but Menashe had never been to a movie theater before he went to Sundance. Sundance was the first time hed stepped into a movie theater, recalls Weinstein. And people in the film really didnt know much about movies. Some actors would tell me the lighting was bad, or theyd ask me when they were going to get a close-up. They didnt understand the process. Their idea for acting was big Borscht Belt-style humor. It took a long time for most actors to understand the minimalism that I was after. But at the same time, I think the acting is brilliant in the movie because theyre just themselves. Everyone I found, I would just change the role to fit their body type and natural faces.

By fictionalizing Lustigs ordeal, Weinstein contends that he was able to get at a greater truth than he might have with a documentary: Menashe is more authentic in capturing a better idea of what it means to be a Hasidic Jew in Brooklyn than any National Geographic film. And one of the keys to its authenticity was making it in Yiddish, regardless of the fact that most of the crew didnt speak the language. Weinstein admits he knew very basic Hebrew. I started taking Yiddish, and it was so hard. I knew enough that I could get by. But we had translators on set at all times.

Beginning with improvisation and then scripting things more overtly as he went along, Weinstein shot as much as possible in Borough Park, utilizing a peeping-tom style (indebted to his own prior documentary output) that makes one feel as if theyre clandestinely spying on a forbidden world. Full of compositions in which his camera watches Menashe and Rieven through busy sidewalk crowds or from the back seat of carsa detachment thats matched by intimate up-close-and-personal moments at private events and celebrationsMenashes non-fiction-esque aesthetics are vital to its observational power, even though the production itself was carried out in plain sight.

It feels voyeuristic, and it takes a lot of work to make it seem so off-the-cuff. Every day I was working on it, I was like, we cant have a Hollywood-style shot in this movie, because it will break the faade, he states. That said, We actually never hid; we were always in plain sight. Im obsessed with the 70s, and I feel bad that this is an era that Im so constantly reaching for, but it was really a brilliant era of cinema where people could make art films, and it was before CGI was a thing. So you look at A Woman Under the Influence or The French Connection or Scarecrow, and they used a lot of the exact same techniques that Im using. Its just like classic cinema. Theres something about using a 400mm lens and being across the street from somebody in New York Cityweve all seen it in other films, but weve never seen it in this community. So I think its also something about this community that makes us assume that it was more on the sly than it wasWe had big billboards up, and we told people that, by crossing in the frame, youll be in the shot.

As one might imagine, most residents werent keen to participate in this outsiders project, considering the limited advantages it would afford. Most people did not want to be in the movie, and most people did not want us to film in their location. Theres just no benefit; its not like it affects their world. Its not, Oh please film in my caf because I want people to see my caf in the film. Theres no upside for it. That doesnt mean, however, that locals werent curious about all the cinematic commotion. Ive filmed a lot in Asia, and it reminded me of being in a small Indian village, where everyone would come out and watch because they were so shocked and interested to know what was going on. They didnt want to be on-camera, but they wanted to watcha situation that culminated with with a man approaching Lustig on the street to ask a favor, all while they were in the middle of shooting a scene.

As Menashe wrestles with his desire to simultaneously be himself, and to adhere to the customs and expectations that will help him permanently reunite with his son, Menashe becomes both a compelling portrait of grief and struggle, and a novel coming-of-age tale. Its also a cultural snapshot embellished with numerous sociological touchesget-togethers in claustrophobic religious spaces; meetings with the local Rabbi; the use of a washbowl for cleaning hands and face upon waking each morningthat ground its relatable story in a distinctive place and time. Many of those details are presented without explanation, so that they remain a tad mysteriousa tack that was deliberate. We didnt want to actively confuse audiences, Weinstein remarks. But we didnt want to explain something at the expense of making it feel expository. Theres definitely a clear line there, about knowing when not to explain, and knowing when to further explain. It was definitely a point we debated and talked about a lot.

Empathetic, complex and wholly engrossing, the resultant work is like no other thatll arrive in 2017, and one that adheres to Weinsteins guiding belief in cinemas role as something that brings people together, andin the best-case scenarioenlightens them as well. Film is an art form that you have to share with other people. We were constantly editing it and showing it to people and seeing what felt right, what felt wrong. And just being smart enough to listen, and to change appropriately.

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I think people want to watch cinema to learn. And for me, film is always about learning and education. I felt I was constantly learning about society and about humanity through making this film.

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'Menashe': The Powerful New Indie That Goes Inside New York's Hasidic Community - Daily Beast

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Posted By admin on July 30, 2017

The Hasidim, extremely religious Jews known for their reclusiveness and distinctive clothing, are rarely represented on screen. Their beliefs and values put them at odds with secular culture, meaning they're usually seen from an outsider's perspectiveand when they are seen with an insider's eye, it's almost always that of someone running away from the community.

Menashe, written, shot, and directed by Joshua Z. Weinstein, a documentary cinematographer by trade, takes place entirely within a Hasidic community and focuses on the titular character, a hapless 30-something widower, as he desperately tries to recover custody of his son, forced from him by Jewish law. Filmed in Yiddish, it's a sober drama (and sometimes comedy) about balancing the demands of community, desire, and God, one that embeds us in the life of a religious man trying to do his best to become a mensch.

Fleeing the heat of Manhattan summer in a caf in Soho, I spoke with Weinstein, a self-described punk rocker with a massive smile and a mop of dark brown hair, about realism, authenticity, and the difficulties of filming one of the most cloistered communities in New York.

Have you ever done any documentaries in the Hasidic community before?

No. Because it's not possible actually. To do something as authentic as this movieyou can't shoot it because if you start filming on the street and walk into buildings, people will start yelling at you. They'll kick you out. That's why National Geographic hasn't even made a film like this. You have to recreate these moments to make them feel real.

So what possessed you to make a movie about this community?

It was impossibly difficult in so many ways. But, you know, I love New York City and I love its confluence of different peoples and ideas and faces. And me and Yoni Brook, who I shot the film with, we'd go all over the city together. I remember one summer I went to every beach in New York City. Like, The Bronx, Staten Island. It's just different and there's something special about that. So, it took me to Purim, which is like Jewish Halloween. And we got to go into ultra-Orthodox people's houses and they gave us drinks and they laughed with us and they connected with us in a way that I found really special because, as you know, even as a Jewish person myself, the ultra-Orthodox are purposefully isolated from us. They purposely don't wanna engage. If they were engaging, they'd already be talking. I found it just endlessly interesting. And for me, cinema is about learning, so I got to understanding a whole new society through making this movie.

Was there a specific push that made you decide that you wanted to do a fiction film about the Hasidim?

There was one really difficult summer, 2014, where I'd done two medical-related showsone where I was in end-of-life care in an ER for Frontline and I watched a lot of people pass away, and then I went to India and South Africa to do a piece about tuberculosis and I saw a lot of people suffering and pass away. It's heavy man. These are real people's lives, and I'm not really experiencing their lives, but I'm witnessing tremendous hardships and difficulties and there's only so much of that one person can bear [laughs]. I remember coming home and just feeling like I wanted to expand creatively. Also, in documentaries you can only film what's in front of you. And it's just inherently limiting. And I just knew that I was ready to tell a bigger story than you could tell with a documentary.

Did you write the script and think, I'll just find some Hasidic actors? Were you interacting with the community?

I wanted to create a film that was a storyline I couldn't make up. You know, the community's different, their rules are different. I love to understand a society by their laws, and so I just knew that I didn't know what was right about this world. Early on, I would walk around for months taking notes just witnessing people singing. That was enlightening, and I just knew I wanted to put that in the movie. Especially working with non-actors, you want to write parts that they can embrace and also be easy for them. So I was looking for an actor who could star in the movie who could also loosely be based on himself. And when I met Menashe [Lustig, the lead actor in Menashe], I just knew right away that this Charlie Chaplinesque sad kind of a man was a brilliant actor. There were other actors who I met who I also liked, but Menashe was my favorite. And he told me just two facts about himself: one, that he was a widower and, two, that his son doesn't live with him. He lives a few blocks away. Then I knew that this was a unique enough story that it could hold a whole film together.

So, Menashe has a lot of biographical elements, but there are some fictionalizations. How did you decide which fictional elements to include?

Well, it's mostly, again, emotionally true, but then everything is fictionalized. You know, there never was a one-week moment [granted to Menashe before his son would be taken], and there never was this dinner where he tried to impress people. It's how Menashe actually feels. The funny thing is, once I heard those details, then I didn't really consult him. I just started writing this script with Mussa Syeed, who's Muslim actually, and Alex Lipschultz, who's one of the producers as well on the film. And a lot of the things we just made up. Menashe would see them and then say, This is just like my life, this is just like my life. But it was almost unintentional, if you're in your 30s and a widower. I mean, I guess there are certain things that happen in life and in the Hasidic world where there are less options. There's more chance that everyone would do the same thing.

From my understanding, you're not fluent in Yiddish. How did you write the script? Did you write it in English and translate it on set?

Originally we thought we were gonna improvise the whole movie have the actors be themselves, but not every actor was capable. Being a great improv actor is very hard and not all actors have that ability, so we ended up writing dialogue for a lot of the actors. And by the end up of it, probably 75% of it was scripted, but we would let the actors obviously change words, because as long as it fit into the essence of what I wanted, it didn't matter what words they used. It was about the essence and about the emotion.

To me, Yiddish is a very expressive language. It's full of wonderful characters. Every single time you read about this film, Menashe gets referred to as a schlimazel [a consistently unlucky or accident-prone person]. Did the linguistic influence seep into the movie in any way?

Well, I actively tried not to use the Yiddish words that we use in contemporary society because

...they're a little too divorced?

It just felt too shticky, you know? But I just wanted to make it way more nuanced than our expectations were. So we did include a bunch of phrases like if a bear could dance. I don't know if you ever heard that before.

I haven't heard it.

It's because the film can be very hammy. And it was always, like, how hammy can it be or should be?

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Interview: Joshua Z. Weinstein on Making the Hasidic Drama Menashe - slantmagazine

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Posted By admin on July 29, 2017

Leslie Renken Journal Star arts reporter @leslierenken

PEORIA Bill Nolden got the theater bug in 1957, and it never went away.

Nolden was nearing 30 when an acquaintance asked him to help fill out the chorus in Corn Stock Theatres 1957 production of Carousel.

I had one small speaking role, but I got the acting bug and decided I would come back the following year, said Nolden. I was in 'Plain and Fancy,' and I had a pretty good speaking role in that one.

Back then, Nolden worked as an artist at Block and Kuhl department store. He soon was asked to create the artwork on a few of Corn Stocks program covers. By 1968, he was doing them all.

Over the course of nearly 50 years Nolden has produced about 300 pieces of artwork for Corn Stock, including program covers, set designs, posters, and original paintings of the tent.

Though he turned 90 earlier this year, Nolden doesnt have plans to quit anytime soon.

Im done with all of the program covers for this year, and I hope to be doing them for next year, too, said Nolden, who works at a drafting table beside a window in the living room of his small apartment. He has lived at B'Nai B'Rith for 28 years.

Noldens program covers are a graphic distillation of the shows plot. Some are splashy and fun, and others are somber.

To do a single cover probably takes me five to seven hours to do the actual drawing. I dont rush, said Nolden. But if Im not familiar with the show, I have to do a lot of research thank goodness for Google.

Shows like Hello, Dolly! are easy ideas come fast and furious, said Nolden. Last years Spitfire Grill and this years Parade provided more challenge. He did a lot of research before deciding on a design.

Parade I really had to think about because its a serious show, said Nolden.

Program covers are not the only way Nolden has used his artistic talents at Corn Stock and other area theaters. For many years, he was involved in the design and building of sets, which is not unlike designing program art, said Nolden. The design of the set is also dictated by the shows theme and tone. Its a skill Nolden enjoyed perfecting over the years.

I did the set design for 'The Ladys Not for Burning' twice, once when set building was new to me, and once after Id learned how to do it," said Nolden. "They were vastly different. The set called for a large arched window. I did it realistically the first time. The second time the window was almost a suggestion more artistic rather than realistic.

Noldens apartment is filled with his artwork and mementos from the shows hes participated in. Photo albums reveal images of Nolden acting, directing and designing sets he was even on the CST board of directors for a while. On the livingroom walls are Noldens fine art paintings, including a gouache of the Peoria County Federal Building. The painting won best of show in the 48th Annual Rennick Art Show in 2012. Another award-winning piece of artwork, a 1973 full-page newspaper ad of mens fashions for Carson Pirie Scott & Co. department store, hangs in the bedroom.

Back then, we did art instead of photography, said Nolden. I did fashion illustration and furniture illustration for advertisements. Nolden worked forBlock and Kuhl, which becameCarson Pirie Scott & Co., for 33 years.

Corn Stock Theatre also haslauded Noldens work. He was the very first recipient of the Gretchen Iben Founders Award in 1978, and this year he is again being honored. A reception for Nolden is being held from 1 to 4 p.m. Aug. 6 in the Corn Stock Theatre Center, just south of the tent in Upper Bradley Park.

The event is open to the public, and Nolden is looking forward to seeing the many friends hes made over the years. His involvement in Corn Stock has been a big part of his life.

I love doing it, and I love the people I work with out there."

Leslie Renken can be reached at 686-3250 or lrenken@pjstar.com. Follow her on Twitter.com/LeslieRenken, and subscribe to her on Facebook.com/leslie.renken.

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Corn Stock honors longtime program artist and set designer Bill ... - Peoria Journal Star

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Posted By simmons on July 29, 2017

When a 50-year old womans botched operation in 1995 rendered her unable to have sex, a Portuguese court ruled that the injury took place at an age when sex is not as important as in younger years, and duly reduced the damages owed to her by the hospital.

The New York Times reported this week that Maria Ivone Carvalho Pinto de Sousa Morais, now 72, has disputed this, and the European Court of Human Rights ruled that this was, in fact, an unjust ruling.

The question at issue here is not considerations of age or sex as such, but rather the assumption that sexuality is not as important for a 50-year-old woman and mother of two children as for someone of a younger age, the ruling stated. That assumption reflects a traditional idea of female sexuality as being essentially linked to childbearing purposes and thus ignores its physical and psychological relevance for the self-fulfillment of women as people.

But the Talmud actually weighed in on this two thousand years ago.

According to Jewish law, sexual pleasure is actually a wifes right and a husbands lifetime obligation, no matter what the age, regardless of whether a woman is in a childbearing age or not. The Ketubah, the marriage contract that a husband signs, states that the three things a husband is compelled to give his wife are sheer, clothing, kesut, clothing, vonah, literally time, which is understood as a rabbinic euphemism for marital relations.

Female sexuality is a basic human need, the text implies just like food and clothing and doesnt have to be tied to procreation, either.

Actually, the Talmud writes that a womans sexual needs are more important than money. In a discussion in Ketubot 62b, the rabbis debate if a married donkey driver (one who travels locally and spends the nights at home, at a lower pay grade) can choose to become a camel driver (one who travels longer distances and is thus more rarely at home, but is paid more). The Talmud concludes that a woman would prefer her husband remain a donkey driver, over a camel driver even though the latter job earns more money, it is more important for a woman that she has a regular relationship with her husband than the extra dollars (or shekels, in this case).

Another discussion, in Yevamot 62b, says quite clearly that a righteous woman ought to be rewarded by her husband in the bedroom. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Whoever knows that his wife fears Heaven and she desires him, and he does not visit her [i.e., have intercourse with her], is called a sinner, as it is stated: And you shall know that your tent is in peace.

Some ancient wisdoms just never go out of style.

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Sex After 50? The Talmud Is Way Ahead Of Courts. - Forward

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Posted By simmons on July 29, 2017

Parshat Devarim

Deuteronomy 1:13:22

Shabbat Chazon

One of the proudest moments of my life occurred at a yeshiva summer camp, where I spent five days a week learning Torah and two days a week touring Europe. At 14, I found myself in the ruins of ancient Rome, just across the main road from the Colosseum, a site drenched in Jewish blood.

For me as a homesick American, any sound of a Yankee accent was music to my ears, and so there we were at the foot of the infamous Arch of Titus, when I hear that American droll of a senior couple taking pictures right next to us.

After sparking conversation with my fellow compatriots I soon discovered that these Virginians were also fellow Yids, and so, like a good Chasid, I went running back to the bus to grab my tefillin. There we were, two proud and free Jewish people, wrapping tefillin with pride, under the arch that was built to celebrate our destruction almost 2,000 years earlier.

And thats what Jewish people have been doing for the last 2,000 years. Wherever we find ourselves, and under whatever circumstances, we build. We build Jewish and sacred relationships, moments, experiences and buildings we build a home for Hashem.

The prophet Ezekiel gave us the message from G-d that although I have scattered them among the countries, yet I will be to them as a small sanctuary in the countries where they shall come. And the Talmud in Tractate Megillah (29a) explains this to mean the houses of study and the houses of prayer.

But why then does the verse say to us that I will be to them (a small sanctuary)? Is it G-d or is the houses of study and prayer?

Perhaps the message here is that each and every one of us, not just the buildings within which we gather, are the presence of G-d in our exiles around the world.

These small sanctuaries that the Jewish people have built have been as small as two Jews wrapping tefillin together in Rome or as large as the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem.

The Talmud there in Tractate Megillah then brings another commentary that this verse is referring to the house of our Rebbe. So not only is it broadly the houses of prayer and study across the diaspora, but specifically the collective house of the leader of the Jewish people in exile.

Ive always understood this to somehow give insight to the Talmuds statement that the Moshiach was born on the ninth of Av, the day the Temple was destroyed. This not only tells us that from the moment of its destruction the potential of its rebuilding and the person who would lead that enterprise was born, but that a part of that soul is inside you and me, hoping to break out and bring the redemption. Every one of our own houses of study and prayer is a reflection of the collective house of our Rebbe, which each one of us can be.

When I would spend a Shabbat at the house of the Rebbe in Brooklyn, N.Y., hearing his passionate cry to change the world, I often felt like the immediacy of the Talmuds words were real and possible. With the passage of time, the truth of those words doesnt always ring as clearly through my consciousness.

But on Tisha BAv, when we focus on the destruction of the big sanctuary in Jerusalem, I have the small sanctuary in Brooklyn, in Rome and in Pittsburgh, the house of our Rebbe that awakens inside my own personal house of prayer and study. I need to think big. I need to think fast. And more than thinking, I need to start doing so

Please G-d, see you soon in Jerusalem with the rebuilding of the Beit Hamikdash.

Wishing you a Shabbat of RebuildingPJC

Rabbi Ely Rosenfeld serves as the director of Chabad Fox Chapel and the Jewish Relief Agency of Pittsburgh. This column is a service of Vaad Harabanim of Greater Pittsburgh.

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In our personal house of prayer, think big - thejewishchronicle.net

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