‘Sesame Street’ Explains ‘Homeland’ Best

“She’s crying wolf again, Sauuuul”

By Stephanie Butnick for Tablet Magazine

Homeland has been a bit of a roller coaster lately, with Season 3 devolving quickly into a hard-to-believe narrative that seems to taunt even the most loyal of viewers. But there is hope yet—though from a surprising source. Sesame Street, which has long been making delightful parody videos—from Monsterpiece Theater to the more recent Sons of Poetry (aw)—has given Homeland the puppet treatment it so desperately needed.

Homelamb is a spot-on parody, as Hilary Busis noted over at EW.com, and the best part is, naturally, puppet Saul Berenson, played in real life by human Mandy Patinkin. Puppet Saul couldn’t be any more Upper West Side Jewish man (“Such a worrier that one!”) if he said the Shehecheyanu on-screen.

No spoilers, bahh:

Loving Us to Death

Jonathan S. Tobin in Mosaic

In the first half of the 20th century, the political and social perspective of the American Jewish community was defined by its collective experience of anti-Semitism—both in the countries from which Jews had emigrated and, in far more muted form, inside the United States. Four percent of Americans were estimated to be Jewish at mid-century, twice as many as at present. But the Jews of that time were insecure about their place in American society and often unwilling to make a show of their background and faith. They felt themselves a people apart, and they were. It was difficult if not completely impossible for them to live as American Jews entirely on their own terms.

Now the situation is reversed. As an explosive new survey of 3,400 American Jews reveals, 94 percent say they are proud of being Jewish. That data point dovetails neatly with the current place of Jews in American society—a society in which they make up 2 percent of the population but in which there are virtually no barriers to full Jewish participation. American Jews can live entirely on their own terms, and they do. But the stunning finding of Pew’s A Portrait of Jewish Americans—the most comprehensive portrait of the community in 20 years and, in the richness of its detail, perhaps of all time—is the degree to which American Jews are now choosing not to live as Jews in any real sense. Secularism has always been a potent tradition in American Jewry, but the study’s analysis of what being Jewish means to its respondents reveals just how much irreligion has taken center stage in American Jewish life.

There has been a startling increase over the past quarter century of Jews who say they regard themselves as having “no religion.” Intermarriage rates in that group are now at 70 percent. And the proportion of families raising their children as Jews by religion is 59 percent, while only 47 percent are giving them a Jewish education. Jews are not being driven from Judaism due to social difficulties. Fewer than 20 percent claimed to have experienced even a snub in a social setting, let alone an anti-Semitic epithet, in the last year. Such numbers are not only without precedent in American history; they are without precedent in the millennia-long history of the Jewish people. The Pew survey paints a portrait of a group that feels none of the shame or fear that once played a major role in defining Jewish attitudes toward other Americans. But this loss of shame, and the concomitant growth of pride when it comes to having a Jewish heritage—these have come at a heavy cost, it appears. It is now inarguable that American Jewry, or at least the 90 percent that does not hew to Orthodox practice, is rapidly shrinking, and the demographic trend lines are stark.

The same American Jewish community that is bursting with pride also now regards Jewish identity as a matter of ancestry and culture almost exclusively. Forty-two percent think a good sense of humor is essential to being Jewish; almost exactly the same number, 43 percent, think it means supporting the State of Israel. When asked about the fundaments of Judaism itself, Jews speak of values and qualities that apply equally to other faiths and are followed just as readily by those who have no faith at all. After all, there is nothing distinctively Jewish about believing one should lead an ethical and moral life or about working for justice. And yet these are the defining characteristics of Judaism for American Jews. Only 28 percent think being Jewish has something to do with being part of a Jewish community. Only 19 percent think it means abiding by Jewish religious law.Continue reading.

Is Antisemitism Back in Europe?

John Allen Gay, The Buzz for Mosaic

The status of Jews in Europe remains a delicate one. At least that is what a new survey by the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights suggests. The survey, to be released in full in November, found that nearly one quarter of European Jews avoid doing things or wearing symbols that could allow others to identify them as Jewish. And the numbers are worse in some places: Forty-nine percent of the Swedish utopia’s Jews avoid recognizably Jewish clothing and symbols in public. Eighty-eight percent of French Jews said antisemitism has become worse in the last five years. Thirty percent of Hungarian Jews have experienced an antisemitic incident in the past twelve months. And around Europe, two-thirds said reporting assaults and other antisemitic incidents to the police wasn’t worth it, or wouldn’t make a difference.

Surveys like this cast doubt on the belief that the history of the West has been one of steady progress. Sure, the Europeans seem to have finally been civilized, with their bloody, multicentury stream of wars and revolutions supplanted by social democracy and multinational union. But in 2012, reports Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center, France led the world in violent antisemitic incidents.

Who is to blame? The media would have you believe it’s the far right—Greece swarming with Golden Dawn blackshirts and cryptofascists flexing their muscles almost everywhere east of the Elbe. And the Kantor Center documents plenty of far-right violence. But participants in the EU survey, many drawn from Western Europe, saw it differently—just 19 percent pinned it on the extreme right. Twenty-two percent faulted the extreme left. But Europe’s Muslims are cited by 27 percent.

This brand of antisemite has imported the hatred of Jews to countries where it was historically less severe, such as Denmark. Tablet, a Jewish online magazine, relates the tale of Martin Krasnik, a journalist and a liberal Jewish Dane who decided to take a long walk through the immigrant neighborhood of Nørrebro with a yarmulke perched atop his head. He’s quickly harassed—flipped off, told to “go to hell, Jew,” told to his remove his cap, and so forth. There were plenty of threats—men tell him that “we have a right to kick your ass,” that his religion may tell him to wear the yarmulke but that it doesn’t tell him to get killed, that “my cousin killed a guy for wearing a ‘Jewish hat.’” Krasnik was extremely uncomfortable, telling Tablet’s Michael Moynihan that he thought, “If I keep doing this for an hour or two, something will happen. And if I did this everyday, I would get my ass kicked around.”

 Continue reading.

J.R.R. Tolkien: Not A Jew

In 1938 J.R.R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit was achieving great publishing success in English, and a German publishing company subsequently sought the rights to translate it into German. But before they could go ahead with the translation and publication, they asked Tolkien to affirm that he was ofAryan descent, i.e. not a Jew.

Tolkien, a linguist and philo-Semite, was disgusted, and wrote an angry letter to the publishing company decrying their request: "If I am to understand that you are enquiring whetherI am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people." He also cautioned that, "if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride."

Tolkien was actually such a fan of the Jewish people that he even based his depiction of dwarves in The Lord of the Rings trilogy on the Jews. The Nazis should have known better than to mess with a guy who had a Gollum at his disposal.

- Tamar Fox for Jewniverse

Rebooting The Bible To A Hip Beat

The Jewish Week

When Roger Bennett offered 54 accomplished young writers and artists a chance to comment on a portion of the Torah, each of them “leaped at the opportunity, like Michelangelo painting the Sistine chapel.” It all began at a networking event for Reboot, a Jewish outreach organization Bennett co-founded in 2002.

One evening, Reboot’s networkers discussed the Binding of Isaac, a story Bennett describes as “conversational catnip” for the cutting-edge crowd. He explains, “Everyone had lots to say about a demanding God, responsible parenting and a critical choice.” But in a moment of truth, Bennett asked, “Who among us has actually read the text?” In fact, few had, a situation that called for a proactive remedy.

This conversation was the catalyst for “Unscrolled: 54 Writers and Artists Wrestle with the Torah” (Workman), a handsomely packaged, eclectic volume in which contributors each reimagine one of the 54 sections of the Torah. The larger goal is encouraging others to do the same. “Unscrolled,” sagely edited by Bennett, has an insider’s cool, while its website offers interactive activities to a wide public.

At the Sept. 24 book launch, the overflow crowd at the Tribeca Film Center lent a hip, if somewhat incongruous, buzz to a reconsideration of archetypal themes. An open bar and dance party were punctuated by a panel discussion during which Bennett acknowledged that he had been expelled from Hebrew school and turned off by the Bible early on, seeming to assume that others had analogous memories. “So then, why are we still talking about it?” Bennett prodded his trend-conscious audience. (No one ventured a reply.)

With the latest findings of the Pew Research Center sounding an alarm about the increasing non-affiliation of “Millennials” (Jews who came of age around the year 2000) Reboot’s mission — encouraging this demographic to explore “theology, ritual, culture, values, philosophy without constraints” — is timely.

“Unscrolled” is user-friendly, color-coded, pleasing to thumb through and rewarding of closer reads. Each chapter is headlined with the phrases that inspired the contributor’s interpretation, followed by an editorially balanced synopsis of the biblical text. Bennett explains that, however unorthodox, contributors are doing “what Jews have always done,” that is, “making our own links” as we “confront the text and come to our own conclusions.”

Continue reading.

Glimpses of the 'Old' American Jewish West

Vignettes from the Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly

Published by the Southern California Jewish Historical Society

Collated by Jerry Klinger for The Jewish Magazine

 They sleep in the past, gentle forgetfulness, resting under stones gray.

Names recognized no more. Even gone are those who loved them once.

Yet, from distant yesterday, they shaped our today.
J. Rice

JEWISH DOGCATCHER, SAN FRANCISCO - 1887

You have never heard of a Jewish dogcatcher, have you? We have a Jew here whose name is Jake Lindo - no matter about his father being known as Leibush Labershinsky - who has the contract of taking in everything in sight, in the shape of canine corporosity, and he, the same Jake Lindo, is at the lead of the dispatching wagons, and his Spanish-Americans snake every dog they see, tag or no tag, and take it to the pound. Jake makes $500 a month by the operation. What his boss, blind Buckley, gets out of the racket is none of your business - certainly none of mine.

"The American Israelite," Cincinnati, Sept. 30, 1887. Jacob Lindo had been an auctioneer prior to his dog catching activities, his warehouse being at 609-611 California St., San Francisco. His brother Joseph, a horse-drawn hack operator lived at 636 Sacramento St. WSJH Jan 1985

A JEWISH ESKIMO IN THE MOVIES -1936

Unique among Hollywood's film folk is Mala, handsome screen star who has the leading role in MGM's "Last of the Pagans," which opened last night at the Filmarte Theatre. Mala is an Eskimo-Jew, son of a Jewish fur trader whose business earned him to the far north, where he fell in love with and married a beautiful Eskimo girl.

In "Last of the Pagans" he plays the role of a young Polynesian, who is betrayed by a white man and torn from his loved ones and his peaceful existence on an idyllic island in the South Pacific, to work in the phosphate mines in Pallia. Philip. Goldstone produced the picture, which was suggested by Herman Melville's novel Typee.

B'nai B'rith Messenger, Los Angeles, March 6, 1936. The Filmarte Theatre was at 1228 Vine Street, Hollywood.  WSJH April 1985

KILLED BY THE APACHES - 1886

Benson, Arizona Territory - M. Goldbaum, a merchant of this city, who left here two weeks ago to prospect in Whetstone Mountain, was found murdered by Apaches sixteen miles south of here yesterday.

The American Israelite, Cincinnati, June 11, 1886, Marcus Goldbaum had settled in Arizona in the mid-1850s. He 'had a son, Abraham, his nephew, David Goldbaum, was a longtime resident of Ensenada in Baja California, and from 1927-1930 served as Mayor of that city.

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Denmark Forced by History To Revisit Heroic Tale of Jewish Rescue From Nazis

Cracks Emerge in Baltic Nation's Feel-Good Holocaust Story

By Paul Berger for The Jewish Daily Forward

Few nations have been so lauded for their stance during the Holocaust as tiny Denmark.

As October approaches, marking the 70th anniversary of the rescue of Danish Jewry, numerous events in Denmark and overseas commemorate the mass effort in which hundreds, possibly thousands, of Danes helped smuggle almost the entire Danish-Jewish community to coastal towns and villages and then across the Øresund strait to Sweden.

Because of their effort almost all of Denmark’s approximately 8,000 Jews survived Nazi Germany’s occupation of their country.

But something has happened in recent years to Denmark’s rosy view of itself. During the past decade, Danes have learned about harsher, previously little known aspects of the Jewish rescue as the last generation of survivors have revealed their wartime experiences, many for the first time.

No one disputes the key historical truth: Thanks to the Danes’ mass rescue of most of the Jews as well as to the Danish government’s effort to monitor the almost 500 Danish Jews sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, only about 100 Danish Jews — about 1% of the country’s Jewish population — perished during World War II.

But the Danish Jews’ recently emerging tales of trauma, loss and despair have made for a more nuanced picture. Their stories have added to criticisms raised by historians, journalists and others about what has been largely, up to now, a simple, feel-good morality tale.

Some survivors believe that for the first time, the more difficult stories of the 5% of Danish Jews who were left behind in Denmark or sent to Theresienstadt have appeared from beneath the shadow of the rescue of the 95%.

“Maybe the story about the Danish people supporting the Jews to escape is a bigger story than the people who were deported to Theresienstadt,” said Steen Metz, whose father, Axel Mogens Metz, died in the camp. “But my feeling is that it has been underpublicized to a great extent.”

One of the most surprising of the newly emergent aspects of the Nazi occupation is the tale of the Jewish children who were left behind with Christian families in Denmark during the war’s last years.

Continue reading.