Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 10, 2022

(JTA) Last week, Israeli Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz responded to the draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, A womans rights over her own body are hers alone.

It might seem odd that the Israeli health minister was commenting on American abortion law, but his response, contained in a tweet, addresses a theme common to the abortion discussion in Israel and America that I research as an ethicist and scholar of reproduction among Jews.

In the 1970s, the Israeli Knesset debated the legalization of abortion. After several years of discussions, it ultimately passed a law that permitted abortion in certain circumstances: 1) If a woman is younger than 17 or older than 40; 2) when pregnancy results from rape, incest or extra-marital relations; 3) under the possibility that the baby will be born with a physical or mental deformity; and 4) when the continuation of the pregnancy could endanger a womans life or mental health. This law allows for certain abortions to be performed until the 39th week of pregnancy.

When I teach Americans about abortion law in Israel, they often express shock that Israel seems much more progressive than America. Thats because their frame of reference for religion and abortion is a particular strain of American anti-abortion Christianity. My students college-aged and adult, Jewish or not are surprised to see a country so strongly influenced by religion that is not opposed to abortion.

Yet in one important way the Israeli and American attitudes toward abortion are similar. They both reflect the fundamental assumption that abortion is wrong, and one must have a good enough reason to do something that is otherwise wrong. This is called the justification approach to abortion. Certain abortions are justified, while others are not. The justification approach to abortion also assumes that women were meant to be mothers. As a result, not wanting to be pregnant for nine months, give birth or raise a child are not considered good enough reasons to get an abortion.

In order to qualify for an abortion that is legal and paid for by the state, Israeli women have to sit in front of a committee and tell them why they are requesting an abortion. Although 98% of abortion requests are approved, the law reflects the belief that women cannot or should not make this decision on their own.

Consider the case of a pregnant 24-year-old married woman who is pregnant from consensual sex but does not want to be pregnant because of the potential harm to her career. Or a 35-year-old married haredi (ultra-Orthodox) woman who has eight children and who simply cannot care for one more. In Israel, both of these women must lie or otherwise mislead the committee to get their abortions.

Horowitz opposes these committees and has been advocating to get rid of them, at least through the first trimester. He says that women should not need to give any reason for their request, and that nobody should have to determine whether their request is valid.

While we dont have these committees in America, we have heard a lot this month about the legislation that many states have developed, each providing different circumstances under which they would permit abortion. Some say that abortions will only be permitted if the womans life is in danger. Others allow abortion after rape or incest. And of course ones ability to terminate a pregnancy is already limited by where one lives, how far along one is in pregnancy and the financial resources one has available.

Well-meaning Jewish groups often draw on rabbinic sources to claim that Judaism is supportive of abortion rights. Unfortunately here, too, we see the justification approach. Last week, in a statement, the Orthodox Union explained that it cannot support an absolute ban on abortion because Jewish law requires abortion when carrying the pregnancy to term poses real risk to the life of the mother. This popular argument is commonly also heard among more progressive Jewish groups.

But when you hear that Jewish law permits and sometimes requires abortion, you must also listen to the assumption underlying this statement: Women do not have the bodily autonomy to make that decision on their own. Jewish law must permit it and sometimes demands it, regardless of what a woman prefers. These statements, often used to express support for abortion rights, are ultimately stymied by the assumptions of rabbinic law, a system that does not support bodily autonomy or the ability to make decisions about ones own body.

The statement by the Orthodox Union goes even further. It also explicitly prohibits what the group and others call abortion on demand, or abortion because someone doesnt want to be pregnant.

By contrast, the Reform movements Religious Action Center bases its position on reproductive rights on the core belief that each person should have agency and autonomy over their own bodies. Other progressive Jewish groups, including the National Council of Jewish Women, have gone on record highlighting the value of bodilyautonomy over reproduction, but too few.Some non-Orthodox rabbis even expressly forbid it.

Unless you support a persons right to bodily autonomy, then you are supporting a system wherein someone else determines what you or anyone else can do with their bodies. It does not matter whether that person is a lawmaker, a judge, a contemporary rabbi or one from 2,000 years ago. It does not matter whether that person would permit most abortions or even require some.

Theres a temptation right now to say that restrictions on abortion rights in the United States violate the religious freedom of Jews. Thats true, to an extent. But a religious argument based on Jewish law and rabbinic texts only goes so far. Those of us who support reproductive health, rights and justice ought to be honest about the connection between that and our rabbinic tradition. I believe in the same bodily autonomy argument that Nitzan Horowitz makes. It may not be an argument rooted in Jewish law, but it is a Jewish argument and its time to make it.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

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Jewish tradition permits abortion. If you believe in bodily autonomy, thats not enough. - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on May 10, 2022

A new study shows that young women with a Jewish upbringing are 23 percentage points more likely to earn a bachelors degree than non-Jewish young women of similar socioeconomic status. Jewish women also attend more selective universities than women from other religions in the United States.

Published in the American Sociological Review, From Bat Mitzvah to the Bar: Religious Habitus, Self-Concept, and Womens Educational Outcomes also shows that girls with two Jewish parents have even higher educational attainment than do girls with one Jewish parent. In addition, Jewish girls do better academically than Jewish boys, with 81 percent of Jewish girls graduating from a four-year college, but only 61 percent of Jewish boys earning undergraduate degrees.

According to the study, these higher achievements by Jewish girls are explained by their articulation of self-concepts marked by elite career goals and an eagerness to have new experiences. Consequently, their quest for self-concept congruence entails elaborate plans for elite higher education and graduate school.

In other words, girls with Jewish parents think a lot about who they are and what they want to do. They set high professional goals for themselves and start planning early how they will achieve them, beginning with taking Advanced Placement classes and participating in extracurricular activities and internships in high school. Unlike other female adolescents who may view college as a means toward self-improvement, Jewish young women see it as a platform for creating human capital investment.

In a recent interview with The Times of Israel, the studys lead author Dr. Ilana M. Horwitz, assistant professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology and Fields-Rayant Chair in Contemporary Jewish Life at Tulane University, said that the studys results show the importance of religious culture when studying educational stratification.

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Sociological studies take into consideration race, class and gender when looking at education. I wanted to know how religion affects academic outcomes, Horwitz said.

Dr. Ilana M. Horwitz, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology and Fields-Rayant Chair in Contemporary Jewish Life, Tulane University (Avery White)

By religion, Horwitz did not mean religiosity or theology, but rather religious subculture, which is a combination of ideas, values, experiences, behaviors and symbols transmitted inter-generationally by members of a religious or ethno-religious group. These, in turn, are shaped by history, demography, and politics.

Saying that Jews just value education doesnt sit well with me. Lots of people value education, but it doesnt always happen for them, Horwitz said.

I am skeptical about the claim that educational achievement is something innate in Jews. This holding Jews up as a model minority just perpetuates tropes and stereotypes, Horwitz said.

Instead, she discusses in From Bat Mitzvah to the Bar how schooling, education and literacy have always been central to Jewish civilization from ancient through modern times. She highlights how for Eastern European Jewish immigrants to the US in the early 20th century, education was key to achieving social and economic mobility. She cites the statistic that by the end of World War I, Jews composed over half of all students in New York City public high schools and three-quarters of all students in the City College of New York.

There isnt a gene that makes young Jews motivated to learn and good at school. Rather, its the centrality of education to Jewish culture and the examples set by educationally and professionally successful parents, grandparents and other family members that lead Jewish teens to apply themselves to becoming similarly accomplished.

Dr. Sylvia Barack Fishman, Emerita Professor of Contemporary Jewish Life, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies,Brandeis University (Courtesy)

Its the overt and implicit messages about education that kids get at home, explained Dr. Sylvia Barack Fishman, emerita professor of Contemporary Jewish Life at Brandeis University, who has researched American Jewish women and education, but was not involved in this study.

From Bat Mitzvah to the Bar is a secondary analysis by Horwitz and colleagues from Stanford University and Cornell University of extensive data collected from a nationally representative 10-year study of 3,238 adolescents and some of their parents, called the National Study of Youth and Religion. This longitudinal study involved survey data collected in several waves, as well as data collected in interviews with adolescents and their parents. The study had a unique oversample of adolescents with Jewish parents. (It should be noted that the Jewish adolescents who participated in the NSYR were almost all from liberal streams of Judaism, and not from Orthodox homes. However, data from the 2014 Pew Research Centers study on religion in America indicates that Modern Orthodox Jews have similar educational attainment levels to more liberal Jews.)

Horwitz and her colleagues also linked the NSYR data to the National Student Clearinghouse to track the educational outcomes of the NSYR respondents for an additional three years. In addition, theyheld socio-economic status constant in their analysis something that the NSYR data did not.

This is a really important article. The methodology Dr. Horwitz and her team used is the gold standard, its exceptionally competent, Fishman noted.

Illustrative: Teens taking part in a summer BBYO leadership program. (Courtesy)

Longitudinal data is hard to come by, as is statistical data supplemented by qualitative research done by interviews, she said.

Horwitz explained that the NSYR data was invaluable, because it followed adolescents as they grew into adulthood over a decade.

All other studies done on Jews and higher educational attainment are retrospective. With the NSYR, we could see what plays into the teens aspirations, and whether the aspirations play out or not in the end, Horwitz said.

With the the vast majority of the Jewish girls surveyed coming from non-Orthodox homes, Horwitz emphasized the egalitarian nature of liberal Judaism and its contribution to the girls sense of self-confidence and ability to imagine themselves in high-level professional positions.

This is the first cohort in history in which Jewish women are outpacing Jewish men in educational attainment

She believes that this could play a significant role in the surprising finding that Jewish women are now outpacing Jewish men in educational attainment.

My analysis of the NSYR showed that this is the first cohort in history in which Jewish women are outpacing Jewish men in educational attainment. The rise of Jewish women reflects several factors, including a gender egalitarian upbringing where Jewish parents teach their sons and their daughters that they can have prominent careers. In earlier generations, women were more likely to see their primary roles as mothers, but attitudes of younger cohorts of Jewish women have changed significantly. It is also notable that rates of educational attainment among men in the 3049-year-old cohort are decreasing, though it is not clear why, Horwitz wrote.

Illustrative: Students walk by the Harvard Yard gate in Cambridge, MA, Sep. 16, 2021. (David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images/JTA)

All this success for young Jewish women does not come without concern. Putting oneself on the career first, motherhood second track can lead to infertility issues down the line. Horwitz also noticed a level of anxiety expressed in some interviews with young Jewish women.

There were questions about life satisfaction once the Jewish women reached their 20s. They asked themselves, Why am I doing all this again? and When does this race ever end? When do I start to feel satisfied?' Horwitz shared.

There were questions about life satisfaction once the Jewish women reached their 20s

Educational attainment doesnt always equal happiness and satisfaction, she said.

Horwitz and Fishman both emphasized the need for more sociological research taking religious culture into consideration.

Horwitz cited several reasons why sociologists are not looking at religious culture, including that to do so these days would appear to be not sufficiently woke.

Religious culture is not in vogue intellectually, because it looks at differences among people who are white, Fishman said.

But Jews dont fit into the colored/white binary. Dr. Horwitzs article looks at Jewish distinctiveness, and we need more such work that helps us understand what makes American Jews tick, Fishman said.

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Yentls revenge: Young American-Jewish women outperform all others academically - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on May 10, 2022

Jewish golfer and UC Berkeley graduate Max Homa won his fourth PGA Tour event Sunday, which moved him up to No. 29 in the world rankings his first time in the top 30 in his nine-year professional career.

The 31-year-old Burbank native won $1.62 million by shooting 8-under par, putting him two strokes ahead of a trio of golfers at 6-under and four shots ahead of four-time major champion Rory McIlroy, the seventh-ranked player in the world. Homa has now won two of the last three Wells Fargo Championships, which was played on a course outside of Washington, D.C. for the first time.

Though Homa attended six years of Hebrew school and had a bar mitzvah, he contends hes not religious. One of his tweets from 2018 read in part: The most Jewish Ive ever felt came after looking at a home with extravagant Christmas lights and immediately thinking that electric bill must be brutal.

At Cal, where he earned a degree in interdisciplinary studies, Homa became the only Golden Bear in history to place in the top 10 at both an NCAA championship and an NCAA regional in a single season. The apex of his college career was winning the individual title at the 2013 NCAA Championship, shooting 9-under par on a course in Atlanta.

Homa is among the worlds best Jewish golfers, along with 29-year-old Daniel Berger, currently ranked 23rd in the world and also a four-time PGA Tour winner (including the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 2021).

Homa, who attended Valencia High School north of Los Angeles, also has two wins on the PGA Tours developmental tour; his best finish in a major was in 2021, when he tied for 40th in The Open Championship (not to be confused with the U.S. Open, for which he has failed to make the cut in two tries).

Serious golf fans have known Homa primarily for his goofy tweets and funny, humble, self-deprecating personality; for a while, he co-hosted a podcast called Get a Grip. Nowadays, fans are probably more likely to view him as someone who can compete in the worlds biggest tournaments.

Of the upcoming PGA Championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma, starting May 19, Homa said in his victory press conference that he thinks he has a good chance to win if I keep playing like this.

Homas journey to the brink of stardom has not been easy. It took him six years to win his first PGA Tour tournament, and he has twice lost his PGA Tour card, which allows for automatic entrance into PGA Tour events.

I saw $18,000 in a year out here, he said at the press conference. I saw feeling very, very small, having literally no hope.

Homas win on Mothers Day was extra special because his wife, Lacey Croom, is pregnant with the couples first child, a baby boy. That, in addition to pocketing a $1.62 million check for the victory, led Homa to graciously reflect on his current state of affairs.

Sometimes my life feels too good to be true, he said.

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Jewish golfer Max Homa, Cal alum, enters top-30 after tourney win J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on May 10, 2022

With Philadelphias numerous organizations dedicated to championing the arts, one neednt look far to find an exhibit worth taking in. For patrons of the arts interested in art with a historic influence, look no further than InLiquids latest exhibit, What Are We Claiming. Its billed as an immersive experience utilizing physical archived artifacts as well as meta-physical archived memories to depict the ancestry of two very different lineages. The exhibit was created by Rod Jones II, a proud descendant of enslaved African-Americans and Cheryl Harper, the descendant of Jewish refugees fleeing WWII in Eastern Europe with shocking ties to slavery. Their connected exhibit takes a look at legacy, both known and yet to be discovered, and its showing at the InLiquid Gallery now through June 11.

This immersive exhibit uses an unbiased, and historical lens to divulge the truths of family history. While Jones and Harpers art styles differ completely, they each share complicated pasts that inform their work.

My mother was a first-generation immigrant, but she came with a lot of baggage. They were Holocaust victims that were left in Germany. So this was really a trauma that was handed down personally to me from my mother, Harper says.

Finding her calling in art school, her interest in the Holocaust and the lives of those living through it would go on to influence the majority of her work, Ive been working with the Holocaust as a theme since graduate school, but it didnt become really personal until this project. So I feel somewhat oppressed, through having this background. But then my husbands family, we found out had enslaved for over 150 years. And I thought this is just so ironic. Its such an American story that people wouldnt know that they had this in their family, Harper says.

Her work with historical artifacts examines both that of an oppressor and oppressed. Only part of the larger project, Jones work offers a counter perspective: instead of being keenly aware of your ancestry, what would happen if you had to envision both horror and beauty for yourself.

When I was presented with the opportunity to work with Cheryl, I was like, Oh, this is a perfect opportunity to parse out my feelings about the archive. Having these items that can be traced back to historically specific moments and to certain regions, and its very place-specific, I dont have that relationship with familial heirlooms or things that have been passed down. I cant identify specific spaces or times or moments in history. Not in this in this categorical way. I dont have tangible things that we can go back and grab. But the archive that I pull from is intangible. Its stories. Its songs. Its mythologies that I have within myself and I hear from my friends. Its material that I choose to work with within my practice, be it beads, paper, wire, or braiding hair, Jones says.

Using non-linear forms of archival artifacts, Jones re-imagines his history through lore created through Black communal and personal experiences. That was the thing that I was excited about. Us approaching the archive from completely different ends of the spectrum. I was curious about the dialogue that could happen with our work being in the same space.

This though-provoking exhibit hope to generate conversation about our individual past as well as how it all comes together throughout history. InLiquids founder Rachel Zimmeran delights in getting to bring rich stories and work to their gallery, hoping to refresh audiences pallets with exciting and unique work.

When you make that connection, whether its in the gallery space between two artists, and a show comes together beautifully, theres something incredibly fulfilling about that. Its really about that connectedness, creating meaning and fulfilling something. It is very gratifying when you curate a space, and it just works, she said.

For more information on What Are We Claiming or InLiquid, visit inliquid.org

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'What Are We Claiming' compares the Jewish and Black experiences - The Philadelphia Tribune

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Posted By admin on May 10, 2022

Adrienne Warren and Joshua Henry, who announced the Tony nominees May 9. Photo by Jenny Anderson/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions

By PJ GrisarMay 09, 2022

The nominations for the 75th annual Tony Awards are giving us Jewish bankers. Theyre giving us SNL alums. Theyre giving us Billy Crystal, Paula Vogel and Bob Dylan but not Beanie Feldstein or Fanny Brice.

In a season packed with what feels like an above-average quotient of revivals, the nominees include a mix of fresh and familiar faces. Tony winner Sam Mendes was nominated for his direction of The Lehman Trilogy, about the Jewish banking dynasty; its also up for Best Play and Best Actor for Simon Russell Beale, Adrian Lester and Adam Godley (the last a Nice Jewish Boy from Hertfordshire, who also starred in Mendes 1993 revival of Cabaret.)

While Lehman Trilogy was written by a non-Jewish Italian, it was probably the only nominated show for which a rabbi instructed the cast in how to deliver the Mourners Kaddish. The play is one of the most Jew-y shows on the ballot, with the much-hyped revival of Funny Girl starring Feldstein shut out of every major category. Despite bad reviews, it still comes as something of a shock.

Of course that doesnt mean there isnt a glut of Jewish creators. Billy Crystal is nominated for his lead role in Mr. Saturday Night, and also for co-writing the book adapted from his 1992 film with original scribes Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz. Shoshana Bean is up for Best Actress for her role and Last Five Years maestro Jason Robert Brown is up for his music.

Girl from the North Country, featuring the music of Bob Dylan and pretty much no Yiddishkeit whatsoever, is up for a clutch of awards including Best Musical. Jewish playwright Craig Lucas, along with his collaborators Larry Kirwin and Christina Anderson, is nominated for the book of Paradise Square and Michael Korie, who just debuted an operatic adaptation of the Garden of the Finzi-Continis featuring Hebrew liturgy, got a nod for his lyrics for Flying Over Sunset, about a bunch of notable WASPs trying LSD.

The revival of Tony Kushners Caroline, Or Change, about a white Jewish family and their Black Christian housekeeper, is nominated for Best Revival, Costume Design and Actress in a leading role for Sharon D. Clarke. But elsewhere in the deja vu (read: revival) category, the creatives werent so preoccupied with Jewish themes.

Paula Vogels How I Learned to Drive, given new life with its original cast and director, is Jewish insomuch as it is an unflinching interrogation of a difficult subject.

In January Vogel told the Forwards Mervyn Rothstein that her Jewish father instilled in her the notion that if something is troubling us we need to examine it, we need to talk about it, we need to look at what our values are. And then we need to take action. Along those lines, Vogel called her new production nominated for Best Revival, Actress for Mary Louise-Parker and Actor for David Morse a reexamination.

Also nominated for Best Revival, Richard Greenbergs Take Me Out, about a gay baseball player, is a bit far afield from Jewish content (recall from Falsettos the Jewish boys who cant play baseball) but told Rothstein that the play remains relevant.

When we first did the play I thought wed better do it quickly because there will undoubtedly be an active Major League Baseball player who comes out any minute now, Greenberg said. And that still hasnt happened. And the sort of fascistic trend in this country was not something I was expecting back then. And the kind of astonishing bald-faced racism.

David Mamet, who recently made headlines for saying teachers are inclined to pedophilia, has a welcome distraction for his Google hits, with the revival of his play American Buffalo up for Best Revival, Direction for Neil Pepe and actor for Sam Rockwell. In a recent takedown of Mamets new book, Jackson Arn praised the drama about Chicago junk shop employees trying to steal a valuable coin as a scabrous portrait of small-time capitalism that even Trotsky might have clapped for. Arn also likened Mamet to Kanye West. Lets hope if hes in attendance he doesnt rush the stage a la Yeezy.

Sure to be there in spirit if not in person is the late Stephen Sondheim, whose gender-swapped Company revival is nominated for Best Revival, Director for Marianne Elliot and in featured performer categories. (Katrina Lenk, who plays this productions re-imagined Bobbie, was snubbed.) We can expect a fitting, star-studded tribute to Sondheim on the June 12 telecast.

Perhaps that tribute will include one Rachel Dratch, nominated for Featured Actress for her Broadway debut in the play POTUS. If ever there were a moment for Debbie Downer, it would surely be a Sondheim requiem.

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The Tony 2022 nominees rain on Beanie Feldstein's parade - but give us a parade of many Jewish faces - Forward

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MaryKathryn Kopp, Hannah Mae Sturges, Hallie Griffin and Kaitlin Paige Longoria in "H*tler's Tasters." Photo by Zach Griffin

Sitting idly at the table and waiting to see if theyve been poisoned, the three girls try to convince themselves that their job tasting each of Adolf Hitlers meals for poison is not a punishment but a privilege.

The Fhrer said he wanted girls of good German stock, and of all the girls that are left, he chose us! says Hilda, the most fervent patriot in H*tlers Tasters, a play currently running at Theatre Row. Think about it. We could all get pretty medals!

But no matter how Hilda (MaryKathryn Kopp) tries to spin it, the girls circumstances are pretty grim. At the Wolfs Lair, Hitlers military headquarters, the girls are consigned to a small cell and treated more or less like prisoners. The SS guards they lust after manhandle and mistreat them. And though they risk their lives three times a day, theyre not even getting any meat the Fhrer is a vegetarian.

A product of the New Light Theater Project, H*tlers Tasters is loosely inspired by the revelations of real-life taster Margot Wlk. Playwright Michelle Kholos Brooks uses Wlks story as a springboard for a dark comedy that thrives on the queasy contrast between the girls quotidian, even silly concerns and the murderous regime in which theyre participating.

Over and over, the show confronts its audience with jokes we feel guilty for enjoying: when Hilda taunts another taster by saying she looks like a Jew, a deliberately slapstick catfight and reconciliation ensues, eliciting guffaws in the theater. (Laughter at this kind of humor may be, as some have noted, the easiest way of discerning the audience is full of Jews.) Midway through the play, a new taster named Margot (Hannah Mae Sturges) mesmerizes the other girls with a sumptuous red coat that her father found in the woods. When she twirls to display it, the audience can see the grubby six-pointed outline of a Juden badge that was obviously torn off. (More laughs.)

At times, the show overplays its hand, especially with its numerous comparisons between Hitler and todays authoritarian leaders. At one point, Hilda brags that Hitler will make Germany great again. Later, in a line that comments on Russias invasion of Ukraine, Margot imagines that Hitler might come to visit the tasters on a beautiful horse and without his shirt. Intended to highlight the Holocausts modern relevance, these lines end up flattening the very tangible differences between the Third Reich and the threats we face today.

Ultimately, H*tlers Tasters is most interesting when it asks how much these indoctrinated, frightened teenagers are responsible for their actions and beliefs. I initially interpreted their blithe bigotry as a critique of their complicity. But Kholos Brooks, a former radio journalist who has been staging plays since 2004, told me she saw the tasters as victims. It doesnt matter how privileged you are, she said. If you align yourself with a tyrant, eventually, hes going to turn on you.

I spoke by phone with Kholos Brooks about the stories that inspire her, historical anachronisms and unexpectedly the 1989 cult movie Heathers. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Youve written plays on a lot of different subjects, from the Iranian hostage crisis to modern dating. What kinds of stories speak to you as a playwright?

I seem to be moved towards stories about ordinary people having to survive enormous geopolitical events especially women who are thrown into a world thats so much bigger than them. I get to make sense of it, and I get to do it through individuals. Its harder for me to look at a big event, like war, and make sense of it. But if I can connect to an individual, then I can. And I get a little nerdy about research, so its fun for me to go down the rabbit hole and see what I connect to.

What kind of research did you do for H*tlers Tasters?

In 2012 a woman named Margot Wlk, at 95 years old, came out with the story that she had been one of Hitlers tasters. There were a number of articles that interviewed her, but there wasnt a whole lot else. So I certainly had lots of reference books about WWII. And my husband was super excited I wanted to watch WWII movies. And, actually, you know what I did? I went back and watched Heathers.

Thats funny, because I felt a strong Heathers vibe when I saw the play.

Its been a few years since I was that age, so I wanted to go back and revisit all the fun of being that age. This is the fun thing about being a playwright I can find a story that really hits me, in a deep emotional place, and then use my imagination and filter it through my own heart.

What did you see in Heathers that spoke to you?

The movie is a wonderful dark comedy. And I understood that this play was also going to be a dark comedy. How could it not? You put young women in a room together, in a pressurized situation. And they have nothing but each other to distract them. So its bound to get a little ugly. I also had to think about the things that girls do to distract themselves when theyre bored and on top of being bored, theyre trying to forget that they could die after every meal. It just seemed inherently right for comedy and drama.

Embedded in this play are jokes comparing Hitler to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. What did you want to accomplish with these modern allusions?

We have so little opportunity to do anything when we see things that are appalling to us. Me, as an individual, theres not much I can do about Putin you know, I can post stuff on Facebook. But as an artist, sometimes you can just yell about something and make a point. For me and for the entire team, it was an opportunity to show solidarity with the people we cared for.

One historical liberty you took in imagining these girls lives is giving them cell phones theres a lot of selfie-taking in this play. How did you make that decision?

I didnt imagine it right away. But then I was somewhere in public, and there was a group of young women in search of the perfect selfie. They were all posing together, they were all in bathing suits, they never seemed satisfied. And I thought, theyre all so beautiful. What are they not finding? I was thinking about the way that young women scrutinize themselves, and then it just hit me, that these are the same girls that would have been taken by this job.

I didnt want these girls to feel like sepia people in history. I wanted them to feel resonant and relatable. I wanted us to be able to see our daughters, our sisters, our nieces, our kids in these girls especially young people, for whom WWII and the Holocaust are in the rear view.

Youre talking about the girls as victims of this system, which they are. Yet theyre also loyal devotees of the Third Reich; theyre saying really ugly stuff throughout the play. How much do you want us to identify with them, and how much do you want us to see them as complicit?

At the risk of sounding glib, I feel like its up to you. As a playwright, I dont write any character unless I feel some compassion for them. And I dont mean that I forgive, I dont forget, but you have to understand how people get to where they are.

These women were indoctrinated. They saw Hitler as a father figure. And if this is what theyre raised on, this is what their parents are raising them on, I dont think they can make that separation. Whats happening in the play is theyre starting to question some things. There are some cracks in the bedrock of their childhood.

People often tell me they want the girls to be OK. They dont want them to die from poison. And I love that, because in the world right now things are so polarized, and everything is so black and white. The girls live in a gray space. It can be an uncomfortable place to be, but if youre game I think it can spark a lot of interesting conversation.

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Why this Jewish playwright wants you to sympathize with the teens of the Third Reich - Forward

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Mannys Delicatessen in Chicago, 2010.

The kitchen and dining room at home, along with restaurants, have traditionally been some of the most important gathering places to be with the people we love and those who have similar backgrounds and traditions. The Jewish deli is an example that fits neatly into that category as well a spot for generations to absorb the tastes and aromas of a shared heritage.

An ongoing exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles is exploring some of that history and its ongoing impact. Its called,Ill Have What Shes Having: The Jewish Deli.

Laura Mart is one of the exhibitions curators. The Show spoke with her and began the conversation by asking her how much the deli experience was about food, and how much was about finding a safe place.

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'I'll Have What She's Having': Exhibition explores how Jewish delis became community icons - KJZZ

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Posted By admin on May 10, 2022

If elected, Brog would increase the Republican Partys Jewish representation. There are currently only two Jewish members in the Republican caucus, Lee Zeldin from New York and David Kustoff from Tennessee. Zeldin is retiring from Congress and running as the Republican candidate for governor of New York. Max Miller, a former Trump White House aide, won the GOP primary in Ohios 7th District last week. Brogs goal is to form a group of Jewish House members to fight back against the rise in antisemitism and work together on issues of mutual interest.

Brog was born and raised in Margate City, outside of Atlantic City in New Jersey, to secular parents. His father, Eugene, went to Temple Beth El synagogue only twice a year on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Eugenes parents were immigrants from Poland and Lithuania, who lost family members in the Holocaust. That trauma made Eugene lose some faith, yet he instilled in his children the pride of being Jewish.

Brog is a little more observant. He doesnt work on Saturday to mark Shabbat as a day of rest, a commitment he is keeping during this campaign. He occasionally goes to the local Orthodox synagogues, Young Israel Aish HaTorah and Chabad. I feel like Im carrying on my dads search and trying to succeed in the mission he gave me of connecting with my faith, being a Jew who practices and takes his faith seriously, he said.

After graduating from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was classmates with former President Barack Obama and Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, Brog spent a few years in Israel working for a law firm Meitar, Littman Nechmad (now Meitar, Liquornik, Geva & Leshem) which specializes in commercial law and hi-tech.

Brog discovered that he was a third cousin of Ehud Barak, the former prime minister of Israel, in the late 1990s. The two shared a great grandfather, Simon. Brog had already admired Barak, who was Labor leader at the time, a distinguished soldier in Israels history and an advocate for peace in the Middle East. Barak changed his surname from Brog to Barak in 1972, using the Hebrew word for lightning.

The two first met when Barak visited the U.S. as prime minister in July of 1999 and met with a group of Jewish members of Congress and their staffers. As Barak was greeting everyone, Brog introduced himself as his cousin. Barak put his arms around me, points at me and just says to nobody in particular, This is my cousin, my cousin, Brog recalled. Brog has stayed in touch with his family in Israel, including Baraks brother Avinoam, who still carries the surname Brog.

Brog began studying Zionism as a student at Atlantic City High School after reading the book, The Revolt, by Menachem Begin, who was the leader of Irgun, the Zionist paramilitary group, and later became Israels sixth prime minister, that he found in his schools library after searching for an autobiography of former President John F. Kennedy for an assignment. That really impacted me and turned me into a Zionist, he said.

After serving as policy director during Specters short presidential campaign in 1996, as well as the senators chief counsel and chief of staff, Brog wrote a book Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support Israel, which was based on his experience traveling through central Pennsylvania and meeting evangelical Christians. In the process of writing the book, Brog visited pro-Israel churches across the country and listened to a series of speeches given by Pastor John Hagee, a televangelist and founder of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas.

Brog became friends with Hagee, who asked for his help in launching CUFI. Brog saw it as an opportunity to change the way Israel was being perceived in Congress as merely a Jewish issue and broaden the base of support for Israel.

At the time, the Republican Party was at a crossroads, with Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul, isolationists on foreign policy, attracting a lot of conservative support that could have influenced the partys stance on Israel. Brog and Hagee saw it as their mission to strengthen evangelical support for Israel as a way of winning conservatives for at least a generation. CUFI now has over 10 million members and has lobbied successfully for pro-Israel legislation, including the passage of the Taylor Force Act, which cuts U.S. funding to the Palestinians as long as the Palestinian Authority pays subsidies to the families of terrorists.

In July 2015, Brog left CUFI and was tapped to head a new group called the Maccabee Task Force, an initiative launched by the lateSheldon Adelsonand Israeli-American media magnate Haim Saban, to combat antisemitism on college campuses. Brog said Adelson was determined to provide students with the support and resources they need to fight antisemitism and took it on as a personal project.

Brog is still serving as chief executive of the Maccabee Task Force, with the blessing of Dr. Miriam Adelson, and said he will take a leave of absence if he wins the primaries and the campaign heats up.

Brog said that he brings a lifetime of dedication and a depth of knowledge to lead on pro-Israel causes. I dont just want to be a friend of Israel, he said. I want to be a leader on Israel and a champion of Israel.

He said both parties lack people who understand the issues sufficiently and have the ability to get into the details of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so that they can push back against anti-Israel statements and organize their caucuses to defend Israel when needed. We have to be very quick to reach out and broaden our coalition to all people of goodwill who love Israel and hate antisemitism, he said.

He eyes Ritchie Torres, a first-term progressive congressman from New York whohas become a leading voice on Israel, as a potential friend in Congress.

David Krone, head of global public policy for Apollo, said he found Brog as a key ally in an attempt to convince House Republicans to support legislation known as the Antisemitism Awareness Act that the Senate passed in 2016. The bill was blocked in the House by former Rep. Bob Goodlatte, then the House Judiciary chair. Brog introduced Krone to CUFI leadership whocame on board in support of the legislationthat later becamethe federal International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definitionto combat antisemitism on campuses.

Krone described Brog as a thoughtful conservative who will sit and talk to people and listen to them. He said its a qualification that one cant ask for more than that and its what is missing in America.

Brog said hes not actively seeking Trumps endorsement in the primary, but would welcome it if given. He said he supports Trumps policies and credits him for bringing the Republican party in the direction he wanted to see it, standing up for the working class. But Brog made it clear that he hasa very different personality than Trump. Im more of a consensus builder and Im not fond of attacking people, he said.

Brog said he told his wife he wants to be a congressman, but I dont want it badly enough to compromise my family, my faith or my integrity.

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David Brog, Jewish former head of CUFI, running for Congress J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on May 10, 2022

On Yom HaShoah, I was talking to someone at JW3 about Corrie ten Boom, the incredible Dutch woman who saved hundreds of Jews lives in the Shoah, and was later honoured by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

I mentioned her famous response to being asked why as a Christian she risked her life to save Jews: You cant love God without loving the Jewish People. And I quipped, as I have often done in the past, that whilst I absolutely love the Jewish People, truth is, as a Jewish communal professional, its not always as easy to love all Jewish people.

Raymond Simonson putting up a welcoming sign onto the door of JW3 (Credit: Blake Ezra)

My phone didnt stop pinging with messages from friends and colleagues across the community sharing the tragic news of the untimely death of a really outstanding Jewish communal professional, Leonie Lewis zl.

Leonie was someone who epitomised ten Booms belief, and who loved the Jewish People, and Jewish people. She took joy and energy from people and from community, and she served the community with such devotion that can only come from real love.

We learn in Parasha Vayekhel that when the Children of Israel collectively built the Mishkan the holy dwelling place of God they did you with nedivut lev generosity of heart and nesiut lev because their hearts stirred them to do so. In all the years I knew Leonie and watched her build community, I believe she did so with absolute nedivut lev and nesiut lev.

I remember clearly over 15 years ago when she invited me to give a key note at a JVN conference she was running, that I used the full text from that parasha, focusing on the idea of how Jewish community can only be built by a critical mass of people volunteers and professionals working together, stirred by the generosity of their hearts.

After the talk Leonie made a beeline for me and was, as ever, extraordinarily generous in her praise and feedback. And I remember saying to her that it was in fact she herself who had inspired my talk as she was the living embodiment of this concept.

Leonies passing is a devastating loss to the community. She was a dedicated, passionate, hard-working leader, completely committed to community, and in my experience, extremely humble and unassuming. More than that, she was one of the loveliest, friendliest communal leaders you could ever hope to meet and serve alongside. Ive known her for pretty much my whole professional career, over at least 25 years, and I had the honour to sit on various committees and panels with her over that time.

She was always one of my champions over my career, so supportive to me (and about me, behind my back as I discovered a number of times after the event). And every single time I saw her, no matter what was going on, she would great me with open arms and that huge beaming smile of hers, and say how good it was to see me, and ask how my children were and how I was and I always knew she actually wanted to know, and that she cared about the answer.

Like a few other great women in our community who have died before their time due to illness in recent years, there may only have been a small percentage of the wider community who actually knew her name or had dealings with her, but believe me when I say that everyone who worked with her, knew or had any encounters with Leonie will, like with those over phenomenal women, be mourning her deeply. And that whether you ever met or had never even heard of Leonie Lewis, you will have almost definitely, one way or another, have been impacted directly or indirectly by her generosity of heart, her leadership and her contribution to the building of community life.

May her name and her memory and her legacy be forever a blessing.

Baruch Dayan Haemet.

Raymond is CEO of London Jewish community centre JW3

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A mensch stirred by the generosity of her heart - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on May 10, 2022

It was one of the more spectacular TV flops of the 21st century. Late in the second term of President George W. Bush, in 2007, Fox News decided that it had the right-wing alternative to Comedy Centrals popular and influential The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The 1/2 Hour News Hour would puncture liberal pieties and media bias in the fashion that Stewart and his cast of fake correspondents fired barbs at conservatives and right-wing media like Fox News. The show tankedhardmore or less after the pilot aired in February 2007. And with its failure, modern progressives (and future leftists) had all the evidence they needed: Conservatives werent funny.

For the last 15 years, that takefrequently informed by one failed late-night showhas stuck among anyone who isnt a conservative. But all the while, right wingers were making comedyand succeeding. Some of it flew under the radar in subterranean clubs and YouTube channels, but there were also the popular sitcoms of Tim Allen and Kevin James, the shows of Dennis Miller, the owning the libs content populating your dads Facebook feed from Ben Shapiro and The Daily Wire, and most notably, the rise of Joe Rogan.

While liberals lost their way doing Orange Man Bad comedy during the Trump administration, a new ecosystem emerged of right-wing comedianson podcasts, YouTube, and, yes, Fox Newsthats been growing increasingly popular for their transgressive (and anti-trans) humor. Matt Sienkiewicz and Nick Marx, media studies professors at Boston College and Colorado State University, respectively, spent untold hours consuming right-wing comedy to produce their new book, Thats Not Funny: How the Right Makes Comedy Work for Them, which was published earlier in May. The two came back from their deep dive into the right-wing comedy swamps with a deft understanding of what its inhabitants are doing, why its working, and why anyone whos not immersed in this world might not get it. As someone with my own perverse fascination with right-wing media, I interviewed Sienkiewicz and Marx via phone as well as email to explore the themes of their book and why its essential for understanding at least one aspect of todays culture war. What follows is an edited version of our conversation.

What initially pulled your attention toward this topic of right-wing comedy?

Nick Marx: From the moment [Matt and I] met, we shared an interest in studying comedy and its political import. Over the last two decades, we noticed this tendency to stay in the lane of celebrating liberal satirists, your Jon Stewarts and Steven Colberts and Samantha Bees. But really, since Trump age, we noticed something else happening. It wasnt just those late-night satirists who were using comedy, but the Greg Gutfelds and Joe Rogans and Steven Crowders of the world. We noticed it and took it seriously before anybody else was able or willing to, partially because liberals have been so tunnel-visioned into believing this is ours. Comedy is comedy if it serves politically liberal ends. If it doesnt do that, its something else. Its outrage programming.

Matt Sienkiewicz: We have a section of the book looking at this Daily Show interview clip where the cast is asked what a right-wing version of their show would look like. They sort of sit there dumbly, like theyve been asked some impossible puzzle. Eventually they get to saying, Oh, theres this guy, Greg Gutfeld, weve heard of him. Lo and behold, hes beating them in the ratings shortly after they say this. That was where I [became] convinced that this is really something that should be addressed, [if] the people who are in that world dont even seem to see this thing thats so adjacent to them.

How did you go about doing the research? How much of this stuff did you have to watch?

Marx: Once we latched onto a half-dozen key personalities that form the core cases of the book, we spent basically the pandemic consuming anything and everything we could. If you can imagine our mindset for 2020 and early 2021, its not only listening to Legion of Skanks podcast and some pretty adjacently nasty stuff, but were also dealing with all of that. [We were] routinely watching Greg Gutfelds show, every new episode of Joe Rogan, the sitcom Last Man Standing. It also involved reaching out to many of these folks, seeing if theyd talk to us about their process and really taking them seriously as creative in an industry that generally doesnt have space for them.

Sienkiewicz: I would add the dark underbelly of, of that: I listened toI didnt count, but well, over 100 hours of The Daily Shoah, for example.

Wow. After all the research you did, you have just such a better understanding of the texture of these shows and podcasts, more so than the people who dismiss them out of hand, only knowing one or two viral clips. Do you think that people who do dismiss these shows when they characterize them with one sentence, do they have a point? Do you think the general characterization of what these shows are like is at least somewhat accurate?

Sienkiewicz: Its always hard to sum up any sort of long-running thing with a tagline, from an aesthetic level, what people enjoy and what they think is funny. I think the thing that is probably missed most is the way in which each of these different spaces create comedic communities within jokes and a sense of togetherness. That sounds romantic; its not meant to be. There are certain examples where some of the ones we find more palatable, they create joke systems and ways of humor that once you get into it, it can be nice. But then alsoThe Daily Shoah does thiswith these elaborate in-jokes and ideas. Its hard to miss what the headline is for The Daily Shoah. Thats obvious. Legion of Skanks, its pretty obvious the misogyny in the title, and if you listen to it, you hear what you hear. That stuffs probably characterized correctly.

The problem, or the difference, is that the way that this is actually layered and produced over time with jokes thatIm not gonna say that theyre sort of carefully crafted, so much as theyre just built over time to make people feel like theyre part of something. When theyre listening to these and being involved and then theres the way that they connect to the other spaces in the right-wing world. Thats the thing that you really get from listening to it. That doesnt change any of the moral or ethical elements. But if you listen to it and understand the way that they develop things, you get a better sense of why somebody who doesnt see themselves necessarily as being in some horrific space on a moral level could feel part of these communities.

Talk to me about arriving at your five main categories of right-wing comedy. Did these patterns jump out at you early on?

Marx: We started with a focus on what is going to be the most known to non-conservative readers of the book: Fox News. We use the metaphor of a shopping complex to describe the interconnectedness of these different forms of right-wing comedy. Think about Fox News as the Target or Walmart, where everybody can find something if youre a conservative political junkie. From there, youre introduced to other brands of right-wing comedy, like Gavin McInniss form of trolling and his alt-right and white supremacist-adjacent comedy. The other forms, we just tried to think of the most prominent spaces representing conservative worldviews in comedy. Tim Allen and Dennis Miller had been around for a really long time. We talk about them as resuscitating a form of paleo-conservatism through comedy. The lib-owning comedy of Steven Crowder and Ben Shapiro shows up as a separate case study, because its grounded in religious-first principles.

Joe Rogan is very top of mind for a lot of folks because he attracts such a powerful and large following, at least compared to other podcasters, even though his politics are a little bit muddled. Then that world, especially of libertarian comedians, very much plays footsie with some of the more nefarious voices that Matt described, in the form of The Daily Shoah, Michael Malice, and Gavin McInnis. They hang out with Nazis and associate with at least Nazi-adjacent voices. That form of trolling can be described as the depths of this world of right-wing comedy, the lowest of the low.

Is the bigger threat of Joe Rogan that regular listeners will come to wholly adopt his quasi-libertarian ideology, or that they will be sent scuttling down any number of dark rabbit holes filled with even worse opinions and ideologies where some of his guests live?

Sienkiewicz: From a moral standpoint, its the latter. From a political-strategic standpoint, the former. Rogan clearly has the power to speak toand mobilizea voter base that tends not to be highly engaged in mainstream electoral politics and thus can have an impact.

You write a lot about the digital ecosystem of comedy on the right, these connected systems and pathways. Are some of the connections that it produces surprising?

Marx: Matt and I always like to share how easy it was for us to literally just Google two seemingly disparate names like [Tim] Allen or Gavin McInnis or something, and they will have appeared together on a talk show. It literally became a game of just entering in two disparate names, and the algorithm will push them together, or they will have conversed with one another on Twitter, or they wouldve appeared on one anothers podcast. That happened to us way more times than we could count.

Lots of people on the left say that conservatives only have one joke. You mentioned it in the Babylon Bee chapter, the viral post about the motorcyclist who identifies as a bicyclist; the idea that people can identify as whatever they want and that pronouns and other gender-based words have an Orwellian effect on language. Why do you think these seem to be such rich veins to mine in that world? They just keep coming up over and over again, and almost every time its as if the joke had never been made before.

Marx: It is the sort of button to push, toforgive the word usageto trigger a response from the liberal commentariat online. The reason they keep going back to that well is because they know it gets retweets and engagement on Twitter and Facebook. Theres some truth to what you point out that it is kind of their only joke, and its sort of lazy, and they dont have many other avenues to go on. At least subconsciously I see it as a bit of an economic ploy. Having said that, I dont think thats the only thing many of the folks in our book are capable of joking about, especially in the case of more liminal figures like Andrew Heaton or even Greg Gutfeld. Theres a real sort of formal adventurousness to their comedy that isnt always directed at liberals, but can be, and sometimes is a poke at folks on the right, and the sort of discourse or language play that can happen on that side of the political spectrum, too.

Sienkiewicz: All [liberal social media spaces] see from the Babylon Bee are these transgender jokes. But theres a whole website there, which does a lot of different things that are not gonna make it [to liberals]. Like when they make fun of Joel Osteen, the mega preacher, which they do incessantly. Im not an evangelical Christian, so I try to be humble, but it seems like its sharp satire. Thats just not gonna make it to your Facebook feed. Youre not somebody who cares about making fun of Joel Osteens yachts, or whatever theyre doing, with some reference to New Testament scripture.

Babylon Bee went through a semi-scandal recently, tweeting an anti-trans joke and refusing to take it down . . . .

Sienkiewicz: The man of the year joke. [The joke is about Rachel Levine, the transgender person who serves as assistant secretary of health in the Biden administration.]

Is that different from something like the CNN spin joke? [Babylon Bee posited that CNN runs all of its news through an industrial washing machine to spin it, which Facebook then flagged to limit its reach.]

Sienkiewicz: It is, because the accusations different, right? So the CNN spin joke, the accusation is misinformation because otherwise its hard to find the offense. It has to be, you cant put fake stories on Facebook, whereas this is about the offense of misgendering. Previous moments, where people have overreacted to stories like the CNN spinning story, give a sense that theres something more going on than in the case of the man of the year joke. But they wanna push that button. They know that that button gets them clicks, so slightly different, but they get to sweep it up into their weird, being-oppressed kind of narrative.

Its a twofer. They get the attention for the joke, and then they get the cancel culture thing, too. Speaking of cancel culture, is the environment were in leading ostensibly left-leaning comedy fans to the other side? Or were some of those fans maybe not-so-left-leaning to begin with?

Marx: Part of the broader argument we make in the book, which we presume is going to be a largely liberal audience, is a warning, saying, Hey, look over here, take this seriously. Its also a call to arms, to fortify our own comedic weaponry and not forget that, Hey, we owned this space. We have owned this space for the better part of several decades. Lets not get so caught up in intramural disputes about what is and isnt okay to joke about on the left that we start ceding ideological territory to the right. So it is, in part, a request to our liberal brethren not to get overly censorious or consumed with what we as a political body should be and should not be joking about, because theyre doing whatever the hell they want on the right. And I think they are winning over increasingly right-curious young men, especially.

Sienkiewicz: I grew up with a sense that young people tend to be liberal, and thats how comedys liberal. That is false. As people are acculturated into this new media environment as they come of majority [age] and become voters and engage to whatever extent they are politically, the appeal of real free spiritedness on the right can be an appeal to younger voters.

Marx: Risk-taking and adventurousness, right? We exhort liberals not to lose that spirit of risk-taking because we see it pretty vibrantly on the right, for betteror worse.

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Why you need to take right-wing comedy seriously - Fast Company

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