What Gabriel Garcia Marquez Taught Me

Budding Jewish Novelist Learned of Romance and Term Papers

GETTY IMAGES

The Master: Gabriel Garcia Marquez died at the age of 87.

By Boris Fishman

It is a well-known fact that young men under 18 embrace literature primarily to impress the girls they are trying to seduce. You had to congratulate my ambition: A Soviet-Jewish immigrant kid with funny hair and funnier clothes after an American-born, Catholic, Colombian beauty whom I’ll call C. But I had a secret weapon: the work of her countryman Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who died yesterday (on this earth, at least) at 87. That I would try to seduce this ethereal creature was as fantastical a proposition as any of the things that went on in the novels of the great Gabo, where blood ran from a battlefield to the doorstep of the home of the slain, women ate dirt in despair, and lovers reunited after 50 years of forced separation. But a Russian Jew, even at 15, knows how to hustle. A Russian Jew brings friends to a fight.

Gabo — and C — were everything that my life in northern New Jersey was not. I had emigrated at nine from a country of voluble, undiplomatic, and boundary-invading kitchen talk (so unlike the grayness usually associated with the USSR) to a country of greater civility but less self-revelation and candor. My family still talked loudly and over-intimately in America, only now this was severely out of place and looked at askance. But that disposition was native once again between the covers of a Marquez novel. There — and in C’s family kitchen — the blood ran quick in the way that I remembered from home, and as a promise that such a life could be found again. Add to this that, in emigrating, I had suddenly passed from a sheltered childhood to a radically unfamiliar place where I was made responsible for the well-being of adults twice and three times my age because I had learned English the fastest. You could not have met a more stressed, terrified, humorless teenager. You can imagine why I lost hours with Marquez’s books.

Northern New Jersey may have been the least romantic place in the world, but Gabo made it bloom for me and C. We read his books one after the other, each of us underlining what moved us, making comments to each other in the margins. Because of our different religions, our families did not like us together, and because we were kids, that was all the reason we needed to think we should be together forever. Gabo quickened our sense of ourselves as doomed lovers. Let this be the first and last place where I reveal that my ultimate seduction was inspired by a scene in “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” (It involved fluttering rose petals and four adults waiting out the night in the parking lot of a Shop Rite. But that’s for another essay.) Also that I wrote C’s senior-year term paper, also about “Solitude.” It was called “Love Among the Ruins.”

There’s a singular bittersweetness to the moment when a hero returns to the role of, simply, someone you read once. For the first time in nearly twenty years, I opened Solitude last year to discover I could not get very far. Enough things had happened in my life – really real things, things that could not be mitigated even by that novel’s magical happenings – that I found its fabulism ungrounded and irritating. As an adult, I wanted something that engaged with the stubbornly real, melancholy timbre of the world I was actually living in. My adoration had passed on to William Styron, Bernard Malamud, J. M. Coetzee.

But even erstwhile heroes leave a lasting mark. In my debut novel, out this June, about a failed young journalist who starts forging Holocaust-restitution claims for old Russian Jews in Brooklyn, the conversation is between the grandchildren and grandparents, the parents hardly making an appearance. After finishing the novel, I realized that it was Marquez, who had been raised by his grandparents and their tall tales, who had led me to this emotional matrix. I had been raised by my parents, but it was the stories of my grandparents, who had lived in a time when life seemed to work entirely differently, that had really impacted me. This is to say nothing of the novel’s obsession with fabulism and invention, relocated to the far less surreal precincts of the American Northeast. At one point, Slava Gelman, the protagonist says, “If you say there are elephants flying outside your window, no one will believe you. But if you say there are six elephants flying outside your window, it’s a different story.” That is taken directly from a Marquez interview with The Paris Review. And while I have never quite found that new home where life answers to the heart instead of other gods like the market, there is only one reason why the personal essay is my favorite form. For me, Gabo lives.

As for C and I, we were together for three years. (If I ever run for office, she can destroy me by publishing some of the Marquez-inspired poetry I wrote her during that time. “The moonlight on your hair…”) Some days, it seemed like Gabo was all that we shared. I wonder if the intensity of our affection and gratitude for his work helped conceal all the ways in which we weren’t happy with each other, made the relationship go on longer than it should have. Perhaps. But I know that the old man would have relished that he had been used to kindle this first love, a love between a Jew and a Catholic from opposite ends of the world meeting in a third place, free but sedate, that they both craved to escape for the unreasonable world of his pages. Was that any less fantastical than what he wrote about? Would that he were still around to take on the idea.

Boris Fishman’s debut novel ‘A Replacement Life’ will be published on June 3 by HarperCollins.

<Forward>

Funcionários do Ministério das Relações Exteriores declaram greve geral, paralisando sistema diplomático de Israel

Greve é o culminar de sanções renovadas, protestando falha do Ministério das Finanças para resolver queixas dos diplomatas

Funcionários do Ministério das Relações Exteriores declararam uma greve geral neste domingo, após duas semanas de paralisações parciais. A greve está prevendo o fechamento das missões estrangeiras do país e a paralisação total do sistema diplomático israelense.

Pela primeira vez desde a criação do Estado de Israel, 103 missões israelenses no Exterior serão fechadas, assim como a sede do Ministério das Relações Exteriores em Jerusalém. Ambas serão completamente fechadas, e por um período indefinido de tempo, para protestar contra as condições de trabalho dos diplomatas israelenses e a decisão do Ministério das Finanças de cortar seus salários durante as paralisações.

O Sindicato dos Trabalhadores do Ministério das Relações Exteriores informou a todos os empregados em Israel e no Exterior, por e-mail e mensagens, de que a greve geral começaria às 03:00 h deste domingo e instruiu-os a deixar seus locais de trabalho imediatamente.

"A Sede do Ministério das Relações Exteriores será fechada para todas as atividades. Todos os trabalhadores, em todas as posições, são ordenados a ficar longe do escritório", disse o comitê num comunicado a todos os trabalhadores. "Missões israelenses no Exterior serão fechadas, a partir de segunda-feira 24 de março. Todos os trabalhadores, em todas as posições, estão ordenados a ficar longe das missões".

Fontes do Ministério das Relações Exteriores disseram que o encerramento das missões no Exterior seria total e que os agentes de segurança haviam sido instruídos a impedir a entrada a todos, incluindo funcionários do Ministério da Defesa, o IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet - Serviço de Segurança e outros ministérios do governo.

A sede em Jerusalém será bloqueada ao longo da greve e a entrada será negada ao ministro das Relações Exteriores Avigdor Lieberman, ao vice-chanceler Ze'ev Elkin e ao Diretor-Geral Nissim Ben-Sheetrit.

O comitê da greve vai lidar com os pedidos de cidadãos israelenses, ou empresas privadas, durante o período da greve, mas apenas nos casos em que haja perigo de vida. O comitê pode ser contatado em unionmfa@israel.org

O primeiro-ministro Benjamin Netanyahu foi forçado, na semana passada, a cancelar 

uma visita "histórica" (?) para a América Latina prevista para abril, depois que seu bureau encontrou muitas dificuldades em fazer os arranjos necessários devido às sanções dos diplomatas, que incluem uma recusa global de ajudar a organizar viagens ao Exterior para qualquer ministro.

Os diplomatas também se recusaram a lidar com a visita do primeiro-ministro britânico David Cameron, na semana passada (embora ele veio de qualquer maneira), e agora estão se recusando a cooperar sobre os preparativos para a visita do Papa a Israel, em maio. Uma delegação do Vaticano, que deveria ter visitado Israel para trabalhar nos arranjos, cancelou sua viagem, e agora é incerto se a visita do Papa acontecerá.

<Rua Judaica>

DISCURSO DE ENGELS DIANTE DO TÚMULO DE MARX

No dia 14 de março, três horas e quarenta e cinco minutos da tarde, o maior pensador de nossos dias, parou de pensar. Nós o deixamos apenas por dois minutos a sós e quando voltamos o encontramos dormindo suavemente na sua poltrona, mas para sempre.

É praticamente impossível calcular o que o proletariado militante da Europa e da América e a ciência histórica perderam com a morte este homem. Imediatamente se perceberá o buraco que foi aberto com a morte desta personalidade gigantesca.

Assim como Darwin descobriu a lei do desenvolvimento da natureza orgânica, Marx descobriu a lei do desenvolvimento da história humana: um fato tão simples, mas escondido debaixo do lixo ideológico, de que o homem necessita, em primeiro lugar, comer, beber, ter um teto e vestir-se antes de poder fazer política, ciência, arte, religião, etc.; que, então, a produção dos meios imediatos de vida, materiais e, por conseguinte, a correspondente fase de desenvolvimento econômico de um povo ou de uma época é a base a partir da qual tem se desenvolvido as instituições políticas, as concepções jurídicas, as ideias artísticas e, até mesmo as ideias religiosas dos homens e de acordo com a qual, então, devem ser explicadas, e não ao contrário, como até então se vinha fazendo. Mas, não é só isto. Marx descobriu também a lei específica que move o atual modo de produção capitalista e a sociedade burguesa criada por ele. A descoberta da mais-valia, imediatamente, clareou estes problemas, enquanto todas as investigações prévias, tanto dos economistas burgueses quanto dos socialistas críticos, haviam vagado na escuridão.

Duas descobertas como estas deveriam ser bastante para uma vida. Quem tem a sorte de fazer apenas uma destas descobertas, já pode se considerar feliz. Porém, não houve um só campo que Marx não investigasse - e estes campos foram muitos e, em nenhum deles, se limitou a fazer apenas superficialmente - inclusive na matemática, na qual não fizesse descobertas originais. Tal era o homem de ciência. Porém, isto não era, nem com muito, a metade do homem. Para Marx, a ciência era uma força histórica motriz, uma força revolucionária. Por pura que fosse a alegria provocada por uma nova descoberta que realizasse em qualquer ciência teórica e cuja aplicação prática talvez não pudesse ser prevista de modo algum, era muito outro o prazer que experimentava quando se tratava de uma descoberta que exercia imediatamente uma influência revolucionária na indústria e no desenvolvimento histórico em geral. Por isso, seguia, detalhadamente, a marcha das descobertas realizadas no campo da eletricidade, até os de Marcel Deprez nos últimos tempos.

Porque Marx era, acima de tudo, um revolucionário. Cooperar, deste ou do outro modo, para a derrubada da sociedade capitalista e das instituições políticas criadas por ela, contribuir para a emancipação do proletariado moderno, a quem ele tinha infundido pela primeira vez a consciência da própria situação e das suas necessidades, a consciência das suas condições de emancipação: tal era a verdadeira missão da sua vida. A luta era seu elemento. E lutou com uma paixão, uma tenacidade e um sucesso como poucos. Primeira Gazeta do Reno, 1842; Vorwärts1 de Paris, 1844; Gazeta alemã de Bruxelas, 1847; Gazeta nova do Reno, 1848-1849;

Tribuna de Nova Iorque, 1852 a 1861, para tudo aquilo que é necessário somar um montão de folhetos de luta e trabalho nas organizações de Paris, Bruxelas e Londres, até que, ultimamente, nasceu como remate de tudo, a grande Associação Internacional de Trabalhadores que era, na verdade, um trabalho do qual o seu autor poderia se orgulhar, ainda que não tivesse criado nenhuma outra coisa.

Por isso, Marx era o homem mais odiado e mais caluniado de seu tempo. Os governos, a mesma coisa os absolutistas e os republicanos, o expulsavam. Os burgueses, a mesma coisa que os conservadores e os ultrademocratas, competiam para lançar calúnias contra ele. Marx separava tudo isso de um lado como se fossem teias de aranha, não prestava atenção a elas; só respondia quando a necessidade imperiosa exigia isto. E morreu venerado, querido, chorado por milhões de trabalhadores da causa revolucionária, como ele, espalhados por toda a Europa e América, desde as minas da Sibéria até a Califórnia. E eu posso ousar dizer que se teve muitos opositores, não teve um único inimigo pessoal. Seu nome viverá através dos séculos e, com ele, sua obra.

Discurso realizado em inglês, por F. Engels, no cemitério de Highgate, em 17 de março de 1883. Publicado em alemão no Sozialdemokrat em 22 de março de 1883. 

<Esquerda Marxista>

95 anos do discurso de Lênin na abertura do congresso de fundação da Internacional Comunista

Por solicitação do Comitê Central do Partido Comunista russo, inauguro o primeiro Congresso Internacional.  Antes de mais nada, pelo que honrem a memória dos melhores representantes da III Internacional, Karl Liebknecht e Rosa Luxemburgo.

Camaradas, nosso Congresso reveste-se de uma grande importância na história mundial.  Ele demonstra o fim de todas as ilusões da democracia burguesa.  A guerra civil se transformou num fato, não só na Rússia, mas nos países capitalistas mais desenvolvidos, por exemplo a Alemanha.

O povo percebeu a grandeza e a importância desta luta.  Tratava-se de encontrar a forma prática quer permitisse ao proletariado exercer sua dominação.  Esta forma é o regime dos Sovietes com a ditadura do proletariado.  A ditadura do proletariado; essas palavras eram “latim” para as massas até nossos dias.  Agora, graças ao sistema dos Sovietes, esse latim se traduziu para todas as línguas modernas; a forma prática da ditadura foi encontrada pelas massas populares.  Ela se tornou inteligível para a grande massa de operários graças ao poder dos Sovietes na Rússia, aos espartaquistas da Alemanha, às organizações análogas nos outros países, como Shop Stewards Committes na Inglaterra.  Tudo isso prova que a forma revolucionária da ditadura do proletariado foi encontrada e que o proletariado está em ação para exercer de fato sua dominação.

Camaradas!  Penso que depois do que aconteceu na Rússia, depois dos combates de janeiro na Alemanha, importa sobretudo observar que a nova forma do movimento do proletariado se manifesta e se amplia também nos outros países.  Hoje, li num jornal inglês antissocialista um telegrama anunciando que o governo inglês recebeu o soviete de delegados operários de Birmingham e prometeu-lhe reconhecer os Sovietes como organizações econômicas.  O sistema soviético conseguiu a vitória não apenas na Rússia atrasada, mas também no país mais civilizado da Europa: a Alemanha, e no mais antigo país capitalista:  a Inglaterra.

A burguesia pode maltratar; pode também assassinar milhares de operários – mas a vitória é nossa, a vitória da revolução comunista mundial está assegurada.

Camaradas,

Em nome do Comitê Central desejo cordialmente que sejam bem-vindos.

<Esquerda Marxista>

Bayer: “Não criamos medicamentos para os indianos, mas para ocidentais que podem pagar”

Uma lição explicita de capitalismo

A declaração acima foi dita pelo diretor executivo da empresa farmacêutica Bayer, Marijn Dekkers, publicadas pela revista, Bloomberg Business Week. A companhia é uma das maiores do mundo, no setor medicamento e só produz, “para quem pode pagar”.

Dekkers fez estas declarações em referência às novas licenças sobre a propriedade das patentes farmacêuticas, aplicada pelo governo da Índia, uma iniciativa que repercutirá favorável aos fabricantes locais para que produzam medicamentos genéricos a preços mais baratos e acessíveis para toda a população.

A medida está pensada para os tratamentos contra o câncer, o HIV e diabetes, segundo a revista, mas o governo indiano pretende ampliar para mais 20 medicamentos. As novas licenças permitirão a qualquer empresa do país asiático produzir essas mesmas fórmulas sem consentimento do titular da patente e sem receber o correspondente pago pelo seu uso. A medida tem como objetivo exercer pressão sobre os fabricantes para que estes baixem os preços e sejam competitivos com os genéricos, além de satisfazer as necessidades de seus cidadãos mais pobres.

Com essas licenças uma empresa local já tem elaborado o genérico de um anticancerígeno de Bayer, que custa 97% menos que o original. Mas esta iniciativa provocou a ira farmacêutica alemã, que decidiu recorrer à justiça da Índia argumentando que estas licenças constituem um roubo. No entanto, os doutores da organização ‘Médicos sem Fronteiras’ citados pelo jornal creem que este caso, “reflete a maneira perversa na que se desenvolvem hoje em dia os medicamentos. As farmacêuticas estão claramente concentradas em multiplicar os lucros, pressionando de uma maneira agressiva as patentes para elevar os preços”.

“Lamento que o que foi uma resposta rápida no marco de uma discussão tenha saído à luz de uma maneira que eu não pretendia. Não pode ser mais contrário ao que eu quero e ao que fazemos em Bayer”, disse depois Dekkers ao desculpar-se por suas declarações.

<Esquerda Marxista>

The World's Oldest Holocaust Survivor, Alice Herz-Sommer, Dies at 110

Prague-Born Pianist Is Subject of New Documentary

POLLY HANCOCK

Alice Herz-Sommer, pictured here on her 107th birthday, is the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary.

Ofer Aderet

(Haaretz) — The world’s oldest Holocaust survivor, Alice Herz-Sommer, died Sunday at the age 110 in London. Herz-Sommer, a pianist, born in Prague, was the subject of a documentary “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life”, Academy Award (Oscar) winner.

“Young people take everything for granted, whereas we, the elderly, understand nature, “ Herz-Sommer told Haaretz in an interview at age 106. “What I have learned, at my advanced age, is to be grateful that we have a nice life. There is electricity, cars, telegraph, telephone, Internet. We also have hot water all day long. We live like kings. I even got used to the bad weather in London,” she said.

Besides her twin sister, Mariana, she had another sister and two brothers. She discovered a love for music at the age of 3, and it has remained with her to this day. Her family home in Prague was also a cultural salon where writers, scientists, musicians and actors congregated, among them Franz Kafka, who she remembers well. He was the best friend of the journalist, author and philosopher Felix Weltsch, who married her sister Irma.

“Kafka was a slightly strange man,” Sommer recalled. “He used to come to our house, sit and talk with my mother, mainly about his writing. He did not talk a lot, but rather loved quiet and nature. We frequently went on trips together. I remember that Kafka took us to a very nice place outside Prague. We sat on a bench and he told us stories. I remember the atmosphere and his unusual stories. He was an excellent writer, with a lovely style, the kind that you read effortlessly,” she says, and then grows silent. “And now, hundreds of people all over the world research and write doctorates about him.”

When World War I broke out, she was 11. Five years later she enrolled in the German music academy in Prague, where she was the youngest pupil. Within a short time she became one of the city’s most famous pianists, and in the early 1930s was also known throughout Europe. Max Brod, the man who published Kafka’s works, recognized Sommer’s talent and reviewed several of her performances for a newspaper.

In 1931 she married Leopold Sommer, also a musician. Six years later their only son, Rafael, was born. In 1939 the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia.

This was a very difficult time for Sommer, who had stayed behind. The Nazis forbade Jews to perform in public, and so she stopped holding concerts and participating in music competitions. At first she was still able to make a living by giving piano lessons, but when the Nazis forbade Jews to teach non-Jews, she lost most of her pupils.

“Everything was forbidden. We couldn’t buy groceries, take the tram, or go to the park,” she said.

But the hardest times of all still lay ahead. In 1942 the Germans arrested her sick mother, Sophie, who was 72 at the time, and subsequently murdered her.

“That was a catastrophe,” Sommer said. The bond between a mother and her child is something special. I loved her so much. But an inner voice told me, ‘From now on you alone can help yourself. Not your husband, not the doctor, not the child.’

And at that moment I knew I had to play Frederic Chopin’s 24 etudes, which are the greatest challenge for any pianist. Like Goethe’s ‘Faust’ or Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet.’ I ran home and from that moment on I practiced for hours and hours. Until they forced us out.”

In 1943, Sommer was sent to the Terezin-Theresienstadt concentration camp, along with her husband and their son, who was then 6 years old. The Nazis allowed the Jews to maintain a cultural life there, in order to present the false impression to the world that the inmates were receiving proper treatment. Sommer thus performed there together with other musicians.

“We had to play because the Red Cross came three times a year,” she recounts. “The Germans wanted to show its representatives that the situation of the Jews in Theresienstadt was good. Whenever I knew that I had a concert, I was happy. Music is magic. We performed in the council hall before an audience of 150 old, hopeless, sick and hungry people. They lived for the music. It was like food to them. If they hadn’t come [to hear us], they would have died long before. As we would have.”

In September 1944, her husband Leopold was sent to Auschwitz. He survived his imprisonment there, but died of illness at Dachau shortly before the war ended. His departing words to her at Theresienstadt saved her life, says Sommer: “One evening he came and told me that 1,000 men would be sent on a transport the following day - himself included. He made me swear not to volunteer to follow him afterward. And a day after his transport there was another one, which people were told was a transport of ‘wives following in their husbands’ footsteps.’ Many wives volunteered to go, but they never met up with their husbands: They were murdered. If my husband hadn’t warned me, I would have gone at once.”

In May 1945, the Soviet army liberated Theresienstadt. Two years later Sommer and her son immigrated to Palestine, where they were reunited with her family: her twin Mariana, who had meanwhile married Prof. Emil Adler, one of the founders of Hadassah Medical Center (their son, Prof. Chaim Adler, is an Israel Prize laureate for education), and with Irma and her husband Felix (their grandson is actor Eli Gorenstein).

I don’t hate the Germans,” Sommer declared. “[What they did] was a terrible thing, but was Alexander the Great any better? Evil has always existed and always will. It is part of our life.”

In 1962, she added, she attended the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem: “I have to say that I had pity for him. I have pity for the entire German people. They are wonderful people, no worse than others.”

For almost 40 years Sommer lived in Israel, making a living by teaching music at a conservatory in Jerusalem. “That was the best period in my life,” she recalls. “I was happy.”

In 1986, Sommer followed her son, a cellist, and his family to London. She continued playing and teaching; to this day she devotes three hours a day to practicing. She speaks lovingly of her two grandchildren, whose father, Rafael, died of a heart attack in Israel in 2001, at the end of a concert tour. He was 64.

His birth was the happiest day of my life, and his death was the worst thing that happened to me,” she notes, but manages to find a bright spot even here. “I am grateful at least that he did not suffer when he died. And I still watch my son play, on television. He lives on. Sometimes I think it will be possible someday to postpone death through technology.”

When asked in 2006 what the secret of her longevity was, she answered: In a word: optimism. I look at the good. When you are relaxed, your body is always relaxed. When you are pessimistic, your body behaves in an unnatural way. It is up to us whether we look at the good or the bad. When you are nice to others, they are nice to you. When you give, you receive.” “My recommendation is not to eat a lot, but also not to go hungry. Fish or chicken and plenty of vegetables.”

When asked whether she was afraid of dying, she replied: “Not at all. No. I was a good person, I helped people, I was loved, I have a good feeling.”

<The Forward>

The Secret Jewish History of Don Quixote

Was Cervantes's Hero the Mensch of La Mancha?

GETTY IMAGES

Impossible Dreamers: The adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza seem to have been influenced by stories in the Zohar.

Benjamin Ivry

Was Don Quixote’s impossible dream a Yiddisher one? The French author Dominique Aubier, whose study “Don Quixote: Prophet of Israel” has just been reprinted, apparently thinks so.

Aubier’s book, which originally appeared in 1966, is based on the thesis now generally accepted by literary historians that the author of “Don Quixote,” Miguel de Cervantes, likely hailed from a family of conversos, or converts, Spanish Jews who in 1492 were faced with the choice of leaving their homeland or staying on as Christians. Extrapolating from this likelihood, Aubier advanced controversial theories, for example that “Don Quixote” contains numerous references to the Kabbalah and other Jewish themes. The protagonist’s very name, according to Aubier, is derived from the Aramaic word qeshot, meaning truth or certainty, often used in the Zohar, a key text in Kabbalah.

Critics of Aubier’s ideas are plentiful among Spanish literature experts (the Cervantes scholar Daniel Eisenberg has termed her book “highly misleading”), who point out that it is near impossible that Cervantes could have had access to Jewish mystical literature in Spain. When “Don Quixote” was originally published, from 1605 to 1610, observant Jews had long since been expelled from the country. Among Aubier’s other suggestions is one concerning Dulcinea del Toboso, Don Quixote’s ideal woman who was in reality a peasant-like “brawny girl,” as Quixote’s servant Sancho Panza described her. Aubier states that Dulcinea symbolizes the Shekhinah, which in talmudic tradition has been described as representing feminine attributes of God’s presence. “Don Quixote: Prophet of Israel” also offers an etymology for Dulcinea’s town El Toboso as deriving from the Hebrew words tov and sod, or good and hidden meaning.

Aubier reads “Don Quixote” as an intentional gloss on the Zohar, claiming that if readers accept that Cervantes “proceeds from a dynamic engagement with the concepts of the Zohar, themselves resulting from a dialectic dependence on Talmudic concepts, which in turn sprang from an active engagement with the text of Moses’ book, it is then on the totality of Hebrew thought — in all its uniqueness, its unity of spirit, its inner faithfulness to principles clarified by slow and prodigious exegesis — that the attentive reader of ‘Don Quixote’ must rely in order at last to be free to release Cervantes’ meaning from the profound symbols with which it is encoded.”

Aubier’s fervent, elevated tone is also present on more recent Kabbalah-inspired video analyses posted on YouTube. In one of these, Aubier, a sturdy elderly Frenchwoman who speaks in a pronounced Provençal accent, describes what the numbers on the New York street address of the then-accused felon Dominique Strauss-Kahn signify in Kabbalah lore. Aubier was born Marie-Louise Labiste in 1922 and adopted her present name after joining the French Resistance in Grenoble. (In 1945, Aubier published a collection of stories based on her Resistance experiences that would probably also make intriguing reading today.) Aubier admits to being neither a Hebraist nor a professional scholar of Kabbalah. Yet some Cervantes specialists are taking her arguments about “Don Quixote” increasingly seriously.

“Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Were Walking on the Way,” a 2009 article by Nathan Wolski in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, denies that Cervantes had intended to hide kabbalistic references in “Quixote.” Wolski concedes that both “Quixote,” about a wandering knight, and the 13th century Sefer ha-Zohar (Book of Splendor), published in Spain by Moses de León, are picaresque in that they consist of discussions sparked by events encountered on journeys. Wolski notes: “In the Zohar itself, the Kabbalists are often portrayed as knights of Torah and knights of the Shekhinah, and the Zohar frequently employs medieval military imagery to depict its wandering heroes… The Torah is compared to a beautiful maiden or princess hidden deep within her palace, while the Kabbalist is described as her lover passing by her gate constantly.”

Most of the stories in the Zohar begin by stating that two rabbis were “walking on the way.” Wolski describes the Zohar as a “proto-mystical novel recounting the adventures and expositions of Rabbi Shimon and his disciples, the Companions… For both the Zohar and Don Quixote then, walking and speaking are concurrent and constitutive activities of the journey… [T]hese correspondences derive from a shared Spanish-Jewish-converso literary legacy spanning more than three centuries.”

“Is There a Hidden Jewish Meaning in Don Quixote?” in Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America also explored the works’ shared thematics as pioneered by Aubier. The article, written by Michael McGaha, argues that Cervantes intended to depict Don Quixote as a converso, although Aubier did not establish how Cervantes might have acquired any knowledge of the Zohar. Aubier’s theses have received scant wholehearted support in academia, one exception being Ruth Reichelberg, a professor at Bar Ilan University and author of “Don Quixote, or the Novel About a Concealed Jew.”

Still, Jewish readers need no convincing of Don Quixote’s inherent Yiddishkeit, especially with regard to the modern Hebrew translation by the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934). Working from an abridged Russian translation of Cervantes’ masterpiece — Bialik could not read Spanish — he cut the novel by over one-half. In a letter to a friend, Bialik stated: “I read [“Don Quixote”] in Russian when I first came to Odessa as a teenage yeshiva boy, trying to become a poet. I was living in poverty in Odessa, and the book had enthralled me… Dostoyevsky made me weep and Cervantes made me laugh. I alternated between laughing and crying.”

The novelist Vladimir Nabokov termed “Don Quixote” a “cruel and crude old book,” an observation justified by a readily available online summary of the novel’s action: “Don Quixote promises to make a balsam to cure Sancho… Don Quixote mixes ingredients and drinks the potion. He vomits immediately and passes out… Sancho also takes the potion, and although it makes him tremendously ill, he does not vomit… Don Quixote rushes into the battle and kills seven sheep before two shepherds throw stones at him and knock out several of his teeth… Don Quixote takes more of the balsam, and as Sancho comes close to see how badly his master’s teeth have been injured, Don Quixote vomits on him. Nauseous, Sancho then vomits on Don Quixote.”

Yet in appetizing English-language versions by the acclaimed Jewish translators J. M. Cohen, Burton Raffel and Edith Grossman, “Don Quixote” is no stomach turner. The literature-obsessed knight of doleful countenance was a man of the book, simultaneously a schlemiel and schlemazel, who seems destined to remain irresistible to Jewish readers. Even Nabokov, in his “Lectures on Don Quixote,” admitted that by the novel’s end, “we do not laugh at [Don Quixote] any longer. His blazon is pity, his banner is beauty. He stands for everything that is gentle, forlorn, pure, unselfish and gallant.”

Benjamin Ivry is a frequent contributor to the Forward.

<The Forward>

BERESHIT: Assumindo a Responsabilidade

Se a liderança é a solução, qual é o problema? Sobre isso, a Torá não poderia ser mais específica. É a falta de responsabilidade.

Os primeiros capítulos do Gênesis se concentram em duas histórias: Adão e Eva, e Caim e Abel. Cada uma é sobre um tipo específico de falha.

Primeiro a de Adão e Eva. Como sabemos, eles pecaram. Constrangidos e envergonhados, eles se escondem, mas apenas para descobrirem que não podem se esconder de D’us:

O Senhor D’us primeiro chamou o homem: "Onde estás?". Ele respondeu:"Ouvi teus passos no jardim e tive medo, porque estava nu, e escondi-me". E ele disse: "Quem disse que você estava nu? Você comeu da árvore de que te ordenei que não comesses? "O homem disse: "A mulher que você colocou aqui comigo, ela m e deu o fruto da árvore, e eu o comi."Então o Senhor D’us disse à mulher:"O que é isso que você fez" e a mulher disse: "A serpente me enganou, e eu comi." (Gênesis 3: 9-12).

Ambos insistem que a culpa não é deles. Adão culpa a mulher. A mulher culpa a serpente. O resultado é que ambos são punidos e exilados do Éden. Adão e Eva negam a responsabilidade pessoal. Ambos dizem "Não fui eu".

A segunda história é mais trágica. É o primeiro exemplo da rivalidade entre irmãos na Torá que leva ao primeiro assassinato:

Caim disse a seu irmão Abel. Enquanto eles estavam no campo, Caim atacou seu irmão Abel e o matou. Então o Senhor disse a Caim: "Onde está seu irmão Abel?". "Eu não sei", ele respondeu. "Sou eu o guardião do meu irmã o? "O Senhor disse: "O que você fez? Ouça! O sangue do teu irmão clama a mim vindo do chão" (Gn 4: 8-10).

Caim não nega responsabilidade pessoal. Ele não diz: "Não fui eu", ou "Não foi minha culpa." Ele nega a responsabilidade moral. Com efeito, ele questiona por que ele deveria se preocupar com o bem-estar de outra pessoa além dele mesmo. Por que não podemos fazer o que queremos e ter o poder de fazê-lo na República de Platão, Glauco argumenta que a justiça é a que é do interesse do partido do mais forte. O Poder a torna correta. Se a vida é uma luta Darwiniana para a sobrevivência, porque devemos nos restringir para o bem dos outros, se somos mais poderosos do que os outros? Se na natureza não há moralidade, então eu sou responsável apenas para comigo mesmo. Essa é a voz de Caim ao longo dos tempos.

Essas duas histórias não são apenas histórias. Elas são relat&oac ute;rios, no início da história narrativa da Torá sobre a humanidade, de falhas, a primeira moral e a outra pessoal, de assumirem a responsabilidade - e para isso é que a liderança é a resposta.

Há uma frase fascinante na história dos primeiros anos de Moisés. Ele cresce, vai para o seu povo, os israelitas, e os vê trabalhando como escravos. Ele presencia um guarda egípcio espancando um deles. O texto, então, diz: "Ele olhou para um lado e para o outro e não viu ninguém (Ex. 2: 12, vayar ki ein ish, literalmente, viu que não havia nenhum homem)".

É difícil ler isso literalmente. Um canteiro de obras não é um local isolado ou fechado. Deveria ter havido muitas outras pessoas presentes. Apenas dois versos mais tarde descobrimos que havia israelitas que sabiam exatamente o que estava acontecendo. A frase quase certamente signi fica: "Ele olhou para um lado e para o outro e viu que não havia mais ninguém disposto a intervir".

Se isto é assim, então temos aqui o primeiro exemplo do que veio a ser conhecido como a Síndrome Genovese, ou "o efeito espectador", assim chamado depois de um caso em que uma mulher foi atacada em Nova York na presença de um grande número de pessoas que sabiam que ela estava sendo agredida, mas não vieram em seu socorro.

Os cientistas sociais têm realizado muitas experiências para tentar determinar o que acontece em situações como esta. Alguns argumentam que a presença de outros espectadores afeta a interpretação de um indivíduo do que está acontecendo. Quando ninguém tem a iniciativa de ajudar, eles concluem que o que está acontecendo não é uma emergência.

Outros, porém, argumentam que o fator fundamental é a responsabilidade difusa. As pessoas assumem que quando existem muitas pessoas outro vai se apresentar e agir. Essa parece ser a interpretação correta do que aconteceu no caso de Moisés. Ninguém mais estava preparado para vir para ajudar. Quem neste caso iria fazê-lo? Os egípcios eram os feitores dos escravos. Por que eles deveriam correr o risco de salvar um israelita? Os israelitas eram os escravos. Por que eles deveriam socorrer um de seus companheiros, se, ao fazê-lo, estariam colocando a sua própria vida em risco?

Mas Moisés agiu. Mas isso é o que faz um líder. Um líder é aquele que assume a responsabilidade. A liderança nasce quando alguém se torna ativo e não passivo, quando não se espera por alguém para agir, porque talvez não haja mais ninguém, pelo menos não neste lugar, não n este momento. Quando coisas ruins acontecem, alguns olham para o outro ladoOutros esperam pelos outros para que ajam. Alguns culpam os outros por não fazerem nada. Outros simplesmente reclamam. Mas há alguns que dizem: "Se algo está errado, deixe-me ser um dos primeiros a fazê-lo correto". Estes são os líderes. Eles são aqueles que fazem a diferença em suas vidas. Eles são os únicos que fazem o nosso um mundo melhor.

Muitas das grandes religiões e civilizações são baseadas na aceitação. Se há violência, sofrimento, pobreza e dor no mundo, esta é a forma de como o mundo é. Ou, que é a vontade de Deus. Ou, essa é a natureza da própria natureza. E que tudo vai ficar bem num mundo vindouro.

Judaísmo era e continua sendo a grande religião de protesto do mundo. Os heróis da f&eacute ; não aceitaram, eles protestaram. Eles estavam dispostos a confrontar o próprio D’us. Abraão disse: "O Juiz de toda a terra não fará justiça?" (Gênesis 18: 25). Moisés disse: "Por que fizeste mal a este povo?" (Ex. 5: 22). Jeremias disse: "Por que os ímpiosestão à vontade?" (Jeremias 12: 1). É assim que D’us nos quer que respondamos. O judaísmo é o chamado de D’us para a responsabilidade humana. A maior conquista é a de se tornar um parceiro de D’us na obra da criação .

Quando Adão e Eva pecaram, D’us chamou " Onde está você? " Como o rabino Shneur Zalman de Liadi, o primeiro Rebe, destacou, esta chamada não foi direcionada apenas para os primeiros seres humanos. Ecoa em cada geração. D’us nos deu a liberdade, mas com a liberdade vem a responsabilidade. D’us nos ens ina o que devemos fazer, mas ele não faz isso por nós. Com raras exceções, Deus não intervém na história. Ele age através de nós, e não para nós. Sua é a voz que nos diz como Ele disse a Caim antes que ele cometeu seu crime, que podemos resistir ao mal dentro de nós, assim como ao mal que nos rodeia.

Uma vida responsável é a que responde. A palavra hebraica para responsabilidade, achrayut, vem da palavra acher, ou seja, ao "outro“. “Nosso grande Outro é o próprio D’us, conclamando-nos a usar a liberdade que Ele nos deu, para tornar o mundo mais parecido com o mundo que deveria ser”. A grande questão para a qual a vida que levamos é a resposta, é qual é a voz que devamos ouvir? A voz do desejo, como no caso de Adão e Eva? A voz de raiva, como no caso de Caim? Ou a voz de D& rsquo;us conclamando-nos para tornarmos este mundo um mundo mais justo e gracioso?

Bereshit - 28 de setembro 2013/24 Tishrei 5774

(Rua Judaica)

Lou Reed: The Punk Soul of an Underground Jew

J.J. Goldberg

Of all the tributes following the death this week of Lou Reed, the transgressive, subversive bard of the street-wild and deviant, one of the strangest is this celebration by British journalist Tom Gross, which appeared online in the National Review. Yes, that National Review—the conservative journal founded by the high priest of upper-crust propriety, William F. Buckley.

Perhaps even more than other American-Jewish rock stars such as Billy Joel and Bob Dylan, Lou Reed was fiercely proud of being Jewish — and included lyrics on behalf of Israel and against anti-Semitism in some of his songs.

I mention Reed’s Jewishness because not a single obituary I have read of him in the mainstream press mentions it, when for Reed it was an important factor.

The evidence Gross offers consists mainly of the mockingly bitter song “Good Evening, Mr. Waldheim,” from Reed’s 1989 album New York (video below, lyrics after the jump). But that’s actually plenty—only a handful of major American rockers have recorded even a single statement as proudly Jewish. (I think of Paul Simon’s “Silent Eyes,” Randy Newman’s “Dixie Flyer,” Bob Dylan’s “Neighborhood Bully” — and, arguably, “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Father of Night.” Others?)

At the same time, Gross is right to note that Reed appeared in Israel several times. He wasn’t quite the “frequent visitor to the country” that Gross makes him out to be, but he performed there repeatedly: he gave concerts in 1994 and 2000 and joined his wife Laurie Anderson on stage for a few numbers during her Tel Aviv concerts in 2008 (video after the jump). Not many American pop stars have appeared in Israel so frequently (though Dylan matched him—concerts in 1987, 1993 and 2011—and several private visits).

And though Gross doesn’t mention it, Reed involved himself in a public way in recent years in New York’s emerging downtown Jewish culture. That’s described lovingly in this appreciation in The Jewish Week by Reed’s friend, impresario Michael Dorf. Among other things, Dorf describes Reed’s appearances as the Wise Son at Dorf’s annual Passover Seder at the Knitting Factory.

What’s most curious about the National Review piece is how it’s captured imaginations on the right with its image of Reed the defiant battler against anti-Semitism. It’s been cited by several right-wing blogs, including the Breitbart-linked Big Hollywood and Islam-bashing arch-conservative Debbie Schlussel. Schlussel’s piece is particularly wacky — she seems delighted that Reed “defied” the boycotters to play Israel, though she’s dubious of what she presumes are his leftie leanings, wary of his countercultural ethos and judges him.

Lou Reed, 1976 

Forward.com

Rabbi Abraham Skorka's Dialogue With Future Pope Francis Started With Soccer

Pontiff-to-Be Forged Close Bond With Argentine Cleric

By Anne Cohen

A rabbi and a priest walk into an independence day celebration….

That, literally, is how one the most high-profile interfaith friendships in the world today started. More specifically, the bond that Rabbi Abraham Skorka of Argentina cemented with the man who would become Pope Francis began as so many male friendships do: over sports.

It was in the late 1990s, that Skorka, rector of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano Marshall T. Meyer in Buenos Aires, was invited to attend the Te Deum, celebrated by the Archbishop of Buenos Aires on the anniversary of Argentina’s May Revolution. Skorka went as a representative of the Jewish community. When Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio — now known as Pope Francis — asked the faith leaders present about their favorite soccer teams to lighten the mood, Skorka replied honestly, “My team is River Plate” — one of the more hopeless athletic causes in Argentina.

“Their fans are called ‘chickens,’” Skorka related during an October 28 interview with the Forward while on a visit to New York. As each cleric rose to shake hands with the archbishop at the ceremony’s conclusion, Bergoglio, a San Lorenzo fan, looked straight at the rabbi when he congratulated the Catholic leader on his speech. “I guess this year,” the future pope kidded him, “we are going to eat chicken soup.”

That was the moment Skorka realized he was looking at someone special. “Behind this joke,” he recalled, “I realized that Bergoglio was saying, ‘The door is open.’ And so that was the beginning.”

More than a decade later, Skorka finds himself in the position of offering his fellow Jews a lens through which to understand the new leader of the Catholic faith. His own close-up view has continued since Bergoglio’s ascension to the Holy See last March. This spring, Skorka will even join Pope Francis on his inaugural papal trip to Israel.

“As pilgrims to Israel, we are dreaming of certain moments,” Skorka related. Among the things he and Pope Francis look forward to is “to pray together in front of the Kotel,” he said, referring to the remnant of the ancient Temple’s Western Wall, a Jewish holy site. Skorka plans also to accompany the Pope to Bethlehem, to show respect for the role of Christian history in the Holy Land.

Their friendship-based interfaith dialogue will be the theme of an October 29 talk Skorka will give at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York called “Pope Francis and the Jews.” In his presentation, Skorka will discuss how the newly elected Pontiff relates to the Chosen people.

According to Skorka, he does. A lot. “In the few months that he is already Pope we heard, we saw, we witnessed very strong declarations against anti-Semitism,” said Skorka. “He is also stressing the deep relationship between Judaism and Christianity.”

Privately, Skorka added, the two are trying to come up with a theological definition of what a Christian means to a Jew — and vice versa — as well as what the state of Israel means to Catholics, all from a spiritual point of view.

Unbeknown to a public hungry for information about the new Pope’s worldview from the moment of his election by fellow Cardinals, many of Francis’ views were out there even before white smoke billowed up from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, announcing they had chosen. In 2010, Bergoglio and Skorka co-authored the book, “On Heaven and Earth,” a collection of the two clerics’ discussions over the years on hot-button issues ranging from the Arab-Israeli conflict to fundamentalism, to abortion and gay marriage to the Vatican’s role in the preventing the Holocaust.

The last topic, said Skorka, is an issue that weighs heavily on the Pope’s mind. In “On Heaven and Earth” Francis agrees wholeheartedly with Skorka’s suggestion that Pope Pius XII’s personal archives — often referred to as the Vatican’s Secret Archives — be fully opened so that historians can objectively determine if Pius and the Church could have done more to save Europe’s Jews.

“What you say about the archives relating to the Shoah seems perfect to me,” Bergoglio says in the book. “They should open them and clarify everything.”

Since ascending to the papacy, Francis has hinted of his continued wish for transparency on Pius XII, but no concrete actions have yet followed. Skorka is unfazed. “Pope Francis is a coherent person,” he said. “Everything he says, he does.”

In fact, Skorka added, Francis reiterated his convictions during their last conversation, only a couple of weeks ago. “He told me, we have to search them,” said Skorka. “But,” the Pope added, “when we analyze Pope Pius XII’s behavior, we must also analyze the behavior of the occidental leaders who forsook the Jewish people.”

Skorka respects his friend’s struggle with this issue. But the rabbi is concerned about the possible canonization of Pope Pius as a saint of the Church. Pius, who led the Church from 1939 to 1958, has been the subject of a furious debate spanning decades regarding the actions he took — or failed to take — to save Jewish lives during World War II and oppose the Nazis’ campaign of mass extermination against Europe’s Jews. Individual Catholics and Jews are partisans on both sides of this debate.

In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI declared Pius XII to be “venerable,” the second of four steps on the path to sainthood. And an August 1 article in the National Catholic Register, citing an anonymous source in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints, reported that Pope Francis was considering invoking a procedure by which he could, on his own authority, leapfrog Pius XII over the other steps and make him a saint.

Skorka appears to be no fan of this prospect. “I cannot accept from Pius XII his silence during the Shoah,” he said.

In September, the Pope raised eyebrows among Conservative Catholics when he declared that the Church should move away from its single-minded emphasis on issues like gay marriage and abortion, and focus instead on spiritual healing through wider dialogue with both Church faithful and the rest of the word. It was a clear break with the approach taken by his immediate predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI and even his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

“Pope Francis, as far as I know him, will go ahead with what he considers he must do,” said Skorka. “He is a very traditional Catholic leader, but at the same time, what he does is try to maintain a dialogue, to build a bridge across to all Catholics, all the nations and all the peoples. The keyword in his ideology is dialogue.”

Contact Anne Cohen at cohen@forward.com

(Forward.com)

O enterro do Cabalista Rav Berg

por Billy Phillips

Que dia! Absolutamente surreal. Eu estava convencido, por diversos momentos, que eu acordaria de um sonho ruim a qualquer minuto.

Eu nunca vivenciei algo tão transcendental; tão físico e tão cru na dor; tão espiritual e absolutamente bíblico em seu significado para as nossas almas e para este mundo (e eu não estou dizendo “bíblico” no sentido metafórico da palavra). O efeito que surtiu sobre cada um de nós de pé, sob um sol escaldante, vivenciando o impensável, era indescritível e, no entanto, provavelmente único para cada pessoa. O ar nos arredores do túmulo do Rav exalava uma fragrância que eu acho que deve ser do Jardim do Éden. Achei aquele ar inebriante e ficava perguntando para os meus dois filhos se eles podiam sentir aquele cheiro.

Tudo começou para mim na quinta-feira, antes de Yom Kippur. Eu visitei o Rav no hospital. O Rav estremecia de dor e enrijecia todo o seu corpo, gemendo e se contorcendo em uma batalha que está além do poder das palavras. O Rav estava delirando e realmente não me notou. Depois de algum tempo, chegou minha hora de ir embora. Eu me despedi do Rav e o Rav parou de estremecer e de se contorcer de dor, e de repente ficou em estado alerta. Ele parou, olhou para mim, feliz, e me deu aquele sorriso que é a marca do Rav, com um conhecido brilho nos olhos. Literalmente!

Então, o Rav voltou para a batalha. Essa foi a última vez que eu vi o Rav neste mundo físico.

Eu tive o mérito de ver o Rav no quarto do hospital, depois que o Rav deixou nosso mundo. O Rav estava brilhando e deitado em paz com a família ao seu lado. Ficou claro para mim que a Karen não era apenas a matriarca do nosso mundo, assim como Rachel, mas Karen também era nossa Rainha Esther, Sarah e todas as grandes carruagens femininas da Bíblia. Mas nenhuma delas é tão grande quanto a Karen, pois cada uma delas é uma parte de Karen.

Enquanto o Rav era sepultado, os gritos de Michael e Yehuda sacudiram as montanhas da Galiléia e cortaram a todos. Deixando Safed, eu estava ainda entorpecido e confuso, mas tranquilo, com uma certeza no meu coração que arde mais forte do que 400 milhões de sóis. Eu tive muitas conversas com o Rav nos últimos 25 anos, e apenas uma das quais eu vou compartilhar agora.

Há 15 anos atrás, o Rav me disse que ele estava com medo de dizer a Karen o que seria necessário para trazer o fim da dor, do sofrimento e da morte. Agora eu sei o porquê. A outra razão para minha certeza foram o choro e as súplicas dos dois santificados e amados filhos do Rav e da Karen, Yehuda e Michael. Eles deixaram bem claro, suplicaram e exigiram do mais profundo da alma humana, para que o seu pai continue a nos ajudar a concluir isto de uma vez por todas.

Iremos ver os resultados de suas orações ainda neste tempo, em nossas vidas. Porque se há um portão para o céu, os choros penetrantes de Yehuda e Michael acabaram de abrir esse portão como nunca antes na história humana. E assim, este não é o fim. Este é o início.

(Pletz.com)

Should Men Thank God They Were Not Born Women?

Some Want To Change Orthodox Prayer's 'Sexist Language'

By Josh Halpern

Late this spring, my sister asked the administration at her Modern Orthodox high school if it would consider instituting a change to the morning prayer service. Instead of the usual practice of hurrying through the morning blessings, she wanted the male hazan to pause after reciting the blessing of “Shelo Asani Isha” (“Blessed are you Lord… for not making me a woman”) aloud so that the female students could reply by reciting “Sheasani Kirtzono” (“Blessed are you Lord… for making me according to Your will”) aloud.

My sister hoped that the female students’ recitation of “Sheasani Kirtzono” would serve as a sort of rebuttal to what they considered to be the hazan’s sexist declaration. By finding their voice in the male-dominated service, the female students would straddle the line between dignity and degradation and inspire reflection among their male peers about equality and the lack of a female voice in communal prayer.
Although fascinated by my sister’s explanation, I objected to her proposal on the grounds that, first, it didn’t push the envelope far enough. “If the blessing is morally objectionable and Halacha permits its omission, why not remove it from prayer entirely?” I asked her. And second, it seemed a little dramatic: People are simply too tired to lend much significance to the potential theatrics of a morning blessing. Still, she and I agreed that the blessing presented a moral problem that demanded a change in ritual.

Others, however, completely rejected our shared condemnation of the blessing. Shortly after my sister’s proposal was shot down, we started a Facebook group — “Say Lo!” [Hebrew for “no!”] to “Shelo Asani Isha” — that attracted an array of such apologists. Despite providing a variety of interpretations of the blessing, they all maintained that the correct interpretation in no way degraded women. For example, popular among the apologists in the group was the view that men recite the blessing thanking God not because men are intrinsically superior to women but because they are obligated in a greater number of commandments and are grateful for this sacred duty. From positions like these they argued that the tradition of reciting the blessing ought to be respected and kept in place.

But the apologists failed to recognize what motivated my sister’s desire to change the liturgy. Law and ritual can either reinforce or combat our prevailing attitudes about gender. By restructuring the service ever so slightly, my sister believed (perhaps incorrectly) that she could dramatically alter the gender messages expressed by the morning blessings. The main point here is that even if we grant the apologists’ claim that the blessing is not intrinsically sexist, it may still promote sexist attitudes that engender inequality and should therefore be removed.

Yet, one might wonder whether something as minor as a single blessing at the beginning of the morning service can seriously impact the way in which Modern Orthodox Jews think about gender. Does anyone really care or think about “Shelo Asani Isha”? Is it really worth the trouble to fight it? One member of the group asked me exactly that question in a Facebook message.

To this, I would reply that the effects of the blessing (and any seemingly sexist law or ritual) can’t be scrutinized in a vacuum. The blessing of “Shelo Asani Isha” is simply one thread of a broader social fabric in which men are the primary spiritual leaders and women the spiritual spectators. To change that landscape and the inherent sexism it is both formed from and perpetuates, Orthodox feminists must promote gender equality whenever it is halachically sanctioned. Because law and ritual give voice to communal attitudes, every detail of communal halachic practice (including the morning blessings) can affect our preconceptions about gender.

The apologists, though aiming to reconcile their feminist and Orthodox commitments, simply end up sacrificing the former at the altar of the latter. Many 21st-century women feel degraded by the blessing and find little solace in rabbinic speculation about its “deeper meaning.” At the same time, feminists who aim to un-pluck Judaism’s misogynistic threads inevitably run the opposite risk of unraveling the entire cloth of Orthodoxy. In other words, they must question whether the conflicts between their feminist and their Orthodox commitments are ultimately intractable ones. For as long as this question remains an open one, Orthodox feminists will and should continue to push the boundaries of socially accepted halachic practice in pursuit of a religious life in which they can participate in good faith.
 
Josh Halpern is a student at Yeshiva University.

<The Forward> 

What Soccer Gave the Jews

By Liam Hoare

Does Your Rabbi Know You’re Here?: The Story of English Football’s Forgotten Tribe
By Anthony Clavane
Quercus Publishing, 304 Pages

Anthony Clavane’s accomplished and engaging work “Does Your Rabbi Know You’re Here?” now out in paperback, is not about what Jews have given to English soccer, so much as what soccer has given to English Jews.

This is not to minimize the contribution Jews have made to the game, particularly off-the-field. Clavane highlights the role of Willy Meisl, an Austrian sports journalist who not only bequeathed new ideas and tactics to the stodgy, long-ball English soccer of the 1950s, but also imparted a more cerebral, less oafish manner of discussing and analysing the game. Meisl spoke eloquently about soccer from the perspective “of the discerning outsider looking in, expressing a passion for, but still not quite becoming part of, English soccer.”

In the boardroom, during the 1980s and ‘90s, Irving Scholar of Tottenham Hotspur and David Dein at Arsenal imported ideas from the United States about match days being an experience of their own. They sought to improve stadia to make them more family-friendly and to appeal to the middle class, as well as to exploit revenue streams such as merchandising. In laying the groundwork for what would become the Premier League, Scholar and Dein helped revolutionize English soccer by turning it into a product.

But for English Jewry as a community, these accomplishments are representative of the opportunities soccer has presented to become part of the whole. Clavane writes:

English football has, for the past century, been a vehicle for Anglicisation, a space where ethnic identity has connected, even become intertwined, with national identity; an arena where Jews have fought the notion that they were invaders who needed to be fended off, newcomers who did not belong.

The foundation and emergence of soccer in England at the end of the 19th century coincided with a great wave of Jewish immigration from Russia, which increased the Anglo-Jewish population from 46,000 in 1880 to around 250,000 by 1919. Contrasting with the assimilated, bourgeois ways of the Jewish establishment, these Yiddish-speaking Ostjuden were perceived as a threat to the order of things, a kind of embarrassment:

The middle-class leaders were horrified by the old-world religious practices of the new arrivals. Having intensely pursued Englishness for the best part of two centuries, they suddenly saw all their good work being undermined by this invasion of ill-kempt foreigners, who were both conspicuous in their appearance and indecorous in their worship.

The answer of Jewish leaders to this mass immigration was “to adopt a policy of radical assimilation,” to erase the “foreignness of the newcomers.” At Jewish schools where “children were taught English literature, the glories of the Empire, and songs celebrating the bulldog spirit,” they were also encouraged to play English sports. The Jewish establishment wanted to produce, to use Colonel Albert Goldsmid’s words, good “Englishmen of the Mosaic persuasion” — Englishmen more English than the English:

The sight of a sturdy, athletic footballer heading a football into a net world, it was argued, go a long way to undermining the image of the devout, long-bearded ghetto-dweller draped in a yarmulke and prayer shawl.

And yet such was the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism in English society — from the sort one would “catch on the edge of a remark,” as Harold Abrahams said in “Chariots of Fire” to Oswald Mosley’s violent black-shirted thugs — that players would be forced to conceal or discard their Judaism altogether, changing their names and playing on Yom Kippur. To the general public, they were not so much Englishmen of the Mosaic persuasion as Englishmen with something to hide.

This total erasure of Judaism would produce a counter-cultural backlash within the Jewish community in the 1960s, just as Englishmen like Mark Lazarus and David Pleat and Israeli talent such as Avi Cohen were coming to the fore. As part of an anti-integrationist backlash, playing soccer was viewed as equivalent to out-marriage or eating treyf — “dangerous signs of secularisation” that would end with the Diaspora being “assimilated to the point of non-existence.”

“Does Your Rabbi Know You’re Here?” illuminates this conflict between assimilation and integration on the one hand, and staying Jewish on the other, as much through history as memoir. Clavane grew up in Leeds during the “Golden Age,” when upward social mobility meant that going to Elland Road on a Saturday afternoon was as important (if not more important) as shul in the morning. Prominent Jewish footballers were idolised in the manner of biblical heroes by boys in the playground, QPR’s League Cup final hero Lazarus as Judah Maccabee.

Yet at the Selig Brodetsky Jewish Day School, Clavane and his friends had their football confiscated by the headmaster, Mr. Abrahamson. Once an advocate for integration and playing English games as a way of fitting in, Abrahamson told the boys that “football is not for a Yiddisher boy,” that “the English game” would eventually swallow them up. Clavane and his friends tried to carry on playing with apples cores or orange peel, though that practice was stamped out too.

Of his own experience, Clavane reflects:

For me, football was a way of transcending the claustrophobic confines of my Jewish suburban existence. It enabled me to become who I wanted to be, to think of myself as English as well as Jewish; to think of my football-mad family as rooted in the life of the country rather than tossed on to its shores by circumstance.

In spite of this balance between Englishness and Jewishness, of being an ‘Englishman of the Mosaic persuasion,” Clavane can neither suppress the guilt nor “erase that eternal voice in my head,” that asks him every Saturday: “Does your rabbi know you’re here?”

<The Forward>