Propaganda on wheels? The "war crimes" bus ads

I haven't blogged in more than three months. I've been using Facebook to convey most of my opinions on local and global happenings, and since the fall was packed with GRE prep, classes, and another contract gig for the Times, I seriously de-prioritized blogging. Still, I missed it. I missed writing in brief or at length about things that mattered to me. I missed getting the occasional response from a reader in New Zealand or Vermont or Patagonia. And since the cinematic year is drawing to a close, and I always make sure to write about my top 10 films of the year, I'll make sure 2010 is no exception. (Expect that post in early January; I still have to catch up on Winter's Bone, The Ghost Writer, and other critical darlings.)

In the meantime, I'll say that the growing Facebook campaign to remove a series of bus ads that accuse Israel of war crimes is getting my goat. It reminds me of the controversy surrounding the Seattle Rep's 2007 production of My Name is Rachel Corrie, a one-woman show that presented the Israel-Palestine conflict from the perspective of a young woman who spent a lot more time with the Palestinians than with the Israelis, and who died after being run over by an Israeli bulldozer.

The Jewish community's argument against the show was that it offered a one-sided view of the Mideast conflict, and that the Rep's discussion panel included only liberal Jews. While it can certainly be argued that the play isn't an even-handed overview of Palestinian and Israeli concerns, the next step for outraged local Jews should have been to make statements, in whatever media they deemed appropriate, that reflected the pro-peace aspects of Israeli society and government. To an extent, they did just that. Aren't such actions protest enough?

Looking back, I think Rep artistic director David Esbjornson erred in claiming that the ADL's and Federation's program ads were an attempt to "discredit" the show. I also think Jewish leaders shouldn't have assumed that they would be afforded program space rather than having to purchase ads to air their views. As I've indicated on Facebook, in response to a group that intends to "stop" the bus ads, I think the Jewish community does itself a disservice when it pushes for censorship -- the outright removal of views it doesn't like -- rather than figuring out how best to answer the offending messages.

A little pro-Israel advertising might go a long way towards making people think; throwing around the word "libel" makes us look reactionary and defensive. And protected speech is protected speech. The bus ads qualify, and if that makes some local Jews uncomfortable, well, that's the price of free speech. The people who so despise those bus ads should come up with a little free speech of their own and, if need be, cover a few city buses with it. Couldn't hurt.

Eat your heart out

My personal essay on Judaism and overeating is live at Jew-ish.com, complete with a luscious picture of pie. Allow me to wipe the drool off my screen...

Yet another reason to appreciate President Obama

The White House seder is now an annual tradition. Hard to imagine Dubya sitting down to one of these.

Children of intermarriage, unite!

My piece on the Half-Jewish Network went live today at Jew-ish.com. It's an intriguing organization, and the topic of intermarriage is a real Pandora's box in Jewish circles, so I look forward to future discussions of it on the Jew-ish blog. I happen currently to be reading a borrowed copy of Doron Kornbluth's Why Marry Jewish?, a calm, thoughtful argument against intermarriage based on studies suggesting it makes life difficult for couples and their children. Kornbluth's thesis is that the added difficulty isn't worth it. It's interesting to get the other side's views (I remain unconvinced that intermarriage is as harmful as Kornbluth says), and I hope to write about the book soon. As I read it, I can't help but think of Jerry Mander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television -- another book-length essay that swam against the cultural tide in the name of what (the author thought) was best for humankind.

Letting go of Christmas

Even though I'm the child of two Jewish parents, I grew up celebrating Christmas. My father's first wife wasn't Jewish, so they raised their three children with both Jewish and Christian holidays. When my mom and dad met, he wasn't willing to give up Christmas, so I was raised with it, too. I believed in Santa and could hardly get to sleep on Christmas Eve, the night our family traditionally sang carols with two other families -- one Jew-ish, one non-Jewish. Our house was adorned with a fully decorated Christmas tree, stockings by the chimney, and angel chimes, and I left cookies and milk for St. Nick even after I was pretty sure he didn't exist. (They were usually sugar-free cookies, since my father was diabetic.) I didn't know of too many other Jewish families who celebrated Christmas, but our Reconstructionist congregation was offbeat enough that I doubt it caused a scandal when certain members found out that we did. When I was young, Christmas was to me what it is to countless other kids: the most magical day of the year.

I mention all of this because, like Jew-ish.com editor Leyna Krow, I find Jewish anti-Christmas sentiment tiresome at best. Yes, we're a group that's been oppressed for millennia, and yes, Christians have often been our oppressors, but whinging about the ubiquity of Christmas is like traveling to Hawaii and complaining about the heat. We live in a country that's religiously neutral on a political level but extremely Christian on a cultural level, and it's likely always to be that way. Leyna's comment that saying "Actually, I'm Jewish" when someone wishes you a merry Christmas only makes things more awkward is true, and though some Jewish activists may interpret identity politics as a way to make non-Jews feel awkward, I don't find this constructive. Pride in one's own heritage, practices, and beliefs always outshines insecurity, and many Jewish people's reactions to Christmas smack of the latter. Maybe some Jews hate Christmas because they envied their non-Jewish peers when they were little, and what they really hate is having been in such an uncomfortable position all those years. I occasionally try to shock Jews I know by telling them that I go to St. Mark's every Christmas Eve for services, and I guess that's a reactionary response to reactionary anti-Christmas grouchiness.

That said, I find myself drifting away from most of my personal Christmas customs. This is the second year in a row that I haven't bought a tree, nominally because of the cost but actually because I live at the Ravenna Kibbutz, where displaying a Christmas tree in the living room would be too much even for a liberal Jewish community to handle. Having a small tree in my room might have been nice, but I prefer a larger tree in a more public space, so halfway through December I decided to let it go. I've watched It's a Wonderful Life at the Grand Illusion every Christmastime since 2002, but I may not go this year. I know the movie practically by heart, and seeing it for the ninth time doesn't really appeal to me (though I'm still awfully fond of it). I went to a caroling party a week ago, but I barely knew anyone there, and I focused more on the food than the singing. When I observe Christmas in Seattle, even in a limited way, I'm doing so mostly to honor my father's memory. He believed that winter holidays were about warmth, light, and common humanity, and he didn't see why Jews couldn't enjoy two instead of just one. (As an adult, I've added Solstice to the lineup, too.)

My Christmas customs also have a tinge of desperation about them, because I'm still grasping at a golden past -- the near-perfection of childhood Christmas -- that I can't return to. In much the same way that New Year's Eve almost always feels anticlimactic to me, Christmas has become a source of muted sadness. I want to feel connected to my father, and to the magical feeling of Christmases past, yet both of these things remain beyond my reach. Finding a vibrant Jewish community has helped me expect less from Christmas -- any kind of social support makes the winter holidays less melancholy -- but I may never get excited about Latkepalooza and other Jewish Christmas events. To me, they seem transparently like distractions, attempts to stay entertained during a day that has negative, even hurtful connotations for many Jews.

Of course, that's precisely what these events are, and there's nothing wrong with that, even if I sometimes feel that their organizers and participants doth protest too much. I don't get jazzed about The Hebrew Hammer screenings and Chinese food feasts on Christmas because I don't want to be distracted -- I want to carry my father's idiosyncratic love and observance of Christmas into the future. Whether or not to raise my own children with Christmas, especially if I marry Jewish, may prove to be a thorny question, but there's no need to resolve it yet. I was heartened to learn recently that an outspoken Jewish activist I know, someone whose personal philosophy is steeped in identity politics, plans to be at St. Mark's tomorrow night as well. A comment she made implied that she's half-Jewish, and that she goes to church on Christmas Eve to honor the non-Jewish part of her heritage.

Since I'll be writing an article soon for Jew-ish.com on the subject of half-Jewish identity, I was both intrigued and comforted to hear that she, too, would be attending midnight mass. Christmas Eve services may hit more of a nerve than other Jewish cultural and spiritual dabblings -- in Buddhism, say, or Eastern medicine -- but sitting in a pew on Dec. 24 doesn't have to be more sinister than going to meditation class. I visit St. Mark's for what my friend Sarah calls the "smells and bells" -- the beautiful pageantry, the breathtaking music, and the sense of universal goodwill. Though I'm not sure how I'll mark Christmas as the years pass, I agree with my father that any ceremony or gathering that helps dispel the winter blues -- especially in Seattle -- isn't likely to do any harm.

Sen. Orrin Hatch thinks we're the Chosen People

He seems like a sweet man. I hope the Kibbutz gives his new Hanukkah song a whirl this month. So what if his affection for us verges on the apocalyptic-creepy? Said the senator to The New York Times:

“Anything I can do for the Jewish people, I will do,” Mr. Hatch said in an interview before heading to the Senate floor to debate an abortion amendment. “Mormons believe the Jewish people are the chosen people, just like the Old Testament says.”

Also:

At one point, Mr. Hatch unbuttons his white dress shirt to expose the golden mezuzah necklace he wears every day. Mezuzahs also adorn the doorways of his homes in Washington and Utah. Mr. Hatch keeps a Torah in his Senate office.

“Not a real Torah, but sort of a mock Torah,” he said. “I feel sorry I’m not Jewish sometimes.”

We may be Chosen, but who knew we'd get this lucky? We now have Mormons writing us music free of charge. It's a beautiful world we live in, people. Check it out:

"Inglourious Basterds"

When I was 13, my parents took me to see The Power of One, which deals with the injustices of apartheid. I remember that at one point the main character committed some act of righteous violence against the Bad Guys, and I yelped with glee. I may have even stood up, I was so excited. My pacifist parents -- who raised me without war toys, war games, or corporal punishment of any kind -- were taken aback. I felt sheepish afterwards, but in that visceral moment, who wouldn't cheer for the hero as he brought the hammer down on the despicable villains?

I saw Inglourious Basterds tonight, finally, and it brought up similar feelings. If you haven't been living in a hole, you know that Quentin Tarantino's World War II revenge saga-as-Peckinpah Western is about an elite band of Jewish-American soldiers bent on killing (and scalping!) as many Nazis as possible in occupied France. (Be aware: Spoilers follow.) As their fearless leader, Brad Pitt is all kinds of fun; in the role of a strong, Jewish heroine (reminiscent of the Bride character from Kill Bill), Mélanie Laurent gives the film a lot of heart. It isn't, as some critics claim, an empty stylistic exercise. Not by a long shot.

According to my mother, her shul's rabbi encouraged the members to see Basterds because it tackles the subject of Jewish vengeance. While I wouldn't ask everyone I know to stomach Tarantino's graphic violence, I agree that the movie touches on some meaty issues. And where the similarly themed Munich was self-important and casually misogynistic, Basterds offers a good time at the movies and a kick-ass female protagonist. Tarantino even points up the antirealism of old WWII movies, in which everyone magically spoke English, by subtitling more than half the dialogue. (The film is in English, German, and French, with a little Italian tossed in for good measure.)

Spielberg and QT may be equally unsubtle filmmakers, but Tarantino's still got something Spielberg hasn't had since Jaws: the ability to serve up dark, energetic entertainment without worrying all too much about making The Big Point. Keep the slow-mo sex 'n' death mashup near the end of Munich and give me the final swastika-carving scene from Basterds. There's putting too fine a point on your movie, and then there's using the point at the end of your knife. I prefer the latter.

Tarantino builds the story in chapters, and yes, the movie is two and a half hours long, and yes, sections of it are talky, but many scenes crackle with real suspense, the entire film is absolutely gorgeous to look at, and no character is safe from harm. (That's been a Tarantino hallmark since Pulp Fiction, and I've always appreciated it. The fact that anyone could die packs a lot of emotional power.) Laurent's Shosanna Dreyfus communicates a great deal with her eyes, and by film's end I'd grown surprisingly attached to her.

Tarantino is known for outrageous violence and obscure movie references, but he actually uses violence very carefully, and his references don't crowd out the immediate drama of each scene. What happens to Shosanna's family is depicted both brutally and bloodlessly; a lesser director would have chosen one path over the other, but Tarantino has the insight and skill to combine them to devastating effect. (The Coens made similar decisions in No Country for Old Men.) As for QT's love of movies, he expresses it more touchingly than ever. During the stunning sequence in which Shosanna dons makeup and a red dress, the shots he gets are sweet tributes to feminine beauty and power in cinema.

Though Christoph Waltz's portrayal of notorious Nazi officer Hans Landa gets hammy towards the end, it's nothing he hasn't prepared us for. From the haunting first scene until Landa meets his supremely apt fate, Waltz lives up to his surname, dancing us in and out of the villain's evil aura. He comes off as smarter than the Nazi high command, whom Tarantino depicts as feeble-minded, violence-crazed man-children. Yet he isn't smart enough to elude his karma, which strikes him as soundly as it does Hitler, Goebbels, and the rest.

Some critics have suggested that Tarantino trivializes the horrors of the Third Reich by using the era as a backdrop for a bloody revenge tale. Yet there have been plenty of uprising films -- last year's Defiance, for example -- that won plaudits for telling true stories of Jewish resistance. Tarantino frames Basterds as fairy tale, fable, wish-fulfillment fantasy, and alternate history, but its climactic scene in a Paris movie theater works beautifully enough as simple catharsis.

We can't revive the loved ones we lost to the Nazis; we can't undo the infinite damage wreaked by the Holocaust. But we can take a trip into our darker dreams of vengeance and behold the splendid, horrifying sight of a building full of Nazis exploding into the Parisian night. That scene is astonishing cinema, balletic and relentless and in tune with the subconscious desire of countless Jews still furious about what happened to their people -- our people

There's a moment in which Eli Roth's character, nicknamed the Bear Jew, keeps gunning at Hitler even though the Führer is clearly dead. Out of context, it sounds juvenile and obvious, but after nearly 150 minutes of emotional buildup, it feels good -- it's a welcome release. Maybe that's fucked up, maybe not. Either way, it's worth talking and thinking about, and to me, that makes Basterds a strong piece of work.

White pages

Sasha redesigned her blog, transforming its aesthetic into something strikingly minimalist. Makes me want to tinker around with mine. We'll see. Maybe something new for 2010.

I'm also still thinking about buying MazelTofu.com, a domain I've wanted for a while now. The concept: a site devoted to Jewish vegetarian cooking, including recipes, test-kitchen adventures, and anecdotes. I'd probably build the page using WordPress; I'm just concerned that it would be frivolous to buy cyber-property during a low-income month. Perhaps posting the idea here will prompt me to finally act, before someone else nabs the URL.

"Anti-Semitism: The Movie"

That's the tongue-in-cheek tagline of Defamation, a new documentary by Israeli director Yoav Shamir that promises to address a very contemporary question: Is anti-Semitism still a significant problem, or are Jews (and others) who think so merely paranoid, insecure, or worse?

As is nearly always the case in such matters, the answer seems to be "both." What excites me about this movie is that it apparently engages with both sides of the debate, unlike Marc Levin's bratty 2005 film Protocols of Zion, in which the director presented a series of hardcore Jew-haters as "proof" that 9/11 unleashed a torrent of anti-Semitic feeling. (Whether the attacks did or didn't galvanize people who loathe us, selective interviewing isn't a persuasive way to show it. I said as much in 2006, when the movie opened here and I reviewed it.) I'm not sure when Defamation will come to Seattle, but you can count on the Kibbutz hosting an excursion to see it and a discussion afterwards, led by yours truly.

Comment of the week at Jew-ish.com

In response to Leyna Krow's great post about intermarriage, a reader with the handle "Tamarshmallow" had the following enlightened thing to say:

It’s been a long argument with my mother on marrying Jewish. If the person I love is not Jewish and not willing to whack off part of his weenie, does that mean my kids are destined to be apathetic halfies therefore ‘watering down’ the Jewish gene pool? Not if my partner is respectful and supportive of my values and beliefs. A person doesn’t have to be officially Jewish to help the faith continue to thrive.

I like your style, Tamarshmallow. Nice to see a little sanity on the intermarriage topic for a change.

A case for marrying Jewish that doesn't make me want to throw up

See, countless misguided Jewish organizations? This is how you do it.

"Srugim"

I have a new post about the Israeli TV series at Jew-ish.com.

Intermarriage: not cancer

Jew-ish.com's Leyna Krow has a great post about Birthright and its anti-intermarriage claims. The day that Judaism HQ stops biting its nails about intermarriage is the day we abandon our macro-level insecurity as a people and start being proud without provisos. So say I, anyway.

Stairs vs. elevator

NPR has the story (and that gorgeous, scene-stealing photo, displayed above). Here's a taste:

Over the years rabbis have approved various methods of automation, such as lights that run on timers, as permissible on the Sabbath.

But now some prominent rabbis have declared that Shabbat elevators must not be used. The rabbis say Shabbat elevators are a "severely prohibited" desecration of the Sabbath. Thus, the eternal debate about what an observant Jew may and may not do on the Sabbath has taken another turn.

"That's low, JDate. That's low."

Blogger Sasha Pasulka, aka Evil Beet, whom I've known since our teenage years, got attention from Gawker for this Yom Kippur-themed beauty:


As if there weren't already enough reasons to wonder about JDate. In other Sasha news, she gave a shout-out to the Kibbutz in her Yom Kippur post, where she links to this blog and my housemate Steven Blum's. It's always impressive when people as successful as Sasha remain so grounded and generous.

President Obama's holiday greeting

Anyone who can call Kanye West a jackass one day and issue a heartfelt message like this the next is my kind of leader. L'shanah tovah, Mr. President.

Not kosher

Seattle-based Top Chef contender Robin Leventhal recently whipped up this little masterpiece:


Her caption: In celebration of International Bacon day.... 3 am Culinary Creativity: Bacon Sauteed Matzo Brei with a Coffee-Star Anis-Molasses syrup....OMFG, i am a VERY BAD JEW!

Food ref

The artwork above, created by Alli Arnold, accompanied a 2004 piece I wrote for the Weekly about Seattle's Jewish dining scene. In light of Jew-ish.com editor Leyna Krow's recent post about the relative abundance of kosher options in town, I figured it was worth digging up. If only for the awesome illustration.

Intermarriage does not = abduction

I've always disdained anti-intermarriage campaigns built entirely out of xenophobic paranoia and offensive hyperbole, and this is a prize specimen. As one commenter notes, you don't strengthen ties between Israel and the Diaspora by insulting a significant percentage of Jews' spouses. How misguided and vile.

Once again, we take the blame

Hilarious. Thanks to Mai Li for the tip-off.