When Jewish justices got the Supreme Court to shut down on Yom Kippur

Since 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court has not held public sessions on Yom Kippur. Since the court opens its term on the first Monday in October, it is not unusual for the Jewish Day of Atonement to arrive just as the court begins its public work.

How the Supreme Court came to observe the Jewish High Holy Day is a story about religious diversity on the court, the quiet perseverance of two justices and an unexpected illness.

In an impromptu appearance at a synagogue here last week on Rosh Hashanah, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recounted how she and fellow Jewish Justice Stephen Breyer approached Chief Justice William Rehnquist and explained that Jewish lawyers who had been “practicing their arguments for weeks” should not be required to choose between religious observance and representing their clients before the court. According to Ginsburg, Rehnquist agreed.

But Ginsburg was being respectful of the memory of Rehnquist – cognoscenti have slightly less gracious memories of his role in the change.

There were no Jewish justices on the Supreme Court in the almost quarter century between the resignation of Abe Fortas on May 15, 1969, and Ginsburg’s swearing-in on Aug. 10, 1993. (Breyer joined the court on Aug. 3, 1994.) I appeared before the court as private counsel a number of times between 1971 and 1994, and the Supreme Court clerk was always accommodating to Jewish religious observance. Cases in which I was scheduled to argue orally were scheduled for dates that would not conflict with Jewish holidays.

In 1994, I was scheduled for two appearances during a Supreme Court session in March that included Passover. At my request, the arguments were scheduled so as not to conflict with the first and last two days of the holiday.

A lawyer asking for an argument to be rescheduled was one thing; a Supreme Court justice sitting out an argument was quite another.

Yom Kippur in 1993 and 1994 came in September, so there was no religious conflict during Ginsburg’s first two years and Breyer’s freshman year on the court. But in 1995, Yom Kippur was on Oct. 4 – a Wednesday on which the court was scheduled to hear oral argument. No counsels apparently had requested that their cases be rescheduled. Although the court’s Hearing Calendar had arguments scheduled for that date, they were abruptly postponed. The court took the day off on Yom Kippur, as it has done ever since.

Those of us who followed the court closely and were battling for recognition of Jewish religious rights were curious as to how this happened. The story – as I heard it at the time from a knowledgeable source – did not portray Rehnquist as cordially accommodating to Jewish religious observance.

The account I heard then was that Ginsburg and Breyer had approached Rehnquist after oral arguments were scheduled for that Oct. 4. The two Jewish members asked the chief justice to be respectful of their religious identity and postpone the arguments scheduled for Yom Kippur.

Rehnquist, however, had not accommodated Jewish observance in a 1986 case in which I had argued on behalf of an Orthodox Jewish Air Force psychologist who wanted to wear a yarmulke with his military uniform. Rehnquist had written the Supreme Court’s majority 5-to-4 opinion rejecting the First Amendment claim.

Before she was nominated to the Supreme Court, Ginsburg as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals — along with Antonin Scalia and Kenneth Starr, judges at the time — had voted in favor of the psychologist’s motion to rehear the lower court’s rejection of the yarmulke request. (Following the high court’s rejection, Congress would enact a law, still in effect, that grants military personnel in uniform a statutory right to wear a neat and conservative religious article of clothing.)

In 1995, according to the version of the story I heard, Rehnquist turned down the request of Ginsburg and Breyer to reschedule the court date to accommodate Yom Kippur. He told them that they could, if they chose, absent themselves on Yom Kippur and still vote, pursuant to the court’s practice, after listening to the audio tapes of the oral arguments.

Soon thereafter, however, Rehnquist found that he, too, would be unable to sit with the court on Oct. 4 because his painful back condition required medical treatment on that day.

According to my sources, this gave the two Jewish justices an unexpected opportunity. They approached John Paul Stevens, the most senior justice who would be presiding if Rehnquist were absent. They pointed out to Stevens that if the two of them were not on the bench on Oct. 4, only six justices would sit to hear oral arguments on that day. Although that number is technically a Supreme Court quorum and the absent justices could vote after listening to audio tapes, Stevens agreed that the optics of such a diminished panel would be less than ideal. Stevens then postponed the Yom Kippur session, and the practice stuck.

This year’s Yom Kippur falls on Friday night and Saturday morning, Sept. 29-30, and the court won’t convene until Monday, Oct. 2.

But thanks to Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens, the next time a public session falls on Yom Kippur, a sign of respect for Jewish observance will again prevail.

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Nathan Lewin is a Washington lawyer who has argued 28 cases before the Supreme Court and is on the adjunct faculty of Columbia Law School.

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The wandering Jew at the heart of Billy Wilder’s ‘The Apartment’

Ask any fan of Billy Wilder to name their favorite of the master’s films, and almost inevitably the answer will be either “Some Like It Hot” or “The Apartment.” Marilyn versus Shirley. “Nobody’s perfect” versus “Shut up and deal.” 

I was in the former camp until, while watching “The Apartment,” I had an epiphany.

To set the stage: In my former life as a motion picture literary agent, I represented writer-director Cameron Crowe beginning with the movie rights to his first book, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” and the screenplay he wrote based on it.

Crowe’s idol, role model and inspiration was Billy Wilder. His lodestar was 1960’s “The Apartment.” If Wilder, in a moment of creative indecision, asked himself, “What would Ernst Lubitsch do?” Crowe would ask himself, “What would Wilder do?”

Wilder won an Oscar for directing “The Apartment,” and shared the screenwriting Oscar with I.A.L. Diamond.

About 15 years ago, I arranged a screening of “The Apartment” in the Creative Arts Agency’s (CAA) theater with Crowe present for a Q-and-A after the film.

It was near the end of the movie when I had the epiphany: The story of “The Apartment” is the story of the Wandering Jew. Wilder, consciously or not, wasn’t just telling us the story of a hapless soul who found his courage. He was telling us the story of a Jew, destined to wander the world as an eternal outsider.

To summarize the intricate plot: In a large insurance firm, an anonymous, gray-suited worker, C.C. Baxter, played by Jack Lemmon, tries to curry favor with his bosses by lending them his Upper West Side apartment for their extramarital affairs. One manager in particular, Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), uses Baxter’s apartment in exchange for a promise to promote him. Baxter is deeply saddened to learn that Sheldrake’s mistress is the woman he secretly longs for, Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), an elevator operator in the building. Baxter must decide between the woman he loves and the advancement of his career.

In addition to the three main characters, Baxter’s managers are named Kirkeby, Dobisch, Vanderhoff and Eichelberger. The residents we meet in his apartment building are Dr. Dreyfuss, Mrs. Dreyfuss, and Mrs. Lieberman. It’s the gentile authority figures versus the Austro-Hungarian Jews, with MacLaine’s Kubelik as the outsider to both groups.

When Dr. Dreyfuss offers life advice to Baxter, he says, “Be a mensch,” which the good doctor defines as “a human being.” Meanwhile, Mrs. Dreyfuss makes chicken soup for Baxter, and Mrs. Lieberman collects his rent. 

Wilder was a Polish-born Jew whose family moved to Vienna. He left in 1934 for Paris, then Hollywood. In “The Apartment” he re-created a Little Vienna on the Hudson. 

On the other side of the ledger, Kirkeby drives a VW Beetle, the only car we see in the film, and reports in disgust what he did with his mistress after Baxter reclaims the key to his apartment: “I wound up at the Guggenheim Museum.” The Jewish name fairly curdles in his mouth.

Baxter is torn between these two cultures: the amoral, manipulative larger society where material success beckons, and “home,” where what matters is ethical behavior and tradition (that chicken soup).

At the movie’s climax, he makes his choice, returning the key to the executive washroom to Sheldrake. The key represents all the privilege and sense of belonging that Baxter thought he wanted. It’s the defining moment for our hero. Undergoing his own epiphany, Baxter says to Sheldrake, “I’ve decided to become a mensch.”    

With that declaration, Baxter’s life falls apart. He loses his job, the girl, his apartment, and takes a punch to the nose. As he packs up his minimal possessions, Dr. Dreyfuss asks him where he will go. He says, “I’ve got to get out of here.” Soon after, MacLaine’s character asks, “Where are you going?” Baxter replies, in effect, “Who knows. Another town, another job, I’m on my own.”

“I’m on my own.” 

Sitting in the CAA screening room hearing those words, that’s when the lightbulb went off. Baxter is the Wandering Jew, the archetypal figure doomed to move from place to place, never quite fitting in, yet always somehow surviving.

Is C.C. Baxter, with the bland, gentile name, not the essence of the Wandering Jew?  He will always adapt to adverse circumstances. He will always return to his essence. He will survive and teach those around him the same ageless lesson we come to at Yom Kippur: It takes courage to recognize one’s mistakes and make a better choice.

The day after the screening, I phoned Crowe to relate my interpretation, which seriously bemused him. I asked him if he would run it by Wilder the next time they spoke. 

Two hours later, Crowe called me back. He had just spoken to Wilder. After Crowe laid out my theory, Wilder had only one response: He answered a question with a question.

Surprised by the insight, the great director said, “Who told you this?”

All these years later, I think that meant I was onto something.

Bob Bookman is a lifelong cinéaste and a charter member of the Billy Wilder Fan Club.

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Letters to the Editor: North Korea, Hitler Youth and hurricanes

More Than a War of Words With North Korea?

Am I the only person who sees Donald J. Trump as [Slim Pickens’ character] riding the bomb in “Doctor Strangelove”? Will he be riding the bomb into North Korea?

Judith Ornstein Kollman, Sherman Oaks

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Content of Some Sermons Isn’t Surprising

The truism is that rabbis in branches of Judaism known for three-days-a-year followers would sermonize on leftist politics and remind their parishioners that liberalism and politically correct social constructs are (the only?) holy sacraments in their religion. Your story on mostly leftist clergy supports that thesis (“Some Holiday Sermons Become Words to Live By,” Sept. 21). 

So why go to temple rather than to an ACLU policy conference?

S.Z. Newman, Los Angeles

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The Brainwashing of a Hitler Youth

Your story about Ursula Martens sparked my interest (“A Soul-Crushing Debt,” Aug. 11). I read it with great understanding for a child, who had only the brainwashing of a sick society while growing up. She did not have the opportunity to question or learn that all humans are the same.

I am a child of a Holocaust survivor from Poland. As an adult, I have always been very interested in the feelings of German perpetrators of war crimes upon the Jewish people. Not much has been written by them about their hate, greed, jealousy or fear while executing their deeds.

I know and understand how these emotions block the feelings of people who are not taught to love or think independently. However, I still do not understand how most of the nation could be so apathetic in the early stages of brainwashing to not react en masse.

I am now very disturbed by what is happening in our great nation in respect to hate and hate crimes. Can it be that the discrepancy between the haves and have nots is getting more prevalent all over the world, as it was in Germany in 1934? At least in the United States we can still complain and get awareness, but once that is gone, history will repeat itself once more!

Thank you for a good story that expressed growth and learning.

Vicky Engel Hartman, Chatsworth

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Hey, Rob, Please Take Marty With You

Goodbye and good riddance to Jewish Journal Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Rob Eshman. Sick of reading the leftist slant for a Jewish newspaper. Too much junk about President Donald Trump, while the economy has been excellent, thanks to him. Nothing good said about Trump’s excellent “Make America Great Again” policies that have already made us the best this country has ever been. By the way, Rob, when you leave the Journal, please take Marty Kaplan with you.

Robert Clark via email

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Deep Meaning in This View of the Universe

I just read Marty Kaplan’s column (“Holy Hurricane,” Sept. 15). 

The second-to-last paragraph contained this thought: “ … I don’t experience the universe as arbitrary and meaningless; I experience awe at the mystery of existence, and gratitude for its wonders.” 

I found much meaning in Kaplan’s thought; the awesomeness of a precise universe that inspires thankful appreciation. There’s a scriptural rhythm to those words. 

Kathy Amato via email

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The Professor and the Roots of Shalhevet

In your ad “Jewish Contributions to Humanity #57” ad (Sept. 8), you featured professor Lawrence Kohlberg, which made me reminisce that if it weren’t for this giant in moral education, there would be no Shalhevet High School today.

After seeing the aftermath of the Holocaust, Kohlberg focused his life on developing a more moral and ethical human being, so that Nazi Germany would never happen again. While lecturing in Israel, he spent time on a kibbutz. There, he adopted methodology of how the kibbutz developed rules and its members abided by them.

Philosophers, psychologists and educators came from all over the world to seek his advice and discuss his theory. So did I. He became my mentor, adviser and friend and had a profound impact on my adult life. He inspired me to be a change agent in Jewish education and use his moral principles to start Shalhevet High School in 1992. For that, I will be forever grateful to his contribution to humanity.

Jerry Friedman, Founder, Shalhevet High School via email

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In the Yom Kippur War, Alan of Beverly Hills gave his life for Israel

The tank company had pulled back beyond Egyptian artillery range to refuel. Platoon commanders, determined-looking young men with stubbly, 2-week-old beards, gathered around a map of the Golan Heights that a visiting information officer had laid on the ground. They listened intently as he explained how the Syrians had been driven back after almost capturing the Heights, 300 miles to the northeast. It was the first clear indication the officers had of how the war was going on the northern front.

It was the waning days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Golan front had stabilized and I had come down to Sinai as a Jerusalem Post reporter for a glimpse of the endgame beginning to play out on the Egyptian front.

The company commander said his unit had been in combat every day since the war started two weeks before on Yom Kippur afternoon. He was highly complimentary of the Egyptian infantry, which had wielded antitank weapons with devastating effect — “They fought like men” — but he said the Egyptian tank corps had not improved since the Six-Day War. His men were supposed to have been pulled back for a brief rest but they refused to be rotated off the line. “As long as they want to stay, we’ll let them,” he said.

An officer, hearing my American accent, summoned a tall lieutenant whose left arm was covered from wrist to elbow with a fresh bandage, incongruously white in contrast to the brown dust that covered tanks and uniforms. The military censor did not permit publication of family names of officers but the lieutenant could give his first name: Alan.

Alan hailed from Beverly Hills, of all places, and was the son of a doctor. On his own, he had immigrated to Israel four years before, straight out of high school at age 18, and settled in a kibbutz. He was serving as a forward artillery observer, which meant he was almost constantly exposed to enemy fire. In an article the next day, I mentioned my encounter with a soldier from Beverly Hills.

About 10 days later, I received a call from Alan’s kibbutz. The war had ended but he had not been heard from and the army could not account for his whereabouts. His sister, who was in the country, had seen my article and informed the kibbutz. Did I know what might have happened to Alan, the caller asked? I could only note that some of the tank officers in the unit to which he was attached were from Kibbutz Bait Hasheeta. Perhaps they knew something. Not long afterward, the kibbutznik called to inform me that Alan had been killed while crossing the Suez Canal in Israel’s final push. According to an obituary subsequently issued by the army, his halftrack had been hit and he had mounted another in order to wield its machine gun. But that vehicle was also hit and he was killed.

Years later, after publication of my book, “The Yom Kippur War,” I received a letter from a friend of Alan’s who informed me of his family name, Chersky. I wrote his parents to describe my brief wartime meeting with their son. The father, Dr. Joseph Chersky, who had participated in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium as a U.S. Army private in World War II, wrote back that Alan, in moving to Israel, had been motivated by concern “about the preservation of the Jewish people.” I was able to tell him Alan’s final words to me as we shook hands in parting — just a few hours, apparently, before he was killed:

“I feel fulfilled.”

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ABRAHAM RABINOVICH is a journalist born and raised in New York City, who lives in Jerusalem. He is the author of six books, including “The Yom Kippur War,” “The Boats of Cherbourg” and “Jerusalem on Earth.” A revised and updated edition of “The Yom Kippur War” was published this month by Schocken (New York).

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Burma’s response and the world’s obligation

More than 400,000 out of 1 million Rohingya Muslim minorities in western Burma had fled to Bangladesh within three weeks in late August and early September after the Burmese government army launched what is called “clearance operations” against Muslim militants.

On Aug. 25, the Muslim militants known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) — led by Attaullah Abu Ammar Jununi, who was born in Pakistan and grew up in Saudi Arabia — launched a series of attacks against 30 police outposts in the Maungdaw region in Burma’s Rakhine state. In response, the Burmese army launched an operation that became an international issue that was discussed at the 72nd United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Rakhine, one of Burma’s poorest and most isolated states, now is known by the world. Bangladesh has to host 420,000 refugees from Rakhine while the U.N. provides aid to them. The United States announced it would provide $32 million for humanitarian aid for the refugees in Bangladesh and displaced people in Rakhine.

More than 70 years after the Holocaust, the United Nations and world leaders have accused Burma of ethnic cleansing and called on the government to stop the army from continuing its so-called clearance operations. The British government halted training with a group of Burmese military officials in England and sent them back to their country, and French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Burma and said the attacks on the Rohingya people amounted to “genocide.”

Rohingya refugees who arrived in Bangladesh said the Burmese army and local Rakhine nationalists burned down their homes and killed the Muslims they found. They said members of the army raped Muslim women.

Despite criticism from world leaders and the international media, the Burmese government has a different perspective about the Rohingya and defends itself. On Sept. 19, Burma’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, addressed diplomats, representatives of international nongovernmental organizations, and foreign and domestic journalists in the capital city of Naypyidaw. She said she wants to find out why many Muslims have fled to Bangladesh even though there were no clashes or military operations since Sept. 5. 

However, journalists who visited the  conflict-torn Maungdaw region on Sept. 7 said they heard gunfire and witnessed arson being committed in the region.

Suu Kyi recognized that there has been much concern around the world with regard to the situation in Rakhine.

“It is not the intention of the Burmese government to apportion blame or to abdicate responsibility. We condemn all human rights violations and unlawful violence,” Suu Kyi said, without mentioning the Burmese army operation that killed about 400 people, mostly Rohingya Muslims.

Burmese government officials deny allegations made by world leaders, saying there has been no ethnic cleansing. They also blame the international media of taking the side of the Rohingya Muslims.

More than 70 years after the Holocaust, the United Nations and world leaders have accused Burma of ethnic cleansing and called on the government to stop the army from continuing its so-called clearance operations.

The government’s information committee even released a statement warning some media organizations that don’t use the term “terrorists” as it has instructed. Media that use “Rohingya,” the unwanted terminology among government and nationalists, were verbally attacked. The committee even has warned that legal action will be taken against media outlets that don’t follow the instruction. 

Talking with a wide range of Burmese people, from ordinary citizens to government officials and generals, it is apparent that anti-Muslim sentiment is an open secret in Burma. And the Rohingya people, who are seen by a majority of Burmese as immigrants from Bangladesh, are unwanted. They have been denied citizenship and basic rights — such as freedom of movement, education and health care — for decades. 

The ARSA attacks succeeded in getting the Rohingya issue on the agenda at the U.N. General Assembly. But the image of Burma has been damaged as its government, army and Rakhine nationalists responded emotionally and unwisely, targeting not only ARSA militants but also driving out 420,000 unarmed Muslim civilians, 40 percent of the entire Rohingya population in the state. The persecution of Rohingya Muslims is alarming, and Burma’s issue has become one to which the world has an obligation to respond.

The world should act urgently to stop the Burmese from driving the Rohingya Muslims from their country. The U.N. also should take punitive actions, such as its Responsibility to Protect provision, and influential nations around the world should consider imposing sanctions against Burma.

Nations that sell weapons to Burma should suspend further arms deals. International human rights bodies also should investigate allegations of mass killings and gang rape allegedly committed by Burmese security forces during military operations.

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ROGERS PEN is a pseudonym of an experienced Burmese journalist based in Yangon who fears retribution for expressing these views. 

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A conversation with God before Yom Kippur

A writer sits at her desk, hands limp at the keyboard. After several minutes of silence, she leans back, closes her laptop and speaks aloud.

ME: God, I confess I’m reaching out to you because I’m having severe writer’s block over what I should write for Yom Kippur.

GOD: [silence]

ME: It feels strange to talk to you like this. Outside of shul, I mean. We haven’t really done this in a long time. I’m not even sure you’re listening.

GOD: [silence]

ME: Right. You’re probably busy with more important crises than writer’s block. I’ve been reading about the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar … the African famine … the hurricane damage … far-right parties in Europe … North Korea. You’ve got a lot on your plate. I don’t envy you. I think I’ll just update my journal.

GOD: [clearing throat] I’m sorry I’m late, Danielle.

ME: Holy shhh…!

GOD: This time of year is … [makes exasperated sound]. But I’m here now. In fact, I’m everywhere.

ME: Wow, I didn’t expect you to answer.

GOD: It has been a while, Danielle. You were much more expressive to me during your year of Kaddish.

ME: I’m sorry. I’ve been a little checked out. I guess I had more to say back then. It’s easier to pray when you have a purpose.

GOD: There is always a purpose to prayer.

ME: I get that in theory. But, you know, that was such a unique time, losing my Mom. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur come every year. It’s hard to just switch it on. I’m having a hard time making the whole holiday drama feel new.

GOD: What is old you will make new, and what is new you will make holy…

ME: Are you giving me a commandment? An 11th? Wait. Didn’t Rav Kook say that?

GOD: Yes, but I whispered the idea to him. We work in partnership, Danielle. He was a smart one, that Kook. One of my best. Very good listener. So were Moses, Buddha, Muhammad, Einstein, Beethoven….  The list goes on.

ME: Well, if you want to implant genius ideas in me, I can be a good listener.

GOD: I’ve been trying.

ME: Oh. Do you think you could try a little louder?

GOD: I don’t grant wishes, Danielle.

ME: Not even if it’s good for the world? Like, maybe you could “disappear” Kim Jong Un the way Mexican drug traffickers do with journalists?

GOD: Those journalists did my work well. I was proud.

ME: Why would you reward people doing “your work” with death?

GOD: Why do you think so negatively about death? It’s all part of my plan. I haven’t told you what happens after this.

ME: After life?

GOD: My ways are a mystery.

ME: That’s right. God works in mysterious ways. I’ll bet you whispered that one, too.

GOD: Indeed. It got shortened and sloganeered over the years, but it was best expressed through the German author Novalis: “We dream of traveling through the universe — but is not the universe within ourselves? The depths of our spirit are unknown to us — the mysterious way leads inwards.”

ME: Again, if you want to whisper things like that to me, I’m game.

GOD: Danielle, everything you need is already inside you.

ME: Then why doesn’t it feel that way? Why do I always focus on what’s missing, what’s unrealized and undone in my life? I don’t mean to seem ungrateful. You’ve given me so many gifts and blessings. But, still. Life is a lot harder than I imagined it would be.

GOD: If it were easy, you wouldn’t strive. My world needs strivers.

ME: I want to do your will, God. But the problems of the world are so overwhelming. To be honest, a lot of the time I get bogged down with the problems of my own life. How do I know what to focus on? Do you want me to heal the world or heal myself?

GOD: You have a beautiful soul, Danielle.

ME: Thank you for the compliment. And, for my soul.

GOD: You’re welcome.

ME: God?

GOD: Yes?

ME: I don’t want you to go away. This is kinda nice. I think I might need you.

GOD: Do you remember learning to ride a bike, Danielle? You didn’t ride on your own until your father let go. Sometimes I hide my face in order for you to grow.

ME: Wait! Before you go, I still need you to tell me what you want of me.

GOD: It’s in the Talmud, Danielle. Rahmana liba bayeh — I want your heart.

ME: But you already have it. I promise.

GOD: One thing I’ve never been able to figure out is why my children make so many promises they can’t keep. I even give you an out: Kol Nidre. Every year, all oaths are annulled.

ME: That doesn’t make any sense, though. Why wouldn’t you want me to keep this promise? How will we ever heal the world if every year you allow us to cancel our obligations?

GOD: Because there’s wisdom in annulling a promise.

ME: That doesn’t bode well for matrimony.

GOD: A promise, by definition, depends on certainty, and few things in this life are certain. I made it that way. I guarantee you life — but not an amount. Who shall live and who shall die is known only to me.

ME: And yet, you expect us to just go on — with courage, with purpose, in goodness — without knowing what’s in store for us?

GOD: Danielle, the human condition is one of uncertainty. If you can weather, with more peace of mind, the unknowns of your life — and your writing — you will live better. Life will unfold regardless of your needs or wishes. The spiritual task is how to bear the mystery, and how to help others bear it too.

ME: Bear the mystery. What does that mean? What does that look like? Should I give up writing and go help the Rohingya?

GOD: [silence]

ME: God? Are you still there?

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Danielle Berrin is a senior writer and columnist at the Jewish Journal.

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To Rob, with love

When my friend Rob Eshman suggested I write a weekly neighborhood column in the Jewish Journal in August 2006, my immediate response was, “How can I do it every week? I can’t write about the same neighborhood week after week.”

His response: “So write about whatever you’re passionate about that week.”

Those words have stayed with me ever since, and whenever I wasn’t sure what to write about on any given week, I just followed Rob’s advice.

Well, now that I have to fill Rob’s pretty considerable shoes as the Journal’s publisher and editor-in-chief, I will try to do the same.

My first issue in my new role will be next week’s Sukkot issue. I approach this moment with some trepidation. Already, from my experience of just the past two weeks, I can tell you it is a huge amount of work to produce quality journalism every week.

When I started a spiritual magazine many years ago called OLAM, we had months to put it together. We could agonize for weeks over the articles, the writers, the images, the design, everything. Will I have as much time to agonize at the Jewish Journal? Not a chance. Will I try to be as meticulous? Yes. Wish me luck.

Producing a weekly community paper is, above all, an enormous responsibility. The eyes of a community are on you, on every word and on every image. The more I get into it, the more appreciation I have for what Rob did over the past 17 years as editor-in-chief, week in and week out.

First, I’m learning that everyone thinks they’re Ernest Hemingway, everyone has a piece that absolutely must be published. Rob knew how to manage sticky situations like this — where you want to be honest without hurting people’s feelings — with class and grace. Will I have the same grace? I don’t know. I’ll try.

Second, many readers get angry when they read content with which they disagree. Rob had this remarkable willingness to publish letters to the editor that completely reamed his own paper. Will I be as fearless? I don’t know. I’ll try.

Third, Rob was a journalist at heart. He loved news. He loved everything that would advance a story. He loved stories, period. Will I be as great a journalist and storyteller? I don’t know. I’ll try.

One of Rob’s great contributions to the Journal and to our community is his appreciation for diverse voices. I know from experience. Occasionally, I would send him a column that I knew he would sharply disagree with, and I’d get this kind of response: “I disagree with it, but it’s well written and well argued.” And more often than not, he’d publish it.

You can never underestimate this talent. At a time when the nation has been as polarized as ever, when people are repulsed by views they disagree with, when disagreements easily turn into animosity, it takes guts to publish stuff you completely disagree with.

Will I have that same courage? I don’t know. I’ll try.

One thing I do know is this: If there is one thing that has bonded Rob and me over the years, it is our love of fresh and different voices, our love of trying new things, our love of shaking things up and keeping readers on their toes.

In fact, when he first brought up the idea that I take over his role, one thing he said was, “Hey, maybe the place can use some new blood.”

Am I that new blood? I don’t know. I certainly hope so.

What I can tell you is that Rob had a genius for constantly providing that new blood. His eyes and ears and taste buds were always open for something new to share with readers. If he tasted something he liked at my Shabbat table, he’d show up at my home the following week and film my mother making her famous galettes.

It is that openness I will miss the most. Those impromptu conversations in our offices about movies, food (always food), the Jewish community (don’t ask), a new book, Israeli politics (always polite), a new person we met, a cool event we attended or that was coming up, a story about one of our kids … there were always new stories to share.

Will I continue to follow Rob’s lead and tell all those new stories with fairness and passion? I’m not Hemingway, but I’ll try.

---

David Suissa is president of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal and can be reached at davids@jewishjournal.com.

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The last column

So this is goodbye.

I walked into the offices of the Jewish Journal 23 years ago, and it’s time for me to walk out.

As I announced a month ago, I’ll be stepping down as editor-in-chief and publisher as of Sept. 29 and moving on to the next chapter of my life, focusing full time on writing and teaching, and being open to new possibilities as well. So this is my last column as editor. I’m truly touched by the numerous kind letters and Facebook posts from people who say they will miss me. For those of you who won’t miss me, I’m glad I could finally make you happy.

A while ago, I realized I had better move on before it was too late. The Journal has been my home since 1994, and it was time to leave home. Twenty-three years. The voice in my head kept nagging, “If not now, when?”

When I told my therapist maybe this was all just a midlife crisis, he raised an eyebrow. “Rob, you’re 57. Midlife?”

As my friends and family (and therapist) can attest, I’ve struggled with this decision. It didn’t come as an epiphany but as a gnawing sense that I had given this place my all, and it was time to stretch myself in new ways.

Each Yom Kippur, we come face to face with our mortality. The liturgy urges us to make good our vows and repair our wrongs before the closing of the gates. And each Yom Kippur for many years, I sat in services and struggled with the reality that the gates are closing, and I had to decide. I would recite the Al Chet prayer, which asks God to forgive us a litany a sins. I would get to the last one — “For the mistakes we committed before You through confusion of the heart” — and beat my breast extra hard. The rabbis understood how indecision could paralyze us, stifling our potential.

In her new book, Rabbi Naomi Levy (who also happens to be my wife) tells how the rabbis believed that an angel hovers over every living thing, every blade of grass, whispering, “Grow! Grow!” Since I first read that passage, the angel’s voice has only grown louder. By last year, that still small voice — kol d’mama daka — was screaming.

Still, I wavered. Letting go of this job turns out to be really hard. It has given me a public platform, a voice. It has taken me around the world: Poland, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Morocco, Germany, France, England, Mexico and, of course, Israel. It has brought me into the vice president’s mansion and the White House — twice — and enabled me to meet and speak with intellectuals, diplomats, artists, writers, actors, activists, rabbis, educators, politicians and world leaders. It has put me on stages from Encino to Oxford, to speak with people like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Tony Kushner, Ehud Barak, Amos Oz and the brave Muslim journalists whom the Journal has hosted as Daniel Pearl Fellows.

It has paid me to do what I would do for free: keep up with current events, learn all that I can about Judaism, Los Angeles, politics, food and Israel. It has put me into the heart of the Los Angeles Jewish community at a remarkable time, when we Jews are freer, more secure and more powerful than at any other time in our history. It also put me into journalism during a thrilling moment, when the future of media changes weekly, and when what began as a small community paper can now, with the click of a button, have an impact on people around the world.

Maybe I should stop with this litany before I change my mind, but ultimately, those are just the perks of a fascinating job. I am under no illusions about what really made my role so rewarding.

First, you.

When I say the Journal has been my home, I mean you readers have been like family. You are smart, caring, engaged and opinionated. Not for a second did I ever feel I was writing into a void — and, on occasion, I wished I were. “Eshman is a total moron when it comes to Israel,” a letter writer wrote last week. I’ve been doing this so long and have developed such a thick skin, I actually took it as a compliment. Hey, he didn’t say about everything, just Israel.

I’ve always been keenly aware the Journal serves one of the world’s largest and most diverse Jewish communities. As our online presence has grown, so has our community of readers, from L.A. to Tel Aviv to New York to Tehran. My goal has been to make the Journal the easiest and most interesting place for all these disparate voices to meet, to argue factually and honestly, to understand one another if not to agree. I’ve met or spoken with thousands of you over the years and I take comfort in knowing the Journal, 30 years after its founding, remains the one place where all of our many voices can gather and be heard, day after day, week after week. Even as online media catered more and more to ideological ghettos, the Journal remained committed to reflecting the broadest array of views.

My other deep sense of fulfillment comes from having been part of the Jewish Journal board and staff. I was fortunate to work under three chairs of TRIBE Media, the nonprofit that publishes the Journal: Stanley Hirsh, Irwin Field and Peter Lowy. All three fiercely respected the Journal’s editorial independence. Stanley tapped me to be editor and Irwin devoted himself selflessly to the Journal for years. Peter came in at a dire moment and has stuck by the Journal’s side ever since — he continues to be a selfless supporter and loyal defender. If anything, I often felt that if we weren’t raising a ruckus, we were letting Peter down. To me personally, he is a role model for fearlessness and generosity. If you have received any benefit from this enterprise, Peter Lowy deserves more credit than he will ever take.

I’ve appreciated all of our board members over the years, but I owe three special thanks. Uri Herscher believed in this paper when the recession had all but finished it off. His commitment to local, independent Jewish press, his moral authority and his wisdom helped bring it back to life. Uri continues to be a mentor and inspiration to me, as he is to so many. Art Bilger was part of the original rescue squad and saw us through very hard times with insight and creativity. And Michael Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former editor of the Los Angeles Times, has always been an unflappable editorial sounding board for me.

Although never a board member or a staffer, Jonathan Kirsch has acted as the Journal’s pro bono counsel for 30 years. His expertise has been an important part of the Journal’s success, and occasionally its salvation. Tough stories often make for tough enemies. Jonathan Kirsch is our shield.

As for the staff, what can I say? There’s a word for an editor without a staff — it’s called a blogger. An enormous amount of work goes into putting out a weekly paper and a constantly updated website. That work is unceasing, always under deadline with never enough time or money. Whether it’s Tom Tugend, who fled Nazi Berlin and fought in three wars — and still reports for us — or our newest interns, the people who do this work on the advertising, administrative and editorial sides are the paper. They are an extraordinary group of people, from all different faiths and backgrounds. I’ll take full blame for any criticism you may have of this paper, but any compliments must be shared with them.

Six years ago, when I asked David Suissa to join the paper, I knew that there were few people in L.A. who share his passion for Jewish life combined with his commitment to fine journalism and an intense creativity. Three years ago, when I first told David I was thinking of leaving, he said, “No!” David can be very persuasive, so no it was, and I’m grateful I stayed. These past few years have been the most exciting.

I know there are Suissa people out there and Eshman people, but as David takes the reins, I want you to know that I am a Suissa person. I am sure under David this enterprise will go from strength to strength.

There is a second “staff” that also has been a blessing: my family. Raising a family in the Jewish community while reporting on the Jewish community has been tricky at times, and often personally hard for them. To protect their privacy, I chose to write about my son, Adi, and daughter, Noa, very sparingly in this space, but know that is in inverse proportion to the amount of room they take up in my heart and soul. Adi and Noa have been my constant joy and inspiration.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in those decades, it’s that nothing is as important to individual success as community. Yes, the community can offer connections and a leg up. But it also will be there when you fall.

My wife Naomi approaches Jewish learning and practice with utter commitment and total joy. She doesn’t just inspire me, she revives my faith when the politics of communal life can sometimes sour it. Being married to a brilliant rabbi and writer has also helped me fool you into thinking I know far more than I do.   

My parents, Aaron and Sari Eshman, are my role models for community and caring. My dad was born in 1927 in Los Angeles, where his father, Louis, was on the original medical staff of what was then Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. I have vivid childhood memories of Mom and Dad heading off to charity events and volunteering for Cedars, Vista Del Mar and other organizations. Like so many of their contemporaries, they have left this city and its Jewish community far better than they found it. I hope I have been a worthy link in the chain.

That chain includes my predecessors at the paper. Founding editor Gene Lichtenstein set an example of journalistic excellence I have tried to emulate. The cover of the first issue on Feb. 28, 1986,  featured a story on Jews and the school busing controversy. Clearly this was never going to be a paper content to run puff pieces.

Gene accepted men-seeking-men ads long before mainstream papers did. After he left, we were the first Jewish paper to run cover stories on gay marriage and transgender Jews. Religion that doesn’t wrestle with contemporary issues belongs in a museum, not a newspaper.

In the pantheon of columnists I most admire — William Safire, Peggy Noonan, Tom Friedman, Steve Lopez, Bret Stephens, Nick Kristof — I put the late Marlene Adler Marks on the highest pedestal. She was a dear colleague who died too young, and could never be replaced.

When I started at the Journal, almost all Jewish papers were exactly what the late Rabbi Stephen S. Wise called them: “weaklies.” They were parochial community organs. The lead  story of one such paper that arrived in our offices back then was, “Jewish Community Center Gets New Deck.” And yes, the entire cover photo was of a wooden deck. This is some business I’m in, I thought.

Today, Jewish journalism is in a golden age: The Jewish Journal, The Forward, The New York Jewish Week, Moment, Tablet, JTA, not to mention The Times of Israel and Haaretz (let’s face it, they’re pretty Jewish) are attracting great talent, breaking stories, providing deep insights and playing a leading role in shaping communal and international conversation. I am indebted to and often in awe of my colleagues in this corner of the journalism world. Of course, Jewish journalism still is, compared with the big guys, a small endeavor. But Jews also are small in number — and that hasn’t stopped us from making a difference. So can our media. Please support it.

I can’t tell you I’m not a little scared. I will miss being in regular contact with the remarkable people who make up this community, many of whom have become dear friends. I have this recurring, chilling thought that nothing will work out and I’ll be the guy at home in my pajamas writing those cranky letters to the editor, instead of the guy at the office who selects which ones to print.

But there’s some comfort, excitement and strength in being open to the uncertainty. That’s the lesson of Yom Kippur:  We know our days are numbered, that life is a passing shadow, and so we resolve to make changes today — haYom! the liturgy repeats — because the future is beyond our control. 

Last week, I was talking all this over with an older and far wiser attorney friend over lunch. I said I’d heard a life transition can be like a trapeze — sometimes you have to let go of one bar before the next appears. “Well,” he said, “as long as there’s a net.”

At first, I gulped. Oh, damn, I thought, he’s right. What was I thinking?

But then I remembered, I have a net, and so do you. It’s called community. It’s the reason this paper exists and thrives, it’s the reason I’ve been doing this job for 23 years.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in those decades, it’s that nothing is as important to individual success as community. Yes, the community can offer connections and a leg up. But it also will be there when you fall. It’s there for you when you get sick or a loved one dies, and it’s there for you to celebrate your successes and your joys. They say journalism is the first draft of history. But journalism’s true purpose isn’t to record history; it’s to strengthen community. No matter what comes next — trapeze bar or net — I am proud to have helped the Journal fulfill that role.

Over the years, many letter writers have accused me of being overly optimistic. Guilty. This was never the column to turn to if you wanted to read the same old dire warnings about how the Jews are disappearing, anti-Semites are everywhere, the younger generation is lost, Israel and the Palestinians are doomed, and every other gloomy prediction that passes as realism.

But it is impossible to do what I’ve done for the past two decades and not be optimistic. I leave this job with a deep sense of the abiding power of community and tradition and the ability of Judaism to meet the challenges of an unpredictable and often cruel world. To be a Jewish journalist is to see an ancient faith renewed in real time in the real world, in all its variety, abundance — and endurance.

Just this week, I was planning an upcoming trip to Berlin for a conference. When I told my wife I was thinking of finally visiting Auschwitz, a place neither of us has ever been, she became  upset.

“Please don’t go to Auschwitz without me,” she said.

The instant she said it, we had to laugh. Seventy-five years ago, who would have thought?

To this day, that somewhat over-the-top 2003 video of Israeli jets flying over Auschwitz still moves me. The weak can become powerful. Refugees can find a home. In a matter of years, enemies can become allies. Things change, often for the good.

But among all that change, the need for spirituality and tradition abides. Just last week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo of him and his wife celebrating Shabbat with their baby daughter, Max. They gave Max a 100-year-old Kiddush Cup that belonged to her great-great-grandfather.

No amount of money or power, no new technology and no social upheaval can erase our deeply human need for meaning, connection and purpose. Judaism has helped people meet those needs for millennia. After 5,778 years, the burden of proof is on the pessimists. Judaism will evolve, of course, but as long as it changes to meet these eternal human needs, it will endure.

So, now comes the time for my personal evolution. I do hope we can keep in touch. After all, I plan on staying in L.A. and, more than likely, remaining Jewish.  This Yom Kippur, you definitely will find me in shul, thankful for having made my decision, grateful for the past 23 years, and eager to open new gates as the old ones close.

In the meantime, I wish you a sweet and healthy New Year. Serving you has been my deepest honor. May you come to know all the blessings that being part of your life has brought me.

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If you’d like to keep in touch with Rob Eshman, send an email to robeshman@gmail.com. You also can follow him on Instagram and Twitter @foodaism, and on his public Facebook page. Rob will still blog at foodaism.com — without a staff.

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Bustop was where Conservative Jews got on board

The roots of modern Jewish conservative politics in Los Angeles were planted in the San Fernando Valley suburbs by Arnold L. Steinberg, a perceptive campaign consultant, and the candidate he helped make a star, Bobbi Fiedler.

Steinberg tells the stories of his many campaigns in a new, insightful memoir, “Whiplash.” For those of you who are like me, obsessive followers of political news and history, “Whiplash” is an invaluable journey through conservative Republican politics, especially relevant now with Republicans in control of Congress and the presidency.

Steinberg, whom I have known for years, is more conservative than I am, by far. For example, I found it annoying when he referred to the public schools he’d attended — John Burroughs Middle School and Fairfax High — as “government schools,” making them sound like second-rate detention facilities. Come on, Steinberg! They were good enough to get you into UCLA, then on to a successful career as one of the first consultants to use advanced statistics to shape a political campaign.

To me, the most interesting and significant part of the book is the story of how Fiedler ran for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board in 1977.

Fiedler was a leader of a group of mothers, many of them Jewish, at Lanai Road Elementary School in Encino. A court had ruled that LAUSD was segregated. It ordered the district to be desegregated, which meant that large numbers of students of all races would be bused across town and put together in schools that had been long segregated by neighborhoods. The plan exacerbated Los Angeles’ race problems.

Fiedler organized a group known as Bustop, which fought the court order and became a powerful political force in the city. At the time, I was covering the desegregation story for the Los Angeles Times and got to know Fiedler and some of the other Lanai Road school mothers

Steinberg, then a young political consultant, didn’t see busing as his battle. He was single. “But I had cousins of modest means who wanted their children close to home,” he wrote. “This mandatory busing seemed preposterous.” Steinberg, not limited by a false sense of modesty, said, “I decided in 1977 to take over the Los Angeles school board by electing a majority opposed to forced busing.” That’s when he met Fiedler.

There were Jewish Republicans at the time but not many. A notable one was Taft Schreiber, a power in the entertainment industry who had been close to Ronald Reagan since the former governor and future president’s show business days. Most Jews were liberal and supporters of the African-American mayor, Tom Bradley, and the Westside-San Fernando Valley political operation headed by Howard Berman and Henry Waxman. But the prospect of busing angered liberals. That was clear to me when I interviewed Jewish Bustop activists, who included a substantial number of Democrats.

Steinberg saw Fiedler as a winner for a school board seat. He wrote, “Bobbi, intuitively bright and very strategic, was determined; she managed her husband’s pharmacy business. She did not have Republican roots, and was hardly a movement conservative. Like many of her Jewish contemporaries, she had backed the civil rights movement. But she opposed the forced busing of her two small children.”

With Steinberg and communications chief Paul Clarke, who later married Fiedler, calling the shots, Fiedler won, and the board’s pro-busing majority was beaten. Presiding over the board as president was Roberta Weintraub, another San Fernando Valley anti-busing leader. “We did it,” Weintraub said after the vote.

Fiedler, by then a Republican, went on to defeat a highly favored incumbent Democratic congressman and served three terms in the U.S. House.

Fiedler’s victories did not signal a Jewish conservative tidal wave. Jews continue to vote solidly Democratic in Los Angeles and elsewhere. But what Fiedler and Steinberg had tapped was an undercurrent of discontent with the Jewish establishment, a constant Steinberg theme. He wrote, “I occasionally found myself as the token conservative on an election panel that ranged from the Los Angeles Jewish Federation Council … to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee … [and] at an AJC reception a very wealthy Jewish philanthropist might agree with my sentiments but would ask if I would keep the conversation with him ‘confidential. ’ ”

Steinberg sounds as if he took it personally, as I would have. It was as if the rich man was ashamed to be caught talking to anti-busing advocate Steinberg.

Part of the grass roots’ anger could be traced to its opposition to the school board and its desegregation plan. And part was working-class and middle-class resentment of the establishment leaders who tended to support the plan.

Steinberg’s roots are in the Jewish working class. “During World War II, my father left New York for Los Angeles where he used his savings to buy a small market at the corner of 59th Street and Central Avenue,” Steinberg recalled.  “He and my mother worked six full days a week.”

His extended family was similarly situated. 

“Generally,” he wrote, “my relatives and their families were not into amusement parks and expensive outings — just a whole large extended family gathering nearly every Sunday in the public park. … These picnics helped me understand how people from modest circumstances can have a sense of community and have fun.”

When Bobbi Fiedler appeared on the scene, her critics, including the Jewish establishment, first tried to dismiss her as an inconsequential Valley housewife and then a bigot. Steinberg saw her as someone who could connect with people like him and his family.

The busing plan collapsed in 1981, killed by an appellate court decision, a unanimous school board vote and persistent opposition by white parents who began pulling their children from public schools.

The impact of the campaign lingers. Echoes of it could be seen in the anti-establishment aspects of President Donald Trump’s election campaign.

“Trump did not stir the expected scare among Jewish voters,” Shmuel Rosner wrote in the Jewish Journal after the election. “The share of the Democratic vote among Jews continues the slow yet steady decline from the early ’90s to today: 80 percent, 78 percent, 79 percent, 74 percent, 74 percent, 70 percent, 70 percent.”

Forty years ago, this would have been considered impossible. Then came Bustop, the empowerment of San Fernando Valley Jewish parents and the rise of conservative Jewish grass-roots political influence.

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BILL BOYARSKY is a columnist for the Jewish Journal, Truthdig and L.A. Observed, and the author of “Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times” (Angel City Press).

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Conan and ‘Transparent’ give Israel the normalcy it craves

“It looks just like L.A.”

A character in the Amazon series “Transparent” says this as she gets her first glimpse of Tel Aviv, and if you work for the Israeli government, or any of a number of pro-Israel groups, you probably couldn’t be happier.

Even if the show will go on to acknowledge the political and human rights mess of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (and don’t worry, it will), such glimpses of an extremely appealing and otherwise normal Israel have the feel of “mission accomplished.”

The start of the fall TV season has been very good to Israel. Anxious about the BDS movement and other efforts to delegitimize Israel, its boosters were treated to a season-long arc on “Transparent” largely set in Israel, as well as an hourlong “Conan In Israel” special on TBS. “Transparent” used Israel as background and counterpoint to its usual explorations of identity, sexuality and family dysfunction, while Conan O’Brien used his charming “idiot abroad” shtick to poke gentle fun at Jews, Palestinians and mostly himself.

Yet both shows appeared to have emerged from an earlier, less complicated era when Israel was largely seen as a regional good guy and the Palestinians as an uncomfortable but ultimately solvable nuisance if only haters on both sides would let go of their broyges.

I say that realizing that “Transparent” acknowledged  the complexities and contradictions of the conflict in ways likely to anger the right. As Season 4 begins, Maura Pfefferman, the transgender matriarch of the show’s distinctly Jewish and proudly secular central family, is invited to Israel to deliver a lecture on gender and the Cold War. (All 10 episodes of “Transparent” are available on Amazon.) Pfefferman’s youngest daughter, Ali (short for Alexandra), asks to go along, having been humiliated by a former lover in a poem published in The New Yorker. She wants to go for “the history and the suffering and the bloodshed — all that real stuff.”

A scene from the fourth season of  “Transparent” featuring Jeffrey Tambor, left, and Gabi Hoffmann in Israel. (Screenshot from YouTube)

Ali, a grad student, is the most “woke” of the three grown Pfefferman children, and unsurprisingly it is through her perspective that the show relates the Palestinian experience. A feminist activist scoops her up in front of the Tel Aviv Hilton (having declined to spend money in Israel in deference to the boycott), and brings her to meet a Palestinian friend at a hip cafe in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Ali is amazed by the normalcy of life in the “Ramallah bubble,” although her companions remind her about the checkpoints and promise to “catch [her] up” on life under occupation.

Next stop is a nearby farm, where attractive young Palestinians (and at least one pro-Palestinian Jew) share their experiences. A gay man explains that he was jailed in Israel (he doesn’t say why) and that his jailers threatened to out him to his family. A Canadian-Palestinian says that Jews in the Diaspora have more claims to citizenship in the land than the Arabs who actually live there. Another says, “We can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t go to the next city.”

The episode, tellingly, is titled “Pinkwashing Machine,” an allusion to the charge that Israel asserts its positive gay rights agenda to distract from its oppression of the Palestinians.

You can almost hear the clacking of the keyboards as Jewish organizations work on their news releases refuting the Palestinians’ claims, but the scene is oddly nonconfrontational for a show that is so, well, transparent in its left-wing politics. Set outdoors around a table groaning with Palestinian food (maqluba, yum), the scene is right out of a commercial for a California wine or Olive Garden. The viewer is left wondering how bad their lives can be if they live like this. Although a wide-eyed Ali seems converted to the Palestinian cause by all she sees and hears, loyal “Transparent” watchers are by now used to her various intellectual enthusiasms, which she tends to pick up and discard as easily as her ever-changing hairstyles.

In a later episode, the Pfeffermans will debate the conflict during a bus ride to Jerusalem, but the dialogue again seems carefully, and blandly, balanced. Ali scoffs when an Israeli says there never was a Palestinian people; her mom, Shelly, counters that the Holocaust made the Jewish state a necessity. Ali reminds her family of the displaced Palestinians. Maura says there were Jews in the Holy Land well before there was an Israel.

In the end, you are left with the message that “it’s complicated,” and the family goes on to enjoy a raucous morning in the Old City. On a visit to the Western Wall — “Jesus Christ, it’s like an Orthodox Jewish Disneyland!” says one of the Pfefferman kids, not inaccurately — an androgynous-looking Ali sneaks into the men’s section. Shocking? Iconoclastic? Maybe. But considering the broad American Jewish consensus in support of pluralistic prayer at the Wall, hardly transgressive. Ultimately, “Transparent” plays it safe, assuaging Israel’s critics with a nod toward the Palestinian reality and soothing the pro-Israel crowd with a portrait of a cool, bourgeois Israel that feels like home even to Diaspora Jews as disaffected as the Pfeffermans.

Conan O’Brien filming a scene for his Israel special with Rabbi Dov Halbertal at the Tel Baruch Central synagogue in Tel Aviv. (Screenshot from YouTube)

Conan also acknowledged the Palestinians in his special, although here, too, the balance was with the Israel as the most ardent Israel booster would like it to be seen. He visits the Aida refugee camp for a sober although hardly enlightening conversation with a few of its residents. But this is Conan, and he’d rather amuse than enlighten. The brief segment includes a number of complaints about the security wall and Israel’s military, after which Conan is careful to remind viewers, “To be fair, we did not have a conversation with people who dispute these views.”

Instead, the unmistakably Irish-Catholic talk-show host jokes with handsome young men and woman on a Tel Aviv boulevard, jams with an Elvis impersonator at the beach, visits the Waze headquarters for a view of “startup nation” and trains with the IDF. He even gets face time with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an indicator, perhaps, of how seriously Israel takes the notion of hasbara — public diplomacy, as it were — and how grateful it was that Conan turned over an hour of prime time and a pervasive social media campaign to presenting Israel at its best.

Conan, it was a pleasure hosting you at our house. You’re very funny and very smart! @ConanOBrienhttp://pic.twitter.com/zJndwYZxjg

— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) August 28, 2017

It’s impossible not to enjoy Conan’s man-on-the-street bits, and he does the important work of humanizing both Jews and Palestinians, itself an accomplishment and a contribution in a region too often portrayed as a war zone. Pro-Palestinian social media, however, didn’t seem pleased with his visit, mocking him as naive and ensorcelled by the Israeli side.

But at least he went to Aida and Bethlehem, just as “Transparent” took its cast beyond the Green Line. Maybe it is impossible to capture Israelis and Palestinians in all their complexity — activists on both sides certainly don’t make it easy.

The problem in fully understanding the conflict is that the people who seem to care the most about the issue have almost no interest in hearing the other side or having them heard. That goes for Jews as well as Arabs. So both sides attack the media and other observers for trying to get a complete, nuanced picture. And the gun-shy media, when they are not taking sides, either over-correct or play it safe.

Still, given the choice between a portrait of the region that displays its antagonists as “normal” versus one that demonizes either side, I’ll take normal any day.

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Andrew Silow-Carroll is JTA’s editor in chief.

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Guilty of good grammar: you’re right and your right and ur rite

“You know the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re.’ ”

That line shows up in a JDate profile. It’s from the section where you tell prospective partners what you’re looking for in a match. The sentence that comes before it is, “You love to dance.” The one after is, “You keep up with the news.” If someone’s profile had included that, she’d definitely have aroused my attention. And since you insist on dragging it out of me, the profile I’m quoting is (or was, actually) mine.

What reminded me of that snarky line was a recent email from a friend, who at one point wrote “it’s” when it should have been “its.” When I came across his error, my heart gave a little sigh.

It was an involuntary, embarrassing and ridiculous sadness.

Involuntary, because I can no more hold back the thought that I know better than that than King Canute could hold back the tide. The rules of grammar and usage, of punctuation and pronunciation, had been thoroughly drubbed into me by the time I graduated from high school (not, of course, “graduated high school”). I was grateful for that instruction. Everyone knew that learning to write and speak educated English was a prerequisite for an elite higher education and a successful career. Ever since, when I see “your” where “you’re” should be, a phantom arm of mine reaches for a red pencil to circle it; when I hear “primer” pronounced “primmer,” or “off-ten” instead of “off-en,” an interior voice corrects it, whether I want it to or not.

A tangle of guilt and ambivalence, which amounts to embarrassment, accompanies that silent correction, especially if the mistake has been made by someone I think well of (yes, it’s okay to end a sentence with a preposition). I’m pained that he or she doesn’t realize that the error is a flashing signal of (at best) carelessness or (at worst) ignorance. I’m concerned that someone less forgiving than I am will think less of this lovely person the next time it happens. I often couple this with an excuse or dispensation. If the mistake is in an email, I tell myself it must be that damn auto-fill that got it wrong. If it’s in conversation, I swat it away as so widespread a mispronunciation, really anyone might have been led astray.

Then I reproach myself for being such a condescending snot. Then I fault my self-reproach as cover for my caving on excellence. Then I remind myself that I write most of my own emails in lower case; punctuate my texts as if I were a drunken sailor; and use plenty of juvenile emojis and acronyms like rotflmfao (if you don’t know what that is, please don’t google it). Then I defend myself from that charge: It’s exactly because I know the rules that I can break them, with impunity, for effect. Then I’m back on the attack: Face it, bro, what you’re doing is lexicological slumming. By that point, I want to take a nap.

What makes my inner warfare over standards and class so ridiculous, and what stings when I think about the dude who wrote that JDate profile, is how little any of this yammering matters. “It’s,” “its” – who cares? The only threat to my understanding what you mean when you write “your right” or “ur rite” when “you’re right” is right is the tribally constructed black hole that sucks attention away from the meaning you obviously intend and sucks generosity from the act of communication.

I get the case for good grammar. Sloppy language makes for sloppy thinking. To think clearly, write clearly and speak carefully. Grammatical norms are guardrails that protect us from intellectual anarchy.  Consensus rules aren’t tools of oppression; they’re the foundation of democratic culture. The discipline you exercise as you master those rules is a transferable skill, a mental muscularity that will benefit you for a lifetime, at home, at work and in society.

But I just can’t get myself to argue that universal competence in the use of apostrophes would have made it less likely that we’d now be living in a world where two madmen seem to be tweet-taunting each other, and the rest of us, into nuclear war. Orthographic fastidiousness seems kind of silly in the shadow of climate change. When an earthquake or hurricane – or a biopsy or drunk driver – can rob you of hope or life in an instant: that limits the upside of peerless pronunciation.

The best case I can make for impeccable language is the aesthetic punch it packs. Its power is not in the rules it follows, but in the infinite it reveals. Perfect prose contains multitudes, including imperfections, and is as beautiful as a perfect rose.

Measured by outcomes, my JDate profile was a bust. If I were to redo it, I’d drop the crack about contractions. I might not go quite so far as to write U ♥ 2 dance. But I’d definitely hang on to the stuff about lexicological slumming at least until the second date.

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Marty Kaplan holds the Norman Lear Chair at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. His Jewish Journal columns have won First Place in the Southern California Journalism Awards six times in the past six years. Reach him at martyk@jewishjournal.com

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[WATCH] My delightful meeting with 101-year-old Alyse Laemmle of Laemmle Theatres

As soon as I heard the magic words from my friend Tish Laemmle– “She’s 101 years old”– my immediate reply was: “Can I meet her?” A few weeks alter, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I drove down to Hermosa Beach to chat with Alyse Laemmle, 101-year-old wife of the late co-founder of the theater chain, Kurt Laemmle. Here is a little taste of our delightful rendezvous.

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A new year’s resolution: Emulating the shofar

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The mensch test

Last Friday, I was rushing through a to-do list from hell. It’s High Holy Days season, which means my rabbi wife disappears into her study, and if she emerges before five sermons are finished, it’s a sign that fall will be extra harsh, or at least seem that way.

So the list was all on me,  and by 11 a.m., I had barely made a dent. I raced through Santa Monica Kosher, loading up my shopping cart until the wheels splayed, then headed for the cashier — where I was, miraculously, first in line.

If you’re strictly the Ralphs or Amazon Fresh type, let me describe Santa Monica Kosher, or as I call it, S&M Kosher.  The clientele is largely Persian Jewish, except on Sundays, when they set up a BBQ grill in the parking lot and the smoke from the koobideh and kebab lures Latino families by foot and Brentwood types by Tesla. The produce is varied, fresh — and a bargain. You can find exotic flatbreads, Israeli cheeses, organic meats, even “Original Pistachios,” which means they’re really from Iran — and the best you’ve ever tasted.

But on the day Shabbat begins, it can be a blood sport. Can you get to the cucumbers before the grandmother parks herself in front of them and inspects them, one by one, as minutes tick by? Can you grab the attention of the man behind the meat counter before the customer who came after you commandeers him? Sure, there’s a ticket dispenser, but I think it’s for decoration. Or Ashkenazim.

And at the cashier, the shopper in front of you always seems to use the conveyor belt as her personal shopping cart, putting down a bunch of fenugreek, then going off and returning with a bag of chicken thighs, then leaving again to bring back some eggplant — oblivious to the line growing ever longer behind her.

So imagine my relief to be first in line at the checkout. The problem was, when I looked behind me, I saw a middle-aged Persian woman holding four items in her hands. She’d wait 20 minutes for me to get through.

I said, “Please, go ahead.”

Her tense face melted.  “Really?” she said.  “Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

“Oh, you are so nice!” she said. “You have done your mitzvah for the day. For the week!”

As she moved ahead, she said to the cashier, “Did you see what he did?”

Either she was laying it on thick, or she was genuinely shocked — which might just reflect how rare it is for her to come across an act of kindness in the bustle of the Friday market.

Then another woman got in line behind me — and she had two items. Really? The clock was ticking on my to-do list — and my parking meter. But what could I do?

“Why don’t you go ahead?” I said.

The first woman overheard my offer. She turned to the cashier.  “Did you hear that?  This is the nicest man!  I think this is the nicest man!”

The cashier smiled. The elderly Persian man wearing a security guard uniform, who doubles as a grocery bagger, didn’t even look up.

Maybe he didn’t understand English. Or maybe he suspected that as nice as I was face to face with a kindly woman at S&M Kosher, 20 minutes later I’d be in some parking structure, screaming at the SUV in front of me who was crawling up all three levels looking for a space. Go faster, you idiot. Just go! And I would blast my horn like a shofar — which, by the way, is exactly what happened.

Almost as quickly as I earned my sainthood, I blew it away. It’s true we all tend to be nastier versions of ourselves behind the wheel — or behind a computer screen. But what’s also true is that if we can control our harshest impulses, no matter where, we always feel better.

There was a lot of commentary after the violence in Charlottesville and after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma about the power of exercising “the better angels of our nature.”   Americans came together in times of tragedy and emergency, put aside their differences, and helped one another. 

But then, more often than not, the better angels take a hike.  We go back to nursing our grievances, emphasizing our differences, taking advantage, losing our patience, distancing ourselves from other people’s needs when they aren’t part of an urgent disaster or on CNN. 

In other words, being an angel is easy, being a mensch is hard. Angels make the news, mensches make a few minutes a little better.

But those minutes add up, and they are the minutes that most of us experience as daily life. That’s why, in the wisdom of the tradition we follow these High Holy Days, the liturgy doesn’t ask us to be great, just good. The faults we are held to account for — such as stubbornness, gossip, indecision, anger — they don’t make us evil, they just make the people around us a little worse for wear.

In these messy, cruel, divided and confusing times, I don’t really see a grander path forward than each of us struggling to behave a little better to the person beside us, and to the person we can’t see.   

Let the struggle begin, again, for 5778.

Shanah tovah.

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ROB ESHMAN is publisher and editor-in-chief of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal. Email
him at robe@jewishjournal.com. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter @foodaism
and @RobEshman.

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5777: Coping with a year of rage

We hear the word “high” a lot during the High Holy Days — and it’s not just because we live in pot-friendly California.

This time of year is supposed to elevate us, lift us up. It’s so integral to the mission of the holidays, and it’s embedded into the choreography of the service: The ark is opened and we rise; the shofar calls us to stand and wake up; the fast on Yom Kippur alters the chemistry of our brains. Prayer itself promises to bring us “higher and higher,” inching us closer to the profound mystery at the heart of the universe we call God.

Everything about this 10-day annual ritual titillates us with the promise of spiritual intoxication: If we take the holidays seriously enough — if we repent, return, forgive — Jewish tradition tells us we can change our lives; that everything we thought lost is still possible. Begin again, we’re told. It’s a new year. 

But for so many of us, the task of getting high this year seems especially hard because this last year was so full of personal and global anguish. How do we reclaim a space for the spirit when life can be so profoundly dispiriting?

Most of the major events of 5777 have given us reason to worry, rage and fear. We lived through the most polarizing election in our lifetimes, followed by the installation of an equally polarizing administration. We learned about Russian subversion of our democratic process. We endured nuclear threats from North Korea and the rising threat of economic imperialism in China. We watched the Syrian civil war and genocide spread into its sixth tragic year. We divided ourselves over Israel, agonizing about the challenges it faces within and without. We witnessed terror in Europe.

And, most recently, we watched with utter helplessness as the wrath of nature devastated American cities and communities, and as DACA was rescinded, putting the futures of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants in limbo. All of this courtesy of the constant churn of the 24-hour news cycle that knows no Shabbat. 

For these reasons and others, we feel drained. Can prayer and community have any impact on healing these wounds? And what if the very polarizing politics we wish to escape appear in our rabbi’s sermon?

For those of us who already are politically engaged, philanthropic and working with great devotion to fight injustice in this world, we hope the High Holy Days will pour some light onto the canvas of our aching souls.

Just before Rosh Hashanah, I asked Rabbi Mordecai Finley, the spiritual leader at Ohr Hatorah in Venice who teaches and counsels through the prism of psychology and philosophy, how we can move from a year of rage, grief or simply exhaustion to a period of spiritual elevation.

His answer was surprising — and kind of Buddhist.

“Every philosophical system that takes morality seriously detaches wisdom from emotions,” he said over warm apple pie at Sophos Café, the Italian-coffee hangout that serves as the lobby at his shul. (I had to put aside my extreme satisfaction with the pie to understand his point.)

But aren’t you angry about what you see happening in our country, or in the world, I asked?

“I don’t get that emotional [about it],” he said. “Anybody who is that upset [over politics], I’m wondering how efficacious their spiritual practice is to begin with. When people say to me, ‘It’s been the worst year ever,’ I say, ‘1862 was a bad year for our country [it was the Civil War and the Union was losing]. 1942 was a bad year for the world.’

“There are those who love divisiveness and get all emotional. It’s a choice you make. I’m among those who find [President Donald Trump] repugnant, but if I talk to somebody on the other side, I don’t bring that into the conversation. I say, let’s have rational conversation based on moral values. For people who say politics is personal, I think they like to be angry.”

Finley admitted that different people seek different things on the High Holy Days. Some people want and need to vent about politics.

“It can feel extremely satisfying when your leadership vents what you’re feeling,” Finley said. “But when people are venting, they don’t want to process. My congregation is populated by people who want an oasis during the High Holidays. I’ve asked, ‘Would you like me every week to rehash the new litany of Trump’s latest outrages?’ They say, ‘No, we get that from The New York Times.’ They’re after personal depth and transformation. They want leadership there.” 

Finley believes that for most of us, the way to a better world is through higher consciousness, by cultivating what he calls “the higher self,” or the soul. And the best way to test and exert the functioning of our higher self is through interpersonal relationships.

“There’s a moral framework in which we live that for most people, the first place they experience it is interpersonally,” he said. “You’ve been hurt by others; they’ve been hurt by you. That’s the first thing we have to deal with.”

It’s a lot harder to take on the problems of the world if we’re suffering at home. So for those of us who are grieving, heartbroken, angry or stuck, the holidays are a time to examine and refine our most sacred relationships.

Simple acts of being kinder, more generous and more compassionate can make our broken world a little brighter and bring us higher — indeed, closer — to God.

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Danielle Berrin is a senior writer and columnist at the Jewish Journal.

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