Frances Dinkelspiel, author of Towers of Gold, spent the past week guest blogging on Jewcy. She has enlightened us to all sorts of interesting facts about California's history starting with the most recent natural disaster, let us in on why Californian Jews love to deck the halls, pulled a What Not to Wear on her book tour, weighed in on Proposition 8, and experienced Barnes and Noble's unexpected appreciation for history. Need more from this Bay Area biographer? Buy her book!

A good measure of how badly someone wants something is how he goes about trying to get it. Fringe political candidates, blocking traffic in their flag-capes and foam Statue of Liberty crowns, don’t really want to be president—they just want an hour in the limelight before returning to their jobs at Circuit City and Jack in the Box. I would hope that gay marriage is taken more seriously than that by its proponents, but so far I’ve seen quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

As I’ve written previously, I support gay marriage. It would be dishonest to claim that I have much of an emotional investment in it, though; I didn’t wail or gnash my teeth when Prop 8 was defeated on the California ballot. I was disappointed, because the vote meant that a majority of my fellow Californians had not been persuaded by what I think are eminently reasonable arguments. What I did not think, despite the best efforts of the gay marriage lobby, is: I am surrounded by rabid hatemongers.

Americans are a notoriously impatient people. Consider the argument that gay marriage will take us down the slippery slope to polygamy. By implication, polygamy is so strange, so alien, that even the most fearful conservatives acknowledge it’s a long way off. Does this make any sense? There is far more historical, not to mention biblical, precedent for polygamy. Gay marriage is the truly alien concept; it does the movement no good to pretend otherwise. It stands to reason that millennia of taboo and discomfort do not vanish overnight because you waved a “NO ON H8” banner in the Castro. And yet, as any right-thinking person knows, the culprit must be hate!

I’m not convinced, partly because in the absence of any emotional response to the issue I took some time to come around to the pro-marriage side of things. I saw marriage as one of two things: the sanctification of a relationship before God, in which case the state has nothing whatsoever to do with it, or a completely secular practice designed to encourage social cohesion by providing for the welfare of children, as well as of one or both partners. In that case, then why not vote for more social cohesion?

I was surprised when I learned, belatedly, that in California homosexuals can already enjoy, under the name “civil union,” the same financial and social benefits that accrue to other married couples. It really is all about a word! And as a person who cares about language—I object, for instance, to the substitution of “right” for “privilege” in discourse about health care—I can understand the complaint. Why should it be implied by a word that heterosexual marriage is more meaningful than homosexual union?

It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be implied that any union effected by the state means anything other than tax breaks, inheritance rights, hospital visitation privileges, heath care, and so forth. If it’s sanctification you want, find a church, or get a flute and some incense and play dress-up on your own time—whether you’re gay or straight.

The trouble is that voters who oppose gay marriage on such dispassionate grounds will still be branded bigots. And they won’t like it. And they’ll cast protest votes against gay marriage, because they don’t like to be called monsters on the grounds that they make decisions based on logic rather than emotion, or faith rather than logic, or—take your pick, they don’t like to be called monsters at all.

The prevailing attitude among gay marriage supporters seems to be that if it doesn’t actively bother you, you’re obligated to go along with it, whether or not you think it’s philosophically defensible. Justice used to be blind; now it’s meant to be “chill.” If you have lingering doubts, legal, practical, religious, or otherwise, about something that’s been verboten since the dawn of man, you are an asshole or an idiot, end of story. Here’s a little tip for the gay marriage lobby: Calling people assholes and idiots never persauded them of anything. As an old question has it, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to win?”

Frances Dinkelspiel, author of Towers of Gold, is guest blogging this week as one of Jewcy's Lit Klatsch bloggers.  Her book is a biography of her great great grandfather, a Jewish immigrant who became one of the West Coast's most influential financiers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

While it is the middle of November and temperatures on the East Coast drop to a chilly 35 degrees at night, California is blazing. Wind-whipped wildfires are raging in the hills and valleys of southern California, burning mobile homes, mansions, hospitals and business parks along the way. More than 700 structures now lay in charred, smoking heaps on the ground.

This is nothing new for California. From the time of its admission to the United States in 1850, conquering nature has always been one of California's challenges. In its early years, the state's sheer distance from the population centers of the U.S. made getting here a feat of physical daring. It could take a clipper ship a year to navigate around the Horn. Wagon trains moved just as slowly as they creaked their way from St. Louis, across the alkaline plains of Utah, and up the forbidding slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Inevitably, settlers died along the way,

But the trip was worth the effort, for California has always been a place of promise. Lured by the glint of gold, men came and then stayed to reinvent themselves. Women came to find husbands, and a more socially liberating society.

For Jews, California offered a place free of the discrimination and anti-Semitism so common in central Europe. By 1860, there were about 10,000 Jews in California, with most clustered in the state's only true city, San Francisco. From the start, these Jews were an integral part of society, serving as city council members and teachers, merchants and traders. California was still so undeveloped and so consumed in its pursuit of wealth that society was wide open. While discrimination against the Chinese was fierce, Jews basked in new-found freedoms. Unlike their co-religionists on the East Coast, California Jews did not have to fight their way into an existing social structure

I am a fifth generation Californian, a descendant of a man who came from Bavaria in 1859. He settled in Los Angeles when it was more Mexican pueblo than American city, when Spanish was the primary language and more people spoke French than English. His name was Isaias Hellman and he, like countless others before him, had come to California to reinvent himself.

Hellman started Los Angeles' first successful bank and prospered more than any of his ancestors could have ever dreamed: by the time of his death in 1920, he was president of Wells Fargo Bank and 16 other financial institutions and controlled hundreds of millions in capital. I have just written about my great-great grandfather's life in a new biography called Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California.

Hellman, like many Californians, had to battle natural disasters to prosper. In the winter of 1860-1861, California had record rainfalls. It started to rain in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, and didn't stop for months. The state's huge central valley became a lake, 250 miles long. The new governor, Leland Stanford, returned to his Sacramento home after his inauguration by rowboat - and climbed into a second-story window.

Hellman was a clerk in his cousins' dry good store at that time, and the relentless rain forced the normally staid Los Angeles River to breach its banks. Hellman and his cousins rushed to the store to salvage any goods they could. They had to fight against a waist-high wall of surging water and barely had time to retrieve anything before the adobe walls started to crumble around them.

That year of rain was followed by two years of merciless drought, a calamity that wiped out southern California's cattle business. And 46 years later, in 1906, Hellman lived through San Francisco's calamitous earthquake and fire. He was in his downtown office at the Wells Fargo Bank when fire officials burst in and urged him to evacuate. The fire that consumed San Francisco for three days literally stopped across the street from Hellman's home on Franklin.

I was not so lucky. In 1991, I lost my home in an urban wildfire that destroyed 2,800 houses in Oakland and Berkeley and killed 25 people. My husband and I were across the Bay when the fire broke out, so we didn't have to flee for our lives. But we lost everything, including a beloved cat.

California is now the country's most populous state. Most Californians live in denial of the threat of earthquakes, floods, and fires. But the natural disasters come with regularity. People suffer - and then they rebuild. They fall - and then rise up again. The possibility or reinvention is an integral part of California's history. It is as embraced today as it was in the 1850s.

Frances Dinkelspiel, author of Towers of Gold, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and she'll be here all week.  Stay tuned.

Monday, June 16, 5:01 p.m.: Robin Tyler and Diane Olsen, who wRobin Tyler And Diane Olsen: Harbingers of the Obama Antichrist Kingdomon their California Supreme Court case to get married, are the first gay couple wed at the Beverly Hills Courthouse. The mayor of San Francisco officiates at the wedding of a lesbian couple in their eighties. (The ceremony was delayed because one of the octogenarian's dentures was stuck in the other's birth canal. Surgeons arrived promptly.) In heaven, Jesus cries and contemplates suicide, but settles on slashing his wrists in the bathtub with a Gillette Venus Vibrance Soothing Vibrations Razor for Women.

Tuesday, June 17, 8 a.m.: According to Agence France Presse (which is, let us not forget, French, and therefore will be referred to henceforth as Agence Freedom Presse), courthouses and clerks across California issued a "tidal wave of marriages" to same-sex couples, including Star Trek actor George Takei, who commands his new husband to immediately "beam up—you know where." Elsewhere in Hollywood, William Shatner contemplates facing the forbidden, sultry truth that resides—has always resided—at the bottom of his soul and the center of his loins, but concludes, "I can't do it, Captain... I... just... don't... have... the... power."

9:30 a.m.: Thousands of gay couples are now officially married. Experts suggest that half of the couples in state will wed, along with nearly 70,000 from other states. Right-wing radio personalities shriek that heterosexual marriage will cease to exist due to the "gay agenda," whatever that is.

9:37 a.m.: Heterosexual marriage ceases to exist. Millions upon millions of Californian adults file for divorce and commence sodomizing one another. (According to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, this turn of events is "inexplicable and vicious." He then paused to wipe his semen-drenched beard with one hand and give Anderson Cooper a reach-around with the other; Lou Dobbs masturbated while videotaping his colleagues, although he was unable to focus due to having Larry King's shriveled member inside of him) A homosexual orgy of biblical proportions stretches from San Diego to Santa Cruz, winning the Guinness World Record for "consecutive leapfrog train." Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who enters his Junior costar Danny DeVito, proclaims himself "the Terminator—of your ass."

10:55 a.m.: The California State Senate dissolves the California Supreme Court, which is promptly replaced with the Rules Committee of the North American Man-Boy Love Association. (In unrelated news, former Malcom in the Middle star Frankie Muniz dies of severe rectal bleeding. He should have never agreed to literally become "Malcolm in the Middle.")

12:46 p.m.: No longer satisfied with their newfound addiction to homosexual lovemaking, Californians turn their sexual attention to household pets, exotic zoo animals, seagulls, livestock, and Robin Williams. The entity formerly known as the California Supreme Court legalizes human-beast marriage, but only for same-sex humans and beasts.

2:19 p.m.: Every pregnant woman in California secures an immediate abortion, no matter how many months their fetus has had to develop, because procreation is a symbol of the Time That Once Was and Must Never Be Spoken Of. Everyone under the age of 60 is sterilized, either by chemicals or blades, which isn't actually necessary considering that everyone is exclusively fucking those of their own gender, but you can never be too safe.

3:39 p.m.: The American Family Association challenges the California Supreme Court decision; the U.S. Supreme Court immediately takes the case, but the plan backfires on the social conservatives when Justices Scalia and Alito realize that Justice Roberts is a pretty handsome guy for 53. (He's no John Edwards, of course, but somehow he is both rugged and boyish, which drives Clarence Thomas absolutely insane.) The Supremes rule that Christianity is illegal and shall henceforth be replaced with the Temple of Phallus.

3:45 p.m.: Sen. Barack Obama announces that he is the Antichrist, made flesh by the devil seed of Lucifer and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had tons of gay sex. Sen. John McCain bows to Obama's awesome Satanic power, pledges all of his delegates to the Democratic nominee-in-waiting and then desperately suckles upon the younger black man's scrotum, which tastes like a combination of honey and rose petals.

5:26 p.m.: The United Nations acknowledges King Obama as Supreme Leader of the World.

5:27 p.m.: The white race is enslaved. Islam owns the earth.

5:28 p.m.: Jesus Christ returns from the astral plane, defeats the Kingdom of Beelzebub with his Majestic Sword of Glory, liberates the captives, raises the dead from their graves, and reigns for a thousand years of tranquility and light. (The scrapes on his wrists have healed. He didn't really want to die anyway; he just wanted the girls at school to notice how much they hurt his feelings when they ignored him.) Nobody ever has gay sex again, because heaven on earth is gay enough already. Seriously. You remember the last five minutes of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King? It's just like that. Only gayer.

FEEL GOOD STORY OF THE WEEK:

15-year-old Toronto Jewish boy collects shoes for children in Ethiopia. [The Jerusalem Post]

BRAZILIAN JEWS DONATE WINTER COATS BUT RABBI JACKS TIES

THE NEWS:

São Paulo's Jewish community donated 10,000 winter coats to a government-run campaign. [Jewish Telegraph Agency]

THE CHATTER:

The Jewish community there (of Brazil’s 120,000 Jews, half live in São Paulo) is mourning the loss of a 14-year-old Jewish girl who died in a plane crash on July 17th. [Yeshiva World News]

With the donation of their anoraks, are the Sao Paulo Jews making up for the egregious thievery of their most famous rabbi, Henry Sobel? [The Economist]

“It has been a tumultuous time for Brazil’s best-known rabbi. Henry Sobel, the head of the São Paulo Israeli Congregation (the city’s largest Jewish community), took leave from his post after he was arrested in Palm Beach, Florida for stealing $680-worth of designer ties. He returned on bail to São Paulo in early April and checked himself into hospital, explaining that medications for insomnia had altered his perceptions.”

ISRAELI ENERGY IN THE CALIFORNIA DESERT

THE NEWS:

An Israeli company will build what is being called the world’s largest solar energy park in Southern California’s Mojave Desert. [Jewish Telegraph Agency]

THE CHATTER:

Last August, the US approved a $20 million annual grant for joint US/Israel renewable energy projects. [Treehugger]

Solel Solar Systems, based in Beit Shemesh, Israel, will build and operate the park in California, and it will generate enough energy to power 400,000 homes. [Santa Cruz Sentinel]

 

RYAN BRAUN GOES TO THIRD BASE AND OFTEN ALL THE WAY

THE NEWS:

Ryan Braun, the half-Jewish son of an Israeli who is the Milwaukee Brewers’ new sensation at third base, is connected to Jewish baseball history. [The New York Times] For almost 40 years, his grandfather Bob Robinson has lived in a house that once belonged to Hank Greenberg, a Hall of Fame slugger and one of the game’s best Jewish players. Braun likes the baseball auspiciousness of his grandfather’s home. Sportsfigures are superstitious. You know, having same pre-game meal or wearing the same jockstrap for months at a time.

His offensive prowess is inarguable, but he’s a sub-par fielder with a team-leading 13 errors. Just trying to say he’s human while being one of the best power hitters in the game.

 

RABBI SHMULEY SPITS MAD GAME

THE NEWS:

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s new dating Web site, LoveProphet, is launched. [The Jewish Daily Forward]

THE CHATTER:

Kavorka: what Boteach has and all us gawky Jewish boys wish we had. [Urban Dictionary]

The Rabbi’s wife is Australian and he has eight, count ‘em eight, children. [Shmuley]

Shmuley’s book, “Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments”: encouraging awkward Jewish singles the world over. [Shmuley] [Amazon]

 

JEWS PSYCHED: BIRDS DEAD FROM FLU HALF OFF AT MARKET!

THE NEWS:

Bird flu hits Israel. [Jewish Telegraph Agency]

THE CHATTER:

Avian flu, known as the H5N1 virus, has reached across Europe, Africa and Asia since 2003, killing at least 100 people who caught it from infected fowl, and killing or forcing the slaughter of tens of millions of poultry in Asia. Scientists fear it may mutate into a strain communicable between humans, triggering a global pandemic.

Israel’s first known outbreak of avian flu was in March 2006, and a blogger wrote, “Containment of epidemics is one area where Israeli-Palestinian cooperation is absolutely essential.” [The Head Heeb]

From Frank Gannon in Shouts and Murmurs, “Beyond Bird Flu: Other Potential Epidemics.” [The New Yorker]

Venice: better with Jews!The Revealer has things to say about a developing situation on the west coast, where some Jews have run afoul of the the local government, a few birds, and breathtaking scenery...

Now, I have just the barest inkling of why an eruv makes sense in the first place… I tend to be a little put off by this kind of stuff… the Jewish inclination to make incredibly restrictive laws, and then provide “outs”. I figure, if it’s really important not to carry your keys on Saturday, then building a huge fence that will allow you to carry your keys is silly. Like asking someone else to turn on a light, when you aren’t supposed to turn on the light yourself. I HATE the "shabbas goy" model. I think it’s nuts, and offensive! (Incidentally, I also think vegetarian bacon is ridiculous)

Though of course, I respect the rights of people to do crazy shit, especially in the name of God… who tends to inspire crazy shit.

BUT

This all seems odd to me… that folks are using environmental (bird-friendly) concerns as an excuse to avoid constructing the eruv. Seems a pretty easy fix.

So what’s really going on out there? Aesthetics, fear for property values, or anti-Semitism? Imean, it could be a mixture of the three, right? Since black hats really don’t go with bikinis…