Media

Consuming too many empty tabloid calories and not enough high-culture fiber? Let us help you get back on a balanced diet. This week our high-brow stories are kind of heavy, so we’ve prescribed an espresso shot of celebrity gossip with which to wash down the big ideas.

 

 

 

 

Go high: In the New York Review of Books, British academic Tony Judt, who’s caused a boatload of controversy with his criticism of Israel, warns that focusing too much on the Holocaust will desensitize people to its very real horrors. Playing on Hannah Arendt’s idea of the “banality of evil,” he worries about the “banality of overuse.”

Go low: When guests at a Miami Orthodox wedding saw the rapper/producer Pharrel watching the revelry from a distance, they invited him to join in. TMZ has pictures.

Go high: The New Jerusalem, a play that just opened, dramatizes the life of Spinoza. The Village Voice calls it “Inherit the Wind with a chilling extra touch of proto-Nazism.”

Go low: If you visit the pool at the JCC in Manhattan, you just might spot Jerry Stiller wandering around sans pants.

Go high: Have you ever noticed that Woody Allen uses the same typeface in nearly all of his films? Here's why.

Go low: Demi and Ashton have been missing Shabbat services lately! Might they be giving up on Kabbalah?

Previously: Britney Spears vs. Joseph Epstein

Market collapse: Hyman Minsky would not approveNo time to read The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, the Sunday New York Times, Harpers, The Nation, The New Republic, and New York Magazine during your morning commute? Don’t worry – "How To Sound Smart This Week" will help you convince those around you that you’re a big ball of erudition.

Start the conversation with an eye-opening statistic: “Did you know that thanks to the subprime meltdown, American households are losing over two trillion dollars a year?”

Follow up by referencing ‘60s-era economist Hyman Minsky (bonus chutzpah points if you refer to him as “my favorite 60s-era economist”), who believed that Wall Street placed too much emphasis on taking risks. “Minsky predicted all this years ago,” you could add, “and he thought the only solution was to change the culture of Wall Street. Once you wind up in a period of panic like the one you’re in, it’s too late for politicians to do anything.” That, at least, is the gist of this week’s New Yorker piece on Minsky.

Of course, you might go on, that won’t stop those politicans from trying. The Nation points out that while both Edwards and Clinton have called for an end to foreclosures and a freeze on interest rates, the Obama campaign has taken a much more centrist approach.

“Essentially,” you could say, “Obama is blaming people who took out irresponsible loans, rather than financial industry. Max Frazer in the Nation thinks this might be because he’s received almost $10 million in support from people involved in the real estate market. Then again, Clinton’s raised even more, and she’s not banging the personal responsibility drum.”

As for the Republicans, there’s not much they can do about the meltdown if they want to hew to good conservative principles – or so says Ross Douthat in a video conversation at the Atlantic website.

Bringing things full circle, you could end with another fun stat: “Did you know that there are currently more choreographers in the US then metalcasters?” What that means, according to Christopher Caldwell in this weekend’s Times Magazine, is that Republican candidates need to stop talking about liberating entrepreneurs from tight restrictions, and Democrats need to give up the rhetoric about backing the factory man over the fat cats. The new economy is firmly in place, and any solution to the mortgage meltdown is going to have to pay attention to the choreographers.

Last week: Cloverfield

This week, we met two liberal intellectuals -- hipsters, even-- who believe in God, and we asked them why. We talked to Found magazine editor Davy Rothbart about life on tour, his new movie, and whether or not he has groupies (answer: kinda!). And Tahl Raz mused about how the world's yawning at Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman's nuptials means that "our generation of Jewish women find power ... far less problematic than their predecessors." Or maybe we're just numb.

Ben Shapiro discussed his new book on presidential image-making, and Tamar Fox dipped a toe in the controversy around a Yeshiva that won't allow gay alums' partners at their reunion. We got to the bottom of the whole blood libel thing. And a guy actually volunteered to be featured as our JDater of the Week! His turnons include "NPR," "The Eagles," and "seeking to understand my God."

Last week was so Jewcy we're still hearing about it. Jon Kesselman's Jewy take on Tom Cruise's Scientology indoctrination video was chosen by Radar as one of the 8 best on YouTube! Yess! It was also picked up by Slate. And the story of the smear campagin against Barack Obama -- those emails calling him a "covert Muslim" and a "jew hating bigot" that we noticed circulating -- found its way to Andrew Sullivan, the Jewish Week, and the paper of record.

Stay (at the Bintel Brief): Lisa LoebWelcome to Bad Advice, a weekly column looking at the misguided guidance of the Internet’s agony aunts.

This week, Dan Savage auctioned off the job of writing his column to a civilian named Eric Rescorla (the proceeds went to an organization that provides job training for the homeless). Ironically, Rescorla wound up giving advice to another novice sex columnist, a college student who complained that her column has ruined her love life. Since she signed her name “There are a lot of gorges at this school,” and since Cornell is gorge central, is it fair to assume that the letter came from Jenna B, author of the Cornell Daily Sun column Bedroom Eyes? If so, it seems like Jenna really does need to work on concealing her identifying details.

Speaking of overexposure, I guarantee that in three months, the 26-year-old calling herself “Waiting for a ‘Closer’” will have forgotten all about the subject of her letter to Slate's Dear Prudence this week. She complains that she met a cute guy who didn’t ask her out after a night of flirting. Prudie, to her credit, tells her to friend him on Facebook. Which provides a pretty excellent litmus test: If the answer to a question is “Just friend him on Facebook,” that question is maybe not worthy of being featured in an advice column.

By far the best thing happening in the world of advice columns this week, though, is the appearance of Lisa Loeb in the Forward’s Bintel Brief column. Lisa Loeb, as I’m sure you all know, is the bespectacled singer-songwriter best known for her song on the Reality Bites soundtrack. In the Bintel Brief, she stirs up controversy by telling an irate father to be more accepting of his daughter’s “parasitic” Chabadnik husband.

Previously: Bad Advice

FOUND Magazine has by now achieved cult status. Publishing shopping lists, mash notes, Polaroids, and other scraps of human interaction, it celebrates all things abandoned and secret. The notion that nothing need ever be lost or meaningless, and that we are all connected, no matter how tenuously or humbly, is the engine of the whole enterprise.

For the past three years, filmmaker David Meiklejohn has been working with FOUND's co-creator Davy Rothbart on a "documentary for the terminally romantic" called My Heart is an Idiot (trailer below.) The film takes place on the road -- the FOUND crew tours incessantly, doing events all over the country -- and chronicles Davy's attempts to sort out his complicated love life.

Says Meiklejohn: "For those of you who are familiar with Ross McElwee's film Sherman's March, imagine an updated version of that with more alcohol and swearing, and you'll have a sense of the movie."

I talked to Davy about the film, FOUND, PostSecret, touring, love, suicide, and secrets.

Love is: FOUND Magazine, Issue 2You’ve been on the road for about how long now?

We’re driving through Tennessee. It’s beautiful. Smoky mountains. Been on the road for two and half months, and collecting everywhere we go. Every night is unpredictable.

Last night in Charleston, West Virginia we met this sword swallower. So we took him on tour with us. He’s in the van right now.

So you’re collecting people as well as objects?

Right, traveling through the country telling stories and hearing stories, too.

What kind of vehicle are you driving?

We’d been driving this big red van, but in New Mexico it died and we had to hitchhike for three hours. Now we’re driving a wretched minivan, which feels small, given the sword swallower.

Do you think you’re frustrated in love because you’re forever on the road, or do you think you’re forever on the road because you’re frustrated in love?

A long distance relationship can be tough. It feels like you’re making a choice to go on the road, so you’re choosing the road over the relationship. Which is difficult for anyone you’re involved with.

The other thing is that you’re less able to meet people at home, but I’ve met people who live in other places...I’ve met amazing women on the road, but...you’re always starting at a deficit. It’s a tough course.

It'll never work out: A no-longer-lost love note Do you have groupies?

I wish. But I don’t know if groupies is the right word. My brother Peter -- all the girls fall in love with him. I’m like “Hey remember me, I’m the funny guy?” But no.

What is love, do you think?

I fall in love with girls all the time. A lot of times there’s love for someone you’ve never spoken to, someone you just see. It’s confusing to me. The sword swallower was telling me about this girl sword swallower, and I was thinking that would be cool, to get her and bring her on the road with us.

How did you connect with David Meiklejohn and start to make this film with him?

I immediately recognized what an awesome filmmaker he is, and I thought it’d be fun to document our travels. We didn’t realize at first that it would focus on love. In 2004 he came along for like a week. Then in ‘05 and ‘06 he was on the road with us for like three months at a time. We did realize early on that the issue at hand was love and relationships. We were talking to family, friends, people we met on the side of the road, and trying to weave our own struggles with the stories of people we met. Collecting stories. Found stuff is a backdrop that way.

So it’s about another kind of “finding," really. You’re scavenging all these experiences and advice and information about how other people navigate their love lives.

Yeah. Modes of communication can be different, but experiences are so universal.

Note to BFF: "I had a cyber sex!!"You’ve been doing tour dates lately with the PostSecret folks. This is such a natural, organic, awesome match: Where Found picks up what amounts to the detritus of life on earth -- the forgotten, discarded, heartbreaking, hilarious relics of lives lived all around us -- PostSecret is something of a safe haven for our most brutally honest immediate, intangible realities, realities that, it seems, “real” life can’t often support. How do you see the link between you guys, and how did you hook up?

Frank Warren’s a friend of mine. He came to some early FOUND shows. He’s overgenerous, but he claims I was his inspiration for starting PostSecret. Some elements might have come from FOUND, but I think he’s doing something really distinct.

My Heart is an Idiot actually got its name from PostSecret -- we were at Frank’s house and the postal lady came and brought the day’s postcards (two bricks!), and we start looking through them, and my friend Andy pulls this one from the pile and he goes: “This is name of your movie.”

I see Found and PostSecret as two sides of the same coin: collecting and preserving the things we’re not individually often brave (or visionary!) enough to own or hang on to. And there’s something incredibly powerful about the effect of both on people: It makes the world feel smaller, makes loss seem like no biggie, and makes connection seem not only possible but inevitable. That’s some heavy stuff. What are some of the most intense ways FOUND has affected you over the years?

No matter what you’re doing, you’re always stuck in your own head, sort of, and I feel like looking for FOUND stuff and being aware of what’s on the street around me makes me aware of the people around me, and the life around me. It's taken me out of my head and into the world a little more. I’m constantly immersed in people’s stories through their lost artifacts. So now I'm less shy about engaging with people, talking to strangers, being part of the world in real life.

Some of your recent dates benefit HopeLine, a suicide-prevention organization. What’s the connection to Hopeline and why do you think Found stuff has this unique kind of hope/catharsis to it?

We thought we had an opportunity to make some money for some good causes. Frank’s been involved in Hopeline for a number of years, and it’s such a great organization. And with grassroots organizations a little money goes a long way. Tonight in Nashville we’re doing a benefit for prison book program. Tomorrow in Durham it’ll be for The Sun, one of my favorite magazines. It’s about recovery and spirituality.

* * *

Here's the trailer for My Heart Is An Idiot (note the Ira Glass and Zooey Deschanel cameos). Find out more on the movie's MySpace page.

Everyone's had the skeevy friend request on a social networking site from someone they don't know well. But what about a request from someone you know very well, but prefer not to hang out with in a given digital realm?

USA Today (via Howard Rheingold's SmartMobs) points to the case of Deb Levine, executive director at Internet Sexuality Information Services in Oakland, who faced a tough decision when her rabbi's wife added her on LinkedIn:

Then the wife of Levine's rabbi asked to "friend" her on the site, and Levine felt compelled to say yes.

Now Levine has mixed her religious life with her work life online, something she never intended to do. And she worries that having a personal contact listed among business associates will make her look less professional.

"I'm using LinkedIn to further my professional projects," Levine says. "There's just no way (the rabbi's wife) could be helpful in that. I don't talk about my religion and religious affiliations" while at work.

 

Levine's quandary raises some important issues about where religion fits into the scheme of social networking, including sites like Friendster, Facebook, or that other one that Darth Murdoch. Social networking norms also complicate how users interact with smaller, more specialized sites that are accessible to the public, including sites built around cultural spheres -- such as religion -- that tend to be volatile. (At least one such site for riffraff comes to mind.)

In addition to Jewcy, so far I've toyed with a professional network for my career, a private blog for family and friends, started a new social networking account, lapsed with an old one and tried out social bookmarking.

In the process, I've grown less concerned with my digital footprint. But I've grown more concerned about which footprints I allow my different friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues to follow. Users might not always consider it kosher to let all of their friends into a specialized social networking space. I'm sure that if Levine was also a member of a social networking site for say, single Jews, she might think twice about importing all of her LinkedIn contacts.

Online social networking seems to work best at its two extremes. Facebook and the rest work splendidly as general spaces. And the most advanced, forward-thinking online magazines -- sites I like to call digital magazine communities -- make the most of their readerships by capturing their activity online, beyond the mere consumption of content. In other words, the larger platforms are trying to specify their features while the smaller platforms are trying to broaden them. After all, every social networking site wants to be profitable, and profits depend on two things: audience and activity.

In the grand tradition of technology causing problems that only technology creates, this doesn't make things easier.

Call it networking creep: if online social networking works best at its two extremes, does that mean we all need X number of specialized digital magazine communities in order to satisfy our particular digital craves? There's obviously a terminal limit, if for no other reason than there are only so many hours in a week to maintain one's spot in every community.

Of course none of this solves Levine's quandary. Then again, I'm a little bit less concerned with users who worry about religious friends and acquaintances -- oh, that pesky rabbi's wife! -- creeping into other social networking sites, and much more interested by the opposite scenario. Should religious networking sites make an effort to blockade non-religious users?

Put differently, who owns the right to define the community?

 

 

Kars 4 Kids: The ubiquitious posters don't say where the money's goingIn Brooklyn, 150 residents were evicted from an illegally converted loft building after the fire department discovered an "illegal matzo factory" in the basement. Apparently, the grain used in baking matzo is a threat because it's potentially combustible. The residents have no idea when they'll be allowed to return.

Meanwhile, Kars 4 Kids, a nonprofit that advertises heavily in the New York area, says it uses car donations to "provide food, clothing, education and guidance to children," but it doesn't mention that all the money is channeled into Oorah, Inc., which provides religious education to children of non-observant Jews. On Oorah's website, the Post reports, the charity brags that it has an "'80 percent success rate' teaching its clients 'to keep themselves apart from the gentiles.'"

According to an article over at the Forward, Ms Magazine has refused to run an advertisement (pictured below) that features images of Israel’s top female political leaders, and the American Jewish Congress is pissed off about this.This is Israel: And it makes Ms. Magazine uncomfortable.

The ad was submitted by the American Jewish Congress to Ms. Magazine, and spotlighted photographs of Dorit Beinisch, president of Israel’s Supreme Court; Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, and Dalia Itzik, speaker of the Knesset, over the text, “This is Israel.”

According to the AJCongress, Ms. initially approved the ad but then reversed course, saying that the ad would “set off a firestorm.”

Says AJCongress President Richard Gordon:

“Since there is nothing about the ad itself that is offensive, it is obviously the nationality of the women pictured that the management of Ms. fears their readership would find objectionable. For a publication that holds itself out to be in the forefront of the women’s movement, this is nothing short of disgusting and despicable.”

But according to Ms. Magazine’s executive editor, Kathy Spillar, it's not "the women’s nationality but their party affiliation that was the problem. Two of the featured officials, Itzik and Livni, are both members of the Kadima political party," and thus, Spillar said, "the ad would leave Ms. Magazine open to the charge of political favoritism."

The AJCongress created the ad to highlight the fact that women now occupy leading positions in Israel’s executive, legislative and political branches. In response, a Ms. representative said that “we would love to have an ad from you on women’s empowerment, or reproductive freedom, but not on this,” according to the AJCongress.

But, for me, this is the kicker:

“Not only could the ad be seen as favoring certain political parties within Israel over other parties, but also with its slogan, ‘This is Israel,’ the ad implied that women in Israel hold equal positions of power with men,” she said. “Israel, like every other country, has far to go to reach equality for women.”

Oh, no, god forbid that a feminist magazine recognize the fact that women in Israel have more opportunities than women in surrounding countries. That wouldn't be fair to Saudi Arabia.

Now, I don't think anyone is going to argue that the equality gap between men and women has completely closed in any nation. But it's hard to deny that there are some countries that have done a much better job of narrowing this gap than others. In particular, I can think of many countries in the same region as Israel (i.e., again, Saudi Arabia, where women can't even drive cars) that have done virtually nothing to rectify this situation. In my opinion, the position of women in Israel is one of the best in the world (comparatively), and the fact that women can hold positions of political influence in Israel should be celebrated by a feminist magazine, especially when considered in contrast to other countries in the Middle and Near East.

I don't know that I agree with the political ideologies of all three of these Israeli women, but I do appreciate the fact that they have been given the opportunity, as women, to hold these positions of power, and I think that is something worth celebrating (or, at least, acknowledging). But the only thing worth acknowledging here is the ease with which Ms. Magazine is able to flaunt its own political and ideological biases at the expense of their own cause.

As campaign season heats up, the candidates' "religious beliefs" will increasingly become part of the American conversation. The media isn't likely to be of much help. If Iraq is your issue, you can count on an endless parade of articles describing just about every aspect of the war; the same won't be true of the candidates religious beliefs and practices.

I understand why religion reporters so frequently give up the beat, and why their story ideas meet with skepticism from editors. Because while reporters are forced to think about the outside world, religion forces us to consider the interior world.

Consider how a reporter goes about his beat. If it's education, then he visits the school district and reports on what teachers and staff and students tell him. But if it's religion, going to a church, mosque or temple doesn't work quite as well. Private conversations with God aren't all that accessible to reporters. The First Amendment gives reporters the freedom to ask questions of whomever they please; it doesn't bestow magical mind-reading powers.

Take abortion, for example. How often does a reporter really attempt to get inside the head of a Christian evangelist pro-life advocate? Or Palestinian-Israeli relations. How often does a reporter ask a person in that dispute, "What do your prayers with God tell you about this situation?"

Very rarely. And that's because editors are bred to treat with skepticism any reporter's attempt to get inside a source's head. This works in 90 percent of journalism because reporters and editors have to guard against the possibility that the source is bullshitting them. And more often than not, that type of maneuver can be checked against empirical, verifiable, external facts and evidence. Not so with religion. If a source tells a reporter that she's voting for Huckabee or Edwards because her prayers guided her in that direction, how could a reporter possibly call bullshit?

As this process unfolds, I'd love to see reporters really dig into religious issues. Not so much what the candidates believe, but what Americans believe -- remembering, also, that no belief at all is still a belief in something. Because the campaign offers a high-profile opportunity for journalists to get it right, to set the agenda, to bridge the interior to the external. People vote not always for what they suspect will affect their surroundings, but also for what they hold closest to their souls. I've seen countless stories so far on how Iraq, the economy, and health care are helping voters sort out their presidential preferences. But I haven't seen a single story where reporters really interrogate a number of Americans about their religious beliefs.

Good reporting, no matter the subject, challenges our assumptions and adds nuance to our understanding of the world we live in. Informed, accessible coverage of "religious beliefs" must be part of of this process.

God: This is the second result when you image Google God.(Every day, we're checking in with the universe to see whether it seems likely that a supreme being of some nature is handling stuff).

Reason to Believe in God: "A window washer who fell 47 stories from the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper is now awake, talking to his family and expected to walk again."

Reason Not to Believe in God: "[American Idol] returns for its seventh season on Tuesday, and will doubtless dominate January through May as it did last year and the year before that. It could even attract a bigger audience in 2008, thanks to the Hollywood writers strike."

 

God: Well, or what happens when you image Google "God"Every day, like Rod Stewart, I'm going to look to find a reason to believe. That's right: I'm questioning the existence of some kind of higher intelligence behind the workings of the universe ... based on things I find on the Internet. Yes, that's the tree I'm barking up.

There's a God!

*Choire's blogging over at Kottke.org about Kathy Acker and Maureen Dowd's party girl days.

*Someone finally realized that there should be a restaurant called "I Fucking Hate Monday's."

*The term "hatewatching" (usage: "The other day I was hatewatching Cashmere Mafia and I realized that the portrayal of gay men on those shows is not unlike the portrayal of African American mammies in films such as Gone with the Wind.") was coined.

There's No God!

*Former Indonesian dictator Suharto is still alive, in spite of having had several strokes, multiple organ failure, and now, pneumonia in one lung.

*While rushing to erect Trump SoHo, which a leading preservationist called "a monument to greed and hubris," three construction workers were injured and one died.

*"The biggest-selling album of the year was Josh Groban’s “Noël,” which sold 3.7 million copies despite being released in October."

Three vs. three -- jury's still out, I guess! We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Being a teenager is no fun: This week, everyone's writing about teen girls' biggest problems

 

Wait, you mean you didn't spend the weekend reading the latest issues of The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, the Sunday New York Times, Harpers, The Nation, The New Republic, and New York Magazine? No worries! Here's how to fake it through a conversation with your snobbiest coworker.

 

Here's your opening line: "I'm concerned about the emotional lives of America's young girls." From there, segue into a discussion of this week's New Yorker article about the tragic and infuriating story of a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide after a friend’s mother tormented her on MySpace using a fake identity.

After that, you can mention that this month’s Harper’s Reading section reprints a 1935 letter by a bemused German dad whose seven-year-old daughter is carrying a major torch for the Fuhrer. (It's not online, but here's your take: "Wow, makes me feel better about the ubiquity of Zac Efron!")

Stay on topic with the latest instance of the Juno effect: Caitlin Flanagan's Times op-ed dispatch from a world where nobody’s ever heard of paring a condom with the pill: “Biology is destiny, and the brutally unfair outcome that adolescent sexuality can produce will never change," she writes. Plenty to work with there.

"Oh, and isn't it cool that TNR is keeping track of '80's abortion movies?" is your next logical comment, of course. Wrap up by asserting that Juno's Kimya Dawson-filled soundtrack is totally the Garden State soundtrack of 2008.

Riddle me this: What do you think would happen if the Center for American Women in Politics attempted to take out an ad in Ms. magazine featuring three female senators? Say they chose photos of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, along with the text: "This is America." Do you think that the magazine's executive editor, Kathy Spillar, would reject the ad on the basis of editorial "favoritism" because two of the three women belong to the same political party? I suppose it's possible, although it is hard to imagine.

Not so hard to imagine is the parallel reality that's unfolding as I type: Ms. magazine has rejected this ad, for that stated reason:

Image from LGF. 

Subtlety Not His Bag(el): Filmmaker KastnerJamie Kastner's documentary, "Kike Like Me", airs tonight on the Sundance channel at 10pm. Should be very in-ter-es-ting.

According to an interview in today's New York Times, Kastner says the film "stemmed from being continually asked if he was Jewish because of his looks or his name."

And the film refuses to answer that central question. "Kastner teases the audience with hints about his identity: his circumcision, his attendance at Catholic boarding school, a photograph of his blond mother and one of his dark-haired bride on their wedding day." (Wait: I'm confused. Can Jewish people attend Catholic boarding school and be blond? Can non-Jews be circumcised and swarthy?? Help!)

Is he or isn't he?

"'Do you want to blame me for Israel? Do you want to set me up with your daughter? So why do you want to know? What is it in yourself, audience, that you are prejudicing?'"

Well, if I wasn't black, I couldn't say "Nigger". (Luckily my stepfather's Sephardic!) And if Kastner isn't a Jew he sure as shit can't say "Kike".

So I'm eager to see the film and find out whether I think this man's a genius or a total a-hole.

 

Debra Sugarman: Filmmaker, photographer, and production designer.Debra Sugarman's documentary, Dear Mr. President, is about an arts camp she founded in New Mexico designed to bring Israeli and Palestinian youth together.  I met Debra on the set of a documentary called The Voices Project; she was the production designer and I was the costume designer, and she helped me build new garment racks, alter dresses, and preserve my sanity.  Afterwards, I asked her some questions about Dear Mr. President and the arts camp that she had founded.

You started an arts camp for Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, and Israeli Jews. Why did you do this and what has that process been like?

My family all gave time and money to improving Jewish life or to Israel. So I learned from that role model: we should give back to the community. I started doing it when I was very young, as a teenager. I worked specifically with mentally and emotionally disturbed kids. I quit doing it because it was really wiping me out and started doing what I am good at, which is art. Then, I began thinking about what I wanted to do to give back, and I really wanted to connect with something that I knew, which was Israel. My family is from Israel, my grandfather was one of the first settlers of Israel, and he worked for the Haganah. So, since I don’t identify as being a Jew religiously at all, but I relate to it as being my ethnicity, I decided that the best use of my time would be to find a way to connect the youth of Israel and Palestine. I think that teenagers are tomorrow’s leaders— I know they are in fact. So the decision became, how do I work with boys and girls that are teenagers without them being attracted to each other, when they should be breaking down barriers between their enemy cultures, not thinking “oh they’re hot.” So that’s how the camp became all girls, and I also think that both cultures under-serve women, though that’s changing a lot. Then the idea of using art and dialogue at a camp came from my life experience being an artist, and having art ameliorate healing in my life as a child.

What was the inspiration for the film Dear Mr. President?

The girls and I watched a film that a guy that was volunteering at the camp had produced. It was about a guy on a road trip across the US looking for this doctor, who later told him that he wouldn’t live long. So we watched Daniel’s film and afterwards, we talked about going in an RV next summer and calling the film some funny, superfluous title like “Looking for Daddy” or something. That’s how the seed was planted. From there I just thought that we should create a mini version of the camp, and used the RV as a stage. Then my friend Devon came up with the idea that we should deliver a message to the president, and that’s how we came up with the title Dear Mr.President. So the goal became to go from one side of the US to the other with these girls, and to meet up with the president.

On the trip, one of the girls, an Israeli Jew, asks another, a Palestinian, “Why would I trade places with you? Why would I choose to suffer?” Do you think this mentality is at the core of the conflict?

Dear Mr. President: The girls have a moment. First, I want to say that Amit (Israeli and Jewish), who said that, to Hameen(who lives in the West Bank), didn’t mean it the way that it sounded. As you saw, she made amends with Hameen and let her know that. But Amit was a very brilliant girl, all of those girls were very bright, and her point is well-taken, so in answer to your question I think it’s a kernal, it’s not the core issue. But yes, who wants a perceived enemy to be stronger than they?

In your trip across the country with the five girls, you visited many historical sites, including Wounded Knee. What were your reasons for this, and how were the girls affected by these landmarks?

I knew that I was going to have to stop in South Dakota for a million reasons, not the least of which is the history of native culture. Stopping at Wounded Knee, I felt like we had the potential to discover something about a culture that had been obliterated, but that still exists. When Amit read what was on the plaque at Wounded Knee, it really resonated with the Palestinian girls. That feeling of entrapment and of capture. It was what they feared most: that their land, their lives, and their families’ lives could be gone completely.

You have said that young women will make very good leaders. How do you think the women in your film can change politics in the Middle East, and why do you think that they would make good leaders?

One thing that happened with the camp, and consequently happened with the girls, was that they learned what it takes to build a new paradigm. When I picked the girls in the film, I got very lucky because all of the girls, were incredibly, uniquely intelligent. I think that when given the opportunity, young women, and the female gender in general, become multi-taskers. If we go the route of say, my mother, she was finishing up school, answering the phone, making meals, putting the baby to bed, being a good wife— I mean we are just genetically pre-disposed to multi-tasking really well. We haven’t been given the largest leadership roles, say, in the United States, or in our generation, but it’s really changing. It’s also changing over in Israel. I think that things take time. We’re talking about huge cultural shifts. How do you get a male-dominated society to get in touch with their feminine energy enough so that a woman runs their country or their world? How does that happen?

More on Debra Sugarman

Pickles was the most challenging and touching documentary that I saw at the Other Israel Film Festival. A moving film about the limitations of faith and culture, it follows the lives of eight Muslim widows who start a pickling factory in Israel.

Each woman in the film has her own struggle: Samira is estranged from her daugher, whose husband's family won't let the two women interact; Matza's son dies of a botched operation; Fatma begins a career in marketing once she is well into her fifties. Working in the factory gives them the opportunity to share these stories with each other. As they form a community, the women begin to question their roles in society. I interviewed Nitza Gonen, the producer of the film, to learn more about the significance of the film, its legacy, and the ideas behind it.

Women at work: In the pickles factory.What inspired the film Pickles?

One day, Dalit, the director, read an article about eight Muslim women in a northern village in Israel who started a pickle factory, and this story was very unusual because it was about widows. A widow isn’t supposed to go out of the home, she is supposed to watch over her children. She lives off social security and is watched over by her husband’s family. She is very miserable. She is not supposed to remarry. If she does, she cannot bring her children with her, and she must give them to her former husband’s family. There are few films about the inner lives of Muslim women. We wanted to lift the veil—and show that on the other side they were having a revolution.

As an Israeli Jewish woman making a documentary about Muslim widows, what were some of the obstacles that you faced during the production of the film? How did you deal with the language barrier? Were the villagers or women’s families suspicious of the motives of your film?

First, I don’t speak Arabic—none of us on the film crew speak it. We needed a common language so we got a translator. She was a Muslim woman who taught us the different cultural codes. The widows were very nice to us. They knew we had good intentions and that we were just trying to expose their lives to the world. The problem was with this woman in the municipality. Her role was to care for the women of the village and when she saw that we were making a film she interfered and forbade us from shooting private moments in the home and in the factory. She represented women trying to keep up their modesty and tradition, so I don’t blame her. Somebody had to protect the widows. But they couldn’t disobey her. She had lots of influence and she helped them to take care of their families. It was difficult because we didn’t want to raise conflict, so we missed some interesting situations.

In an interview with PBS, Dalit Kimor, the director, said that "Not one political word was said when we were filming" between the filmmakers and the widows. Why did you choose to do this? Do you consider your film political?

We didn’t want to make a political film. The widows weren't concerned with politics—on the first day of filming, Arafat died, and no one talked about him in the village. No one was occupied with his death. No one was praying for him in the mosques. They didn't speak about it. We didn't speak about it. We wanted to make a social human film. In Israel every film is political. Choosing Arab women as a subject of a film is political. Some people have criticized the film for not being political. It is completely innocent of politics.

Nitza Gonen: In her house in Israel.You have said that the women had never heard of the word feminism and yet were creating a small revolution. Was this film made from a feminist perspective? Did a feminist thread evolve during the production of this film?

Neither Dalit nor myself are feminists in the classic sense. Feminism is old news—we are feminists, but we are beyond this term. We didn't aim to make a feminist film, but the film talks about the rise of feminism in Arab society in Israel. The widows made a revolution in the village and the young women respect them. Now they are thinking of going to work, to school, and developing careers—and they weren't thinking of this before. These women did something for feminism without knowing it. Feminism is not the subject of the film, but it is the subtext.

After the production of Pickles, did any of the women stay in touch? Was a social network established? Did the pickle factory leave a legacy for the women in the film?

Widows are supposed to live in loneliness, and the factory gave them the opportunity to have a social club. In the film they cry together and tell jokes and comfort each other, and this it is not something that was in their lives before. So when the factory closed they had to go back to their former lives—but not Fatma. Because she was the marketing director she had a lot of contacts, so she is still making pickles, with her daughters. They have started their own business. Her daughters want to go to school, so she is saving money so they can study.

What has been the response to Pickles internationally and in Israel?

People liked the film very much, although it's unusual because when Israelis make films on Arabs it's always about identity, conflict with Palestinians, or about Palestinians, and this film was not dealing with this. In Israel, our subject was not dealing with the hard stuff. The big success of the film was abroad. People were surprised to learn how Arab women were living, to discover that they are like us, like everybody. The Muslim world in the eyes of the West—it's a kind of riddle. We see them as fanatics or fundamentalists, but we don't see their lives. The film revealed a lot about this without saying it.

Through the production of Pickles, you started a dialogue between secular Muslim women and secular and non-secular Jewish women in Israel. Have you done other work to increase dialogue or contact between Muslims and Jews in Israel? What are your thoughts on Jewish and Muslim relations in Israel?

We are both Mediterranean and we come from the same area. We have many shared characteristics: hospitality, human warmth, we are straight-forward. Before 1948, Arabs and Jews lived together and sometimes had good relations. Through progress I think that we will have better relations. On the last film I worked on, the director of photography and director were both Arab. I would like them to join all fields of life in Israel. We share the same country and there is no excuse for being apart.

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Also in Jewcy:

The Other Israel Film Festival

In the recent Shvitz post "The Best Way to Steal Articles from Other Sites?", Joey Kurtzman cried out for the input of legendary hacker Richard Stallman. Befuddled by endless theorizing about the future of the internet, Joey wanted Stallman's take on the so-called "Web 3.0," and whether "transclusion" is a fair way to poach articles from other websites for the enjoyment of Jewcy readers.

Stallman responds:

It's hard for me to think about [transclusion w/iFrames] because I have not seen it and I don't know what it is. "Web 3.0" is a vague term, perhaps a marketing buzzword; I don't know what it means (if it means anything at all).

I can only comment on other issues raised by the article. For instance, I can state the fact that copyright infringement is not stealing. I'm in favor of some amount of copyright, but I reject propaganda terms such as "stealing" and "piracy" that are used to demonize sharing. I cannot raise any righteous anger over a company's advertising revenue.

Some facts about me. For one, I am not an anarchist—I have a prostate gland. I am a Liberal, and I support social welfare programs.

Continue reading...

The mission of the Other Israel Film Festival is to expose the lives of Muslims that live in Israel. I am behind the mission of the festival. I am interested in the Muslim perspective in Israel and I am interested in the art that Muslims are generating. Do they feel like second-class citizens, how do Muslim women view themselves, and what is the Other Israel?

This is the first year of the festival, and I believe that it was an inspiring one. I have been to my share of festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and the New York Film Festival, and I've thrown my own. There were technical problems with the festival, like the films being re-sized as we watched them, but I understood these problems as a festival's growing pains. The Other Israel Film Festival got a group of films and filmmakers together that got the other side seen and heard, and I commend them for that.

Here are some highlights of the festival.

The Syrian Bride

Nervous on your wedding day?Every bride is nervous on her wedding day. She might trip on her dress or Aunt Ethel might get wasted at the reception. A million things might go wrong, but eventually, her nervousness recedes, she kisses the groom, and the two begin a married life.

Mona is nervous on her wedding day for different reasons. As a Palestinian, once she marries her Syrian fiancé, she can never return to Israel or see her family again—the Israeli government has also prohibited her father from attending her wedding. So Mona must turn her back on her family in order to get married. This is more than most brides have to deal with on their wedding day.

The Syrian Bride exposes the difficulties of not being a citizen of your homeland. My biggest critique of the film is that it could have gone further, and investigated what it means to live with resignation— to know that you are not in control, do not have basic privileges, and are denied happiness because of your lack of identity. The Syrian Bride alludes to these themes, but the lack of resolution leaves loose ends where solid conclusions are necessary.

Pickles

Women starting a feminist revolution through...Pickles?According to convention, Muslim widows are dead to the world. They cannot remarry or work outside of the home, or do anything other than raise their children and mourn their husband's death. They must live the rest of their days with their husband's family as well. The family watches over the widow and ensures that she does not disrespect her husband's memory.

These are the makings of a barren, miserable, and lonely life.

However, this is not the case for a group of eight Muslim widows. They start a pickling factory to earn money for their families, and in so doing, they give meaning to their lives. They have a place to go to, a job to do, and soon, a social network forms. However, none of the women is prepared for the difficulties that await them.

This is a moving documentary about the limitations of faith and culture, and the inherent disadvantages of living in a chauvinistic society. Pickles asks: must we accept these limitations? It is an articulate and intimate portrait of Muslim life.

Roads

The road from poverty.Amores Perros begins with two young men in a speeding car, escaping a car full of thugs, as a dog bleeds to death in the backseat. Roads begins with two young boys in a speeding car, escaping a car full of thugs, as a sheep bleeds to death in the backseat. Coincidence?

Roads is about a young Arab boy working for a heartless drug-dealer. One day, he decides to take the money and run. Then, he gets his best friend and a Jewish drug-addict involved. Will he escape his life of poverty or get stopped along the way?

Perhaps if Roads were not a rip-off of Amores Perros, I could appreciate it. Then again, the terrible plot-development, sloppy editing, and lazy camera work were no picnic to sit through. As a filmmaker, I've learned that a great idea does not make a great film; good storytelling, strong acting, and careful attention to detail make a great film. It takes vision and a high level of technical skill to pull one off—and you must make your stories your own. Roads lacks the originality that makes a film worth watching.

Yesterday, Slate posted a piece by William Saletan about the implication of Jewish genes and what the recognition of a Jewish race means to Jewish culture. Saletan begins thusly:

Are Jews a race? Is Jewish intelligence genetic?

If these notions make you cringe, you're not alone. Many non-Jews find them offensive. Actually, scratch that. I have no idea whether non-Jews find them offensive. But I imagine that they do, which is why Jews like me wince at any suggestion of Jewish genetic superiority. We don't even want to talk about it.

The mind boggles at the cowardice. What inquisitive thinker doesn’t “even want to talk about” a profound question of science and culture for fear that someone somewhere may take offense? It’s Saletan’s silliness that should “make you cringe.”

The article’s lead reminds me of something I witnessed as a graduate student. I attended a research presentation given by a Ph.D. candidate on the topic of African American standardized test scores. On average African Americans score lower on such tests than Asian or White Americans. The student opened his presentation by offering three possible reasons for this. The first: the idea that such tests were constructed with a built in cultural bias. One famous fill-in-the-blank example goes something like “Race is to car, as regatta is to _______.” The presenter noted that such biases had been exhaustively corrected in recent years, so that was an unlikely cause for lower test scores. The second possible explanation: stereotypes of Black students were somehow activated in the exam room setting and this propelled a chain reaction resulting in sort-of group-fulfilled prophecy. This was the candidate’s thesis. The third: Black people are genetically less intelligent than other groups. To which the budding scholar said, “We won’t even get into that.” If learning institutions don’t get into it, bigots and fascists of all stripes certainly will.

Back to Saletan. The piece was about a presentation given by John Entine, author of the book Abraham's Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People, Charles Murray who’s authored some controversial work on Jewish intelligence, and Laurie Zoloth, a bioethicist. Here’s the crux:

The average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is 107 to 115, well above the human average of 100. This gap and the genetic theories surrounding it stirred discomfort in the room. Zoloth, speaking for many liberals, recalled a family member's revulsion at the idea of a Jewish race. Judaism is about faith and values, she argued. To reduce it to biology is to make it exclusive, denying its openness to all. Worse, to suggest that Jews are genetically smart is to imply that non-Jews are inherently inferior, in violation of Jewish commitments to equality and compassion.

I love this line: “To reduce it to biology is to make it exclusive, denying its openness to all.” Imagine the sorrow of the dejected hordes who’ll have to make do with the country club, the DAR, and the millennial legacy of world domination. That’s funny. What’s not funny is that Zoloth, a respected academician, is proposing a fictional dilemma. The discovery of markers for Jewish DNA hasn’t a thing to do with the accessibility of the Jewish faith. When rabbis start asking for blood tests, we can revisit the question.

Saletan goes on:

But what if Judaism as a genetic inheritance is compatible with Judaism as a cultural inheritance? And what if the genes that make Jews smart also make them sick? If one kind of superiority comes at the price of another kind of inferiority, and if the transmission of Jewish values drives the transmission of Jewish genes, does that make the genetics and the superiority easier to swallow?”

[…]

The theory still sounds arrogant, until you hear the IQ machine's possible costs. Some scholars now hypothesize that the genes that make Jews smart also give some of them nasty diseases such as Tay-Sachs. Entine finds this plausible. He pointed out that some genes associated with brain growth are also associated with breast cancer, including in his own family. During the question-and-answer session, someone brought up another tradeoff: Supposedly, Jews are deficient in vision-spatial skills, possibly because their brains allot extra space for verbal intelligence. That might explain the average Ashkenazi Jewish score of 122 on verbal IQ tests.

Pondering these nuances and tradeoffs, Zoloth reconsidered her aversion to the idea of Jewish genes and Jewish intelligence.

Here we’ve gone from cowardice to full-on masochism. Saletan and Zoloth can accept the scientific claim of Jewish genes as long as such genes condemn Jews to early death. Jewish history is a cascade of horror. Why do we have to hunt out the deadly in order to enjoy one cosmic nanosecond of good news? Trust me: we’re Jews – the other shoe will drop without our asking.

The historian Paul Johnson, his faults aside, opens his book Modern Times with a convincing argument that Einstein, Freud, and Marx were the most crucial architects of Twentieth Century thought. The three men were undeniably Jews and undeniably geniuses. But what's been forgotten is their bravery. My question is where has that little twist of protein disappeared to in the succeeding generations of Abraham’s children?

I don’t think it’s a strictly Jewish issue, though. It’s part of a larger paradigm of apology that’s bloomed in the West over the past fifty years. The difference is that the world needs the West. If Jews apologize themselves out of existence no one will blink.

I have to mention my own initiation into the exclusive genetic club that Laurie Zoloth finds so unsettling. Because as a child I was fair-haired, slightly freckled, and in possession of a smallish nose I understood myself to look “non-Jewish.” This assessment seemed some cause for amusement if not, shamefully, minor celebration all around. A few years ago I was paying for a small coffee in a Korean deli that I had frequented on a more-or-less daily basis. This one afternoon I was counting out, in the palm of my hand, the seventy-five cents I owed the ever-friendly cashier. What happened next was not only an epiphany but also a kind of fantastic New York moment. “Are you Jewish?” she said. At once it struck me that in hovering over my change the Shylock gene had burst into full expression. “Yes,” I said, “Why?” “I thought so,” she said, “Jews don’t look like American people.”

But let’s not talk about it, shall we.

Background here. 

Dear Grandmother,

I heard from a mutual friend that you woke up the other morning and decided it would be a good idea to join in Rush Limbaugh's campaign of vilification against Media Matters by complaining that I haven’t wished you a happy birthday. To someone who is familiar with me and my work, this claim is patently absurd. In my six books and many thousands of articles, columns and blog posts over the past twenty-five years, I have repeatedly argued against privatization of the Social Security and Medicare systems and other policies that would harm senior citizens such as yourself.

Not long ago I was attending a dinner party in Manhattan where the topic of aging came up over the third glass of an excellent pinot noir that I brought from my most recent trip to wine country. Though I am always reluctant to mention famous people I know, I was pressured to discuss my long acquaintanceship with the pre-eminent philosopher Richard Rorty, who had recently passed away. Dick faced the end of his life with grace and class, finding time to leave a few final marks of his brilliance on the world, such as a recommendation letter he wrote for me. You, of course, are hardly Dick Rorty, Grandmother. But my respect for the aged and interest in discussing your demographic with powerful pundits at a dinner party benefits your life much more than a mere card with the words “Happy Birthday!” that I could have bought for $1.59 at the local drug store chain, where the workers most likely don’t earn a living wage or have access to health insurance.

Given that I am just finishing my seventh book and continue to update my hugely popular blog Altercation, located at mediamatters.org/altercation, while still serving as a Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Professor of Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, where I write and edit the “Think Again” column, senior fellow (since 1985) at the World Policy Institute at The New School in New York, and a history consultant to HBO Films, I'd not be surprised if I may have forgotten your birthday, though this card is not an admission that I did.

However, in charging that I “forgot” your birthday, your cluelessness is aiding and abetting a campaign led by Limbaugh and others to delegitimize Media Matters and the careful work it does. One cannot depend on either the intelligence or the good will of those in the MSM and conservative media not to use your nonsense for the purposes of further manipulation and misrepresentation. Shame on you.

Best wishes to Grandpa.

Love,

Eric Alterman, PhD

Vanessa Grigoriadis on Gawker:

Journalists are both haves and have-nots. They’re at the feast, but know they don’t really belong—they’re fighting for table scraps, essentially—and it could all fall apart at any moment. Success is not solid. That’s part of the weird fascination with Gawker, part of why it still works, five years on—it’s about the anxiety and class rage of New York’s creative underclass. Gawker’s social policing and snipe-trading sideshow has been impossible to resist as a kind of moral drama about who deserves success and who doesn’t. It supplies a Manhattan version of social justice. In the past couple of years, Gawker has expanded its mission to include celebrity gossip, sacrificing some of its insider voice in the process, but on a most basic level, it remains a blog about being a writer in New York, with all the competition, envy, and self-hate that goes along with the insecurity of that position.