Silver Mt. Zion on Protest Music, Montreal, and Being the Only Jew in the Room |
|
by Matthue Roth, May 8, 2008 |
|
Efrim Menuck fronts the band currently named Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band—a band whose appellation, along with its sound, changes and grows with each new release. Currently, the band is a seven-piece composed of (among other instruments) violins, guitars, and a cello—and group choral chanting. Their newest release, Thirteen Blues for Thirteen Moons, finds the band in a more aggressive, rock-edged mood than usual, supplanting their experimental punk backgrounds (Menuck, along with the band’s violinist and bassist, also play in the band Godspeed You! Black Emperor). Just landed from their European tour, Menuck graciously filled us in on the band’s philosophy, writing habits, and the Facebook invasion of Canada.
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band: chilling in a field
I can't make up my mind whether your music and the imagery of your lyrics and albums reminds me more of old Baptist church spirituals, or old Jewish ones. Is that intentional?
We grab water from both of those rivers, because faith is a lovely thing, even if you don't believe in God. It's partly why the band is named after Mt. Zion—it's the holy mountain in the awful desert that illuminates the choruses of Baptist hymns, dusty klezmer tunes, and 6-minute dubplates. Also, I spent grades one through nine at Hebrew day school, and came home every night to my atheist father, who would try to undo any little thing I’d happened to learn that day.
This means that, somewhere in my little pea-brain, there's a knotted scar where the secular and the godly have fused; means that I tend to see things in terms of good and evil, write large, and means that I believe in congregations, hymns and prayers but not in God, so when I try to put words together to sing on top of this music that we all write together, that jumble just pours out of me, worried and conflicted and messy as hell.
Critics keep talking about your music as protest music, but it seems less like specific issue-oriented protests than protesting the system in general—a nonspecific cry to start over, build anew.
Yeah, for us it's all a raucous blues or joyful punk-rock implosion, but if we had to semaphore our primary complaints and concerns, it'd probably go something like this: The world's a mess, and we're led by murderous thieves who keep dragging us unwillingly ever closer to the gaping precipice.
What's your writing process like? Does one person come up with an idea for a song, or do you all start jamming and then run with it?
Our writing process is slow and backwards. We start with a handful of riffs, and hammer at them for hours on end, until some sort of rough counterpoints start to bloom. Then we break it all into little pieces, strew ’em all over the floor of our jamspace and then put them back together again as best we can. When the whole teetering pile is almost structurally sound, I'll start throwing words at it, and tangles of melody too, to harmonize with us all singing at once.
Then we bring these songs with us on the road and dump them into the laps of whatever audience has blessed us with their kindness and grace on any given night, and repeat that narrative, like long laps on a dimly-lit track, until the song itself is weathered, dented and true.
Is the music scene in Montreal going through a real golden age, or is it just attracting more attention? What's it like up there?
No, it's no golden age in Montreal right now. Skyrocketing rents, an overabundance of Facebook-obsessed university students, and an oversaturation of self-promotional A&R types has led to a state of affairs whereby most gigs glow with the impermanence of a flash-mob instead of any sort of self-sustaining community.
There's still a bunch of tiny, crucial glimmering flames though, and, like in any large city, there's a constant surplus of good people doing good work in the lovely shadows.
Are there a lot of Jews involved in the scene? Is it a coincidence, or did you grow up with other people who were into the same influences as you were?
No more Jews than any other scene, I guess; Mt. Zion's got four Jews and three goys, but most of Montreal's Jews took off when the FLQ [the extremist Front de liberation du Québec] started planting mailbox bombs in the early seventies. I spent most of my punk-rock adolescence being the only Jew in the room, so it's nice to feel a little less isolated these days, especially ’round the high holidays.
In "Blindblindblind," you sing, "My the light of our striving still shine." It almost feels like a prayer for something beyond—beyond the album, beyond the band, a kind of creative immortality. How do you want your music to be remembered?
Bad endings can ruin even the best story, so the only thing I know for sure is how I don't want things to end—the world is not a kind place for musicians, and there are very few happy endings in the grand historia de la rock, means that I don't want die poor and alone, nor do I want to be the vain jerk in the diaper stinking up the stage at the retro-festival, and while I hope that our band's stubborn little discography still glimmers with its own hard-won internal logic 30 years from now, I’m more concerned with a more achievable type of permanence. Good friends, a healthy family, and a couple of crucial smudges and footprints across our collective histories sounds more than pretty good to me.
Critics Claim Flight 93 Memorial Glorifies Islam |
|
| When one man's embrace is another man's Muslim crescent moon | |
by Jessica Miller, May 6, 2008 |
|
The story of Flight 93 is, for lack of a better description, incredibly moving. One of four planes to crash during the September 11th attacks, this plane is unique in that it crashed in a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania following a courageous passenger effort to regain control of the hijacked cockpit and to subvert an additional planned attack.
In 2005, Paul Murdoch’s design for
a national memorial to the victims of Flight 93 was chosen from a pool of over
one thousand applicants. The
design, which features a large ring of red maple trees surrounding a circular
walkway and stone wall that frame or “embrace” the axis of the plane’s flight
path and the crash site where forty people lost their lives on September 11th,
2001. All visitors will enter through
a western portal walking along , passing by a large bell tower containing one
bell for every Flight 93 passenger.
The project was initially titled “Crescent of Embrace.”
Flight 93 National Memorial: giving a sad field a hug
The mock-up images on
Murdoch’s website are truly stunning projections of what the site will begin to
look like upon its halfway completion, currently scheduled for September 2011,
in time for the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Unfortunately, not everyone is so happy about the
design. Some have gone so far as
to call the project “an insult” to the memorial’s honorees.
So what’s all the fuss about? Although it may not be immediately
obvious, put your thinking cap on and consider the following picture. Here we have: a gigantic, red crescent
structure surrounding sacred ground, with a western gate, a large eastern wall,
and a gigantic, noise-making tower.
That, my friends, is what some would call a mosque: minaret, qibla, and
all.
At least, that is what about 5,300
petitioners are saying about Murdoch’s proposed plan. The New York Times reports
that representatives from this opposition group met with the Flight 93 Memorial
Task Force and the Flight 93 Advisory Committee over the weekend in attempts to
halt all construction of the proposed memorial and to come up with a new,
design. And if the task force and
advisory committee do not comply, they say they’re taking their campaign to
Congress.
“It’s really revolting to me, this
whole thing,” Tom Burnett, Sr., father of Flight 93 passenger victim Tom
Burnett, Jr. who has been outspoken against the proposed memorial design since
it was first chosen. Harry Beam, a
former Army lieutenant colonel and primary anti-memorial design activist also
spoke on behalf of the full group as to why the design is offensive. “They all believe there’s no place for
Islamic symbolism or anything that would elevate the status of the terrorists,”
he said.
The numbers don't lie: memorial's comparison to a mosque
Murdoch, who, coincidentally, is
currently involved in the renovation of the American Jewish University campus,
has shrugged off suggestions that his design is subliminally Muslim. When interviewed by the Times, he
called the protests “someone else’s distraction.” But the fact that his project’s name was changed from
“Crescent of Embrace to “Circle of Embrace” and the originally planned gap at
the western end of the memorial has been altered and is now set to be filled in
by trees suggests that Murdoch I not as impervious to criticism as he says.
While this is an emotional subject, the more one learns about Murdoch’s design, the more unfortunate it becomes that what was clearly intended to be sensitive, well thought out plan has been degraded to an architectural “[elevation of] the status of the terrorists.” That kind of sentiment is more hurtful than the proposed memorial design will ever be. The design is centered, both literally and metaphorically, around the memory of the crash victims, and any criticism should be too.
Israel, Injustice, and Philip Glass’s Call to Arms |
|
| Why Satyagraha, the new opera about Gandhi in South Africa, made me both proud and ashamed to be Jewish | |
by Jay Michaelson, May 1, 2008 |
|
Asking the big questions: The ad campaign for Satyagraha It's become a cliché to search for Jewish influences or
themes in works by Jewish artist.
Generally the effort is one of overzealous interpretation, if not
projection. Consider the
following, then, not a reading of Philip Glass's Jewish opera Satyagraha, but a Jewish reading of Philip Glass's opera Satyagraha—a work which evokes both the pride and anxiety
of contemporary Jewishness.
The pride came not from "one of our boys done
good," although such a sentiment might be excused in this case. When Satyagraha was written in 1979, Glass was still an up-and-comer;
he'd only recently made it big, was only a few years away from having been a
starving artist, and was still regarded, by many, as part of the avant
garde. No longer -- for better or
for worse. Satyagraha opened at
the Met April 11 after a bombastic ad campaign. “Could an opera put virtue back on its feet?” asked posters
around New York City. “Could an
opera make us stand up for the truth?”
These questions are as yet unanswered, but the New York
Times did call
Satyagraha “a work of nobility,
seriousness, even purity.” Glass
is probably the most widely-heard composer active today, and while some of his
later works have begun to seem rather derivative, the Met’s enormous
production, brilliantly [re]conceived by Phelim McDermott with sets by Julian
Crouch, shines. It reminds us why
we loved Glass in the first place: the repetitions are haunting, not tedious;
the melodic and conceptual reaches soaring, not pretentious.
Satyagraha tells, in non-linear and largely non-verbal fashion, the story of Gandhi’s struggles on behalf of South Africa’s Indian population. During the course of this twenty-year fight for civil rights, he developed the philosophy and political tactics he would eventually use to liberate India from British colonialism. These tactics went on to inspire Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and other liberators around the world. But in this period, they were still a work in progress, paid for in risk and blood.
Satyagraha juxtaposes
symbolic stagings of key episodes in Gandhi's struggle with Sanskrit quotations
from the Bhagavad Gita, among the most sacred texts of Hinduism. While to some this may seem an obvious
choice, it is actually a curious one, as much of the Gita is about why its
hero, Arjuna, must go to battle.
It's hardly a nonviolent text.
Puppets for peace: The British staging of the opera
Yet it is a text, perhaps above all, about knowing and
fulfilling one's holy mission, of virtue in the face of adversity, of duty and
moral responsibility. This is why Satyagraha
appealed to me as "Jewish": not
because of its composer's ethnicity, but because it captures the power of
sacred text to inspire sacred action.
Gandhi was, after all, a holy man. In his later life he was an ascetic, fasting regularly and
relinquishing all possessions.
Like Dr. King, he regularly used not only religious language but
religious spirit to motivate and comprehend his work—and to stir up his
audience. Satyagraha is an opera about the power of spirit and word to require
us to be our best selves -- which is also what Judaism does at its best.
It is a message we need to hear today. Just as Satyagraha's provocative marketing campaign asked us if an
opera could inspire us to stand up for truth, we need to ask whether the Torah
can inspire us to take a stand for justice, economic fairness, equality, human
rights, and peace? Can it move us
to oppose appalling injustices in Tibet, Darfur, and around the world?
The questions are not entirely rhetorical. There are those today who think
religion is at best a superstition, at worst a force for ill, and should be
kept entirely separate from any notion of political engagement. There are others who think that the
Jewish religion is mainly about aggrandizing and protecting the Jews. Those of us who disagree, who believe
that our Jewishness compels us to fight torture, unnecessary war, environmental
irresponsibility, and economic oppression by our own elected officials, may be
inspired by Satyagraha even if we don't
speak a word of Sanskrit.
(Indeed, since few audience members do, the opera inspires
by musical and visual gestures, like the sight of a hundred lanterns being
lifted in protest, or remarkable outsized puppets symbolizing collective action
against greed.)
At the same time as Satyagraha evoked this pride in the possibilities of a prophetic
tradition, it evoked in me a feeling of shame. It's impossible to watch hordes of second-class citizens
standing up for their rights against an occupying regime and not think of
Israel and Palestine. To be sure,
the opera never draws that connection -- it is explicit in linking Gandhi and
King, and some of the new production's imagery suggests Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo, but nowhere does it reference the Israel/Arab conflict. Yet to my eyes and ears, the parallels
were unavoidable.
Behind the scenes: Set elements backstage (photo via the New York Times)
This is not because the Palestinians are in the same
position as the Indians (or black Africans) in South Africa, or that Israel is
a colonial power. They are
not. But the contours of popular
struggle against a better-armed adversary are unmistakable.
Let us grant that there may be many differences. Yasser Arafat never was Mahatma Gandhi,
or Nelson Mandela for that matter.
The Palestinians were not a nation in the same way as India or Tibet
is. And of course, Israel's safety
is at stake in a way that Britain's and China's never have been, and violent,
rejectionist Palestinian factions enjoy considerable power. Let us grant all of
these distinctions. There are still the brute facts of checkpoints, separation
barriers, closures, and settlements. There are still the day-to-day realities
of people living under occupation.
If we grant all these differences, we may well end up with a
political program not so different from that of the current Israeli government. Yet at the very least, the brute facts
demand that such a program be pursued ambivalently, even regretfully—not
with the sort of reflexive, defensive cheerleading one finds in many Jewish
quarters today. If indeed these
policies are necessary, then our own support of them must be tinged with the
awareness that every day, they place the Jewish state on the wrong side of
justice. Perhaps these
"costs" are justified by a higher good—but let's not pretend
that they don't exist.
This was the ambivalence I felt watching Satyagraha, the title of which means
"truth-force." One of
the blessings and curses of Separation-Wall Israel is that the Palestinian
crisis is more invisible than ever to visitors. We can stay at the Dan Pearl,
visit holy sites, and once again promenade down pedestrian malls with
comparatively little fear of violence. But if we take our sacred texts as
seriously as Gandhi did, they must remind us of the costs of our freedom -- in
this case, costs borne largely by people who do not enjoy the benefits.
Hopefully I have been clear that neither I nor Satyagraha
advocate a particular policy position. But
in reminding me the beauty of religious consciousness, Satyagraha also reminded me of the responsibility it
demands.
Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla Open Jewish Center in Krakow |
|
by Jessica Miller, April 29, 2008 |
|
Prince Charles: goes looking for a mezuzah Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla arrived in
Poland today to take part in the opening ceremony of a new Jewish community center in
Krakow’s Kazimierz Jewish quarter. While the project was overseen by World
Jewish Relief (a charity group based in London and credited with aiding Jewish
children in escaping the Nazi regime during World War II), the inspiration for
and funding of the center came directly from the Prince of Wales.
In 2002, Charles met with many of Krakow’s Holocaust survivors and was so moved by their stories that he decided to commit himself to the building of a community center. Many of the survivors he initially spoke with were present at today’s ceremony, including Ryszard Orowski, who lost all of his relatives in the Holocaust. Orowski expressed his joy and amazement over the project: "Never did we imagine that we would have a center, a home for the whole community of Krakow."
Prince Harry: fashion faux pasThe center will be used by about one thousand neighboring
community members, ranging from elderly citizens to
Polish students at Krakow University. It will be open to Jews and non-Jews alike for all
sorts of social, religious, and educational activities.
As a token of gratitude, Prince Charles was given the honor of nailing the mezuzah on the front door of the center, making for one of a few rather excellent photo ops.
It is probably no coincidence that the opening
of the center coincides with Yom Hashoah, and thus far plans have gone off without a hitch -- unlike three years ago when the British Royal family’s plans to
commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day went Prince Charles Says: want to play torah slides and ladders?terribly awry after every tabloid from here to
Tel Aviv had a photo of Prince Harry dressed as a Nazi
soldier on its cover. Also notable
is that the Prince and Duchess’s presence at the opening of the community
center comes less than a month after the Jerusalem Post published an article exposing the United Kingdom as
“the European center of anti-Semitism.”
According to Oxford-educated Hebrew University Professor Robert S.
Wistrich, anti-Semitism is so implicit in British culture – literary,
political, and otherwise – that Brits can’t even recognize it anymore.
Not to belittle his efforts in Krakow, but maybe Prince Charles should take that kippah and hammer and head over to a synagogue in his own hometown.
Grandmas Patrolling Israel's Checkpoints |
|
by Jessica Miller, April 25, 2008 |
|
Grannies On Patrol: unafraid of hot sun, long lines, or jaded soldiersAny effective Israeli checkpoint guard must have the following defining characteristics:
Sound like your Jewish grandmother? Well, that’s what the ladies over at Machsom Watch thought too. Upset about the current state and management of Israeli checkpoints, they formed an organization of female Israeli peace activists to offer civilian supervision. Too many times, they say, lengthy holdups at checkpoints have caused students to miss exams, women in labor to give birth before they reach the hospital, and degrading incidents. They especially lament the treatment of Palestinians at these checkpoints, who are often not permitted to travel freely even within their own townships. They decided that checkpoints would benefit from neutral civilian supervision. But who would they send to do the job? The solution: Jewish grandmas.
Take Rahel Weinberg and Julia West, for example. Armed with sunhats, clipboards, and water bottles, they brave the heat on a daily basis in order to monitor the behavior of the Israeli checkpoint soldiers. What do they have that the soldiers do not? It's more about what they don't have: A lack of military training and an absence of M16’s on their shoulders. Like any good grandma, these two also have heart and compassion. They are willing to stand in the sun all day just so they can help speed up the checkpoint crossing process for those in need, and they understand the difficulty of the checkpoint soldier’s occupation.
Says Rahel, “They have a dreadful job. It is boring, they work in scorching temperatures and their shifts last ten hours.” What they are there to do is to make sure that these strenuous conditions do not lead to an abuse of power. Rahel continues, “When they see us, the soldiers ask themselves 'what would my mother or my grandma have to say about the way I'm behaving?'”
Bottom line: When grannies are on watch, people watch their step. And that is exactly what Machsom Watch wants.