"I Am Jewish"

after seeing the anti-birthright israelers protesting at occupy wall street it was nice to watch a different version. i have met so many apathetic twentysomething jews that its nice to see someone with another attitude. everyone is not frum so we can only hope those who are not don't get totally lost to judaism. perhaps one day all jews will be observant but for now i hope for everyone being observant in their own way.

jew , not a jew

    i saw this clip posted    on frum satire and i just had to write my own post about it. as a frum  person i have always known that though ben stiller is billed as a jewish actor he is not. in this monologue i have heard the best rendition of what a child from a mixed marriage is. stiller says that his dad is jewish and his mother is irish catholic. the torah says he is not jewish but the mirror says he is. another person who could say the same monologue is sarah jessica parker. the mirror says she is jewish but her mother isnt. adam hebrew hammer goldberg and kevin kline are also have jewish fathers. that must be the most difficult. you look jewish, and have a  jewish last name. everyone thinks you are jewish but you really arent. i guess you either pretend you are jewish or i don't know what.
there of course is always the opposite- those who are jewish but no one thinks is. kyra sedgwick's mother is jewish but her dad isn't. rain pryor's mom is jewish but her dad , richard pryor was not. lisa cosby show bonet is jewish because her mom is . rashida jones is jewish  because her mom peggy lipton is, but then again she actually looks jewish.
all i need is adam sandler to turn this post into a song.

edokko: growing up a foreigner in wartime japan

i started reading this book about a month before the tsunami hit japan.
edokko: growing up a foreigner in wartime japan is the story of isaac shapiro a jewish new york lawyer who was born in 1931 and grew up in japan. his mother was born in russia and moved to china as a baby and his father's family moved to japan after the russian revolution. shapiro's parents met in berlin as musicians and left germany because they feared the anti-semitism yet to come. his parents then lived in palestine and later went back to japan. young isaac also lived in china for five years during his parents separation, but later moved back to japan when his parents reconciled. he spent the war years in japan and at fourteen befriended united states military officers who were stationed in japan and worked as an interpreter.after the war he moved to the united states under the guardianship of a united states military officer.
japan was good to the jews during the 20th century when they fled russia due to pogroms and later when they fled the shoah.
mr. shapiro had a unique life and his memoir is well written. it was also quite an appropriate read after all the devastation that has recently befallen japan.

tis the (purim) season

i was in the east village today and went to moishe's kosher bake shop to have my first hamantashen of the season when lo and behold a policeman followed me into the store.  not unusual i know. it was a bakery and you dont  have to be jewish to eat baked goods from a kosher bakery. well, after i purchased my poppy seed hamantashen, my policeman friend purchased some cherry filled hamantashen. well maybe he is jewish , or maybe he just likes hamantashen . you never know.
another fun culinary fact for all of the gastro jews out there is the story of  alvin lee. his bakery is not kosher, and lee is black and gentile,  but its worth a mention none the less. alvin lee saw a recipe for rugalach in a newspaper forty years ago and perfected the art of making rugalach. now he owns a bakery in harlem which carries rugalach . people love his rugalach so much that when he had to close his doors last may due to financial reasons his former patrons rallied to help him stay open because they loved his rugalach so much. hmmm so i guess there is a reason some people stay connected to judaism just for the food.... even a non jewish harlem man got into the act to make a jewish culinary dessert !

rich people and kavod

the kids with rich parents used to get the good parts in the school plays. people always thought the rich people's kids were extra cute.
 many rabbis extol the virtues of kolel , yet the rich people in the yeshiva community get all of the honors. no one gets rich sitting in kolel. to me there is a dichotomy. sure, a yeshiva guy could marry  a rich girl, but he is still not getting any the kavod for being a good kolel bachur. he is being fawned on due to his rich father in law (or father).
just because someone has cooked up a ponzi scheme, embezzled or committed tax fraud does not mean he is evil in every aspect of his life. HOWEVER just because he is not completely evil does not mean he should not be punished for his crime. i for one think its just desserts for all of these yidden who are being caught for committing all of these fraud crimes. this jokers think that they are invincible just because they are the respected richies. they think that they can do know wrong. after all, this is what the community and their mothers have been telling them for years. im not happy these jews have been accused or convicted of fraud crimes, but i am glad to see that they will have to be accountable for their actions. the problem isn't that these folks are being caught for these fraudulent acts, its that they think that what they have been doing is no problem until they get caught. if you do the crime you should do the time.

the barnes and noble date

one thing i hate about midwood is that there are no secular bookstores here. on the weekends i often frequent park slope where there is a barnes and noble bookstore. one would think that frum jews do not frequent secular bookstores given the desert of secular bookstores in midwood and dare i say boro park or crown heights. well.... EVERY time i go to the barnes and noble in park slope i am always in good frum company. today was no exception. however today there was a special treat. the frum barnes and noble date. this is a welcome update on the lounge date.
at first i wasnt sure what i was seeing. i saw one very decked out ultra frum bais yaakov type girl sitting by herself at a table at the cafe. a few tables over i saw another very dressed up bais yaakov type girl. eventually i saw their dates sitting with them.
i have always thought that a bookstore is a good site for a frum date. we are the people of the book for heaven's sake!
aside from the dates there were several woman with sheitels and men with yarmulkes reading books at several tables in the cafe.
half the fun of going to the barnes and noble in park slope is having an excuse to frequent the hip park slope. if there was a barnes and noble in midwood i probably wouldn't go to park slope all that often.

tishrei blues

when the goyim talk about the holiday season its a joke. its two days . x-mas and new years. and if you want to count thanksgiving day its three days. big whoop. they are depressed and on the brink of suicide over three days. well the goyim have nothing on us jews. we have a holiday MONTH. tishrei. there's a good reason judaism isnt a missionary religion. jews tend to have a corner on mental illness to begin with, but the christian converts would not be able to handle a month of yom tov!
but seriously folks, i like the jewish holiday season of tishrei, but it can be a bit depressing for us single folk. the torah reading on rosh hashanah can really depress us single chics . if chana and sarah were so beloved and yet they had troubles having kids whats in store for us regular people? ive always heard that hashem loves to hear the davening of tzadikim and this is why they are always tested. well... enough tests. i dont think i can take any more of this.
the holiday season lightens up tonight when sukkot begins. another holiday to remind me i have no on to spend it with... and next week is simchas torah. unless one is on the upper west side this is no holiday for single women. the hakafot are really boring in brooklyn unless i have a few good friends to schmooze with.
well folks ... there is always next year... until then have a happy tishrei and a joyous sukkot!

inglourious basterds

i saw the movie inglourious basterds last night. im not usually a quentin tarantino fan, but i really enjoyed this movie.
inglourious basterds is a movie about a young woman trying to survive nazi france and avenge her family's murder and a vengeful motley crew of jewish american soldiers led by decidedly non-jewish , southern brad pitt who try to kill as many nazis as possible.
this movie is a jewish fantasy of what we wish we could have done to the nazis.
time out magazine suggested that it was perhaps too brutal for the jews to avenge nazis so brutally. i say poppycock! this movie is tame compared to what those basterds did to the jews.
the nazi folly in this movie is reminiscent of hogan's heroes. the balance between comedy and drama is delicately meted out.
though close to three hours long, it was not boring. i didnt even realize that much time had elapsed. i thoroughly recommend this movie.

Being Jewish In France

i managed to miss being jewish in france during this years jewish film festival. fortunately i subscribe to the fslc (film society of lincoln center) e-mail newsletter which told me that this film was going to be re-released this week. starting today. so of course i went and saw it.

the film is a 100 year history of jews in france starting with the dreyfus affair and ending with modern day france. the movie is informative as well as blood curdling. its 3 hrs long with one intermission. it doesnt leave one with a warm and fuzzy feeling afterward, but if you do see it you will be glad you did.

apparantly france was the first country to grant jews full citizenship.

though jews had been in france since the middle ages, many fled europe in the early 1900's due to pogroms including the brutal kishinev pogrom. jews were very much a part of french culture . there were even french/yiddish films at one time.

during the shoah the french sold out and surrendered the jews to the nazis. many french jews were murdered. the film did not make it clear why jews returned to france after the war despite the fact the french sold them out. a few holocaust survivors were featured, but it didnt seem to be an issue. to be fair, they were children when they returned to france so the decision to stay there wasnt really up to them. by the time they grew up the world had changed.

in 2000 there were alot of anti-semitic attacks in france which at the time the french equated with kristallnacht. a school was blown up, children were harrassed and synagogues were desecrated. since 9/11 there has been an increase in anti-semitic attacks in france. there is a large arab minority and small jewish minority in france. in the more recent past - the 1980's and1990's - when there were anti-semitic incidents more than just jews were protesting. now the anti-semite is the disaffected suburban youth which makes it more mainstream. on public tv there are outright anti-semitic comedians who no one blinks an eye at. they just think its funny. jean benguigui, a current french comedian , conveyed his disbelief. his words were so moving that i wish i didnt have to rely on the subtitles. my high school french is long forgotten. sixty years after world war 2 being jewish had become so mainstream in france. now its such a shock for its jews to realize they arent as accepted as they thought.

because this was a documentary its message is stronger. viewing clips of modern france with modern looking jewish people as victims of anti-semitism makes it seem all too real. the genuine shock these people have expressed... haunting....

growing up i had always heard that france was anti-semitic so it was hard to understand how shocked the french jews are to the recent surge of anti-semitism. i suppose its always hard to admit one's homeland is truly anti-semitic.

alot of french jews have emigrated to israel due to the resurgence of anti-semitism.

being jewish in france is a most candid history i will not likely soon forget.

shalom- peace on earth.

Exclusive Blog Interview With Diana Spechler

I'm very excited to present to you dear readers this exclusive frum single female blog interview
featuring Diana Spechler author of Who By Fire .


FSF: What made you choose this topic for your book ?


DS : When I was a grad student, I wrote a short story about Bits Kellerman, a young woman who lives in Boston and whose brother, Ash , lives in Israel. At the beginning of the story, Bits hears news of a suicide bombing in Jerusalem. She calls Ash and he doesn't answer. Throughout the course of the story , the tension lies in the question of whether or not Ash is going to call his sister back. At the end of the story, he still hasn't called her. I finished the story and included it in my thesis, but it continued to haunt me. Why didn't he call his sister? It was driving me crazy. So I returned to the story and started writing from Ash's point of view. Then I returned to Bits, and then to Ash, and so in. That's how the novel was born.


FSF : Did you set out to write a book with a Jewish theme or did it just evolve?


DS : When I started writing Who By Fire , I had a lot of questions about Judaism--specifically about how I wanted to practice it. I was somewhat obsessed.The great thing about writing is that it provides an acceptable context for obsessions. By writing this novel , I was (perhaps not totally consciously) grappling with the questions that were most important to me at that time. When I finished writing the novel, I was able to unburden myself of the obsession to some extent. So I'm not sure I set out to write a book with a Jewish theme so much as I set out to write about something that mattered to me.


FSF: What kind of Jewish family did you grow up in?


DS : My family is really different from the family in Who By Fire . The Kellermans are so disconnected from one another. In my family, when someone goes to Israel, that person calls home. Period. We're all really close. Also , Judaism and Israel were big parts of my life throughout my childhood. My siblings and I went to Jewish summer camp. Jewish holidays were and continue to be big and fun and loud. My parents, like Ben and Ellie Kellerman, met in Jerusalem in the early 70's, so my perception of Israel has always been tinged with a little romance.


FSF: How has your book been received by secular Jewish readers as well as Orthodox Jewish readers?


DS : Of course, since I was writing , in part, about the conflict between secular and Orthodox Jews, I worried that I was going to offend people. The truth was, though , my novel doesn't voice just one opinion. Some of the characters are religious. Others are not. Some of the religious characters are a little sordid, others are great. Exploring my characters, all of whom are flawed. People-- Jewish , not Jewish, religious, not religious--talk about books all over the internet , and for the most part, no one seems offended by my book. The consensus seems to be that its a good read. Of course, I very much approve of that consensus.


FSF : At the end of the book in the q & a section, you say that you have a brother who is an Orthodox Jew. What does your brother think of your book?


DS : My brother loves the book and recommends it to everyone who will listen. He's a good brother.


FSF: What is the biggest lesson you feel readers should take away after reading Who By Fire?


DS: I'm not sure there's a lesson in it, but my favorite compliments I get are , "Your book made me want to go to Israel!" and " I stayed up all night reading your book."


Thank you so much Diana for this blog interview.