romeo and juliet in yiddish

when i was in high school in my modern orthodox jewish high school romeo and juliet  as well as west side story were on the syllabus. i read the cliff's notes version of romeo and juliet because the shakespeare version was so dry. west side story was a modern tale of feuding families which i found much more entertaining.
yesterday i saw the film romeo and juliet in yiddish. i'm not sure that the title really catches the essence of the film. yes this is a film about the telling of romeo and juliet but it is also a tale about what people who grew up only speaking yiddish would think of the shakespeare classic if they grew up in the shtetl of williamsberg, brooklyn or i would even venture to say that if it was your great grandparents who grew up in a very frum shtetl in europe and suddenly heard of shakespeare.
i've  often wondered how isaac bashevis singer has remained such a beloved writer since most of the people who read his books now are jewish but have no clue what frum jewish life is about. singer writes well, but a person really misses out on all of the jewish references if you aren't familiar with orthodox judaism.
many of the audience members at the showing yesterday of romeo and juliet in yiddish were non-orthodox jews over 65. some of them may have actually understood the yiddish, but i can't be sure. i do know that they did not understand the jewish references.  the secular 65+  jew is the typical moviegoer for this type of film but they are not really the target audience.
i am frum, but not necessarily yiddish speaking . after viewing this film i would say i would be more of the target audience for this film. i found that i understood most of the yiddish because it was really frum-speak not actual yiddish or perhaps the frum -speak is mostly  hebrew which is part of yiddish. i found the english subtitles distracting  because they didn't accurately translate the yiddish words that were being spoken.  i found the dialogue hysterically funny.and i was probably the only one in the audience laughing   (because most weren't frum and were over 65).
the film's story is about ava ,a  secular jewish nurse who is also in graduate school and is forced by her advisor to write a production of romeo and juliet in yiddish. ava finds twenty something chassidish juvenile delinquents to help her create this yiddish version of romeo and juliet.
the back story is that the chassidishe dropouts in this film are playing versions of themselves as they are all native chassidishe yiddish speakers. though they are experimenting with a world outside the one they grew up in they haven't completely rid themselves of their chassidishe upbringing. the idea of crab or pork makes them ill even thought they might do drugs or sleep around. because they were so sheltered from american secular culture they haven't even heard of shakespeare or romeo and juliet and in the accent of a greenhorn they mock the story even though they  eventually  realize that it is not as foreign as they think.. romeo and juliet is the story of two feuding families not unlike the satmar and the chabad and  not unlike the struggles these rebels have with their own families.
in dreamy sequences they imagine what it would be like for a satmar and a chabad to fall in love and what their families would say and do. to see portrayal  was laugh out loud funny. its not only a yiddish language  version of romeo and juliet but also a jewish re-imagining of romeo and juliet that has not been brought to us by woody allen or philip roth ( baruch h-shem) the english subtitles do not do the dialogue justice. i'd like to see the film once more to just watch it listening to the yiddish because im sure i missed out on a lot juggling between listening to the spoken words and reading the subtitles.it will also be easier now that i know the storyline.
the chassidishe drop-outs  were played by individuals who attend the chulent group  that gathers every thursday night .
the point of the movie is that there is too much jew vs.jew going on out there even in the frum world and its just as ridiculous as shakespeare's version of it. maybe just maybe the world would be a better place if we could all figure out a way to get along  and perhaps even try to understand where the other person might be coming from.
romeo and juliet in yiddish is playing at lincoln center this week.

Julie Kohner on TAPED WITH RABBI DOUG

now that i  have shared the incredible this is your life interview with holocaust survivor hanna bloch kohner, i had to post this you tube interview with kohner's daughter julie kohner. this interview tells a little bit about the background behind how this historic interview came to be as well as more about her parents .its a little slow moving , but worth watching anyway.

The Film Archive: This Is Your Life: Holocaust Survivor Hanna Bloch ...

The Film Archive: This Is Your Life: Holocaust Survivor Hanna Bloch ... this is a link to this famous episode of this is your life.
this  is the first non-celebrity holocaust survivor interview on television  ever. its a little too 1950's syrupy sweet, but definitely worth viewing anyway.ralph edwards, the host of this is your life was a client of hanna bloch kohhner's husband walter who told him his wife's story and the rest is history.

the jcc

when i was a kid the president of the shul i attended used to give a special appeal speech trying to encourage people to donate otherwise all that will be left on the grounds of the shul will be a jcc. it was a very entertaining speech that i admired for its originality. unfortunately the jcc in the city i grew up in is not as widely attended as it had been when i was a kid. though the shul i had attended is still in existence i don't find it to be such a positive stronghold for judaism either. but thats another conversation for another post that i probably wont write.
shuls are very important , but jewish community centers are perhaps more important. jewish community centers create a location that can foster ahavas yisrael whereas a shul if too consumed by its own religious fervor might not be able to ,
much as aish hatorah and chabad might believe  everyone is not going to be frum . however every jew might  still want to associate with judaism.  when jews don't care enough to identify as culturally jewish the next option isn't usually to explore frumkeit, the option is usually no affiliation to anything jewish. as long as jews are engaging in jewish events, even " just" cultural ones there is still a hope for them wanting to affiliate more with judaism. .
the jcc also sets the stage for mingling between religious and non religious jews because everyone is welcome. even an event that might seem interesting only to frum jews might attract non-frum because the event is being held in a open to all streams of judaism jewish  setting.
long live the jcc.

telephone

the absolute worst time to phone me is nine p.m. on a sunday night. i never get why this is a favorite time of the day for phone calls .for those with who only have cellphones sundays are free anyway and for everyone else i ask just one question. you had the whole weekend to phone me, why on earth do you wait until nine p.m. on sunday night when im trying to wind down to call me?
no matter how many times i tell people this they still persist. it doesn't matter that i don't pick up the phone, they do it anyway on the off chance that i will pick up. the worst part about returning this type of person's call is that when you return their call at an earlier hour they will want to call you back later. i say don't bother if its after nine p.m. its not that i actually get to sleep so early, but i wouldn't mind having the chance to . anyway, its beside the point. i just don't want to talk to anyone on the phone after nine p. m.  if you can't call me before nine p.m. that's ok. i won't be insulted. we will talk when we talk. i'd rather have a little solitude than a phone conversation after nine p.m.

july fourth

july fourth is the celebration of americas independence from the british. . happy independence day. in honor of america's independence day may we all achieve independence from any and all things that may be preventing us from being our very best selves.

love etc...

i was all set to see the serious movie crime after crime about an abused woman who kills her husband in self defense and ends up in jail and then almost 20 years later the case was reopened  and she ends up having a frum lawyer defend her. it was raining today. the fact that it was a rainy day really depressed me, so i decided to see a lighter film. i ended up seeing love etc.
love etc chronicles five love situations in new york city. i would call them love situations instead of couples because not everyone ends up part of a couple and not all of the love documented is couple love.
the first love situation is a first generation american indian couple. we see them before during and after their wedding. though i've never been married i believe that they were portrayed more realistically than any hollywood couple on the silver screen.
the second love situation was  a divorced dad with full custody of his two kids. while he was a hands on dad, and quite buff i might add, he didn't do as well as one might think with the ladies.
the third love situation was the first love of a high school couple.
the fourth love was an elderly jewish couple named al and marian. they have been married 48-49 years. al is , sit down folks, ten years younger than marian. marian had kids from a former marriage when she married al. in about 1960. now they are 79 and 89.
the last love situation was a gay man who wanted to have a child so badly that he found an egg donor and a surrogate and had twins. it was not shocking to me at  all that a gay man would want to be a parent. some gay men have feminine qualities that would make them a good father/mother to a child. i found this storyline intriguing on several levels. of course his actual story was fascinating, but it also made me think. a lot of women go it alone and have kids or adopt kids on their own when they fear they will never meet a man to have a child with. straight men get squeamish when a women is too gung ho on marriage and feel like they are only being loved for their donation to the possibility of a future child . hmm .... on the other hand many men will reject thirty or forty something women because they think they are too "old " to have a kid, but no one bats an eye at this. these men certainly are only looking at these younger women  only for their wombs and baby making abilities. come to think of it except for one lone frum male blogger whose name and blog name escapes me  who wrote about hiring a surrogate to have his baby i have never heard of any straight men doing this. why don't they? it would take a lot of the pressure off of dating for them. there would be less fifty year old men trying to unsuccessfully date under 35 year old (wombs) women and they would have children. women have taken charge of their parenthood. why haven't men? or is this fantasy of finding a much younger woman to have kids with just an excuse not to get married? hmm... i really have no answers just lots of think questions.

true love is the etc. true love is going through life with another person. true love is being able to deal with the changes life throws at all humans and still stay together. there is spouse love, friend love  and there is parent /child love. we are  lucky to have  any of these loves in our lives.
on that note, on some sunny day in the near future im going to have to go see crime after crime.