The Idelsohn Society and the Problem of Cultural Reclamation

The Jewish Week just published my critique of the Idelsohn Society. Won't you go read it?

Is Willy Loman Jewish? And did Arthur Miller speak Yiddish?

(3/15) UPDATE: Willie Loman shall indeed speak Yiddish when the New Yiddish Rep brings their new Yiddish language production of Death of a Salesman to the Castillo Theater! 

Please go read this fascinating article by the wonderful Sam Freedman (also my former teacher), Since the Opening Curtain, a Question: Is Willy Loman Jewish? As the name hints, the article explores the ambiguous Jewishness of Willy Loman, the everyshmo at the center of one of the most famous plays in the American theater, Death of a Salesman.

The question of Willy's Jewishness has been alive pretty much every since the play was first produced in 1950. Freedman notes that even Arthur Miller's view on Willy's Jewishness changed over the decades. This in itself seems to be material for some graduate student's paper. Does Miller's perception of Willy change because his perception of his own Jewishness changed over the years? And why did Miller only write about Jewish topics when it related to anti-Semitism or the Holocaust? How much does Miller's Jewish identity reflect the ambiguous Jewishness of millions of non-Marilyn Monroe marrying, average American Jews?

One unasked question popped out at me. Freedman notes

Some critics have singled out Linda Loman’s famous speech about Willy — “Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person” — as having a distinctively Yiddish cadence.

I dunno. Maybe yes, maybe no. The obvious question is, did Arthur Miller speak Yiddish? We're told he grew up in a traditional Jewish atmosphere, but what does that mean? If we're really going to get into that kind of textual analysis, I think it's an important question.

And I thought this quote from director Mike Nichols was also really interesting:

“Willy has no forebears,” Mr. Nichols said in an interview this month. “He’s not from any country. He has no holidays of any religion. So you have to assume Miller’s making a point. We who are struggling to sell enough have to drop everything — religion, nationality, family. There is nothing except, as Willy puts it, being known and being well-liked.”

"We who are struggling to sell enough have to drop everything — religion, nationality, family." To that I would add language, too. As many, including the great Max Weinreich, have noted, the Yiddish language isn't just a language but the transmitter of the whole of Ashkenazi way of life, religion included. The muscular monlingualism of America leaves us all much poorer, and at a loss, much like Willy Loman.

Is Hipster Trolling the New Hipster Racism?

I can't decide if this asinine post over at Hipster Jew is worth an entry in my 'Memes of the Yiddish Atlantis' file. Is this supposed to be .... funny? Ironic? A parody of the kneejerk Yiddish haters? Yeesh.

From Yiddish is a dead language, let's move on:

I like Yiddish. I like saying putz and schmuck and shiksa. Sparkling your vocabulary with a few prime, semi-ironic Yiddish phrases is very important to keep up the appearance of being a culturally relevant Jewish person. But we have NYC, where a bagel with ‘lox and shmear’ isn’t an uncommon phrase. You know who still speaks Yiddish? Crazy Hassidim who live in bumblefuck parts of NYC, who fear technology, women, and anyone not closely related to them. Sorry Yiddish, but you’ve lost. It’s 2012. Let’s give you a round of applause and call it a day.

What a charming fellow. I wonder if he calls his grandparents every week just to say 'Ya dead yet?'

Welcome to America - H. Leivick is Back on the New York Stage

As I mentioned before, there's a new production of H. Leivick's classic play Shmates. This new English language version is called Welcome to America and I've reviewed it for The Forward. Check out my review here!

Why Yiddish Matters?

Peeps! As part of my participation in the Speakers' Lab 'Now What: The Future of New Jewish Culture' event, I've just published a Panelist Statement.

In the language and culture of Ashkenaz I found everything I had once assumed Judaism simply didn’t have: songs for every occasion, dances other than a zombified hora, and a radical history very much of use for the present. Yiddish presented to me what [early 20th century Jewish educator] Jacob Golub called “cultural autonomy,” something I see little of in American Jewish life. 

For Golub and his peers in the pre-war era, however, the cultural autonomy of American Jews would be lived in modern Hebrew, not the despised tongue of exile. “The Jew must, to a large degree, live vicariously through Palestine,” he wrote in 1937. In 2012, Golub’s statement has the sour tang of half-fulfilled prophecy.

Read more of Why Yiddish Matters, at the Forward's Arty Semite Blog.

See you at the Yiddish theater, dahling

Once again we're in the Yiddish theater season. No excuses, you've got to check out these shows.

First up: A new production of H. Leivick's Shmates called Welcome to America. 

Welcome to America is produced by New Worlds Theatre Project, translation by Project Artistic Director Ellen Perecman.

Running through May 20th at the 45th Street theater. Tickets.

And then: Two shows running in repertory at the New Yiddish Rep, Agentn and Meshiekh in Amerike.

Agentn, a three act play based on the works of Sholem Aleykhem, directed by Yiddish theater legend Moshe Yassur.    Tuesday, May 8th at 7:30 PM


Meshiekh in Amerike, Moyshe Nadir's scathing satire on the intersection of American capitalism and Jewish assimilation.       Sunday. May 6 at 7:30 PM and Wednesday, May 9 at 7:30 PM

Performances at the historic Hebrew Actors Union building in the East Village. Reserve your tickets right away!

And later this month, at the Folksbiene: the hardest working man in Israeli Yiddish show business, Mendy Cahan makes a rare appearance on the New York stage. 

Cahan brings his show A Yiddish Bouquet to the Engelman Recital Hall at Baruch College, May 20th.

The Future of New Jewish Culture: Panelists Speak Up

Hey Peeps! Starting Tuesday, April 17th, the people at Speakers' Lab are going to be posting statements by the panelists of the upcoming Now What: The Future of New Jewish Culture event. You can get 'em here and at the Forward's Arty Semite blog. I hope you'll check in each week and get some interesting convo going!

Now What? The Future of New Jewish Culture

There's a great project coming from our friends at the Posen Foundation. It's called Speakers' Lab and the first Speakers' Lab event is a 'town hall' conversation about new Jewish culture on May 15th.

But Speakers' Lab isn't just about events. They've got a super snazzy website with artist interviews, panelist statements and other really cool content. Call me totally biased and partial just because I'm one of the panelists, but I'm really diggin' it.

Here's their description of the event:

Ten years ago, a new generation of young, proud, irreverent Jewish artists and writers began redefining American Jewish identity. The movement was called New Jewish Culture, and it created an explosion of music, literature and art that pushed the boundaries of American Jewish identity. 

But after recent foldings of major New Jewish Culture enterprises, the culture is at a crossroads. What is its future? What can emerging Jewish artists expect from the next decade? Join us on May 15th at 7pm at the 14th Street Y for a moderated town hall event with nine panelists at the forefront of New Jewish Culture. Raise concerns. Ask questions. Join the conversation. 

Free and open to the public. Reserve a ticket now!

These are the cupcakes of our affliction

Something happens to me when I go shopping for food on peysakh. It's like I enter a dream where kosher for passover baby powder is a rational thing and I wonder if I'll eat anything for the next week. And then I go home and eat a whole bunch of chicken salad on matze crackers and stop worrying about it.

Som

Lord knows you'll want a refund once you taste their cup "cakes"

$7.99

For the pious family looking for a baby's butt kosher enough to eat from

Is it neros or neronim? Stop messing with my head?

Jet Setting

Hey! You guys know how much I love Reboot/Stereophonic/Idelsohn Society, right?

So, I was delighted to be a guest on Beyond the Pale, a terrific radio program on WBAI, to talk about the newest IS project, Songs of the Jewish-American Jet Set. I was joined by co-guest, the effervescent, and youthful, Ariel Federow, with the incomparable Jenny Romaine conducting the whole shebang.

We had great time in the studio, listening to tracks from the CD as well as related tunes. There's some So Called, some Mickey Katz and a couple of fun surprises.

We also dug into questions of mystification, nostalgia and the uses of material culture. You should definitely give it a listen. Beyond the Pale podcast here! (And iTunes downloads here)