Rabbi Landsberg's Blog

"driven down Broadway by a Maccabee"

The chagim are over, and I return to occasional blogging.  Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker attended the preview screening of a  movie based on the extraordinary story of the Jewish partisans  - the Bielski partisans who fought the Nazis from the Belorussian woods. The scale of the valour shown is hard to  imagine.  Gopnik does well when he explains that the director:

"originally considered starting the film...with a scene of a customer finding himself in the back seat of a taxi and realizing that he was being driven by a Bielski, as one might be driven down Broadway by a Maccabee"

Read the rest of the piece here.   The trailer for the movie can be seen here.

Choices

Today I added a new link to this blog - that of the YIVO Institute of Jewish Research.  YIVO is not new; its history is nothing less than illustrious -- set up over 80 years ago in Vilna by European Jewish luminaries such as Freud and Einstein to "snapshot" the disappearing world of Eastern European Jewish civilization. It is currently based in New York and, in addition to its library, publications and archives, it has a fabulous online resource.  One of its online exhibitions, for example, is a retrospective of the Bund (here). The Bund's ideals were no less than to institute a socialist revolution while maintaining the autonomy of Jewish life.

I am neither a Bundist nor a socialist of any persuasion.  Nonetheless, I found YIVO's online exhibitions to be deeply moving.  They bring to life a time and its people for whom Zionism was but one option among many.  BTW, Emanu-Elniks: be sure to ask our resident Yiddishist, Elly Gotz, about his and his father's conversion from ardent Bundism to passionate Zionism.  He once succinctly described the process to me:  Kovno, Dachau.

Ordinary Evil

For visual learners a picture may be worth a thousand words, but never for me. I have always been reluctant to deduce too much meaning from photographs; instead, I am far more comfortable drawing my conclusions based upon the written word. Nonetheless, just when I thought there were no new images from the Shoah that could disturb me, I ran across this: a collection of Auschwitz personnel frolicking... Here is the article in the NYT. Be sure to watch the slide show.

Taking Care of Business

For many of us the blogosphere is still a bit of a strange, new world.  But the natives are (by and large) friendly, and the local language is easy to learn.  A handful of folk have asked me how to post a comment on this site, so I thought I would take the time to publicly clarify:

At the bottom of every post, there are links.  One such link is entitled "Comments" with a number alongside.  Click on the link, and you will see any comments that people have already posted, and you will be invited to post your own.  It is in this arena that we can engage in a conversation.  If you have questions or comments about this blog that are not specific to a post, feel free to email me at rav@rabbilandsberg.com. 

A few weeks ago I posted on the music of Idan Raichal here. Two nights ago, Jay Palter (the father of the adorable 3 year old twins who grace our sanctuary most Shabbat mornings) wrote the comment below:

I downloaded some songs. I definitely like it. Some of the sounds reminds me of early Broza. I think its great that your wrote about music. because it speaks on totally different levels. But I'd like to hear more about why you described this music in the context of Ahad Ha'am.

So, here goes:

Ahad Ha'am was a lonely voice in the Zionist family consistently calling for a revival of Jewish culture in Palestine--not only to alleviate the conditions of the Jews in Eastern Europe but to unshackle the pent up creative energies of the Jewish National - Religious culture.   

When I hear the haunting overlays of traditional Ethiopian Jewish and Yemenite Jewish melodies interlaced in a modern Hebrew idiom (a language rescued from the obscurity of the impoverished prayer halls of Eastern Europe) I know that something has been won for the Jews, the significance of which is yet to be fully comprehended. A great deal of the thanks for this lies in the in influence of Ahad Ha'am (not detracting from Eliezer Ben-Yehuda), who recognized that full cultural renewal would require a center for the Jews where Hebrew would be able to regain its place both in the street and for all modes of cultural expression.  We do well to remember that for many of the early political Zionists, Herzl included, German was considered to be the language of culture and thus the language of the Jews. 

Amoz Oz, the renowned Israeli novelist, once said that when it comes to the Hebrew language he is an unrepentant chauvinist who sees Hebrew as royalty in the world of languages.  I, for one, happen to agree.

Btw, one of The Idan Raichal Project's CDs has been released internationally.  You can get it here or on Itunes.

Jim Lederman at Emanu-El

This Kabbalat Shabbat, Jim Lederman - the longest serving Jerusalem based foreign correspondent - came to speak to us. He captivated everyone present with the depth of his erudition and the breadth of his perspective on Israel, the Middle East, and the larger world order.  He reminded us that the tail of history is long and that we can only understand and face our present while glancing backwards.  An audience of Jews should need no reminder of this, but it serves as a necessary corrective to the seduction of present-ism. He promised he would post his lecture on his blog in a few weeks but in the meanwhile you can explore Jim's thinking here: Jim Lederman's Blog.

By the by, this Shabbat the energy in our sanctuary was palpable.  Carla Silver served as our chazzan sheni, standing in for our cantor.  Many many thanks to her for making our evening full of warmth and spirit. I felt in some small way we lived up to our name Emanu-El, Ha Shem was dwelling with us.

French Jewish historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet dies

The French Jewish historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet died.   The scenes that he was witness to: the deportation of his parents to Auschwitz, being hidden in Vichy southern France, gave his later political activism all the more force.  He was a leading opponent to the Algerian war; a passionate opponent of Holocaust Denial, and a very early proponent of a two state solution for Israel/Palestine. Read his obituary in the Guardian:http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1840740,00.html

Obituaries often make me pause and consider the alternate lives we all could have led and the different struggles we could have faced.  It is also a call to arms to fight for a life well lived.