Author: Shelley A. Sackett

New Haggadah is A Feast for the Senses

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We Erica Brown fans are in for a special treat this Passover. The gifted columnist has penned “Seder Talk” with her usual flair for combining the sensitive, scholarly and practical. The result is a Haggada with a fresh approach that is as imaginative as it is traditional, as educational as it is emotional; in short, it is a book with something for everyone.

Brown’s book is really two books bound as one. “Seder Talk: The Conversational Haggada” is a commentary on the Haggada text that opens as a Hebrew text, from right to left. Chockful of poetry, songs and rabbinic readings, this Haggada also explains the meaning of the various seder rituals in a simple, informal style. The most engaging and distinctive, however, are the conversational cues interspersed throughout the text that, in signature Brown style, provide moments and roadmaps for celebrants to pause, reflect and share aloud. This is the stuff memorable seders are made of. There are also more personal life-homework exercises that promote greater mindfulness, intention and inner freedom.

The second book-within-abook, which opens from the other cover, contains eight essays, one for each of the eight days of Passover. Only Brown would think to start her first essay, “All Who Are Hungry,” with this perfect seder icebreaker, a quote from Oscar Wilde: “After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relatives.” Other essays are titled, “The Four Sons, the Right Question,” “Slave Wealth” and “Pour Out Your Wrath, Pour Out Your Love.”

Brown is a deep Judaic thinker and a respected author and educator. She has created a delightful new Haggada that belongs on the bedside reading pile, long after Passover has passed.

Pictured at top: Seder Talk The Conversational Haggada by Erica Brown. Maggid Books and OU Press, 2015

Too Many Unanswered Questions in Marblehead

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The Jewish and Catholic communities of Marblehead dodged a bullet at the March 19 School Committee meeting. The Marblehead School Committee did not fare as well.


The state mandates 180 days of school, and teacher contracts dictate that school end by June 30. Traditionally, a calendar that plans for five snow days satisfies these terms.

This February, after a sixth snow day, the School Committee decided to revisit the 2015-2016 calendar it had just approved at its January meeting. Its goal was to trim days off to create a bigger cushion in case next winter turns out to be as harsh as this year’s.

The Superintendent emailed a survey to parents to find out if certain days off really “mattered” to them. The only days the School Committee put on the potential chopping block were the two days of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Good Friday.

When the committee posted the March 19 meeting agenda, it included discussion about the 2015-2016 calendar, presumably based on the results of the survey. After 150 people showed up to express their dismay and displeasure, the School Committee apologized and took no action, leaving both the High Holidays and Good Friday intact as days off by default.

Not only does this end not justify the means the committee used to gather its data, but there also remain too many unanswered questions.

Who drafted the survey and who approved it?

Why were Jewish and Catholic holidays the only days off considered?

Why wasn’t consolidation of February and April vacations an option?

Why wasn’t the Friday before Labor Day an option?

Why were all restrictions on the calendar that are based on teacher collective bargaining contracts not listed and addressed?

Why was a longer school day or shorter summer vacation not an option?

Most importantly, what might have happened had the Jewish community not rallied and showed up in force to protest?

The School Committee members apologized for the survey’s poor drafting and stated that their intent was not malicious and their action not based on religion. We want to believe them.

We hope they will prove that by reopening the calendar discussion and putting everything on the table, including February and April vacations (despite the inconvenience some student athletes might suffer) and that last Friday before Labor Day (when Marblehead Harbor is a sea of sailboats). Until that happens, the only real result of the March 19 meeting is the bad taste left in everyone’s mouth.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on March 26, 2015.

“Gett-ing” Divorced Israeli-Style

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By the time Viviane Ansalem receives her gett (divorce) in the 2014 Israeli film, “Gett: The Trial of Viviane Ansalem,” she and the audience have been through a five-year wringer of humiliation, frustration and relentless stonewalling. The 2014 Ophir (Israeli Oscar) Best Picture-winning film, directed and written by siblings Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz, casts an unflinching eye on the quagmire created by Israel’s religious laws for those who want to live a secular life.

In Israel, there is no separation of “church” and state when it comes to domestic law. There is no civil marriage and no civil divorce; only Orthodox rabbis can legalize a union or its dissolution, which is only possible with the husband’s full consent. This structure is based on a patriarchal system of justice that relies on charging the rabbinical judges with upholding the sacred biblical law to preserve Jewish households (the commandment of “shalom bayit,” or peace in the home).

The law applies to all Israeli citizens, whether they are religious or not. In its application, however, observance and domestic harmony may be mutually exclusive. In that case, it is observance that trumps.

A woman who desires to end her marriage must prove her case in a courtroom (“Beit Din”) presided over by three male Orthodox rabbis who have complete and essentially unchallengeable power over the proceedings and their outcome (appeals are possible but rarely successful). Essentially, despite the fact that she is the “plaintiff,” that is the one seeking the divorce, she is put on trial, forced to defend herself in a Kafka-esque legal proceeding with opaque and arbitrary rules of procedure that seem purposefully stacked against her.

Added to the unfairness is the fact that the husband has the law and power on his side; the rabbis cannot legally grant the gett without his consent.

Gett2
Viviane (Ronit Elkabetz), Carmel (Menashe Noy) and Elisha (Simon Abkarian) in the Beit Din courtroom in “GETT.“


“The Trial of Viviane Ansalem” opens with funereal music in a claustrophobic, windowless room where Viviane has tried without success for three years to end her 30 year marriage to Elisha, a man her parents arranged for her to marry when she was 15 years old. The setting is more prison-like than judicial. Her lawyer, Carmel, and Elisha speak about her to the three-judge panel. Symbolically, Viviane, whose fight this is, is relegated offstage until the moment the judges deny her a gett.

“Given the visual language we have chosen for the film, we are supposed to see her when her lawyer and husband are looking at her,” director Ronit Elkabetz, who also plays the role of Viviane, said in a press release. “We wanted the audience to see her for the first time when she hears that she is refused her gett. The word ‘no.’ From that precise moment, faced with this refusal, and the denial of her being, she starts to exist on screen.”

For the next 100 minutes, the audience is let through the keyhole of the closed doors of the rabbinical courtroom as Viviane and her secular lawyer battle her intransigent and religiously devout rabbi husband and his brother and lawyer Shimon (also a rabbi) for Viviane’s freedom. We feel as trapped and frustrated as she does, as court appearance after court appearance and setback after setback whittle away the years. Ultimately, it all comes down to a battle of wills between Viviane, who wants her freedom, and Elisha, who wants her by his side.

Because Viviane is asking the judges to order a man to grant his wife a divorce, the judges must hear witness testimony to determine whether she meets one of the narrow grounds that would allow them to do so. These include inability to clothe the wife, to fulfill her dietary needs or to satisfy her sexual needs. These do not include compatibility, which is at the heart of her claim. It is also irrelevant that she left the marital home years ago.

Although the essence of the story is tragic, the parade of witnesses lends an air of comedy and farce to the otherwise absurd proceedings. The realistic members of the couple’s community find ways to turn their testimony into an opportunity to talk about themselves.

Like the film’s Elkabetz directors, Viviane and Elisha come from Israel’s Moroccan Sephardic minority, and the testimony of their witnesses sheds light on the customs of that culture. The neighbor’s own marriage takes a brief spin at center-stage, as does the contrast between Viviane’s brother and sister, both invited to speak on her behalf.

“How should I know if they’re compatible? What does it matter? I make my wife good for me,” the neighbor attests. Her sister, a secularized modern woman, comes to court wearing peacock blue and is ultimately thrown out mid-sentence as she rails against the hypocrisy and prejudice that are the bedrock of the rabbi’s questions. Her brother, on the other hand, admonishes her and pleads Elisha’s case.

As Viviane, Ronit Elkabetz is a spellbinding mixture of steely determination and restraint with a barely submerged undercurrent of seething rage. Although she is silent for most of the film, her body language speaks volumes. Simon Abkarian, as Elisha, speaks even less, but his posture and eyes leave no doubt that although he too suffers, he will never yield.

Eventually, Elisha does offer Viviane a gett with strings attached; he will grant her a divorce if she promises to remain sexually faithful to him forever. She accepts, and therein lies the film’s richest food for thought.

After five years of victimization at the hands of an unjust and unfair patriarchal system, the tables have turned and Viviane is finally empowered. She is free to choose her own moral and ethical destiny. What will she do? Will she honor her promise and forgo romantic happiness, or will she discard the integrity of her word and treat the deal as a necessary deceit to have achieved her deserved freedom?

“Gett: The Trial of Viviane Ansalem” is the third in a trilogy that started in the 2004 “To Take A Wife” with Viviane’s brothers trying to talk her out of seeking a divorce. One can only hope that the Elkabetz siblings will follow up with an epilogue set in 2019. I, for one, would love to catch-up with Viviane five years post-gett.

Pictured at top: Viviane (Ronit Elkabetz) learns of another setback to her case.

 

Moshav: You Can Go Home Again

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“Moshav,” the internationally acclaimed American/Israeli group, began when Yehuda Solomon (vocals, percussion) and Duvid Swirsky (vocals, guitar) met as youngsters growing up four doors apart on the Moshav Mevo Modiin. The religious communal settlement in central Israel was founded by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and attracted a group of eclectic individuals, including Solomon’s and Swirsky’s parents.

“My parents were living in a hippie commune in northern California and they moved to the Moshav and never left,” said Solomon, who is in his late 30’s and lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three young children.

Swirsky arrived at the Moshav on Shabbat when he was ten years old. “I remember Shlomo as a Santa Claus-like character,” he said. “Everybody danced and sang, banging and screaming and jumping up and down. It was a very accepting and comfortable environment.”

“A lot of us kids from the Moshav are singers, spread out all over the world. We run into a lot of them when we travel,” Swirsky added. He also lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two-year-old son Lev (“heart” in Hebrew).

The duo was singing at the Moshav when they were discovered by some American students traveling in Israel who heard their band play and raised money to bring them to the United States to play for a college tour in the 1990’s. “Moshav” was born and relocated to Los Angeles, where they recorded their first album in 1998.

“Shabbat Vol. 1, released in November 2014, pays homage to the many Sabbaths they spent with their beloved Reb Shlomo in the small synagogue packed with family and friends dancing late into Friday nights. “This record brings us back to our childhood,” said Solomon.

Moshav

Moshav 2014 Moshav Music

The 15 tracks include original, traditional, and Carlebach compositions that the two recorded at their home studio in Los Angeles. “We tried to give it a raw vibe, like we’re all just hanging out again and jamming on the Moshav,” said Solomon.

“This record feels like home,” said Swirsky. “Shabbat is music. Shabbat is roots. Shabbat is open. Shabbat is no judgment.”

Among the songs are “Lecha Dodi,” “Adon Olam” and “Havdallah.” With its mixture of reggae, middle-eastern and traditional styles, and instruments that include bouzouki, banjo, cello, trumpet and oud, the album is an exciting and refreshing way to celebrate Shabbat. “It shows all our colors,” said Solomon.

Standout tracks are a meditative “V’shamru” with its overlay of cellos, the lively reggae-middle eastern styled “Boi Beshalom,” and the catchy, folksy “Shiru.”

“We try to make music that we really love and connect to. We draw from our Jewish roots and heritage, but hopefully the result is universal, something that also sounds really interesting and cool to someone who isn’t Jewish,” Solomon said.

Pictured at top: Duvid Swirsky (left) and Yehuda Solomon met as kids growing up at Shlomo Carlebach’s Moshav commune in Israel.

Civil Discourse Needed About an Uncivil Matter

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The upcoming nationwide general release of “Gett: The Trial of Viviane Ansalem” (see review on page 14), a 2014 niche film festival movie about an Israeli woman trying to get a divorce (“gett”), has shone a spotlight on the division between religious and civil law in Israel when it comes to domestic issues. We think this attention is positive for many reasons.

Facts always aid discourse. The film illustrates how the Israeli legal system separates marital status issues (i.e. whether one is legally married or divorced) from the rest of civil law for Jews. Special religious courts, under the control of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, have exclusive jurisdiction. Civil family courts exist for non-Jewish citizens and to handle other domestic matters, such as alimony and property division.

These religious courts use biblical law (“halacha”) as guidelines. Under this law, divorce cannot happen without the husband’s consent. The rabbinic judges have very narrow conditions under which they can impose a divorce against the husband’s will. All conditions hinge upon the wife’s ability to prove fault on the part of her husband. Many Arab states (Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Brunei, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) also impose religious domestic law on their citizens. These laws, or Sharia, are based on the Koran, the Islamic bible. Civil domestic law does not exist.

In the United States, by contrast, all marrying couples must file a document with a civil court to be considered married, even if they have chosen, in addition, to have a religious ceremony. Since 2010, every state is a “no fault” divorce state, meaning that “irreconcilable differences” are adequate grounds for dissolution and that a judge can grant a divorce even if one party does not agree.

This fundamental right does not exist in Israel, where Jewish couples cannot choose whether they want a secular or religious marriage or divorce, and therein lies the core of the matter, both for the couple and for Israel’s global image as a true democracy.

While Israel rightly prides itself on being the only democracy in the Middle East, it more closely resembles its Arab neighbors than the United States when it comes to imposing religious law on its Jewish citizens.

It is time to have a civil conversation about the uncivil way Israel treats marriage and divorce.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on March 12, 2015.

Ken Marcus: One on One

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During his Boston stay, Kenneth Marcus  answered these questions for The Journal:

JJ: How is the Louis D. Brandeis Center addressing preparing high school kids for what to expect when they arrive on campus?

KM: The Louis D. Brandeis Center prepares fact sheets and resource guides that help incoming Jewish college students know their legal rights. For example, we have a short guide to the laws against campus anti-Semitism that can be downloaded free from LDB’s website: brandeiscenter. com/ publications/ factsheets/title_vi_fact_ sheet. We also frequently speak on college campuses, including special presentations for undergraduates, law students, faculty and administrators.

Most importantly, college students should know that LDB’s lawyers are available freeof- charge to consult with them about any anti-Jewish discrimination or harassment that they might encounter. They can call us on the phone at 202-559-9296. Our lawyers are always happy to speak with students. That’s what we’re here for. Alternatively, if students are more comfortable reaching us over the internet, they can contact us here: brandeiscenter. com/contact.

JJ: Students for Justice in Palestine (an anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian college student activism organization) is wellfunded, disciplined and aggressive. How can our Jewish students maintain the moral high ground of our heritage while not being steamrolled by this opposition?

KM: This is a very important question. It is important always to maintain the moral high ground. This means that our students need to maintain clean hands. In other words, they must always remember their values and their ethics. No matter what the challenges, we must respond in a way that we can be proud of. That means that we must never stoop to the levels of our adversaries, whomever they may be. In responding to adversity, students should do so in a way that maintains their personal safety and their ethical integrity. When they are in doubt, they should seek the advice of adults whom they trust, such as their parents, rabbis, professors, or Jewish communal professionals.

JJ: What are your thoughts about Jewish students who support BDS (the global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel)?

KM: People have many reasons for coming to their beliefs. I try not to cast aspersions. But the BDS movement is a very dangerous crusade. It is not only an affront to basic academic values, it is also the embodiment of double standards and defamations aimed at the Jewish people. Some BDS advocates are blatant bigots. Others have unwittingly made common cause with groups that seek to harm the Jewish people. If any Jewish students are attracted to the false rhetoric of BDS, I would recommend that they become better educated on the subject. One place to start is Cary Nelson and Gabriel Brahm’s important new edited volume, “The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel.” Students should be able to find this book in their college library or order it at amazon. com.

JJ: What do you hope conference attendees get out of the conference?

KM: I want attendees to know that if they face problems on their campuses that they are not alone. We are here for them. I want them to leave with a better understanding of how they can succeed in difficult campus environments, how they can thrive, and what they can do if they face injustice. Too often, Jewish students find that their voices are unheard, that their experiences are disbelieved, and that the challenges they face are denied. I want them to leave feeling stronger and more empowered. I want them to understand what their options are and how they can have the best possible college experience. And if they should find that classmates who are not Jewish are facing other forms of discrimination, bias, or harassment, I want them to be able to use our tools to help these other groups as well. After all, we’re fighting to achieve justice for all.

Pictured at top: Kenneth Marcus, founder and director of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, addressed the “Break the Hate” Summit at BU.

Opening the Door to Jewish Spirituality

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For over half a century Rabbi Arthur Green has taught Jewish mysticism, Hasidism and theology. He recently noticed a new trend. “Young people are asking a question that was never asked in my generation. They are asking, ‘Why be Jewish?’” said Green, who has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Brandeis University and Hebrew College.

To answer that question, the preeminent authority on Jewish thought and spirituality and author of more than a dozen books wrote “Judaism’s 10 Best Ideas: A Brief Guide to Seekers.”

“I write for people who think they don’t have a home in Judaism,” Green said. “I want to show them that they do, that there is something interesting and spiritually fascinating and attractive about this tradition.”

The 100-page pocket-book reveals Rabbi Green’s personal understanding of Jewish tradition, based on his experiences teaching, studying and translating sacred texts. Ten chapters address the core tenets of Jewish life, such as simcha (joy), tikkun olam (repair the world) and Talmud (education) in a style that combines warmth and humor with practical applications for contemporary life. “Shabbat — Getting Off the Treadmill,” for example, offers ten pathways toward a new Shabbat with five “to do’s” and five “not to do’s.”

10 Best

“In this day of freer choices of identity, I want to show people that Judaism is an important tradition that still has something to say to the world.

I believe we have things to teach the world and that the best years of this tradition are ahead of us, not behind us. I’m an advocate, and that’s what this book is about,” said Green.

At Hebrew College’s Rabbinical School, which he founded in 2004 and where he is Rector, ten percent of the rabbinical students are converts to Judaism. “These Jews by choice are among the most serious and dedicated future rabbis we have,” said Green. “One part of the audience for this book is people who are considering conversion to Judaism.”

Green believes in opening the gate to Judaism and welcoming people who are seeking a spiritual path, whether they are Jewish or non-Jews. “This book is a door-opener,” explained Green.

In the course of his teaching and lecturing, he also met people who told him they didn’t believe in God but somehow believed in a soul and wanted to have an inner life. “They thought they had no home in the Jewish community because they didn’t believe in God. They found themselves attracted to spirituality through one Eastern teaching or another because Eastern teachers didn’t say, ‘You have to believe first.’ These too are precisely the people I am writing to,” said Green.

Although raised in a nonobservant home (“my father was a militant atheist,” he has said), Green found himself drawn to spiritual language after he read “God in Search of Man” by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel as a high school senior. When he was 16 and a freshman at Brandeis University, he became interested in Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism which originated in Hasidic Judaism) after he heard Zalman Schachter, a leading Hasidic Rabbi, Kabbalist and founder of the Jewish Renewal Movement, speak at a campus event. “He impressed me tremendously,” Green said.

Green eventually founded Havurat Shalom, an egalitarian Jewish community in Somerville in 1968, and remains a leading independent figure in the Jewish Renewal Movement.

Although Green no longer teaches at Brandeis University, his connection to the institution spanned many generations. He attended as an undergraduate (B.A. 1961) and graduate student (Ph.D. 1975), and taught there from 1994 until 2004. He thinks of Brandeis as engaged in a continued struggle with its Jewish identity. “Brandeis positions itself as an American university. In its very short history, it has achieved a remarkable reputation as a leading American university, but with one difference: most of its support comes from the Jewish community. Does that make it in any sense a Jewish institution, and what might that mean?” he questioned. This is a question, he said, that Brandeis has struggled with throughout its history.

Despite Green’s busy teaching, writing and lecturing schedule, he does make free time for himself. “I have a mystery life as an antique collector of early American glass,” he confided. “There’s a group of people out there who only know me as Art Green, the glass guy from Boston. They have no idea that I do anything else. I’m happy to have a second identity. I treasure that.”

In Praise of Active Listening

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We have grown used to the fact that there are many opinions in America about Israel’s actions, both from within our community and without. The settlements, possible peace negotiations and the country’s upcoming elections are a few hot button topics. Whether Israel’s future should be as a one- or two-state entity is a hotter one still.


These are complex political issues that deserve enthusiastic debate. All sides have a right to state their points of view, to argue, to express disagreement, to give reasons, to provide evidence and ultimately to try to persuade. Few disputes are black and white; it is the fleshing out of the gray area that is at the heart of our democratic freedom of speech.

All sides also have the obligation to listen to the other’s point of view. It is as important to understand why people hold different opinions as it is to hear them. After all, how can we truly grasp the issues and discuss them in a constructive and civil manner if we do not expose ourselves to thoughtful people with whom we disagree?

No side, however, has a right to vilify, belittle or marginalize the other. When Jews turn against Jews under the guise of the “pro-Israel/anti-Israel” litmus test, we do to ourselves what we would not let others do to us. We become a people divided.

That division is exacerbated when we add American politics into the mix. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to speak to the U.S. Republican-majority Congress at Speaker Boehner’s invitation has created yet another opportunity for Jews to draw lines of separation. The media is rife with strident pieces equating Republicans with pro-Israelis and Democrats with anti-Israelis. These impassioned attacks leave no room for reasoned and reasonable discussion.

With media available in so many formats, it has never been easier to access information. While we may gravitate towards sources that philosophically agree with us, it behooves us to broaden our horizons and listen to people on all sides of the political spectrum. Not only does this bolster our own arguments, it also trains us in the crucial skill of active listening.

Rather than listening in order to react and argue back, the active listener makes a conscious effort to hear and understand what people are saying. A communication skill that can be learned and must be practiced, active listening is a key component to civil discourse and productive conversation.

We have deliberately offered two opposite opinions about Netanyahu’s March 3 visit on the facing page. We invite you to open your mind, open your ears, actively listen and then let us know what you think.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on February 26, 2015

He Wrote the Song

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Last fall, when David Brook found out “Legacy,” a song he had co-written, would appear as track 6 on Eminem’s 2013 album “The Marshall Mathers LP 2,” he ran down Madison Avenue screaming at the top of his lungs. “It was the most exciting moment of my life,” the 2006 Marblehead High School graduate said.

That was true until February 8, when the album won the Grammy for Best Rap Album of the Year. “It was as climactic as it gets,” Brook said. “I’m still waiting for the alarm clock to wake me up and tell me it’s all a joke.”

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States awards a Grammy Award, or Grammy, to recognize excellence in the creation and production of musical recordings.

Brook credits his mom, Bonnie Brook, and Steve Geyer, his Lynn music teacher during his adolescence, for his interest and success in the music industry. “David has always been an exceptional young man,” said Bonnie Brook. “Living in a small town, I took every opportunity to involve my kids in going to Boston so they felt they were part of the larger world.”

Music was one of the ways in which David expanded his horizons. He started writing songs as a middle schooler and made his first real demo while in high school. After learning that his cousin was friends with the wife of Atlantic Records CEO Craig Kallman, David begged her to pass his demo along. It was 2006 and Brook was a freshman at Northeastern University.

“I knew it was a little bit of a stretch, but I thought that maybe if his wife liked it, she would pass it off to Craig,” Brook said. “Maybe something would happen.”

Indeed, something did. The executive loved the song. He flew Brook to New York for a meeting which was leveraged to get a manager and collaborate with “some big writers and producers.” Upon graduating from college in 2011, David penned a deal with Universal Music Publishing Group.

One of his first writing sessions for Universal was with singer-songwriter Polina Goudieva. “We sat down and wrote this ballad on the piano. We thought it was a good song, but didn’t really know what to do with it.” Brook said. The song would become “Legacy.”

Polina played it for an Interscope Record executive who sent it to producer Emile Haynie, who had previously worked with rapper Eminem on his last album. Haynie loved the song and sent it to Eminem after production.

“We sent him that song in late 2011 and the album didn’t come out until fall 2013. There was a gap of two years when we didn’t know what was going on,” Brook said. The selection process is shrouded in secrecy; he knew the song was in the mix for inclusion on the album, but he didn’t know whether it was chosen. “With an artist as big as Eminem, the process is kept very close to a select few,” said Brook. “I later found out he recorded around 200 songs for the album; 16 made the cut.”

One day an employee at Universal called him and told him that the MMLP2 track list had leaked online and “Legacy” was included as Track 6 on the new album. The song included verses by Eminem, which told the story of his troubled childhood growing up in Detroit.

Brook heard the finished version for the first time when it was released to the public. “Eminem is one of my favorite artists of all time. I was expecting it to be great,” he said. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Charts and had the second biggest first week sales of the year behind Justin Timberlake. It has sold over four million copies worldwide. “Legacy” peaked at number 44 on the U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-hop Charts.

Bonnie Brook was confident her son would succeed. “David is someone who really takes advantage of what’s there and is cognizant of how to work the system,” she said. “[Music teacher] Steve Geyer gave him incredible confidence in himself.”

Contrary to the glitz and glamor of the televised award announcements, many categories are announced via the internet on Grammy.com before the show begins. Brook found out the album won Best Rap Album of the Year when a fellow nominee texted him, “Dude, the album won.”

“My mom thought I would go on stage and be on TV for a half hour,” Brook said with a laugh.

Brook watched the Grammy Awards show with friends, his girlfriend, and his sister Alexandra (MHS ’03) at his downtown Manhattan apartment. He could have attended the event, but wanted to spend the night with the people closest to him.

When asked if he will receive the famous gold statue, David replied, “I think I get a certificate or a plaque that says, ‘Congratulations.’” The intangible benefits, however, are priceless. “I wrote a song that’s on the album that won a Grammy for Best Rap Album of the Year,” he said. “It’s been a cool year.”

To listen to “Legacy,” go to vimeo. com/78224432.

Every Month Should Be Inclusion Month

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There is nothing inherently Jewish nor unique about disabilities. Nor is February a month when inclusion is more important than any other month. Nonetheless, setting aside a specific time each year to draw awareness to those who live with all kinds of challenges has a fundamental place in Judaism.


Started by a cadre of Jewish special education colleagues who promoted inclusion of people with disabilities in Jewish life, Jewish Disabilities Month is observed nationally.

Some of our greatest Torah figures lived with disabilities. Isaac was blind. Jacob was lame, and Moses had such a severe speaking impediment that he argued with God about whether he was the right choice to lead the Israelites.

Despite, or perhaps because of, their limitations, these leaders rose above their physical restrictions and achieved their great goals for the Jewish people. Imagine if they had been excluded from their communities because they were considered “disabled.”

Twenty-first century Jewish individuals with disabilities and their families are often not as fortunate as our Biblical heroes. Many describe feeling left out of their Jewish communities, where pejorative attitudes and inadequate physical accommodations still exist. Some describe uncomfortable situations where they end up leaving a synagogue service after their children behaved in a way deemed unacceptable.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, inclusion is “the act or practice of including students with disabilities in regular classes” so that each student has the opportunity to reach his or her full potential.

Jewish inclusion, by extension, may mean removing barriers that contribute to others feeling isolated, unwelcome and unaccepted. After all, who among us (especially as we age) doesn’t have a “disability” of some sort? How many of us wear glasses, walk with assistance or hear with the help of a device?

Our Torah commands, “You shall not insult the deaf, nor place a stumbling block before the blind.” (Leviticus 19:14). Jewish tradition also teaches us that tikkun olam (repair the world) is one of our greatest virtues and most important duties.

Removing stumbling blocks that keep some from participating in a full Jewish life is a good place to start. Our Jewish community should strive to prevent anyone from feeling separated or left out. Jewish Disabilities Month offers the platform to do so.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on February 12, 2015.