The Sacredness of Sukkot

Posted by

0

After the ten-day period of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Sukkot is a literal breath of fresh air. Our focus turns from the internal world of selfassessment, forgiveness and atonement to the external gift of the earth in its autumnal glory.


Sukkot’s historical significance commemorates the forty-year period when the children of Israel wandered in the desert, living in fragile, temporary huts. Its agricultural significance celebrates the fall harvest, honoring the relationship between human and earth. We are commanded to build a small, simple shelter (sukkah) with a roof of vegetation through which we can see the stars, and to live in it for seven days. It is an opportunity to leave our partisan, self-centered, materialistic lives and reconnect with the sacredness of family and land.

Although Sukkot is a festive and joyous holiday, it imparts many serious lessons. Unlike the High Holidays, the bulk of its rituals and celebrations occur in the home. This time we spend in a basic, small space with family and friends reminds us how important and valuable communication, community and sharing are. The temporary nature of the sukkah reminds us that, outside Israel, we remain wanderers and that our existence on earth is transitory. The fragility of the structure reminds us that we are fortunate to have a roof over our heads and food on our tables when so many have neither. We learn to appreciate more and take less for granted.

Most critically, however, Sukkot reminds us that our Torah commands us to recognize the holiness of the earth and the role we must play to nurture and protect it. All the holiday’s rituals reinforce our slowing down, simplifying and returning to the basics.

During the High Holidays, we are mindful of perfecting ourselves so we can repair and perfect the world through compassion, justice and peace. During Sukkot, we remember we must appreciate that world for what it is: God’s gift to us. It is our responsibility and within our ability to remain worthy of that trust.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on October 9, 2014.

New CD Commemorates Kristallnacht and Reimagines Hebrew Melodies

Posted by

0

When composer Eugene Marlow had the inspired idea to include a track on his upcoming CD, “Mosaica,” to commemorate Kristallnacht’s 76th anniversary, the first person he thought of was his Aunt Ruth Rack in Australia.

Now in her mid-80’s, she was a 9-year-old in Leipzig, Germany when she witnessed the 1938 event, also known as “The Night of Broken Glass.” “I decided I had to have her narrate this,” said Marlow. The result is “Zikkaron (Remembrance)/ Kristallnacht,” an original composition that opens with the sound of Goebbels’ harsh voice and then fades to Ruth’s memories of that awful night.

The quasi-classical/Hebraic melody, according to the CD liner notes, represents Ruth’s mother’s resolute calm against the surreal, destructive aggression by the Nazis. Repetitive, single piano notes bring to mind the shattering of glass. The marching rhythm of the brass and percussion evokes a dark terror and brutality.

Marlow sent Ruth a rough mix of the track. “She liked it very much,” he said, adding that he also included an instrumental- only version on the ninetrack CD.

Pianist Marlow founded “The Heritage Ensemble,” a quintet dedicated to performing and recording his original compositions and arrangements of Hebraic melodies in various jazz, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian and classical styles. Other members are of Puerto Rican, Lebanese and Eastern European descent. Marlow’s family background is Russian, Polish, German and British.

“I am a third or fourth generation musician/composer,” Marlow said. “This is my passion,” he added, jokingly, “If you open up one of my veins, little quarter notes will jump out.”

“Mosaica” is the ensemble’s fourth album and the first to include a vocalist, Cantor Shira Lissek. “I heard her sing and loved her voice. She and I chose specific melodies,” Marlow said, adding that Lissek was concerned that as a classically trained cantor, she lacked a strong background in jazz. ”I told her, ‘You sing it straight. We’ll do the jazz around you.’” The result is a stunning collection of songs that simultaneously feel familiar and brand new. “Eliyahu Hanavi (Elijah the Prophet)” is an exciting combination of moving vocals and silky jazz accompaniment, while “Mah Nishtanah Halaylah Haze (Passover’s Four Questions)” is a bright, lively rendition of the traditional Passover melody.

Marlow, who holds a Ph.D. in Media Studies, an MBA, an M.S. and B.S. in music composition and a B.A. in English, is a professor at New York City’s Baruch College in the department of journalism and writing. He didn’t get serious about music until he was in his 20’s and didn’t start studying composing formally until he was in his 50’s.

He plans a spring 2015 release of a DVD visualizing the “Kristallnacht” track with vintage photographs from Austria and Germany to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day, and a fall 2015 release of original Brazilian-inspired compositions.

“I have accelerated my music output in the last five years,” Marlow said. “With ‘Mosaica,’ in particular, I made it a mission to do something different than our previous albums.”

To purchase the CD, go to cdbaby.com/cd/eugenemarlow6.

A Communal Rosh Hashanah Resolution

Posted by

0

A well-known greeting used in the days preceding Rosh Hashanah is “Tichleh shannah v’killeloteha, tachel shannah uvirchoteha.” It means, “Bring an end to the year and all its curses, and begin the New Year and all its blessings.”


The words come from a Hebrew poem written in 13th century Spain, but the sentiment is most applicable to the end of 5774 and our hopes for 5775.

5774 was a difficult year, one we’d rather forget. It opened with the controversial findings of the Pew Report, “A Portrait of American Jews,” in early October and the U.S.-sponsored negotiations between Israel and Palestinians that took many from cautious hope to despair. Next came the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens and the calls for and acts of revenge for those murders. The growth of anti-Semitism around the globe has everyone on edge.

Hamas missiles fell on Israeli towns while Jews in our own communities were divided about Israel and Zionism. “Operation Protective Edge” and the death and destruction in its wake have left us with much uncertainty. Bring an end to the year and all its curses, indeed!

The High Holidays traditionally mark a period of 10 days during which we engage in heshbon hanefesh (deep introspection), mostly as individuals. But soul-searching is something that is incumbent upon us as a community as well. Could we have done anything to make the past year a better one? Can we do anything to make a difference in the year ahead?

The Jewish world faces many challenges that can have an impact on both Jewish life and Jewish lives (as well as the lives of others). Too often our community is unable to engage in meaningful conversation about perilous issues. The Jewish world has become averse to internal conflict, often preferring the anodyne voices of the echo chamber. One must ask: if we cannot talk among our own people, how can we ever expect to come to a peaceful resolution with others?

We should consider a communal Rosh Hashanah resolution: to learn to listen to those with whom we may disagree with open minds and hearts, and to learn to disagree agreeably.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on September 25, 2014.

PEM’s Calder Exhibit a Dance in Slow Motion

Posted by

0

Peabody Essex Museum’s exclusive East Coast presentation of “Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic” is everything an art exhibit should be. It is welldesigned, sensually pleasing and intellectually stimulating. The 40 pieces by one of the most influential and innovative artists of the 20th century reinforce PEM’s commitment to American art and celebrate Alexander Calder’s contribution of single-handedly transforming what would be thereafter thought of as “sculpture.”

Visiting the show is like entering an elegant abstract landscape, one where shadows have mass and gravity is irrelevant. The theatrical, dancing mobiles, which Calder invented, and stabiles (grounded pieces that still move) activate time and space in a way that creates an atmosphere of performance. Background avantgarde music by such composers as John Cage adds to the multi­sensory experience.

Calder was raised in Pennsylvania and his family included accomplished sculptors. He travelled to Paris frequently during the 1920’s and 30’s, befriending such surrealist and abstract artists as Joan Miro, Jean Arp and Marcel Duchamp. When he saw Piet Mondrian’s paintings, which only used primary colors, Calder exclaimed, “I would like to do that, but I would like it to move.”

Trained as an engineer, Calder became fascinated by the challenge of liberating sculpture from its historical limitations. His goal was to take the static, hollow, pedestalled medium and reinvent it. “Just as one can compose colors or forms,” Calder said, “so one can compose motion.”

Calder started working with wire in 1930, and the gallery’s first pieces explore his development of mobiles, ethereal works that create lines in space and, thanks to the superb lighting design, moving shadows. Many of the works, such as a trilogy of mobiles mounted in front of colored panels, are owned by the Calder Foundation N.Y. and are rarely exhibited.

“Little Face” is a choreographer’s delight, untethered parts creating a cohesive whole. Calder’s engineering genius is evident in his knowledge of the precise weight and density of each black piece that would counter the elements above and below.

From the magical, slow wake of the mobiles, one next explores his stabiles. Moving more slowly, subtly and quietly than the mobiles, their effect is one of benevolent creatures that happily invite the viewer to connect emotionally.

The exciting “Un effet du japonais” is like an anthropomorphic animal dance, its three legs stationary, its two arms poised, ready for the frenzy a puff of air would create. “Southern Cross,” displayed nearby, is a blend of mass and weightlessness, of movement and stillness. The effect is spell-binding, and prompted Albert Einstein to remark, “I wish I’d thought of that.”

Before his death, Calder also revolutionized monumental sculpture constructed for large outdoor spaces. La Grande Vitesse, a landmark in Grand Rapids, Michigan, marked the first time the public embraced abstract sculpture.

Pictured at top: 2014 Calder Foundation, New York/Art Resource Un effet du japonais (1941)

Sowing A Master Seed

Posted by

0

The recent release of the documentary, “The Green Prince,” came at the perfect time. After a summer of Operation Protective Edge, we could use a breath of hope and optimism. On its surface, the film tells the story of Mosab Hassan Yousef, a Hamas informant, and his Shin Bet enlister and handler, Gonen ben Yitzhak. Digging a bit deeper, however, reveals an inspiring story of friendship, loyalty and admiration between two individuals who had every reason to hate and mistrust each other.


For ten years, the two collaborated to foil Hamas’s terrorist activities. Both were creative and unorthodox; both were courageous and both took paths that transcended the constraints of their ingrained politics and ideologies. They found and followed their own moral compasses, taking on the responsibility of acting on those convictions.

In the present context of fragile, temporary cease-fires and fierce armed conflict, one has to ask oneself, “How did this Palestinian and this Israeli, each entrenched on opposite sides of a decades long conflict, overcome those external barriers to develop this kind of selfless bond? What was their secret?”

This is one small story about just two people, but it is a story with a very big message.

This film serves as a reminder and inspiration that it is through individual people that both peace and war are waged, and that tolerance, understanding and acceptance are flip sides of intolerance, revenge and hatred. Each of us is capable of forming relationships with anyone; it is a mental barrier that tells us otherwise.

At some point, that seed of hope at the core of “The Green Prince” must take root.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on September 18, 2014.

Honky Tonk on Parade

Posted by

0

There should be a jukebox tucked in the corner of Endicott College’s Manninen Center for the Arts Heftler Visiting Artist Gallery, one loaded with songs by the country music favorites whose portraits adorn the compact gallery’s walls. Dolly Parton, Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn, Waylon Jennings and Doc Watson are all there, looking young and fresh and ready to break into toothy, foottapping song. “Honky Tonk: Portraits of Country Music” is a collection of 27 black and white photographs taken between 1968 and 2010 by Henry Hornstein, a 67-yearold New Bedford native who teaches photography and illustration at Rhode Island School of Design. His photos document the changing world of country music and its fans, and reflect his deep love for the music, its performers and its unique venues.

Horenstein describes how a Jewish kid growing up in New Bedford developed an interest in country music in the exhibition notes. He started hanging out in the “kid friendly” Melody Shop, New Bedford’s only music store, at age eight. He met folk singer Paul Clayton there, who recommended he buy “Johnny Cash Sings Hank Williams.” It was Horenstein’s first LP and he still plays that record.

When his parents moved to Boston during his high school years, he essentially took up residence at Cambridge’s legendary Club 47, hearing many different performers playing many different genres. His interest in photography blossomed as a junior history major at University of Chicago. Heeding the advice of his teacher, Harry Callahan, to “photograph people and places to which I was naturally drawn,” he took pictures in Nashville and Texas, in smoke-filled bars and hillbilly ranches during the 1970’s.

All along, he knew he wanted to preserve on film what he saw as a disappearing world of lesser honky tonks and country music parks. In 2012, he published “Honky Tonk: Portraits of Country Music,” a sumptuous collection of 120 black and white photographs he shot from 1972 through 2011, many of which are part of the Manninen exhibit.

HonkyTonk2
Waylon Jennings, Performance Center, Cambridge, 1976


What is most surprising is how well represented New England, and especially Massachusetts, is. There is Don Stover, a banjo picker from West Virginia, who came to Boston in 1952 and settled in Billerica. A 26-year-old Dolly Parton, looking like the poster child for the song, “Honky Tonk Angel,” posed in front of Symphony Hall before her debut concert there in 1972. Doc Watson, the North Carolina blind guitarist and singer who performed until his death at 89 in 2012, was memorialized at Cambridge’s Performance Center in 1974, as was the hard-living Waylon Jennings in 1976.

The Hillbilly Ranch in Boston was a favorite of Horenstein’s, and he photographed Tex Ritter there, as well as the regular patrons. Jerry Lee Lewis, at an old Baldwin piano, nonchalantly lights up a cigar at Boston’s Ramada Inn in 1976.

“A lot of people assume that country music is a Southern thing,” Horenstein wrote. “It isn’t. It’s everywhere.”

“Honky Tonk” will be at Endicott College Manninen Center for the Arts through October 17. For directions and hours, go to endicott.edu/centerforthearts.

Pictured at top: Jerry Lee Lewis, Ramada Inn, Boston, 1976

 

 

Peace of Mind

Posted by

0

September 11, 2001 marked a day of fear, disorientation and profound sadness for all Americans. Life as we knew it was suddenly altered. Since then, we have learned to live with its aftermath: color-coded terror alerts, heightened airport security and increased surveillance camera presence. We have become accustomed to the new post-9/11 “normal.” We may not be our pre-9/11 complacent selves but neither are we perpetually on the brink of panic. We take precautions, but we carry on.


September 11, 2014 presents similar challenges for Jews everywhere in the world. A wave of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel demonstrations has swept across every European country, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States since the start of Operation Protective Edge on July 8. Daily reports of violence and defamation against Jews and Jewish property are impossible to ignore. The head of the Israeli-Jewish Congress, Vladimir Sloutzer, warned, “Never before since the Holocaust have we seen such a situation as today.” Such pronouncements are unnerving.

World Jewry is on edge, with good reason. This is not paranoia; to be anxious about the scope of this toxic hostility makes sense. There is a real and present danger in this anti-Semitic trend, and the relentless media coverage only increases our unease. Furthermore, there is the added complication of Israeli policies, politics and tactics with which not all Jews agree. However, disagreements with the policies of the Israeli government does not make us any more or less vulnerable to anti-Semitic attacks.

How can we American Jews avoid being consumed by feelings of helplessness and victimization? How do we maintain inner calm and peace of mind in this turbulent time of vandalism and desecration?

The answers are as different as the individuals asking the questions. For some, engagement, action and protest lighten the weight. Many seek the support of community and discussion and the outlet of action. For others, turning a hopeful eye inward works.

We must find ways to cope as individuals and as a global community with this new fear, disorientation and sadness. If we let the enemy destroy our peace of mind, then they will have truly won.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on September 11, 2014.

A Living Chain of Tikkun Olam in Chelsea

Posted by

0

CHELSEA — Aweis Hussein tends his family’s vegetables in a community garden located at Chelsea’s Temple Emmanuel. He grows okra, tomatoes and corn, staples in his native Somalia.

Eleven years ago, Hussein and many from his current Chelsea Somali Bantu community lived in a Kenyan refugee camp. He arrived at the camp in 1991 at the age of 14, in need of protection and sanctuary from the relentless persecution and discrimination the minority Bantus suffered in their homeland.

Chelsea 2
Aweis Hussein

Today, ten years after arriving in Chelsea, he is the community organizer and leader of the SCA (Shanbaro Community Association). The SCA operates under the umbrella of the Chelsea Collaborative, an organization founded in 1988 to enhance the social, economic and environmental health of the Chelsea community and its people. The SCA’s mission is to support the 400+ Somali Bantu refugees living in the greater Boston area as they forge community relationships and adjust to their new surroundings.

“I was lucky to go to refugee school in Kenya,” Hussein told the Journal by phone. He learned to read and speak English. He learned what to expect in America. Most of his Chelsea community members weren’t as fortunate. “They have never been to school. They have never been to a big village. They were mainly farmers in Somalia. They did not know about flushing toilets and lights and grocery stores.” His leadership role is his way of giving back to his people and using his special knowledge to ease their transition.

Ellen Rovner, of Brookline, is a member of the boards of directors of Chelsea’s Temple Emmanuel and the Chelsea Collaborative. She has a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and an academic passion for food. She also has a keen interest in Chelsea’s immigrant community and in bettering the world through tikkun olam.

The idea for the community garden at Temple Emmanuel came to Rovner five years ago, when she was doing field work for her doctoral thesis, “It’s Just Like Coming Home: Food, Gender and Memory in a Jewish Community,” at Temple Emmanuel. She reached out to Roseann Bongiovanni, associate executive director of the Chelsea Collaborative and director of Chelsea Green Space.

“Ellen and I started to talk several years back about making deeper connections between the established Jewish community and the newer immigrant population in Chelsea,” said Bongiovanni, who has worked at the Collaborative for 19 years. “At the same time, Aweis’ group was looking for a place in Chelsea.”

“Roseann contacted me and said, ‘Listen, we have a community of people who are coming out of refugee camps in Kenya, many of whom have spent almost a generation there. They are farmers and they need a place to gather,’” Rovner told the Journal. Hussein pulled together some interested families and Rovner contacted Sara Lee Callahan, Temple Emmanuel president. The temple board members decided to loan the families space in its side yard to grow a community garden.

According to Rovner, Marlene Demko is the person who really made the garden happen. Demko, a lifelong Chelsea resident and a member of Temple Emmanuel since she was a child, sits on its board and acted as liaison between the temple and the Collaborative.

Bongiovanni explained that the first three garden plots were built with donated labor from the NE Carpenters Union. The Union members worked with teens from the Collaborative’s Chelsea Summer Youth Employment Initiative. Teens from YouthBuild, a Cambridge organization, came in recently to expand the garden with three additional beds. They cleared overgrown brush and provided significant landscaping work as well.

Demko worked with them to create a vibrant vegetable garden in the temple’s side yard.

“It has been great to see kids from many different backgrounds in Chelsea get excited about bettering their community at the same time a group of Somali Bantu families is becoming more integrated into the community and growing some of their own food on a property owned by a synagogue,” Rovner shared. “Given what’s going on in the world today, that a group of Somali Bantu refugees can find some solace growing food on the temple’s property is fabulous.”

Demko was thrilled to offer the Journal a personal tour of Temple Emmanuel and its community garden. She proudly pointed out the many yahrzeit (remembrance) boards lining the temple’s sanctuary walls, explaining that as the number of Chelsea’s active synagogues dwindled from almost twenty to one, Temple Emmanuel wanted to be sure the Jewish community would always have a place to say kaddish. “We do tikkun olam in so many ways because we’re so grateful that we can do these things and give back,” she explained. The temple has been holding full Passover seders for over ten years for over 130 people, enabling many who might find it otherwise difficult to gather their extended families to celebrate this important holiday.

The Somali Bantu community vegetable garden has inspired Demko to plan several enhancements for congregants, including a temple peace garden and biblical herb garden on some of the rest of the yard. She also envisions a “walk of honor” with stones engraved with donors’ names. With the help of other temple volunteers, she hopes to start this project next spring.

“This will be my mitzvah,” she beams, eyes filling with tears.” I want there to be a peaceful place for the rabbi and congregants to come outside and reflect, even during a service.” The garden will have benches and five gorgeous new trees, donated by the Department of Conservation and Recreation through a grant with the city of Chelsea, the Chelsea Collaborative and the Department of Energy.

Sara Lee Callahan, of Swampscott, has served as president of Temple Emmanuel for ten years. She is proud of the part her temple plays in helping to better the world. “Temple Emmanuel was founded in 1929 and in recent years has experienced a miraculous rejuvenation. Many temple members living all over the United States maintain a connection to this area through the immigrant generations who brought them here. As Temple Emmanuel looks forward to its bright future, and in the spirit of gratitude, we want to create a living chain of tikkun olam. The Somali Bantu’s community garden reflects this concept.”

Aweis Hussein is grateful that Temple Emmanuel has given his community the space to gather and farm together, growing healthy fresh food that is not easily accessible or affordable. More than that, however, he is grateful to meet people who understand what it means to be a persecuted minority and to live in a diaspora. “Many of the temple members are older. We try to talk about our history, to share our histories. It is helping us, this new relationship. I hope it continues,” he said.

Pictured at top: Fatuma plants her garden. (Melissa Shook)

The Gift of Elul

Posted by

0

Elul, the lunar month that precedes Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, marks a distinctive time in the Jewish calendar. By tradition, we begin the monthlong process of reflection and introspection that will culminate in the High Holy Days. We sound the shofar almost daily to awaken our souls and remind us of the special tasks that lie ahead. Much as we clean our earthly homes to prepare for Passover, we use this month to prepare our spiritual homes to welcome a new year.


We take stock of our relationships with ourselves, with others and with God, with the goal of making better choices to make the world a better place. It is a private, internal and personal task.

The process of looking inward is always challenging, but this year it is especially so. External events demand our attention. With Israel at risk and global anti-Semitism surging, self-reflection may feel self-indulgent. Too much danger looms, and too many need our support, to sit idly thinking about ourselves.

And yet, heeding the call of the shofar may be exactly what we need. Hearing the sound is meant to encourage us to search our souls and acknowledge our weaknesses, with the goal of becoming more compassionate towards each other and more reverent towards God. It is a time to celebrate life, an opportunity to resensitize ourselves and to renew our commitments. We are reminded that our individual choices matter and that every day we are given the opportunity to choose anew.

These times of large-scale political upheaval can make us feel frustrated and hopeless about our ability to improve the world. After all, others, much more politically powerful than us, are the decisionmakers. The month of Elul reminds us that each individual matters, that “tikkun olam” (repairing the world) depends on each of us doing our best. Quiet self-assessment and reflection may be a great place to start.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on August 28, 2014.

Gaza’s Real Enemy

Posted by

0

On August 4, Nobel Peace Laureate Eli Wiesel published a full-page Op-ed ad rebuking Hamas for using children in Gaza as human shields against Israeli rockets. Titled “Jews rejected child sacrifices 3,500 years ago. Now it’s Hamas’ turn,” it ran in major U.S. newspapers including The New York Times and The Washington Post, and was paid for by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s This World: The Values Network.


In the ad, Wiesel contended that the world must shift its criticism away from Israeli soldiers for the suffering of those in Gaza and instead hold the real culprit, Hamas, solely to blame. He used these points to build his case.

First, although Hamas and the Palestinians both live in Gaza, they are not alike. Hamas is a recognized terrorist death cult that uses children as suicide bombers and human shields. The Palestinian citizens of Gaza want a hopeful future of peace for their families. Instead, Hamas has imposed its murderous regime on them.

Second, Palestinian parents have more in common with Israeli parents than they do with Hamas. Parents in Gaza and parents in Israel are united by their love for their children and by the fact that neither would voluntarily put a child in danger. Hamas deliberately puts children and other civilians in harm’s way.

Third, both Israelis and Palestinians suffer at the hands of Hamas. Israel struggles for its survival as a nation. Those people of Gaza who reject Hamas’ credo of terror are disenfranchised and alienated by the very people they elected and entrusted to protect and defend them. Instead of the peace and hope they desire and deserve, Hamas gives them war and despair.

Last, both Muslim and Jewish cultures share a love of life and learning while Hamas promotes a barbaric cult of death.

Some have criticized Wiesel’s language as unduly provocative and forceful. The London Times even refused to run the paid ad. Stylistic affinities notwithstanding, he undeniably makes a powerful and rational argument for why Arabs and Jews and “all moderate men and women of faith” must view the war differently.

According to Wiesel, this is not a battle between Arab and Jew or Israeli and Palestinian as much as it is a battle between Hamas and Israel and Hamas and the people of Gaza. Israel’s fight with Hamas, a force determined to annihilate it, is for its right to exist. The true Muslims among the Gaza Palestinians, the ones held hostage and occupied by their own people, are unable to fight back against their Hamas oppressors.

Wiesel’s plea to the world to recognize that Hamas, and not Israel, is the real enemy of the Gaza Palestinians deserves to be heard.

This originally appeared in the Jewish Journal on August 14, 2014.