eSefarad Noticias del Mundo Sefaradi
This is the weekly column of David Shasha in eSefarad.
1. I have taken the PBS program “The Jewish Americans” to task for the manner in which it ignores Sephardic Jews:
A somewhat different problem is raised by another PBS show, this one on the Jewish contribution to the American musical theater:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/
broadway-musicals-a-
This program has been rebroadcast a number of times in the New York area during the current PBS fundraising drives; Jewish-themed programs seem to be favored at such moments.
There is unquestionably an important Jewish element in American musical theater and great songwriters like George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and Leonard Bernstein are certainly key figures in the story. Sephardim are not at all part of the story.
But what struck me when I was watching the program was the use of the term “Yiddishkeit” to identify a singularly Jewish element in this culture. While the songwriters were certainly working with their Eastern European heritage in a way that reflected the music of the Shtetl and the Synagogue, the viewer of the program would think that this is the totality of “Jewish” music. “Yiddishkeit” means “Jewish” and there is no sense that there are other “Jewish” cultures. It is once again a very ethnocentric Ashkenazi viewpoint that is presented as normative.
The following review of Alisa Solomon’s new book on “Fiddler on the Roof” reinforces the point in an emphatic manner:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
In fact, at the very same time that Eastern European Jews were taking over Broadway, in Brooklyn as well as the Lower East Side of Manhattan Sephardic Jews were practicing their own musical traditions. The Arabic music that was being seen in movies by immigrants from the Middle East was shared by Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. Screenings of these films took place in the heart of the Brooklyn Syrian Jewish community on 18th Avenue and 65th Street where members of the three faith groups came together to share a common heritage.
This forgotten culture was the subject of a New York Times article by David Dunlap:
https://groups.google.com/
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.
It is unfortunate that when Jewish musical culture is presented, only that of the Ashkenazim is identified as being authentically “Jewish.”
We all know about the great Ashkenazi Jewish songwriters and it is wonderful to see them being presented in a documentary on PBS.
But it is less wonderful to think that people watching the program will come to believe that “Jewish” music is solely that of the Eastern Europeans. A rich musical tradition from the Middle East presents an alternative way of seeing Jewish culture; an alternative that is now almost completely unknown and which speaks to many of the issues facing Jews and Arabs as we deal with the continuing struggles of the Middle East.
http://www.tikkun.org/article.
There are many forms of “Jewish” music and we should all recognize this diversity.
2. In a related note, here are two very attractive programs from the well-endowed Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massacusetts:
http://www.yiddishbookcenter.
http://www.yiddishbookcenter.
The reality of cultural bias produces serious consequences that have now become a self-fulfilling prophecy: when Jewish culture is seen as exclusively Ashkenazic, it is natural that institutional power will be invested in the hands of those groups, perpetuating the cultural interests of those groups and ensuring their continuity while denying it to the excluded groups.
As I have said many times, it is a wonderful thing to see the resurgence of Yiddish culture and the ability of Ashkenazi institutions to promote it – especially among young people.
For the Sephardi activist the situation is far less sanguine and begins in the dual-track process of Ashkenazi ethnocentrism, which has been cruelly reinforced by demographic superiority, along with a weak and dispirited Sephardic community which has largely acquiesced to one or another of the Ashkenazi models.
The Sephardic malaise embodies the feeling that nothing can be done because the institutional powers working against Sephardic continuity are just too strong. There is a defeatist attitude that is strengthened when we see the way in which Ashkenazim have been able to control Jewish representation in the media and in the educational process.
3. The biased socio-political agenda of The New York Times is apparent in many of its articles in terms of content as well as in choice of subject.
It is always interesting to see how this agenda can sometimes clash with itself:
In a very lengthy report that is buttressed by a strongly hermetic Feminist framework, we see a minority cadre in the Wall Street world that has reversed the old family model of the stay-at-home mother and the breadwinner father.
What is interesting – and which will come as little surprise to SHU readers – is that the article never once examines the ethical factors involved in Wall Street practices and how this socio-cultural reversal of gender roles plays into what the financial services industry now represents for society at large.
Is it a victory for Feminism if women can now serve in a professional capacity to exploit other human beings?
Is Feminism morally responsible to protect the rights and interests of individuals, or is female empowerment and economic advancement more important than civic responsibility?
What has Feminism ultimately accomplished by adding women to the ranks of Patriarchal exploitation and malfeasance that has become standard in the Wall Street jungle?
In the final assessment the question is whether or not Feminism represents a truly Progressive social vision, or whether it simply means that women should become the same as men; the same men who seek to put profit over ethics, material greed and exploitation over human integrity and social welfare concerns.
4. As an interesting side-bar to the ongoing Iran nuclear mess, here is evidence that Israel remains committed to pursuing the policy that the Iranians seem to have adopted:
http://www.israelhayom.com/
Our friend Avrum Burg is considered a traitor by some Israelis for saying what we already know about Israel’s nuclear arsenal at the very time that the heat has been ratcheted up by bellicose Zionists on Iranian nuclear transparency.
I believe that Jews would call this CHUTZPAH.
5. Although the name of Congolese singer Tabu Ley Rochereau is not well-known to many, his music represents some of the most potent in African music of the 20th century.
His death is noted by Jon Pareles in The New York Times:
Pareles provides a short guide to Rochereau’s brilliant music which is well-worth exploring.
6. Rabbi Nathan Slifkin has a very interesting post on Rabbi David Stav and the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef:
http://www.rationalistjudaism.
The discussion shows just how deeply embedded SHAS has become in the dysfunctional politics of the Ashkenazi Orthodox world. There are many legitimate issues involved in the Sephardi-Ashkenazi split, but the issue of Rabbi Yosef and Rabbi Stav is based more on the internal Israeli Haredi system than it is on the historical cultures of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Judaism(s).
It has become all about Zionism, secularism, religious extremism, and political alliances rather than the actual religious, social, and cultural issues that separate Sephardic Religious Humanism from Ashkenazi Orthodoxy. It is sad to see that the real substantive issues involved in the discussion are not being addressed in any real way, rather we see acrimony and partisanship in the classic Ashkenazi manner.
Even more ironic is that Sephardic Judaism, in the person of Rabbi Yosef and the SHAS party, is seen as anti-Modern and anti-Liberal while it is Ashkenazi Judaism that is seen as being more progressive, when in fact historically the opposite case would be closer to the truth.
Given the way in which SHAS is seen as representing all Sephardic Jews and how Ashkenazim have usurped the Jewish discourse, it is not at all easy to figure out what is going on and how it is connected to the larger historical tradition of Jewish culture as we once knew it.
7. Here is a prime piece of HASBARAH on Israel, Nelson Mandela, and Apartheid South Africa:
http://www.israelhayom.com/
Israel had intimate dealings with South Africa on its nuclear program. It is interesting to see how the purportedly exculpatory evidence of Israel’s wrongdoing shows its close ties to Pretoria. But what is even more ironic in the story is that at the very moment that Israel is asking the South Africa to negotiate with Mandela and the ANC, it refuses to recognize the PLO.
So whatever this report ultimately means, it is filled with the PILPUL-fueled confusion that has been the hallmark of Zionist double-talk.
It is also helpful to remember Ronald Reagan’s battle against the anti-Apartheid activists:
http://buchanan.org/blog/
The Right Wing racist and xenophobe Pat Buchanan presents us with his recollections of Reagan’s attitude towards Mandela and the ANC and how that played into the larger struggle against the Soviet Union. Israel, of course, played a role in the process.
8. Tablet magazine has published an important post from Rev. Al Sharpton condemning the so-called “Knockout Game” attacks:
There has been an Anti-Semitic aspect to some of the attacks and it is important to hear Sharpton weigh in on the deplorable situation.
9. If you have the stomach for it, there is a fascinating interview with idiot Poptrash star and legendary degenerate pervert R. Kelly in The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/
I will not even attempt to sum it up – I would only say that there seems to be a very weird sense of Jesus that now seems to be part of the degenerate celebrity world.
Reading the interview allows us to see how truly base our culture has become. At a time of great economic suffering for many Americans, the sight of such degenerate fools is truly galling.
A mea culpa on Kelly and his degenerate ways was posted to The Root blog:
In a wonderful turnabout, The New York Times review of the new Kelly album was written by Jon Pareles and not Jon Caramanica. Pareles does his best to provide us with the degenerate flavor of the proceedings:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
We are told that the album is not just about trashy sex, but about trashy “Strip-club sex.” I am glad that Pareles made this important distinction. I would not have known what to do without such a brilliant insight.
The following post from Tablet magazine on Kanye West gets the ambivalence of the current generation of bamboozled Hip-Hop fans just right:
They love a person who they hate.
West is seen as a genius, but as a vile person.
A late entry in the Kanye confusion is Jody Rosen in the New Yorker who made West’s “Yeezus” her number 2 album of the year:
“Sonically visionary, politically trenchant, morally rancid, funny, smart, dumb, bracing, sordid, gritty, maudlin, ugly, gorgeous: Yeezus, as they say on the Internet, is Everything—except boring.”
http://www.vulture.com/2013/
Note well her use of the term “morally rancid.” Intelligent people become idiots when it comes to Hip-Hop and Poptrash.
None of it makes sense, but this is the culture we now live in.
A couple of days after preparing this note, South Park weighed in on the Kanye West situation on their season finale for this year:
http://www.southparkstudios.
The first time South Park attacked Kanye West in the now-legendary “Fish Sticks” episode from 2009:
http://www.southparkstudios.
The current episode, which takes a sharp dig at the new “Hobbit” movie, deals with how young girls see their own bodies and the pressures created for them by Photoshop images. It is a relentless attack on the current culture of fake beauty and slutty behavior that uses Kim Kardashian (Mrs. Kanye West) as a punching bag. The scene of Kanye and the Pope is a classic!
Once again South Park is way ahead of the curve.
10. I am not at all sure why this article on The Beatles being banned from performing in Israel was published this week, but it reminds us about the wild and wacky world of Israeli culture way back in the “Good Old Days” that have been part of the discussion since the passing of Arik Einstein:
http://www.algemeiner.com/
11. Larry Derfner makes some extremely cogent points in the following post on the Mandela memorial:
http://972mag.com/why-arent-
It is quite telling that PM Netanyahu has chosen not to attend the memorial and speaks to what appears to be a deep anxiety in Israel over the legacy of Mandela.
12. For those who may not be familiar with The Tikvah Fund please take a look at Zachary Braiterman’s takedown from 2011 in ZEEK magazine:
http://zeek.forward.com/
The reason I mention The Tikvah Fund is because of the following program that is being promoted in the Jewish media:
Jewish institutions such as The Tikvah Fund have cash to burn and are intent on indoctrinating Jewish children in the reactionary Conservative politics that now control the institutional Jewish world.
It is important to note that the first person listed in the teacher section is Rabbi Meir Soloveichik who has recently been appointed as the chief rabbi of Shearith Israel, the second oldest American Synagogue and part of the rich legacy of Sephardic Judaism in America.
This is where Sephardic Judaism is today.
For those unfamiliar with Rabbi Soloveichik’s connection to radical Right Wing religious politics:
http://blogs.forward.com/
What we are seeing from The Tikvah Fund program at Yale is an attempt to elevate the radical Right Wing ideology of the Jewish community by indoctrinating young people in a prominent academic institution. The intellectual veneer is merely superficial as it aims to provide a fig-leaf for some extremely narrow-minded ideas that are being peddled as authentically Jewish.
It is shameful that a person like Rabbi Soloveichik has become a member of the Sephardic community.
13. Last week’s Time magazine featured a cover story on the vile Wall Street shark Carl Icahn:
http://content.time.com/time/
Sadly, the full article is not posted on-line but the general thesis of the article will be clear to anyone who has some knowledge of the long-time antagonist of American corporations, a man who has made his reputation as a company killer.
Icahn is not some idealistic Left-Wing critic of corporations, but a financial vulture who uses his elite status in the world of investment as a means to beat up CEOs and force companies to do his bidding. Icahn is about the hostile takeover and corporate reshuffling and draconian management principles played out in an anti-labor, anti-creativity, anti-experimental key.
I was having difficulty trying to figure out what to say about Icahn, who in the Time article presents himself in full “Capitalist Pig” regalia: we see him at his palatial 5th Avenue home that would have made Marie Antoinette blanch. It is a world where money is the only value and where being a human being is meaningless. It is all about the whims and desires of Icahn and how he is better than the rest of us. I still do not have an adequate way in which to express the outrage that I feel about this depraved man. The portrait is of a gross individual who exhibits the classic traits of a nihilist whose materialism and hubris has no limit.
So when I saw the Charlie Rose program on Monday, December 9th I was more than pleasantly surprised:
http://www.charlierose.com/
There on the screen was an actual American hero, Michael Dell, the famous computer seller.
When I was doing a Google search on Icahn I hit the jackpot – an April 2013 Forbes article on Icahn that featured Dell:
The Dell appearance on the Rose program typified many things that I have been saying for a long time: Rose took the side of the Wall Street vipers and immediately went into an attack on Dell who took his company private after years of public trading.
Rose was incredulous and emphatically pressed Dell on the point. How could he abandon Wall Street? Rose was filled with passion and fury; it was as if he was preparing a legal brief for his Wall Street buddies.
Dell is a business genius and was unflappable in the face of the hostility. He came right out and insisted that his company needed creativity and flexibility to do its job and wanted Wall Street off its back. Unlike many CEOs today, Dell actually cares deeply about the market he serves. Dell has been a success because of the way in which it understands human needs, the way people live and do business. It is inspiring to see an actual organic connection to the way in which Capitalism actually works in the real world and not the make-believe world of Wall Street.
Dell made his case against the Icahns by arguing that Wall Street does not care about the long-term and is only interested in what they can skim off the top in the immediate present. Dell computers, he said, is about how society works and what it needs to be its best. It was an argument about substance and not the quarterly earnings report, about how America can become great again.
How refreshing to see a billionaire speaking an authentically populist language and not hide behind noblesse oblige Limousine Liberalism or Gordon Gekko-like nihilism as we see every night on the Charlie Rose parade of shame.
The Capitalist system has taken a hit since the 1980s. We now live in a thicket of short-sighted financial deals, a promotion of greed as the only thing that matters, and a complete avoidance of the actual process of business production as a combination of creativity, hard work, and social responsibility.
Carl Icahn represents the nihilistic aspect of a Wall Street that carves up companies to suit the needs of those who do not work in them and who are not responsible to society. American industry has suffered immeasurably because of the Wall Street raiders and it is wonderful to see a real titan like Michael Dell thumb his nose at the Icahns of the world. Icahn might live like a Roman emperor and act in an imperious manner that intimidates business leaders, but the actual production of value continues to rest in those who actually make things and provide new ideas to the market.
Icahn is a leech who plays by his own rules. He has elevated the financial deal to a rarefied level, thereby ignoring the actual mechanisms that produce wealth in the first place. Real leaders invent things and work within the free-market system to compete in order to sell their products. And while there is a place for capital investment, this part of the equation is the handmaiden of industry and not the driver of it.
Michael Dell reminds us – and we need to be reminded of the point! – that people who make things need to control the system and not those who suck the blood of the producing class.
14. The rabid Right Wing FOX News provocateur John Stossel provides a welcome reminder of the galling hypocrisy of Limousine Liberal celebrities who say one thing and do another when it comes to their wealth:
http://townhall.com/
Stossel’s mistake is when he writes off Progressive values because hypocritical celebrities use them at cocktail parties and media interviews. Just because George Clooney says something and does not fully believe it, does not mean that what he is saying has no truth value. Stossel negates Progressive values based on the fact that celebrities do not live by them – that does not make those values invalid, it only marks the celebrities as moral fakes.
15. Here is a truly bizarre and baffling example of Israeli “multiculturalism”:
http://www.israelhayom.com/
Coming from the fanatic Israel Hayom the story makes perfect sense: a young woman born in Nigeria to an Israeli Jewish father and a Nigerian – we assume Gentile – mother, the young woman moved to Israel leaving her family back in Nigeria.
The article does not state whether the young woman is Jewish given that her mother is Nigerian and Jewish identity is conferred through the mother.
What the story does is affirm a non-Orthodox view of Jewish identity while addressing the issue of Zionism in a way that feeds the HASBARAH machine. The young woman is shown doing her military service with a big smile on her face.
It brings to mind images of Indian soldiers who dutifully served in the British military during the Imperial age. Such soldiers were deployed to enforce Colonial laws and police native populations. So too do we see an African woman serving in Israel to maintain its rule over a non-Jewish minority.
The story also speaks to Israeli emigrants, this time we have an Israeli Jewish man who moved to Nigeria and married a local woman but who maintains his identity as an Israeli.
The whole thing is wrapped up in the patriotic ribbon of an Israeli “openness” which purportedly embraces diversity; so long as that diversity adheres to the militaristic ethos of the state.
As a reminder of Israel’s paranoia and its policy of racial exclusion, there is this report on an African MK whose blood has been rejected for the blood bank:
http://www.israelhayom.com/
Loyal HASBARAH forces immediately got into gear in order to “clarify” the story:
I guess Black African blood is fine so long as it is spilled for the Israeli military – it is not fit for transfusions into Israeli Jewish bodies!
The two stories represent the extremes of Israel and the way in which xenophobia continues to play a role in the country’s European identity.
16. Last week I made note of a column by The New York Times’ Tom Friedman that did an extraordinarily poor job presenting the historical culture of the Middle East. Friedman has become known for his wildly inaccurate predictions of world events which are presented with a characteristically bombastic frisson:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
In his latest opus Friedman lectures us in his usual arrogant manner about Nelson Mandela’s leadership skills:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
What most struck me about his discussion about Mandela and Clint Eastwood’s movie “Invictus” was the way in which he highlighted the need for leaders to tell the truth. This is interesting to me because Friedman’s relentless Neo-Liberalism and Zionism often chooses – as in last week’s article about the Arab world – to shade the truth and distort reality in order to suit his political idea(l)s.
Friedman is the perfect contemporary example of Ashkenazi hubris; a smug and superior attitude that marks him and whatever he says as authoritative. He is always – like his colleague David Brooks – the smartest guy in the room and lets you know it by his imperious style.
He is certainly entitled to his opinions, just as we are entitled to check how his many prognostications have consistently fallen flat on their face – like the “World is Flat” canard which promoted a form of Globalism that has continued to fail to produce a workable and sustainable economic system.
Friedman is very much at home in the corporate world of poseurs like Charlie Rose who extol his “genius” even as the Friedman “touch” is both ephemeral and unreflective of historical and cultural truth(s).
In a related note, Friedman’s aforementioned colleague David Brooks was recently honored at Yeshiva University, a perfect match that seems to have been made in “heaven”:
Harry Maryles of The Jewish Press emphatically seconds the motion!
http://www.jewishpress.com/
The JTA report continues to promote the canard that Brooks is “open-minded” and a serious “intellectual” who is appealing to Liberals, while The Jewish Press affirms Brooks’ Right Wing Jewish bona fides and his commitment to Yiddishkeit.
In fact, Brooks is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In reality, Brooks is a dangerous reactionary who, rather than frothing at the mouth, soft-pedals his extremism and clothes it in the seductive garb of PILPUL. He always seems to be speaking intelligently, when in reality he is peddling the same rotten fish as most other reactionary Conservatives.
Unlike Friedman’s Political Theory schlock bombast, Brooks wraps himself in the mantle of the Social Sciences and relentlessly lectures us on “cutting-edge” theories about human beings in a way that is designed to impress us with his vast erudition.
Both Friedman and Brooks are insufferable boors who are united in extolling the socio-political and economic elites and work tirelessly to provide intellectual cover to their venal crimes and depredations.
It is a hard job, but the two men work hard on behalf of their clients.
17. For those who may not be following the ongoing controversy over Hillel on US college campuses:
http://blogs.forward.com/
The Swarthmore issue has become a cause celebre in the Left Wing anti-Zionist community and speaks to the very clear rules that have been set up to maintain a uniform position on Israel. Things do seem to be changing, but as they do the level of acrimony inside the Jewish community is rising.
In a related story from the anti-Zionist Left, there is this provocative interview with Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters that has caused a great deal of chatter:
http://www.counterpunch.org/
And you know that Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has what to say about it!
18. I have been making note of the ongoing hysteria in the Jewish institutional world about the Pew Research survey and its findings. The following post from Rabbi Gordon Tucker is another case in point with an interesting twist
http://jewishreviewofbooks.
Rabbi Tucker is forced to accept the Pew numbers, but makes a rather strange argument that is connected to an anecdote from Rabbi Gerson Cohen that deprecates Sephardim:
But back, finally, to the question of the relevance of numbers. My own intellectual father, Gordis’ uncle Rabbi Gerson Cohen, used to love to ask: “You know about that Golden Age of Spanish Jewry?” and then he would pause, deadpan, before continuing, “It was eight families.”
I am not really sure what the point of this is, but it does beg the question of how the Sephardic tradition – which served at the very founding of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the educational center of today’s Conservative Judaism – is seen by Jews today. By using Sephardic Judaism as a means to justify the weakness of Conservative Judaism it seems as if the entire Andalusian tradition is being dismissed as some flash-in-the-pan elitist phenomenon that was shared by a mere 8 families.
It naturally ignores the vitality of the Sephardic heritage and its potential role in the healing the many rifts in what has become a dysfunctional American Judaism. By making it the punch line to some sick joke it cheapens its integrity and marks it as a phenomenon not worthy of respect.
It is yet another in an endless series of thoughtless attacks on our noble heritage.
19. In case you might have missed it –
It is another egregious example of the absence of Law in our society when it comes to rich people. A 16-year old gets very drunk – three times the legal limit – and mows down four innocent people in his car.
And gets 10 years probation.
His hot-shot lawyers deploy the little-used neologism “Affluenza” to defend his actions.
Here having money is a disease!
I am not sure any more needs to be said about such a disgusting miscarriage of justice. The facts speak for themselves.
After I prepared this note I saw this article:
So with all the blather about how the drunk driver needs to be tried as a juvenile even though he killed 4 people, we see that the very same judge was responsible for trying an African-American minor as an adult.
20. New York Times columnist David Brooks recently returned from an extended leave and has taken a while to rev up again.
But on Friday his PILPUL-CHUTZPAH was back to usual form:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
For those who follow Brooks regularly, the take-away here is his attempt to reverse course. After spending the bulk of the Obama years advocating for the very obstructionist positions that the current group of Republicans have fined tuned, Brooks is now whining over how bad things have become.
While remaining silent on the massive and largely illegal expansions of Executive power during the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney years, Brooks took a contrarian posture once Obama was elected president. He is only now arguing that the Executive needs some latitude to promote his policies. It is a complete reversal of Brooks’ prior position.
So, indeed, things have become so bad, as Brooks argues, in large part because of anti-Obama fanatics like David Brooks!
by David Shasha to eSefarad.
Copyright David Shasha & eSefarad all rights reserved
Copyright David Shasha & eSefarad todos los derechos reservados.
David Shasha is the founder and director of the Center for Sephardic Heritage in Brooklyn, New York designed to raise awareness of the history and culture of Arab Jews. He publishes the Sephardic Heritage Update, a weekly e-mail newsletter available on Google Groups. He has written for publications such as the Huffington Post, Tikkun magazine, The Progressive Christian, and The American Muslim. You can contact him at david.shasha.shu@gmail.com
Shasha is a communist anti-Semite who spreads conspiracy nonsense that he got from UFO chaser Barry Chamish