Dear Reader,
"Modern Orthodoxy At A Crossroads" is one of the most popular articles on our website now. By community leader Steven Bayme, it warns against the danger of a rabbinate that is so closely tied to yeshiva leaders that it alienates laypeople. It's a must-read if these issues are close to your heart.
OPINION
Modern Orthodoxy At A Crossroads
The movement tries both to preserve rabbinic authority and allow for intellectual freedom and the expression of diverse viewpoints.
Steven Bayme
Thankfully, the recent controversy at Yeshiva University over a rabbinical student who had held a private “partnership minyan” in his home has been resolved satisfactorily, and hopefully without harm either to the student or to the critically important institution that he attends. Cooler heads, fortunately, have prevailed. Yet the fact of the controversy itself raises broader questions concerning the future directions of Modern Orthodoxy and its role within the American Jewish community.
Modern Orthodoxy generally dates its origins to 19th-century Germany and its rabbinic leader Samson Raphael Hirsch. Rabbi Hirsch argued for upholding the integrity of Jewish law in contemporary society. Nonetheless he embraced modern culture in so-called “neutral” areas — dress, politics, secular education — in which personal conscience could prevail. To be sure, some on Rabbi Hirsch’s left criticized this approach as bifurcating Torah values and general cultural norms and called instead for a distinctive synthesis between these two very different value systems. Nonetheless, Rabbi Hirsch departed sharply from haredi Orthodoxy, whose leaders argued for “Daas Torah,” meaning that all questions — halachic or extra-halachic — must be submitted to Talmudic authorities whose views were binding. For example, the latter generally rejected secular culture save for utilitarian purposes of earning a living.
It is in this context of what constitutes “modern” and what constitutes “haredi” Orthodoxy that the recent rabbinical student controversy carries great significance. In the fall of 1977, Yeshiva University appointed a new dean of its Division of Communal Services and convened a symposium of its rabbinical alumni to mark the occasion. Featured speakers were the renowned social scientist Charles Liebman and the acclaimed philosopher David Hartman, both of blessed memory. Each spoke brilliantly and critically on trends within contemporary Orthodoxy. In closing the symposium, the incoming dean added an astute observation: He noted the growing trend for local rabbis to issue rulings, which congregational laymen then appealing to their roshei yeshiva, who in turn felt free to overrule the local rabbi.
Dean Vic Geller declared that he and his colleagues were determined to reverse that trend. Presumably they realized that the trend was rooted far more in the culture of the haredi world than in the Modern Orthodox communities they were determined to enhance.
Unfortunately, the recent controversy suggests that the precise opposite has occurred. The letter to the student issued by the acting dean of Yeshiva’s rabbinical school, Rabbi Marc Penner, suggests that local rabbis do not possess such authority. All questions, in his view, must be submitted to roshei yeshiva for adjudication. Presumably these men, albeit far removed from local conditions and needs, are more qualified to issue pronouncements, and their views must be considered binding.
Remarkably, Rabbi Penner extends this mandated process to “areas of established Jewish custom and public ritual … even when there are no purely Halachic issues at stake.” To take this logic to its conclusion, the local rabbi must consult respected Talmudic scholars before taking the liberty of inviting public officials or guest scholars to address the congregation. Similarly, if a rabbi wishes to compose a sermon based on Jewish historical experience, theoretically he need consult not the history books but the Talmudic scholar!
Why is this significant? First, demographically, Orthodoxy is on the rise in American Jewry today. It can contribute enormously to enriching Jewish life. Yet an Orthodoxy governed so narrowly will only prove alienating to so many who stand to learn from it. Leaders of partnership minyanim found sanction for their practice among halachic authorities — not the ones referenced in Rabbi Penner’s letter but others of impeccable scholarly credentials. They merit communal support rather than condemnation for their efforts to synthesize tradition with modern culture.
Second, Orthodox leaders, like all Jews, must confront the reality, documented by the recent Pew Research Center report, that assimilation poses our single greatest danger. Currents and movements that enable Jews to connect more seriously with Judaic tradition deserve encouragement. Orthodox rabbis open to exchange and dialogue on these issues have the opportunity to play a most constructive role within Jewish communities. By contrast, Orthodox rabbis who segregate themselves from such currents may well find themselves alone in a “purist” Orthodoxy acceptable to their roshei yeshiva, but not to the broader Jewish community.
Last, professor Liebman, while teaching at YU decades ago, argued that freedom within the haredi world meant consulting the “gedolim” or Talmudic authorities. That definition of freedom admittedly possesses the virtues of consistency and clarity of direction. Prof. Liebman noted, however, that the wisdom of the gedolim on the major questions of Zionism, immigration to the U.S., and secular education had been proven wrong by history. By contrast, Modern Orthodoxy treads a far more difficult path of seeking both to preserve rabbinic authority yet constrain that authority so as to allow for intellectual freedom and expression of diverse viewpoints. Modern Orthodox leaders today may choose to engage modern culture and thereby exercise leadership on the critical questions of gender equality, conversion to Judaism, Jewish education, intra-Jewish relations, and the challenges of contemporary biblical scholarship to traditional faith, to say nothing of Israel’s future as a Jewish state.
Alternatively, they may opt to shelter themselves in the cloister of an Orthodoxy far removed from the social and intellectual currents of modernity. My hope is that Modern Orthodox leaders will opt for the former course. My fear is that the latter course will prevail, to the detriment of the collective Jewish interest.
Steven Bayme is national director of the American Jewish Committee’s Contemporary Jewish Life Department.
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Also, more news on a story that Hella Winston and the Jewish Week have taken on as a kind of crusade -- that of chasidic whistleblower Sam Kellner. The dubious case against him might finally be dismissed.
NEW YORK
Kellner Case Dismissed
Prosecutors drop all extortion and bribery charges against chasidic abuse whistleblower Sam Kellner after finding the two witnesses unreliable.
Hella Winston
Special Correspondent
Prosecutors in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office dismissed all extortion and bribery charges Friday morning against chasidic abuse whistleblower Sam Kellner. Assistant District Attorney Kevin O'Donnell, speaking in court Friday, said that his office conducted an independent review of the facts of the case and found the two witnesses against Kellner to be unreliable.
"At the lowest point in my life, the justice system reached over" and did the right thing, Kellner told The Jewish Week Friday morning after his case was thrown out. "I just want to say that everything that I did was according to halacha and rabbinically OK. And what I learned is that following the rules will get you out of trouble, not into trouble."
In 2011, a year after helping the district attorney convict a serial chasidic child molester named Baruch Lebovits, whose alleged victims include Kellner’s own son, Kellner found himself under arrest. He was charged with having several years earlier paid one young man to falsely testify in a grand jury that he was abused by Lebovits, and with sending emissaries to attempt to extort the Lebovits family for hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for a promise he could persuade the witnesses against him to drop their charges.
The state’s convoluted case against Kellner, originally brought by then District Attorney Charles Hynes, was shaky from the start; it was based solely on “evidence” brought directly to the DA’s Rackets Division by members of the well-connected Lebovits family, their supporters and paid agents, all seemingly in the service of getting Lebovits’ conviction overturned.
The case took a blow last summer, when the man who accused Kellner of paying him to fabricate his charges contradicted his initial story in interviews with prosecutors — admitting, among other things, that Lebovits “could have molested” him and that he never received money from Kellner. The flip-flop destroyed his credibility and led the trial prosecutors to make their first recommendation that the case be dismissed.
Kellner’s prosecutors could have been spared this embarrassment had they consulted with their colleagues in the Sex Crimes Unit before seeking his indictment. Those prosecutors had strong evidence to suggest this young man was most probably a genuine Lebovits victim who was intimidated out of testifying against him at trial, and later manipulated into accusing Kellner; for reasons that remain mysterious, they failed to do so.
But by the time this witness imploded, Kellner’s case had become tangled up in a hotly contested DA’s race among longtime incumbent Hynes and two challengers, Abe George and Thompson, and its adjudication took a back seat to politics. And so his prosecution continued, surviving a second attempt at dismissal after Hynes lost the election to Thompson; at that time, Hynes’ controversial deputy, Michael Vecchione, himself awash in misconduct allegations, demoted the trial prosecutors rather than accept their recommendation that the case be dropped. (It is worth noting that Lebovits’ trial attorney, Arthur Aidala, has close ties to both Vecchione and Hynes).
The saga of Kellner’s case, and all that preceded his arrest, encompasses both a narrative of positive change within the chasidic community and a cautionary tale.
Unlike so many chasidic parents who discover their children have been sexually abused but remain too fearful to act, Kellner wasted no time in seeking protection and redress for his son. And he did so according to the rules of his community by first consulting with rabbis. When they deemed the situation beyond their ability to address, he received a rare dispensation to go to the police.
This could have been almost the end of the story for Kellner, who is clear that he had no desire to see Lebovits go to jail, and that a guilty plea with probation and mandatory sex offender registration would have provided acceptable justice for his son. But he came up against a DA’s office unwilling to prosecute what was “only” a misdemeanor by someone with a “clean record.” (While Lebovits had a decades-long reputation for molesting children in his community, nobody had ever reported him to the police).
This was a determination many anti-abuse advocates and observers believe would not have been reached had the alleged offender not been a well-connected member of a community whose leaders consistently delivered a large voting bloc to Hynes. And it led a detective to set Kellner on a path to seek out additional victims so the police could build a case. But that unwittingly made him vulnerable to extortion allegations by the Lebovits family, who were able to exploit their lawyers’ cozy relationships with Hynes’ top brass, as well as the trial prosecutors’ ignorance about their community — including its social and power structure, Jewish legal underpinnings an religious court system, as well as its members’ spoken language and style of communication — to have Kellner arrested.
And Kellner’s story would also have turned out differently had he not become the target of a relentless campaign of harassment and threats by powerful supporters of Lebovits. The long ordeal left him without a shul to pray in and his sons expelled from yeshiva — a pariah state he shares with the few chasidic victims who have dared to come forward and report abuse. Here again, he was failed both by communal leaders and the district attorney, neither of whom was apparently willing to take meaningful action in their respective realms to put a halt to what seemed to be clear cases of witness tampering and attempted obstruction of justice (directed not only at him, but the other witnesses he helped bring forward). All of which forced Kellner to maneuver and bluff his way through all manner of attempts by hotheaded activists and rabbis to force him to drop his criminal charges and adjudicate his case for damages in religious court.
So, even though his prosecution has finally come to an end, it is hard for Kellner to feel any great sense of relief, let alone vindication. He has already lost so much that cannot be returned to him, and also whatever faith he had in the criminal justice system. (Amid his own ordeal, his son’s case against Lebovits was unaccountably dropped). If that faith is to be restored, he believes that the new district attorney, Kenneth Thompson, needs to undertake a full investigation into how he came to be indicted in the first place and why the documented intimidation of, and tampering with, the Lebovits complainants was allowed to go unaddressed by his predecessor.
Others agree.
“The public is owed a report on witness tampering and corruption of justice,” says the blogger and anti-sex abuse activist known as Yerachmiel Lopin, who has blogged about the Lebovits and Kellner cases, among many others, at frumfollies.wordpress.com.
“Anything less will dash the hopes of anti-abuse advocates, victims wary of testifying, and the larger ultra-Orthodox community.”
According to Bennett Gershman, a leading prosecutorial ethics expert and Pace University law professor, “Mr. Thompson’s first priority should be to review the many tainted convictions obtained by Hynes’ office, especially wrongful convictions where an arguably innocent defendant is still incarcerated. [One such case, that of David Ranta, who was wrongly accused of murdering an Orthodox man in 1990, has been overturned.]
“Kellner’s case stands out dramatically as one of the most egregious instances of prosecutorial abuse by Hynes’ office. ... Indeed, the criminal charges against Kellner bear all the hallmarks of a demagogic prosecution brought not to serve legitimate law enforcement reasons, but in bad faith for illegitimate reasons.”
Kellner himself is confident that “if, in the end, they will investigate what happened here and go after the intimidators, it would mean that all of this tampering and intimidation would end, that these people no longer run the streets. And that is probably worth the whole pain and suffering of my indictment because I don’t see any other way we could have accomplished this.”
editor@jewishweek.org
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And here's fodder for your Shabbat table conversation: a two-inch Torah, commissioned by a businessman who wanted a more portable scroll to accopany him on his travels, is going up for auction next week.
SHORT TAKES
Top Tab For Tiny Torah
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
About six weeks ago, a middle-aged businessman with a Yiddish accent who lives in one of New York State’s upstate haredi communities made a call to Kestenbaum & Company, a Midtown auction firm that specializes in Judaica. He said he owned a 2-inch high Torah scroll he wanted to sell.
“At first, I thought this was a joke,” says Abigail Meyer, who fielded the call. She heads the auction house’s department of ceremonial objects and fine art.
The caller came in a few days later, carrying the sefer Torah, complete with sterling silver Eitz Chaim silver staves, the rods, and an intricate 17-inch high silver ark and bima, the platform that houses the scroll. Four years ago the man commissioned the pieces, the Torah from a veteran scribe in Israel and the ark and bima, together called an equipage, from an Israeli artisan.
“This is a serious piece of art,” Meyer said. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”
The sefer Torah, which Kestenbaum & Company calls the smallest kosher Torah scroll in the world (the firm has a kashrut document from an Israeli verification authority and the Guinness Book of World Records has been asked to verify its unique status) were slated to be offered for sale at the firm’s auction of Fine Judaica on Wednesday, March 12 at 3 p.m., preceded by public viewing the three previous days. For information, call (212) 366-1197 or visit kestenbaum.net.
The set, whose value is estimated between $100,000 and $150,000, is lot 406 of 471 auction lots in the sale; other objects include old posters, rare books and several 19th-century portraits.
But the scroll and equipage are the stars.
The scroll is in “pristine condition,” Meyer says.
It’s made of vellum, a thin parchment. Each sheet holds the standard, hand-written Hebrew text of the Torah, in columns, from Genesis to Deuteronomy — but the letters are 1/32 of an inch high, smaller than in a mezuzah or set of tefillin. The removable, sterling silver case that holds it contains a built-in magnifying glass to aid reading.
A normal-sized sefer Torah takes about a year to write; this one “took many,” Meyer says. It and the staves together weigh less than a half-pound.
The businessman commissioned the scroll and equipage for his “many travels abroad … and his desire to always daven with a minyan and sefer Torah available,” Meyer says. He did not say why he now wishes to sell it.
Since word of the scroll’s availability has gone out, “we’ve had a lot of interest — from the Orthodox community, and the non-Orthodox community,” Meyer says. She expects a large crowd on viewing days. “People want to see it firsthand,” she says.
steve@jewishweek.org
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On a -- sort of -- lighter note, food writer Amy Spiro offers a luscious brownie recipe, perfect for this year's Purim packages. Peanut butter, yum.
Layers Of Goodness
Tuck one of these peanut butter-topped brownies into your Purim packages this year.
Amy Spiro
Jewish Week Online Columnist
Peanut butter and chocolate, what could be better? Amy Spiro
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That saying probably wasn't meant to apply to the heavenly combination of peanut butter and chocolate, but it works just the same. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were invited in 1928, and the combo has simply stuck around.
Here in Israel, Reese's products aren't readily available (except expensive imports), and there's no real local equivalent that combines peanut butter and chocolate. So I have to create my own ways to get a peanut butter and chocolate fix! These brownies, with their fudgy chewy bottom, topping of creamy peanut butter and chocolate shell, are a perfect substitution for the famous candy. Maybe even better! And they are easy to make pareve.
They are also a serious crowd pleaser, and would be a welcome addition to any Mishloach Manot basket you send this Purim. That is, if you manage not to eat them all yourself.
Amy Spiro is a journalist and writer based in Jerusalem. She is a graduate of the Jerusalem Culinary Institute's baking and pastry track, a regular writer for The Jerusalem Post and blogs at bakingandmistaking.com. She also holds a BA in Journalism and Politics from NYU.
Ingredients:
150g semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
1/2 tsp instant espresso powder or instant coffee powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs plus one egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dark unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
175g semisweet or milk chocolate, finely chopped OR 1 cup chocolate chips
Recipe Steps:
In a large bowl melt the chocolate and butter together until completely combined. Add in the coffee and sugars and whisk until all incorporated. Add in the eggs, one at a time, whisking after each addition until fully mixed. Stir in the vanilla.
Add in the flour, salt and cocoa powder and fold in until just incorporated, do not overmix. Pour the batter into a greased 9x13" pan - it is a fairly thin layer, so spread it out to make sure it is even.
Bake on 350 F for 18-24 minutes or until tests done - be careful not to overbake. Let cool for at least 20 minutes.
Mix together the peanut butter and sugar, and zap it in the microwave for about 30 seconds until is is a smooth, spreadable consistency. Spread the mixture evenly on top of the brownies.
Chill the brownies at least 30 minutes until cool to the touch. Melt the chocolate and carefully spread over the peanut butter. Let set, then cut and enjoy!
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Have a great weekend, everybody.
Best,
Helen Chernikoff, Web Director
The Arts
Visual Arts: 'Degenerate Art'
Max Beckmann’s “Departure,” 1932, is part of “Degenerate Art” show. Courtesy of 2014 MoMA/SCALA
“‘Degenerate art’ is a label the National Socialists used to condemn the different movements of modern art since around 1910 [Futurism, Dadaism, Cubism, Constructivism and later Expressionism and New Objectivity],” noted the show’s curator, Olaf Peters, in an interview with The Jewish Week from Germany. Peters is a Neue Galerie board member and art history professor in Halle. “They did not invent the term but simplified the discourse to use the term in a propagandistic way against internationalism, the Jews and Bolshevism,” Peters continued.
This approach of associating genres of art with races was part of a strategy by Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler’s chief propagandist, to push the conspiracy that Jews were out to corrupt Germany through subversive art.
Hitler had a very specific idea of what good art was: Greco-Nordic art. The art that didn’t jive with this ideal was deemed degenerate and was removed from museums and collections. The Nazis collected examples of “degenerate art” and in 1937 exhibited it in a show that traveled for three years throughout Germany and Austria; some of the art was then sold and some of it was destroyed. The show was developed to compliment “The Great German Exhibition,” which contained artwork sanctioned by the National Socialist Party, and illustrate the contrast between the types of art the two exhibits displayed. “Degenerate Art” was a hit, attracting millions of visitors and popularizing the art the Nazi Party denigrated.
Peters said the Neue Galerie’s two-floor exhibit “aims at raising questions and aspects around the 1937 show, like the art policy becoming part of the extermination policy of the Nazi regime, or the reaction of the artists reflected in their self-portraits.”
The last major exhibit to address the question of “degenerate art” was staged over 20 years ago in Los Angeles and did not travel to New York.
This exhibit will feature approximately 50 paintings and sculptures, 30 works on paper, as well as posters, photographs and other memorabilia. Some of the “degenerate art” that will be hung in the Neue Galerie’s show are paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Paul Klee.
“Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany 1937” opens March 13 and runs through June 30 at the Neue Galerie, 86th Street and Fifth Avenue. Neuegalerie.org.
The Language Of Art:
Mel Bochner at The Jewish Museum.
Back in 1963, when he was just out of art school, contemporary artist Mel Bochner guarded the works of artists such as Jasper Johns, Phillip Guston and Kenneth Noland, while working at The Jewish Museum. He was fired after he was found napping behind a Louise Nevelson sculpture.
Bochner reviewed the museum’s “Primary Structures” exhibit in Arts Magazine two years later and found himself excited by the Minimalist art. (Incidentally, the museum is revisiting that show this spring in an exhibit titled “Other Primary Structures.”) Soon, his own conceptual art would foment revolution in the art world.
Norman Kleeblatt, the curator of “Mel Bochner: Strong Language,” began discussing the possibility of a show with Bochner in 2012 when the museum acquired “The Joys of Yiddish.” This show will feature Bochner’s experiments with word play and the “cerebral and visual aspects of language.” According to Kleeblatt, the exhibit focuses on Bochner’s “Thesaurus” paintings, which he has made since the 1990s.
“Strong Language” will cover the conceptual artist’s text-based works from the years 1966-2014. Bochner’s earlier pieces were often pared down visually, painted in monochrome, while his later works tend to be more colorful. His paintings, while not overtly Jewish in content for the most part — though there are some exceptions — show the artist’s interest in Jewish thought, he says.
Language and wordplay have remained the basis of the artist’s practice. In an email to The Jewish Week, Bochner wrote, “Among other things, Judaism has a rich linguistic heritage, which threads itself through my work in ways that I’m aware of, and others that I’m probably unaware of.”
“Mel Bochner: Strong Language” opens May 2 and runs through Sept. 21 at The Jewish Museum, Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street. Thejewishmuseum.org.
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Blogs
THE POLITICAL INSIDER | THE ROSENBLOG | THE NEW NORMAL | A COMIC'S JOURNEY | WELL VERSED
THE NEW NORMAL
Vayikra: Parenting And 'Perfection'
After Moses anoints the Tent of Appointed Meeting and the Priests who will officiate there, God speaks to him:
Explain to the sons of Israel the ways of bringing offerings to God. There will be offerings of animals and grains and fruit. Animals for sacrifice shall be male and without blemish. These animals shall be killed and washed and burned so each shall smoke on the altar in the Tent of Appointed Meeting. This will be for an ascent offering, an offering made by fire in expression of compliance to God and to make atonement before God.
God is very specific in his instruction to Moses on the various kinds of sacrifices to be offered, and how to present them. The purpose of these offerings was to express compliance to God and to make atonement.
The term “sacrifice” comes from the Latin word meaning to make something holy, and, the priestly view of holiness was perfection. The Bible tells us that the way to get closer to God is to offer a perfect or unblemished offering.
Well, that got me thinking about holiness and perfection, and how life doesn’t often match up to that standard. In my work as a psychologist I find that most peoples’ lives can be pretty messy, at least at times. It also occurred to me that this definition of holiness might explain why as Jews, so many of us suffer from a kind of obsessive perfectionism!
But what if holiness is not found in perfection? Or maybe perfection itself is not “perfect?”
I remember when my first child was born. To me, she was utter perfection. So much so, that for a while, I couldn’t bring myself to even trim her tiny fingernails. I didn’t want to interfere. As she grew, it became clear that her development was far from “perfect.” The same can be said of my parenting, as both of my children will happily tell you. As it turns out, my daughter was the kind of child who needed a lot of “interference.” She has significant disabilities and yet with all of her challenges and our mutual imperfection, some of the holiest moments in my life have been with and through her.
The pediatrician turned prominent psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott has this concept of “the good enough” mother. This is the mother who can lovingly provide for her child, yet also gradually and in small doses, help her to deal with the mother’s failures. I was delighted to discover that in Winnicott’s view, which has been pretty much universally accepted by mental health professionals, it is better for a child to have a “good enough” parent, than a “perfect” parent. This is because it is through our failures and reparations that we teach our children some of life’s most important lessons — that it is ok to not be perfect; that relationships can survive ruptures; that we can survive disappointment and anger; how to love someone even if on occasion, they let us down and so on.
I remember several moments during both my children’s early lives when I was overcome by the realization that these tiny people trusted me implicitly and with their whole heart. The first time our family flew after 9/11 was to visit my in-laws, and boarding that flight to Michigan, I felt my confidence crack open with the sudden, hyperawareness of my decision to put my children on an airplane. And they just went along with it! It was one of those moments when the meaning of parental responsibility takes on an entirely new depth and I felt dwarfed by it. Was I capable of making a right, good decision about this? They never questioned it.
There is something profoundly humbling, and yes holy, about parenting any child. God knows it requires sacrifice and our sacrifices are far from perfect. The same can be said of any serious commitment. We may strive for perfection, but the creativity born of grappling with our inevitable limitations brings us to solutions we might not otherwise find.
So, in the end, I’m quite sure that my personal experiences of holiness do not fit the priestly definition. They resonate more closely with the Leonard Cohen song that says:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There’s a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
The other day, after a frustrating, “Who’s on first” kind of phone conversation with my daughter, I barked some directive at her in irritation and got off the phone. I called her later to apologize. “That’s OK, Mom,” she told me “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You are bossy sometimes, but you’re working on it.” Ah yes, that’s how the light gets in!
Dr. Nancy Crown is a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City.
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WELL VERSED
When A Paranormal Romance Meets Holocaust Literature
Just when you think every possible angle of the Holocaust has been explored in literature, ad infinitum, along comes “The Color of Light” (Stony Creek Press) by Helen Maryles Shankman, a tale of art school, the Holocaust, and yes—vampires.
It’s 1992. At The American Academy of Classical Art, orthodox Jewish student Tessa Moss is vulnerable and innocent against the throb of New York City. The school’s founder, Raphael Sinclair, or “Rafe”, is a vampire. His life (or shall we say undeath) spans many decades. When he notices one of Tessa’s sketches, with the name “Wizotsky” written on a lady’s suitcase in the picture, he is reminded of a long lost love who perished in the Holocaust. From here, the story spirals into an unlikely marriage of paranormal romance and Holocaust literature.
One of Shankman’s strengths is her world building, not an easy task when mingling three very different subjects. Yet she does it with a dexterity that creates a gray area in which they can coexist organically. This, in turn, is how the novel functions, orienting itself around these blurred lines that define the universe Shankman has formed, a weaving of fact with fiction, past with present. With the intertwining of vampire and Holocaust, the author asks us to alter the expectations we typically have when reading a paranormal romance. We are placed in the very heart of a history we’ve memorialized, and we are held there, alongside vampires. And, shockingly, these vampires don’t trivialize the Holocaust experience the author depicts.
Upon entering the world of Tessa’s family in Poland on the eve of World War II, the novel shifts from an alternating point of view, to first person, told by Rafe. It begins with his life as a young art student and it’s as if the reader is being led by a docent through an art museum, told where to focus, reminded not to stray from the group.
For those of us used to reading Holocaust literature sans vampires, all that is paranormal in the clearly depicted historical section is forgiven, because of, I believe, the author’s ability to constantly drip-feed and thus distract the reader with little secrets and unanswered questions throughout.
One of the author’s most profound sweeps of the pen is the way she underscores the aftermath of the Holocaust. Generations after, descendants of victims and survivors are still feeling the effects. We are still suffering.
“The terrible things that happen to us,” Tessa said slowly. “What we do with them...I think that’s what makes us artists.”
The final portion of the book maintains the same twist of events and revelations previous sections did. It’s this repeated upending of plot points and things continuously being turned over in the most unexpected of ways, that allows the novel to live and expand within your mind for the entire duration and beyond. Shankman’s prose is intelligent and affecting. She gives the reader so much to focus on across a large span of time, that the various elements can feel almost disparate, like individual parts of a sketch. But in the end, the story itself is a work of art, and what we come away with is a complete portrait, so haunting, we can scarcely pull our eyes away.
Leah Damski holds an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and has recently completed a novel and short story collection. Follow her on twitter @leahdamski.
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Food & Wine
THE BIG APPLE
Checking In On Peck's
Ratner's family-owned Brooklyn food shop teams up with Gefilteria.
My conversation with Theo Peck, owner of Peck’s, a specialty food shop on Clinton Hill’s Myrtle Avenue, started with onion rolls. Peck, the great-grandson of the owner of the legendary kosher dairy restaurant Ratner’s, and I were reminiscing about the soft, onion-and-poppy-seed-topped rolls the now-shuttered Lower East Side restaurant served: slathered with fresh butter and eaten with a bowl of soup or in advance of a plate of cheese blintzes, they were a dream.
“Oh man, those rolls,” Peck, a New York native who spent many hours in Ratner’s as a kid, recalled. “Let me tell you, if we expanded, the first thing we would do is add a full Jewish-style bakery,” he said.
Instead, Peck’s sources its onion rolls from Orwasher’s, the highly regarded Upper East Side bakery. Aside from the bread, everything else in the small, light-filled store—from the rotisserie chickens to the brisket to the matzoh ball soup to the tongue—is made in-house.
Theo Peck prepares a box of pastries for a customer. Lauren Rothman/JW
Well, almost everything. The nearly two-month-old shop has teamed up with the gang at The Gefilteria, the young foodie-run pop-up that creates contemporary spins on classic Ashkenazi foods such as gefilte fish, beet kvass and horseradish. The Gefilteria’s Jeffrey Yoskowitz, Elizabeth Alpern and Jackie Lilenshtein are fermenting the half- and full-sour cucumber pickles now sold in the Peck’s refrigerator case.
“I’ve got respect for the pour-over pickle,” Peck said, referring to the simpler type of pickle created by pouring hot brine over fresh vegetables. “But let me tell you: I grew up eating pickles before they were trendy, and fermented pickles are true pickles,” he said. Rather than vinegar, fermented pickles utilize only a saltwater brine.
Old-school pickles made by the younger foodie set perfectly encapsulate what Peck’s is all about: a mix of tried-and-true Jewish recipe traditions, enlivened by the wider world of food trends. Sure, there’s hummus here: but it’s served on a sandwich with eggplant caponata, smoked tofu and frisee; there’s brisket, but it’s served on French sourdough with kimchi, Japanese mayonnaise and cilantro. And on store shelves reserved for grocery items, egg noodles and matzo sit side by side with international groceries like Thai hot sauce.
The counter. Lauren Rothman/JW
“It’s a lot to live up to,” Peck says of the Ratner’s legacy. “But that’s not exactly what I want to do. I want to be myself. The store’s not called Ratner’s,” he said. “I’m looking back to the past, but I’m also looking forward, to the future.”
In the near future, Peck’s has a few exciting developments in the works. The first of these is Purim, for which the store is creating a line of near-classic hamantaschen available with apricot, poppy seed and prune-ginger fillings. For Passover, Peck’s will offer a catered spread of braised lamb shanks, brisket, chopped liver and more. And when the weather finally turns warm, Peck’s will unveil its expansive backyard, where it plans to host food events and serve growlers of craft beer.
“I hope that someday we can be a neighborhood hub like Ratner’s was,” Peck said.
Peck’s
455A Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205
(347) 689-4969
facebook.com/pecksbrooklyn
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