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With a surprising spike in murders across the country, including an increase of 19.5 percent in New York City this year, a top Israeli criminologist is revising his "hot spots policing" technique to help reverse the trend. Staff Writer Stew Ain has the story.NEW YORK
Israel Prize Winner Offers New Take On Stop-And-Frisk
As city murder rate spikes, top criminologist tweaks his ‘hot spots policing’ approach.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
David Weisburd: His innovative strategy grew out of research on Brooklyn streets. Via youtube.com
During the year that criminologist David Weisburd walked the beat with New York City cops in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace back in 1985, he noticed something peculiar: crime was concentrated in just a few blocks.
Although each police officer had 20 square blocks to patrol, “they spent all of their time on one or two blocks,” he recalled. “I called that our ‘small world of crime,’ and if they [the police] spent time there, things got better. That contradicted the common wisdom at the time that the police could not prevent crime.”
Weisburd credits the work he did in Brooklyn with setting the stage for his groundbreaking work on “hot spots policing” — concentrating police in high-crime areas to actually deter crime. In fact, one study found that deploying more offices in high crime areas resulted in a 20 percent drop in crime, and more than 20 subsequent studies supported those findings.
Hot spots policing has now been embraced in cities around the world and earned Weisburd many prestigious awards, including the Stockholm Prize (considered criminology’s Nobel Prize); just last month he received Israel’s highest recognition, the Israel Prize in Social Work and Criminological Research.
Now, with a surprising spike in murders being recorded in cities across the country — including a 19.5 percent increase in New York through May of this year compared to a year ago — Weisburd is working on a revision of hot spots policing, one that seeks to convey a friendlier approach.
“He wants to do it in a way that is less offensive,” said Anthony Braga, a professor of evidence-based criminology at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University and a senior research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School who has worked with Weisburd over the years.
“It matters greatly the way people feel about police interaction, regardless of whether they get arrested or ticketed,” he said. “If they believe the officer acted fairly and reasonably, it diminishes their negative feeling about their contact with the police — they feel they are not targeted indiscriminately.”
Weisburd, 60, was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Great Neck, L.I. He made aliyah 23 years ago and is now a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Seven years ago he also accepted a tenured appointment at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
In bestowing the Israel Prize, the prize committee called Weisburd “one of the most prominent researchers in the field of criminology in the world and among the senior criminologists in Israel. … [His work] helped streamline and improve the quality of life of public citizens. As such, his studies suggest numerous explanations for the formation of crime areas constituting a base for targeted intervention for preventing and dealing with crime.”
Weisburd said he does not know the reason for the recent spike in violent crime here and some other cities. (Some here suggest it stems from tensions between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD over stop-and-frisk — the mayor believes it wrongly targets minorities — and from the “Black Lives Matter” movement, both of which, the thinking goes, have resulted in a kind of police work slowdown.) But Weisburd said his research has found that the tactic of stop-and-frisk — until recently a main crime-fighting tactic of the NYPD — is a deterrent to crime.
One of his recently completed studies now awaiting publication — a three-year project done as part of a study group at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan and supported by the Open Society Foundations — looked into the deterrent value of the city’s stop-and-frisk program. Preeti Chauhan, a research assistant on the project, said Weisburd focused on the “street segment level of crime” as opposed to crime on the precinct level.
It used stop-and-frisk data from the New York City Police Department — such things as the time and location of such stops — and the impact such searches had on crime on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.
“This was the most methodologically sophisticated study to determine the impact on crime,” she said.
Weisburd said earlier studies he conducted in five cities — New York (which began hot spots policing under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the 1990s), Cincinnati, Sacramento, Seattle and Tel Aviv — found that 50 percent of the crime came from about 5 percent of the streets, and that about 1 percent of the streets produced 25 percent of the crime.
In the study here awaiting publication, Weisburd found that stop-and-frisk was a “hot spots policing strategy.”
He said his work also debunked the belief that crime would move elsewhere if police focused on hot spots. Weisburd said he found that “not only did crime not move around the corner, but around the corner it got better.”
But the chairman of John Jay’s Department of Law and Police Science, Professor Maki Haberfeld, said she is suspicious about such a claim.
“I say that if you saturate an area with police for a period of time, you don’t eliminate crime, you just displace it,” she said. “I ask how many prostitutes who are moved from a particular corner go and get a legitimate job? How many drug dealerswho are moved from their spot go out and get a 9-to-5 job? Sometimes they travel a distance to relocate. It’s hard to measure.”
“People want to believe we are succeeding in the war against crime,” Haberfeld added. “But burglaries, street crime — everything is up in a significant way. Talk to any cop on the street.”
But Braga disagreed, saying his review of more than 20 studies found that when “police concentrate their resources in an area, crime can be reduced. … Even though New York is going through a little uptick [in shootings], crime is down throughout the U.S. — and this [hot spot] strategy is responsible for a piece of that downturn.”
The question now is how best to concentrate officers in a high crime area, Braga said, adding that some of the work he did with Weisburd “suggests that community problem solving that changes the reasons why an area is hot might be better [than simply making arrests].”
Weisburd said his work has convinced him that stop-and-frisk should not be used as a general strategy but “only in very specific situations. And it should be used only when it is legal to do so, such as when it’s believed a suspicious person may have committed a crime or there is a gun dropping out of a man’s pants. We want people stopped when it is believed a potentially serious crime is being committed. …”
His proposal for a more just approach to policing — for which he is seeking funding from the National Institute of Justice — involves identifying 40 to 50 hot spots in each of three American cities whose police departments have already agreed to participate (South Bend, Ind.; Milwaukee, Wis., and Wilmington, Del.). One group of police officers would be asked to do traditional hot spots policing. A second group would be given training in how to make the public feel it is treated fairly. Specially trained supervisors would monitor the work of both groups.
“The second group of officers, instead of just saying to someone, ‘Let me look in your pockets,’ would stop the person and say, ‘There have been a lot of robberies and other problems on this street and we are stopping everyone for a few months to make sure they are not carrying a weapon,’” Weisburd explained.
“In that way the police are saying that people have been getting hurt over here — which justifies the stop — and that they are stopping everyone, not just singling you out. And if the officer finds contraband, he would say, ‘I’m going to arrest you, but do you have something to add to my report?’ In that way, the officer lets him tell his side of the story. That won’t stop the arrest, but it makes people feel that what is happening is reasonable. The theory is that if people are happy with the police, they will cooperate with them more.”
Haberfeld said she objects to the proposal because it would subject everyone to police intervention.
“That is not a pleasant experience,” she explained. “There is no need for it. … Stop-and-frisk is a legitimate police tool. It should be used based on the discretion of the police officer.”
Weisburd replied that his proposal is a “problematic strategy used broadly; it is appropriate, however, in limited use.”
stewart@jewishweek.org
After 50 years at ADL, including 27 years as national director, Abe Foxman will retire next month. On the eve of a major tribute dinner in his honor, he spoke with me about his career and what keeps him up at night.GARY ROSENBLATT
50 Years On, Still Fighting Jewish Battles
As he prepares to step down, ADL’s iconic Abe Foxman speaks out on his hopes and fears.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor and Publisher
Gary Rosenblatt
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson sent the first U.S. combat troops to South Vietnam, Levi Eshkol was elected prime minister of Israel, and Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax chose not to pitch in the opening game of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. It was also that year that Abraham Foxman, a 25-year-old immigrant fresh out of law school, took a job as assistant director of the legal department of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
Much has changed in the last 50 years, including the famed Jewish defense agency’s name, now simply ADL. But Foxman has been there through it all, combating anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, speaking out for civil rights and human rights, and seeking to educate a generation born after the Holocaust he survived as a child and which shaped his worldview.
He, more than any other Jewish leader, has become synonymous with the organization he has led for the last 27 years as national director. It raises tens of millions of dollars annually, has more than two dozen regional offices, offers educational programs around the world, and has had dozens of lay national chairs during his tenure.
But mention ADL and people think simply, “Abe.”
Praised by presidents, a hero to countless Jews and a lightning rod for critics, Abe Foxman has forged his reputation as one of the most influential Jews in the world. He is often the first call for journalists looking for a Jewish response to the crisis of the moment because he is frank, outspoken, accessible, and speaks from his kishkes. Contrary to the corporate model of some Jewish organizations, he is passionate, emotional and he wears his deep commitment to Judaism on his sleeve, often sprinkling his remarks with Yiddishisms.
On Wednesday evening, Foxman, the son of Polish Jews who in desperation left their infant in the care of his Catholic nanny for four years during World War II, will be feted in grand style. A tribute dinner in the Waldorf Astoria is set to mark his “50 years of dedicated service to the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish people.”
Foxman will step down from his post a month later and be succeeded by Jonathan Greenblatt, 43, a social entrepreneur and special assistant to President Obama.
Among those paying tribute to Foxman at the dinner, reflecting his wide range of friends and associates, are Fox News CEO and chairman Roger Ailes, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, NYPD chief William Bratton, businessman S.A. Ibrahim, who is the first Muslim on the ADL board of directors, and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who as a teen had Foxman as a counselor at a Jewish summer camp.
Troubled By Obama
During an interview at Foxman’s spacious midtown office a few days ago, the outgoing leader sat down to share his thoughts on his career’s successes and challenges. He kept coming back to his worries about anti-Semitism, which he described as “the worst since World War II,” and his concern about Israel’s dependence on America, particularly at a time when President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are openly at odds.
He was characteristically blunt about his problems with Obama’s treatment of Israel.
He noted that Obama has taken his criticism of Netanyahu’s perceived delays on peace talks with the Palestinians directly to the Israeli public. In a recent Israeli television interview, the president said his views are consistent with those of Jewish liberals in the U.S.
“I’m very concerned about that,” Foxman said. “I don’t want to see the president align himself with Jewish liberals or conservatives; I want him to support what is best for the U.S. and for Israel.”
He went on to say that Obama consistently calls out Israel for the lack of progress on peace talks while giving the Palestinian leadership a pass.
Particularly “troubling” and “mischievous,” said Foxman, are the president’s assurances that the proposed Iran nuclear deal will make for a more secure Jewish state. “He thinks he knows what’s best for Israel,” he said, noting that the government in Jerusalem should be making that life-and-death decision for itself.
“The president is doing what he thinks is in the best interest of the U.S.,” Foxman added. “He’s not doing this to hurt Israel. But I think he’s wrong to trust Iran. The deal will bring more nuclear arms to the region. I told the president in our last meeting [a few weeks ago], ‘We don’t question your motives; we question your judgment.’”
He went on to say that Iran will remain the most important issue for Israel and the Mideast for a long time, and that “for America, it’s about safety, but for Israel it’s about survival.”
Obama, said Foxman, was a source of anxiety “from Day One” of his administration, and he recalled the question he posed to the president in a meeting with Jewish leaders early in his first administration. When would the Palestinians be pressured, as Israel had been, to be forthcoming in peace talks, he asked. And what would the consequences be if they were not? The answers were not forthcoming.
Foxman noted that ADL was the first major Jewish organization to speak out against White House pressure on Israel to freeze settlement building. A full-page ad in The New York Times in the summer of 2009, which also appeared in other U.S. newspapers, was headlined: “Mr. President – The problem isn’t settlements, it’s Arab rejection.”
The specifics have changed, Foxman said, but the sense that Obama holds Israel to an unrealistically high bar while largely ignoring Palestinian intransigence, and worse, prevails.
An ‘Old Man’ At 10
The issue of anti-Semitism is particularly poignant for Foxman because it speaks to both his personal history and his life’s work. Baptized as an infant and reclaimed by his parents after they survived World War II, as a small child he was the center of a custody battle between the nanny who saved his life and the parents he did not remember.
“As a hidden child,” he says, “I didn’t know who or what I was.”
Ever since arriving in the U.S. with his parents in 1950, he has felt a responsibility to “work on behalf of the Jewish people and fight the anti-Semitism that almost destroyed me,” he said, recalling that his father referred to him, when he was 10, as “the old man.”
Having survived the Holocaust, “how dare I be a pessimist?” he asks. But for a self-declared optimist, he worries a great deal about the future. Like many others, he had thought that anti-Semitism would not be a major problem in the 21st century, with the world having witnessed the tragic results of Hitler’s murderous racism and hatred.
One might argue that the ADL, after more than a century offering up large sums of money and countless educational programs to fight anti-Semitism, has failed in its mission, since hatred of Jews is back with a vengeance. But Foxman maintains that if not for the organization, and its worldwide efforts, the problem would be far worse.
It’s hard to prove, but while he acknowledges that “we haven’t found a vaccine” for anti-Semitism, he points out that “we have made anti-Semitism anti-Christian” and an act widely condemned by societal standards.
In other parts of the world, notably Europe, anti-Semitism has become “a clear and present danger,” says Foxman, who tries to find the balance between legitimate concern and unbridled fear. The key difference between now and the 1930s is that European governments are speaking out against anti-Semitism, he says, and Israel offers a haven for those who feel unsafe elsewhere.
“We’re not immune to it here” in the U.S., he says, and constant vigilance is required. But he adds that the U.S. “is still unique in world history” as a country of minority freedoms, and even anti-Israel activities on campus are mostly limited to a few dozen universities out of thousands across the U.S.
“I still want to make a difference,” Foxman said in looking to his own future. “I plan to rewire, not retire, and I don’t intend to be silent. The question is where and how.”
He will become national director emeritus at ADL, and has been approached about joining a think tank. He also wants to take time to catch up on his reading and go back to the Talmud study of his youth. “I miss that,” he says.
Softly, he acknowledges that “I can’t promise my grandchildren that they won’t need the ADL. Prejudice and bigotry remain with us.”
As for what keeps him up at night, Foxman says it’s the same thing that gives him comfort: the U.S.-Israel relationship.
“Israel is very fortunate it has the U.S. as its primary ally, and we have developed strong bipartisan support in Washington. That relationship is unique, even when we disagree.
“But what’s scary is that sense of dependence. There’s no one else to defend Israel politically, diplomatically and militarily. Israel has nowhere else to go, and we have to be super smart going forward.”
The ADL’s next director no doubt will have new ideas about the agency’s direction, style and tone. But whatever Abe Foxman’s formal title or role will be in the future, we are sure to hear from him when he feels the need to speak out.
“I do have credibility out there,” he says as the interview winds down.
“Call me.”
Gary@jewishweek.org
An ambitious and creative weeklong festival of 100 Yiddish and Jewish cultural events kicks off Sunday night, marking the 100th anniversary year of The Folksbiene Theater.
Ted Merwin reports on the theater offerings and George Robinson has the poignant back story of the recently formed Ger Mandolin Orchestra, performing here, all part of KulturfestNYC.NEW YORK
A World Of Yiddish Converges On N.Y.
Weeklong Kulturfest features theater companies from Poland, Romania, Israel and more.
Ted Merwin
Special To The Jewish Week
“Bonjour Monsieur Chagall,” from Poland. Courtesy of Ester Rokhl and Ida Kaminska Jewish Theatre
On the Lower East Side at the turn of the 20th century, the Yiddish stage was such a staple of Jewish life that audiences were said to consume “broyt mit teater” — bread slathered with theater. Next week, the only Yiddish theater company that still survives from that era, the Folksbiene (now called the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene) serves up Kulturfest, a multi-course offering of Yiddish music, theater, film and dance, including Yiddish stage companies from around the world.
Among Kulturfest’s theatrical offerings are Sholom Aleichem’s “Wandering Stars,” presented by the State Jewish Theatre of Romania; “The Kishka Monologues,” a culinary adventure staged by Yiddishshpiel-the Yiddish Theatre of Israel; “Ek Velt,” produced by Zaftik, a Yiddish troupe from Australia; Bonjour Monsieur Chagall,” a musical presented by the Kaminska Jewish Theatre of Warsaw, Poland; “My First Sony,” featuring Israeli actor Roy Horovitz; and “The Mar Vista,” a dance/theater work by performance artist Yehuda Hyman.
In addition, Polish-born Lea Koenig-Stolper, dubbed the First Lady of Israeli Theater, will perform an evening of songs and stories; and Ben Gonshor’s play about Paul Robeson, “When Blood Ran Red,” the winner of the Folksbiene’s first annual Yiddish playwriting contest, will have a staged reading. Most of these shows will take place at the Abrons Cultural Center (Henry Street Settlement), the site of the Folksbiene’s first performance in 1915, at a time when there were 15 Yiddish theaters in the city.
Brynna Wasserman, the executive director of the Folksbiene, organized two international festivals when she headed the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre in Montreal — festivals that included many of the same theatrical troupes. But Kulturfest is her most ambitious festival to date, with more than 30 countries represented and a day-long symposium, organized by NYU’s Skirball Department of Hebrew at Judaic Studies, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which is the Folksbiene’s new home.
In an interview, Wasserman told The Jewish Week that the overarching purpose of the festival is to look back on the last century of Yiddish theater in New York and prepare for the next one. “We seek to relate Jewish influence to the culture of the city, country and world,” she said.
Horovitz’s one-man show, “My First Sony,” is based on a bestselling novel by the Israeli writer Benny Barbash. Directed by Dafna Widenfeld-Nagler, the play, which Horovitz has performed in Hebrew since 1996, is about the unraveling of a dysfunctional Israeli family, which an overweight 11-year-old boy, Yotam (played by Horovitz), obsessively documents with his tape recorder.
“My First Sony,” which has toured Israel and been performed in Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Europe (as well at universities ranging from Harvard and Yale to Cairo) is unusual in that much of the “dialogue” is provided by recorded actors. When it ran in 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa, critic Gayle Edmunds of the City Press called it a play about “how children process information and read situations, sometimes too literally, sometimes with piercingly accurate analysis.”
Those looking for a splashy musical may gravitate to “Bonjour Monsieur Chagall” from Poland, directed by David Szurmiej. The play, which will be performed this year in Warsaw as part of the 12th Annual Isaac Bashevis Singer Festival, was developed by Szurmiej’s father, Szymon, who founded the Kaminska Jewish Theatre and who once met Marc Chagall during a visit to Paris. The production brings the painter’s vibrant artworks to life, using them as the springboard for extravagant, nostalgic costumes, sets, music and movement. It premiered in Warsaw in the mid-1970s and ran there for a decade.
Szurmiej told The Jewish Week that Singer’s works “could have been painted by Chagall,” referring to the “nonexistent but colorful world” that the painter created. Chagall, he pointed out, “took Jewish life out of the shtetl and made it universal.” At a time when so many Polish non-Jews are discovering their Jewish roots, Szurmiej said (noting that before the Second World War, the overall population of Warsaw was almost one-third Jewish), Yiddish theater is occupying an increasingly important niche in his native country.
But not all the Kulturfest productions come from abroad. One home-grown production is Hyman’s “The Mar Vista,” which was developed at the 14th Street Y’s LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture. Hyman was last seen in “The Mad 7,” a dance piece based on the writing of Reb Nachman of Bratslav. He turns autobiographical in “The Mar Vista,” which takes its name from the seaside neighborhood in West Los Angeles where he grew up as the son of a Turkish Jewish mother (Amanda Schussel), who was a dancer, and a Polish Jewish father (Ron Kagan), who came from a family of tailors.
Hyman said that one of the challenges in creating the piece, which incorporates movement, gesture, spoken word and ritual, was “grappling with the inconsistencies in the lives of our parents, and with their sexuality.” His father “lost everyone in the Holocaust — he never saw his parents and siblings again.” His mother “needed to be by the sea,” as an integral part of her exotic personality. Hyman, who has moved back and forth repeatedly between New York and Los Angeles throughout his adult life, feels a similar need to “be by the water to connect with my ancestors,” he noted.
Whether as a form of ancestor worship, cultural exploration or rollicking entertainment, Kulturfest promises to satisfy many different agendas for performers and attendees alike. Indeed, with such a plethora of theatrical offerings on tap, the Folksbiene hopes to attract large numbers of both Jews and non-Jews to the productions. “We have the fefer [pepper] and zaltz [salt],” Wasserman concluded. “We have all the ingredients. Now what we need are the audiences.”
Kulturfest runs from June 14-21 at various venues in Manhattan. (The theatrical offerings are co-sponsored by UJA-Federation of New York and Capital One Bank.) For tickets (most of which are $18) and information, call OvationTix at (866) 811-4111 or visit kulturfestnyc.org.
NEW YORK
Mandolin Strings Attached To A Long-Gone Polish Shtetl
George Robinson
Special To The Jewish Week
The Ger Mandolin Orchestra. Via germandolin.com
It started with a photograph.
It was a faded photograph of a very serious-looking group of young men in suits and ties, holding musical instruments. Avner Yonai immediately recognized his maternal grandfather and two granduncles among the musicians, and a plan took seed in his mind.
It is a long way from the Polish town of Gora Kalwaria, known as Ger in Yiddish, to the stage of the Skirball Centre at NYU, but Yonai’s idea has made the trip as the Ger Mandolin Orchestra. An ensemble of 11 of the best mandolinists in the world, they are a living, breathing — and swinging — memorial to Yonai’s family and an all-but-forgotten musical tradition. And the group is one of the musical highlights of next week’s sprawling and eclectic Kulturfest event.
Yonai, an Israeli-American businessman based in the Bay Area, saw the photo in the Yizkor book of Ger when visiting with family members in 2009. His grandfather had been a staunch Zionist and made aliyah in 1935, but the rest of his family was among the 3,500 Jews, half the town’s population, who were killed when the Nazis seized the town.
“My grandfather passed away in 1996,” Yonai says. “He never talked about life in Poland. When I saw the movie [based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel] ‘Everything Is Illuminated’ in 2007, I really connected with it, with the idea of going back to Europe to explore my family’s history. When the hero visits the site of a shtetl in Ukraine in the film, there’s a monument to the Jews who were murdered on March 18, 1942; I was born on March 18, 1971, so I took it for a sign. Two weeks later I went to Poland — no preparation, no research, I only knew the name of the town.”
The result was a warm and burgeoning relationship between Yonai’s family and the current residents of Gora Kalwaria, and a stone monument to the town’s victims of the Shoah. Yonai wasn’t satisfied. He wanted a living monument, but until he saw the photo he didn’t know what form it would take.
Now he knew and when he flew back to San Francisco, he contacted Mike Marshall, one of the world’s great string players, who has worked with an amazing range of musicians, including David Grisman, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, Joshua Bell, Darol Anger, Hamilton de Holanda, Hermeto Pascoal, Mark O’Connor and Stephane Grappelli.
“Marshall liked the idea and he knows a lot of musicians,” Yonai says with characteristic understatement.
Essentially, Marshall just spun his Rolodex and plucked a who’s who of mandolin players.
One of the musicians he called was Eric Stein, director of the Ashkenazi Foundation in Toronto, and founder and leader of the klezmer group Beyond the Pale.
“He said to me, ‘We’re putting together this interesting little ensemble and you were recommended to me, I understand that you do a lot of arranging work with Jewish music,’” Stein recalls. “Mike has been a huge influence on me. He was coming into the project without much experience in Jewish music and klezmer, but he brought together great musicians who could adapt to new material.”
But what material? As both Yonai and Stein note, there was no documentation of the repertoire of the original Ger ensemble.
“There are hundreds of photos as historical evidence of mandolin orchestras,” Stein says, “That was a context for amateurs to make music. They tended to be community groups with a mixture of professional and non-professional musicians. So there was less rigidity in terms of choices of repertoire.”
Jeff Warschauer, another member of the group, explains, “The mandolin orchestras here and in Europe [in the early 20th century] are a clear case of the flowering of secular Jewish culture, particularly in groups like the Workmen’s Circle, and organizations centered around unions. The secular organizations took the place of going to shul. The mandolin orchestras here played Italian music, classical, Jewish stuff.”
The make-up of the Ger Mandolin Orchestra reflects that eclecticism. Simply put, it’s a gathering of virtuosos of an under-appreciated instrument.
And it’s better than just a photograph.
The Ger Mandolin Ensemble will be performing Thursday, June 18, at the Skirball Centre, NYU (566 LaGuardia Pl.) at 8 p.m.
Also this week, Riverdale Jewish Center Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt may be stepping down soon; a state bill would monitor East Ramapo's charedi-majority school board; Judith Klitsner on how to prevent future rabbinic scandals; and an interview with Jason Alexander on taking over Larry David's role in "Fish In The Dark" on Broadway.GARY ROSENBLATT
Riverdale ‘Sauna’ Rabbi May Be Leaving His Pulpit
Board votes to seek a settlement with Jonathan Rosenblatt and have him step down.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor and Publisher
Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt
In the wake of a controversy over Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt’s practice of inviting boys and young men to shower and share the sauna with him, it appears that his three-decade tenure at the Riverdale Jewish Center may be coming to an end, The Jewish Week has learned.
On Monday night, the board of directors voted 34-8 to seek a financial settlement with the rabbi and for him to step down, according to those involved in the issue.
The board’s discussion did not focus on the merits or harm involved in the rabbi’s longstanding outreach effort to males by playing squash or racquetball with them before showering and shmoozing in the sauna, sources said. Rather, its members appeared to be swayed by the argument that as a result of the controversy, set off by a May 30 New York Times article on the rabbi’s “unusual” behavior, Rabbi Rosenblatt would no longer be able to fulfill his rabbinic duties at the 700-member Modern Orthodox synagogue he leads.
Board members also were made aware that should the synagogue be sued civilly or criminally by an individual alleging abuse, they could be held financially accountable for damages awarded since they have fiduciary responsibility, and the rabbi’s practice was long known within the synagogue.
Speaking on behalf of Rabbi Rosenblatt, his attorney, Ben Brafman, told The Jewish Week on Tuesday: “We are working diligently and responsibly to address the issues that have been raised since the recent articles about Rabbi Rosenblatt have been published. I remind you, however, that Rabbi Rosenblatt has not been charged with any criminal offense.
“In my judgment,” he added, “he will never be charged. Accordingly, I caution everyone involved to take a deep breath so that this matter can be resolved fairly and with the dignity Rabbi Rosenblatt has earned in three decades of service to the community.”
The rabbi, whose six-month sabbatical is coming to an end soon, sent a letter to his congregants last week that expressed deep “regret if my conduct at any time inadvertently offended anyone during my many years of service.
“I want to assure you, however,” he wrote, “that it was never my intention to cause any harm, nor did I ever do anything that was unlawful. If any of you feel that my behavior, even if innocent, was inappropriate, I apologize to those affected.”
Rabbi Rosenblatt (no relation to this reporter) noted the “anguish” that he and his family feel, and said that his “silence in the face of public accusations and attacks” should not be “construed as my agreeing with my accusers. Nothing could be further from the truth.” He explained that his attorney “counseled silence on all matters of substance.”
Those close to the case on both sides say they are hopeful the issue can be resolved soon.
In the meantime, letters both in support of the rabbi and calling for his resignation have been circulating in the community. Amidst the different opinions being aired, virtually everyone involved described the situation as sad and one that could have been avoided.
Meanwhile, an annual educational and mentoring program in the fall for Orthodox pulpit rabbis that Rabbi Rosenblatt addressed for more than a dozen years, most recently under the auspices of the Orthodox Union, has ended. Rabbi Steven Weil, senior managing director of the OU, said the program, known as the West Coast Rav, began in California when he was rabbi of a congregation in Los Angeles, and it expanded nationally. He and others noted that Rabbi Rosenblatt’s participation was highly popular with the group.
Rabbi Weil brought the program to the OU when he became chief executive in 2009. It was scheduled to take place in the fall of 2014, but did not. Some suggest that the program was canceled after reports about Rabbi Rosenblatt’s uncommon outreach practice with young men began to circulate in the community.
OU officials did not comment on that theory.
NEW YORK
‘This Is A Jewish Cause’
Growing number of Jewish groups back East Ramapo oversight bill; board says funding, not supervision, is needed
Amy Sara Clark
Staff Writer
Protests over budget cuts are frequent at East Ramapo school board meetings. Michael Datikash/JW
A bill to install a state monitor to oversee the charedi-majority school board in upstate East Ramapo is gaining increasing support among Jewish groups.
The bill, #A5355, gives the monitor the power to override school board and superintendent decisions. The bill follows the recommendation of state-appointed investigator Hank Greenberg, who found that the East Ramapo Central School District favored yeshivas and would benefit from a state-appointed monitor.
The district, located roughly 30 miles north of New York City in Rockland County, includes the black-hat and chasidic enclaves of Monsey, Spring Valley and New Square. The student population includes about 8,500 public school students, the majority of them black and Latino, and some 24,000 yeshiva students. Since 2005, when charedi members gained a majority on the board, the district has made severe cuts, including reducing kindergarten from full- to half-day, slashing more than 400 staff positions and cutting about half of the district’s extracurricular activities. Some of the cuts were restored this year, but most remain.
In his Nov. 17 report recommending a monitor, Greenberg also faulted the board with systematically violating state open meeting laws by holding the majority of its meetings in closed-door executive session, making derogatory statements about public school students, paying “excessive” legal fees and allowing its attorney to “berate parents in an unspeakable way.”
The Orthodox social action group Uri L’Tzedek has long supported the appointment of a state monitor for the district, and recently an increasing number of Jewish organizations have followed suit. The most recent is the Anti-Defamation League, which released a statement last week calling installation of a state monitor “a necessary first step” towards restoring “public confidence in the district” and reducing “tension between members of the community.”
At a news conference last Thursday in front of the West Side Jewish Center in Midtown Manhattan, Marc Stern, general counsel of the American Jewish Committee, said the bill was “balanced” — and sorely needed.
“There are all sorts of valid criticisms one can make any time that one supersedes the democratic institution,” Stern said. “In this case the democratic institution is broken. It needs to be fixed. Fixing it is not anti-Semitism even if it happens that the group being limited is Jewish.”
Representatives from the New York ACLU and the New York NAACP also attended the news conference.
Former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger called the bill “the most narrow, but appropriate, remedy that legislators can possibly come up with.”
Noting that she was speaking as an individual and not as president of the American Jewish World Service, which doesn’t take stands on domestic issues, Messinger said the bill was long overdue.
“There have been ongoing problems in East Ramapo for a long time,” Messinger said. “And the remedy is simply to put someone in charge of the district to be sure that fairness and equity are again the guidelines for distribution of scarce public dollars.”
Yehudah Weissmandl, president of East Ramapo’s school board, said the problem comes down to a lack of funding, not how it’s distributed. He said the board would accept oversight only if it comes with an increase in public dollars.
“The school board has been pushing for months at all levels of the government to come up with a compromise that will bring oversight and funding to the district,” he said. “It’ll put money in the district, it’ll put programs back, and it will provide oversight to put people at ease that the money is actually going where it is supposed to go.”
Oversight without an increase in funding will only increase tensions in the community, he said, noting that roughly 6,000 area residents have signed a petition opposing the bill.
“This community needs some calm,” he said. “That will not be accomplished by instituting a controversial piece of legislation that will upset an entire segment of the community.”
It is unclear whether the bill will pass before the legislative session ends on June 17. Assembly speaker Carl E. Heastie has not said how he will vote on the bill, but John Flanagan, majority leader of the Republican-controlled Senate, said he’s concerned the bill would set a precedent for state interference in school districts.
Both sides have been lobbying heavily in Albany.
“It’s not going to be an easy pass, but we’ll be up in Albany again next week and we’ve got hundreds of people calling each day,” said Oscar Cohen, education committee chairman of the Spring Valley NAACP. “It’s not going to be an easy road ahead, but it’s the right thing to do and people know it’s the right thing to do.”
Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represents the heavily Orthodox neighborhoods of Borough Park and Midwood, has been a vocal critic of the bill, calling it “extreme.”
“The issue that’s raised that kids in public schools are being deprived of certain educational benefits —it’s just not true,” he said. “They may be deprived of certain extracurricular benefits, but in terms of what they need to succeed in America, to succeed in New York, they’re getting it.”
Assemblyman Walter Mosley, who represents Fort Greene and parts of Crown Heights, recently withdrew support for the bill, saying it had “overtones of anti-Semitism.”
Hikind said the bill itself is not anti-Semitic; he said Rockland County has a broader problem of resentment against the recent influx of Orthodox Jews.
“The community really feels under attack, to be singled out for a monitor,” he said, adding, “I think people who are living there have a problem with Jews who look like the Jews from my community ... with beards, who dress differently. ... They don’t want these types of Jews in their community.”
Last week, the ADL expressed concern over a campaign video supporting Rockland County sheriff candidate Richard Vasquez that shows the current sheriff surrounded by charedi Jews while the narration claims the sheriff “has refused to enforce illegal housing laws.”
But supporters of the oversight bill say linking it with anti-Semitism is unfair.
Ari Hart, Uri L’Tzedek’s co-founder, said during the news conference that calling the bill anti-Semitic is “both ludicrous and offensive.” Ludicrous, he said, because thousands of Jews support the bill, which was written by Jewish Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, and offensive because it questions his motives and ascribes “a very dangerous and harmful term to the good and holy work being done by legislators to provide protection and oversight for a district that sorely needs it.”
“By being here and expressing our strong support for this, we are expressing our authentic Torah values.” He said. “This is a Jewish cause.” A number of other Jewish groups have gotten behind the bill including the Rockland Board of Rabbis, Bend the Arc, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, the Jewish Labor Committee, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and theReligious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
The bill, which was approved by the Assembly Education Committee last week, would install the monitor for at least five years. The monitor’s duties would include submitting a five-year strategic plan for the district, attending all board meetings and executive sessions, submitting annual reports and updates to the commissioner of education and supervising the district’s fiscal and operational management. New City Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski introduced the bill along with Jaffee.
The Education Committee’s passage of the bill comes the same week as The New York Times published and op-ed supporting the bill written by Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents and David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center. Citing the Greenberg report, Tisch and Sciarra wrote in the June 3 op-ed that East Ramapo public school students “are being denied their state constitutional right to a sound basic education by a board that has grossly mismanaged the district’s finances and educational programs.”
editor@jewishweek.org
OPINION
How To Prevent Future Rabbinic Scandals
Journalistic expose is a sign that all our internal mechanisms have malfunctioned.
Judy Klitsner
Special to The Jewish Week
Judy Klitsner
We have been here before: persistent rumors and reports of sexual misconduct by a rabbi over the course of decades culminate in ascandalous expose in a newspaper (The Jewish Week, “With Sauna ‘Secret’ Out, Riverdale Faces Tough Choice,” June 5).
We have been here before and this is why I believe that if we don’t make immediate changes we will be here again.
There are four types of public reaction to such disclosures in the press; all of them can be observed in the current responses to the recent New York Times article.
Reaction No. 1: “Nothing happened.” If the allegations fall short of outright sexual molestation or violence, the story is dismissed as overblown drama. Perhaps the rabbi was guilty of faulty judgment, but not of harmful intent, and in any case no real harm was done.
Reaction No. 2: The accusations do point to serious wrongdoing, but they are false. But why the smear campaign? This group will argue that for a variety of reasons, all whistleblowers are lying. Some are said to have a personal vendetta or feelings of envy toward the rabbi. Others may have chosen to bring him down because of ideological differences. Often the journalist or newspaper will be accused of promoting a nefarious agenda, such as anti-Semitism or anti-Orthodoxy.
Reaction No. 3: Disingenuous expressions of shock and dismay by individuals and organizations that were in a position to stop the behavior but didn’t. Members of this group tend to dismiss and deny persistent reports of wrongdoing — too often over the course of many years — and often deal callously with those who report the problem. When the story breaks, this group abruptly switches tactics, distancing themselves from the rabbi and accusing him of betraying them personally.
Reaction No. 4: Sincere expressions of shock and dismay by members of the public, who never imagined that their rabbi could be capable of misusing his authority to harm innocent and vulnerable congregants. Members of this group trusted not only the rabbi, but also the leaders and organizations that were in a position to protect them, but chose not to.
The tragic story of prolonged rabbinic misconduct followed by public disgrace is likely to repeat itself, because to this day we have failed to acknowledge the fundamental errors in the first three reactions.
The fundamental error in Reaction No. 1: Even if no overt sexual or violent molestation took place, a great deal of psychological and emotional damage could have been done, especially given the hierarchy in the situation and the fact that the hierarchical figure is deemed to bear God’s authority.
In my experience with victims of rabbinic misconduct, the lingering effects of psychological manipulation can be even more profound and more lasting than those that accompany a physical assault. It is simply unfair to these people to summarily cast aside their distress.
The fundamental error in reaction No. 2: We would have to embrace the sheer improbability that the same lie would be told by so many people, in this case by a series of young men over the course of 30 years. Offending rabbis tend to repeat themselves and a good journalistic expose reveals the unmistakable patterns. It is up to the reasonable reader to draw the likeliest conclusion, which is that those who report offenses are in fact telling the truth.
The fundamental error in reaction No. 3: This group holds on to numerous errors and in my view bears the greatest responsibility for the persistence of rabbinic misconduct. Although charged with promoting the public interest, members of this group often choose instead to refrain from any action, and at times to actively protect and promote spiritual leaders who are accused of wrongdoing. In the current case, the synagogue leadership, which apparently was aware of the problem for decades, has the most to answer for. In addition, the reader will note the failed responses of Yeshiva University and the Rabbinical Council of America, whose most decisive action was to discreetly protect YU’s rabbinic students, but to withhold their concerns — and any kind of accompanying warning — from the public.
But why do so many leaders and organizations fail to act effectively? Here are some of the fundamental errors in their thinking that I have observed over the years: a sense of collegiality by rabbis toward other rabbis; a sense of loyalty to the rabbi (often actively fostered by the rabbi); sympathy for the rabbi, who is known and visible, but none for the victims, who are unknown and unseen. There is often a fear of washing dirty linen in public (chillul Hashem) or a sense of cognitive dissonance, which makes it impossible to believe that a man of God could do such disturbing things.
Often, normative rules of conduct are suspended for charismatic leaders. (As one rabbi once commented to me about another: “What can we do? Genius often has a dark side.) Worst of all is a human cost-benefit analysis, in which the rabbi’s good works are deemed to carry greater weight than any harm he might do. In the current case, many will point to those who benefited from the rabbi’s attentions — as if their experiences somehow cancel out the anguish caused to so many others.
Ultimately, it is that innocent public — group No. 4 — that we need to hold in mind at all times. When we truly see them, we will at long last stop our flawed thinking and address the problem with honesty and courage. We will write a code of ethics to make clear to all what our standards are, and we will set up committees to handle complaints of offense in an atmosphere of utter safety, discretion and professionalism. We will have a panel of leaders who will investigate reports of wrongdoing and who will boldly act to put a stop to problematic behavior; when that is impossible, they will dismiss the problematic leader and issue a clear warning to the public.
Journalistic expose is effective, but ultimately it is a signal that all of our internal mechanisms have malfunctioned. It is time to thank the press for their valuable contributions and to let them know that we can take it from here.
Judy Klitsner is a senior lecturer at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, where she has been teaching Bible and biblical exegesis for more than two decades.
THEATER
Playing Another Larry David Misanthrope
Jason Alexander is back on the boards (25 years after his last Broadway role) in ‘Fish in the Dark.’
Lonnie Firestone
Special To The Jewish Week
In new Broadway role, Alexander draws on his classical acting training, but he knows that “the comic in me has to win.”
When he first auditioned for “Seinfeld,” Jason Alexander received a copy of the script and noticed a Woody Allen vibe in the character of George Costanza. So he put on a pair of glasses, a New York accent, and the affect of a hapless curmudgeon. He had no idea at the time that George was meant to be an alter ego for the show’s co-creator, Larry David.
The epiphany happened eight or nineepisodes later when Alexander was taping a scene that felt implausible; he just didn’t understand why George would behave a certain way. Alexander reportedly mentioned it to David, who said, “What do you mean? That happened to me and that’s exactly how I reacted.” With that response, the deeper identity of George emerged. Alexander began to watch David for clues to developing George’s mannerisms, and the link between the character and the creator was solidified in the collective minds of fans.
This month, that connection stays firmly in place as Alexander takes on the role of Norman Drexel in “Fish in the Dark,” the Broadway play written by and originally starring David that opened in March. Norman isn’t George exactly, but one could say he’s cut from the same cloth. David had reportedly written the play with Alexander in mind, but producer Scott Rudin persuaded David to take the starring role. Thanks to an overwhelming demand for tickets, the show’s limited run has been extended, with Alexander in the lead role from June 9 through the final performance on July 18. It’s a brief window, but a milestone nonetheless: this is the second David incarnation of Alexander’s career.
During David’s run in the play, audiences recognized a likeness to his HBO series, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” perhaps more than “Seinfeld.” For devoted Larry David fans — and they are numerous in New York — the pleasure of seeing a familiar brand of comedy in real time is immeasurable. Directed with an eye toward fan satisfaction, the play is a live experience in the hilariously awkward world of David. Alexander considered the offer to play Norman an “unmissable opportunity,” so much so that he was able to bow out of another theater production in which he was scheduled to perform.
In an interview with The Jewish Week, held backstage at Broadway’s Cort Theatre, Alexander was everything that George Costanza is not. Where George is hostile, Alexander is personable. Where George deflects, Alexander intuits. A veteran stage actor, Alexander admits that seasoned theatergoers may notice that the play lacks character arcs and “does not have a classic two-act structure. But Larry never cared about those things. Larry loves the funny and the uncomfortable and he writes to those moments.”
Most “Seinfeld” fans don’t know it, but Alexander had an award-winning Broadway career in the years before he was known for a television show. Born Jay Greenspan, he was raised in New Jersey and looked to Manhattan with “get me there” urgency. By his early 20s, he had already starred in Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musical, “Merrily We Roll Along,” a dream for any musical theater actor. Though the show was a commercial miss, it led to subsequent Broadway gigs including the 1989 production, “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” — a compilation musical of scenes and dances created by Jerome Robbins, the legendary director/choreographer of “Fiddler on the Roof” and “West Side Story.” Alexander, not a dancer but by then a trained actor and singer, was instrumental in shaping the production, performing multiple characters including Tevye. That year, Alexander — at the young age of 29 — won a Tony award and caught the attention of Rob Reiner whose production company, Castle Rock Entertainment, was developing a television show with standup comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
Almost exactly 25 years after taking his last curtain call bow, Alexander is back on the Broadway stage. But, while playing another David misanthrope may seem as effortless as slipping on comfortable shoes, Alexander’s training in the theater has conditioned him to approach each role with dedication and careful character study. “I cannot separate myself from the process I would use as an actor if this was ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night,’” he jokes with partial seriousness.
Alexander knows well that “the comic in me has to win” and yet the classically trained actor side of him is compelled by “what drives and motivates the characters, what physical and emotional conditions they’re dealing with. Even though Larry doesn’t necessarily carry the echo of scene A into scene B, I have to explore those tendrils to see what is there,” he says.
Beyond that, there’s another challenge: “to do no harm” to a character that David has already embodied.
To that end, Alexander has been at work with director Anna D. Shapiro (the Tony award winner for “August: Osage County”) and with David, who agreed to attend Alexander’s rehearsals in order to tinker with the script. David’s signature catchphrase, “Pret-ty pret-ty good,” for instance, may be replaced. “I could make an argument for or against it,” Alexander says. “It could be a fun moment for the audience to go, ‘I know that you know that I know.’ Or he could put in a George reference like, “Serenity Now!”
Similar to “Seinfeld,” the main objective in “Fish in the Dark” is, “funny trumps.” In one of the play’s storylines, Norman battles with his younger, wealthier brother (Ben Shenkman) over whose house their mother should — or shouldn’t — move into after the death of their father. For this narrative as with the rest of the play, the specific plot points are less essential than the punch lines. “When Larry puts pen to paper, his primary concern has been, ‘where are the pools of laughs,’” Alexander says. “Where can I create a situation where no one is comfortable and force them to tough it out.”
One principle that Alexander keeps in mind for comic roles is the importance of balancing authenticity and humor. “Larry taught me a valuable lesson during ‘Seinfeld,’” he says. “There was an episode where George thought he was having a heart attack. And I started performing the heart attack, and Larry said, ‘No good.’ And I said, ‘But that’s a heart attack.’ And he said, ‘I know. I believe you’re having a heart attack! That’s not funny.’” In other words, authentic must yield to laughable.
In David’s work, humor regularly operates from a defensive position. A David character usually feels that he’s been undermined and reacts in a misfiring way so that the person he ultimately harms is himself. And of course, he’s a bit of a schlemiel. In Norman’s case, that means holding the unenviable job of urinal salesman.
Since playing George, Alexander has worked continuously as an actor and director, though no single project has reached the success of “Seinfeld.” To be fair, it’s an inimitable benchmark. And the Jerry Seinfeld/Larry David orbit is so enduringly magnetic that Alexander has been pulled back into it repeatedly: there was the “Seinfeld” reunion on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and, more recently, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” in which Seinfeld and Alexander enacted a Jerry and George sketch. Alexander tries not to “over-intellectualize” why audiences still get excited about watching those old friends play off each other. “It just makes people extremely happy,” he says.
“Fish in the Dark” has made fans extremely happy too. Before the start of previews, the show broke records for highest advance ticket sales on Broadway. And though it opened to some very negative reviews, the show didn’t break a sweat, continuing to charm audiences and sell out performances through the end of David’s run. It’s probable that Alexander’s casting will maintain that winning streak.
As he molds a new character within a familiar comic form, Alexander recalls something Jerome Robbins taught him. For an actor perfecting a role, the work is never done. “Your opening night is not going to be your best performance,” he says. “Hopefully your closing night will be your best performance. That’s the goal: that it keeps getting better.” These days, the theater is where Alexander feels most gratified as an actor. Every performance is another opportunity to find a character’s identity.
editor@jewishweek.org
Enjoy the read,
Gary Rosenblatt
P.S. Be sure to check out our website any time for breaking news and exclusive videos, blogs, opinion columns, and more.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/
BETWEEN THE LINES
MUSINGS
The Fire This Time
Rabbi David Wolpe
Special To The Jewish Week
Rabbi David Wolpe
The Greek hero Prometheus steals fire from the gods, for which he is chained to a rock and tortured endlessly. In Jewish lore, on the other hand, Adam is afraid when the first night arrives and God instructs him on how to create a fire. When the blaze ignites, Adam says gratefully, “Blessed be the creator of fire.”
In one story, people steal and are punished; in the other, God gives us fire as a gift and a comfort.
One can observe the same dichotomy of views about technology and innovation today. To many, each technological advance seems as if it is stolen from the gods and we will be punished for it. But I believe Judaism’s view is wiser and deeper. Our minds and ability to manipulate the world are gifts of God. Fire and its offspring, technology, can spread out of control and do great damage. But with wisdom, both can give us warmth and food and light.
All progress has a cost and every blessing exacts its price. But like Adam in the Garden we are given a great gift; the chance to take a darkened world and make it shine.
Rabbi David Wolpe is spiritual leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter: @RabbiWolpe. His latest book, “David: The Divided Heart” (Yale University Press), has recently been published.
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Waikiki Beach in Oahu. Wikimedia Commons
TRAVEL
If 'Aloha' Is In Your Future
Hilary Danailova
Travel WriterIt’s June, which means weddings — and honeymoons. That gets me thinking about Hawaii, a perennial favorite for that post-nuptial getaway, as well as a classic family vacation spot.
Hawaii may well be the most exotic destination in America; it’s undoubtedly one of the more expensive. Planning early is essential, both for honeymooners and for families eyeing next winter’s holiday.
So if “aloha” is in your future, here are some tips to get you started. (Many of these tips come courtesy of my sister, a longtime Californian who — like so many Left Coasters — jets off to Maui the way we New Yorkers weekend in Florida.)
For starters: When to go? Devotees swear that Hawaii, with its subtle seasons, is fabulous any time of year. Late winter is the peak for tourism; in February, Hawaii’s famous humpback whales frolic and spout just offshore, so whale watching is a major draw.
Summer is hotter but still pleasant. Hawaiian microclimates can vary dramatically, and rain tends to concentrate in particular areas rather than in a single wet season. Tropical downpours are usually short and sweet, though — and as any Hawaii visitor quickly learns, rainbows are a magical side effect.
Next question: Where to go? If you’re short on time or traveling with kids, consider flying directly into one of the larger islands, which saves a lot of time and money. Those looking for the widest variety of resources and activities — Jewish and otherwise — should head to Oahu, home to two-thirds of the state’s population, its capital, Honolulu, and historic Pearl Harbor.
If you love to dress up and go out, head for Ibiza; nature, not nightlife, is the Hawaiian strong suit. Hawaii gets up early, a habit that owes as much to an agrarian past as to a desire to sync with the mainland.
Oahu (home to the fabled Waikiki Beach district) and Maui (with abundant resort options) are the best bets for after-dark action. Both islands are popular precisely because they offer plenty to do — shopping, dining and culture, especially on Oahu — along with spectacular beaches and natural beauty.
Across the islands, resorts fill the nightlife gap, with most larger hotels offering evening entertainment. This can range from low-key Hawaiian music and mai tais to hula shows and all-out luaus — cultural spectacles featuring everything from torch runners on the beach to smorgasbords of local fare.
The Big Island, also called Hawai’i, is great for kosher eaters and volcano lovers. It is home to Chabad of Hawaii, which sells souvenir Hawaiian-style kippot, hosts weekly Shabbat dinners, and coordinates kosher meals for vacationers. As the only island to host an active volcano, Hawai’i is also the place to explore lava flows and craters at Volcanoes National Park.
With a larger budget and a sense of adventure, you can escape to two harder-to-reach spots: Lanai, a quaint isle of 3,000 inhabitants recently bought by the Oracle executive Larry Ellison, and the “Garden Island” of Kauai, a natural paradise largely untouched by development (though it does have a small Jewish congregation). These destinations are best for people who want to explore craters by helicopter, snorkel in secluded coves and go off-road through jungles and surf in a setting lost in time.
Anywhere in Hawaii, you’ll want to rent a car. Wheels are essential for exploring the islands properly, and certain scenic routes — along ocean cliffs or through waterfall-dotted rainforests — are destinations in their own right.
Pack carefully. Hawaii has particularly stringent entry requirements regarding the importation of plants, animals and foodstuffs, and going through controls can feel akin to entering a foreign country. With a unique, fragile ecosystem to protect, Hawaiian officials have tightened inspections for those entering the islands.
Now for the classic Jewish vacation question: How’s the food? The farm-to-table movement has lately put a sophisticated twist on Hawaiian dining, with upscale new eateries — especially in Honolulu — that exploit the local bounty. Island cuisine still relies on Asian staples like fresh fish, white rice, sweet flavors, and fruits: mango, pineapple and papaya. Vegetarians do better than ever in a region long given to meat-heavy dishes (a luau is essentially a pig roast); there’s even a Vegetarian Society of Hawaii, with a website full of resources and ideas for the herbivore visitor.
Kosher vacationers also have more options than ever, mostly on Maui, the Big Island and Oahu. Chabad of Hawaii organizes a kosher meal-delivery service for those staying locally, and coordinates with several hotels throughout the islands; check the website for more information.
Chabad can also help direct Oahu vacationers to local kosher options — including, on a recent visit, kosher meal providers and an online Israeli kosher supermarket with delivery service for many staples.
editor@jewishweek.org
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Featured on NYBLUEPRINT
'The Fat Jew' Has A Phat New Book
Talia Lakrtiz
Editorial InternInstagram phenomenon, Josh Ostrovsky, reveals new book cover
Talia Lakrtiz | Editorial Intern | Books, Comedy
Josh Ostrovsky is just a nice Jewish boy with an affinity for perfectly captioned memes and perpendicular ponytails. At least, that’s what his 4.4 million Instagram followers will tell you. Known as “The Fat Jew” across social media platforms, Ostrovksy’s posts run the gamut from adorable animals in costume to profanity-filled candid photos from all corners of the Internet.
Recently, a new kind of image graced The Fat Jew’s Instagram feed: the cover of his upcoming book.
“Money, Pizza, Respect,” which hits bookstores everywhere on October 27, laughs at itself from the inside out. The tightly framed greyscale headshot on the cover parodies Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, featuring Ostrovsky with a pensive thumb to his chin offset by his self-proclaimed “Jew unicorn” ponytail and scraggly beard.
The content within its pages promises to be just as facetious. This is, after all,coming from the guy who conducted SoulCycle classes for New York City’s homeless on CitiBikes and watched the Super Bowl laying nude in a giant vat of chili. Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, describes Ostrovsky’s debut book as “one ludicrous story from his life after another,” as well as “the type of absurd photos and captions that have catapulted Josh to insta-fame.”
In the caption of the cover reveal on Instagram, “The Fat Jew” promised that if the book is a raging success, he will legally change his name to “New York Times Bestseller.”
“THAT ALONE SHOULD BE ENOUGH,” he wrote, “NOT TO MENTION THAT THE BOOK CONTAINS MAJOR LOLS.”
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TOP STORIES:NEW YORK
Israel Prize Winner Offers New Take On Stop-And-Frisk
As city murder rate spikes, top criminologist tweaks his ‘hot spots policing’ approach.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
David Weisburd: His innovative strategy grew out of research on Brooklyn streets. Via youtube.com
During the year that criminologist David Weisburd walked the beat with New York City cops in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace back in 1985, he noticed something peculiar: crime was concentrated in just a few blocks.
Although each police officer had 20 square blocks to patrol, “they spent all of their time on one or two blocks,” he recalled. “I called that our ‘small world of crime,’ and if they [the police] spent time there, things got better. That contradicted the common wisdom at the time that the police could not prevent crime.”
Weisburd credits the work he did in Brooklyn with setting the stage for his groundbreaking work on “hot spots policing” — concentrating police in high-crime areas to actually deter crime. In fact, one study found that deploying more offices in high crime areas resulted in a 20 percent drop in crime, and more than 20 subsequent studies supported those findings.
Hot spots policing has now been embraced in cities around the world and earned Weisburd many prestigious awards, including the Stockholm Prize (considered criminology’s Nobel Prize); just last month he received Israel’s highest recognition, the Israel Prize in Social Work and Criminological Research.
Now, with a surprising spike in murders being recorded in cities across the country — including a 19.5 percent increase in New York through May of this year compared to a year ago — Weisburd is working on a revision of hot spots policing, one that seeks to convey a friendlier approach.
“He wants to do it in a way that is less offensive,” said Anthony Braga, a professor of evidence-based criminology at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University and a senior research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School who has worked with Weisburd over the years.
“It matters greatly the way people feel about police interaction, regardless of whether they get arrested or ticketed,” he said. “If they believe the officer acted fairly and reasonably, it diminishes their negative feeling about their contact with the police — they feel they are not targeted indiscriminately.”
Weisburd, 60, was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Great Neck, L.I. He made aliyah 23 years ago and is now a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Seven years ago he also accepted a tenured appointment at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
In bestowing the Israel Prize, the prize committee called Weisburd “one of the most prominent researchers in the field of criminology in the world and among the senior criminologists in Israel. … [His work] helped streamline and improve the quality of life of public citizens. As such, his studies suggest numerous explanations for the formation of crime areas constituting a base for targeted intervention for preventing and dealing with crime.”
Weisburd said he does not know the reason for the recent spike in violent crime here and some other cities. (Some here suggest it stems from tensions between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD over stop-and-frisk — the mayor believes it wrongly targets minorities — and from the “Black Lives Matter” movement, both of which, the thinking goes, have resulted in a kind of police work slowdown.) But Weisburd said his research has found that the tactic of stop-and-frisk — until recently a main crime-fighting tactic of the NYPD — is a deterrent to crime.
One of his recently completed studies now awaiting publication — a three-year project done as part of a study group at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan and supported by the Open Society Foundations — looked into the deterrent value of the city’s stop-and-frisk program. Preeti Chauhan, a research assistant on the project, said Weisburd focused on the “street segment level of crime” as opposed to crime on the precinct level.
It used stop-and-frisk data from the New York City Police Department — such things as the time and location of such stops — and the impact such searches had on crime on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.
“This was the most methodologically sophisticated study to determine the impact on crime,” she said.
Weisburd said earlier studies he conducted in five cities — New York (which began hot spots policing under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the 1990s), Cincinnati, Sacramento, Seattle and Tel Aviv — found that 50 percent of the crime came from about 5 percent of the streets, and that about 1 percent of the streets produced 25 percent of the crime.
In the study here awaiting publication, Weisburd found that stop-and-frisk was a “hot spots policing strategy.”
He said his work also debunked the belief that crime would move elsewhere if police focused on hot spots. Weisburd said he found that “not only did crime not move around the corner, but around the corner it got better.”
But the chairman of John Jay’s Department of Law and Police Science, Professor Maki Haberfeld, said she is suspicious about such a claim.
“I say that if you saturate an area with police for a period of time, you don’t eliminate crime, you just displace it,” she said. “I ask how many prostitutes who are moved from a particular corner go and get a legitimate job? How many drug dealerswho are moved from their spot go out and get a 9-to-5 job? Sometimes they travel a distance to relocate. It’s hard to measure.”
“People want to believe we are succeeding in the war against crime,” Haberfeld added. “But burglaries, street crime — everything is up in a significant way. Talk to any cop on the street.”
But Braga disagreed, saying his review of more than 20 studies found that when “police concentrate their resources in an area, crime can be reduced. … Even though New York is going through a little uptick [in shootings], crime is down throughout the U.S. — and this [hot spot] strategy is responsible for a piece of that downturn.”
The question now is how best to concentrate officers in a high crime area, Braga said, adding that some of the work he did with Weisburd “suggests that community problem solving that changes the reasons why an area is hot might be better [than simply making arrests].”
Weisburd said his work has convinced him that stop-and-frisk should not be used as a general strategy but “only in very specific situations. And it should be used only when it is legal to do so, such as when it’s believed a suspicious person may have committed a crime or there is a gun dropping out of a man’s pants. We want people stopped when it is believed a potentially serious crime is being committed. …”
His proposal for a more just approach to policing — for which he is seeking funding from the National Institute of Justice — involves identifying 40 to 50 hot spots in each of three American cities whose police departments have already agreed to participate (South Bend, Ind.; Milwaukee, Wis., and Wilmington, Del.). One group of police officers would be asked to do traditional hot spots policing. A second group would be given training in how to make the public feel it is treated fairly. Specially trained supervisors would monitor the work of both groups.
“The second group of officers, instead of just saying to someone, ‘Let me look in your pockets,’ would stop the person and say, ‘There have been a lot of robberies and other problems on this street and we are stopping everyone for a few months to make sure they are not carrying a weapon,’” Weisburd explained.
“In that way the police are saying that people have been getting hurt over here — which justifies the stop — and that they are stopping everyone, not just singling you out. And if the officer finds contraband, he would say, ‘I’m going to arrest you, but do you have something to add to my report?’ In that way, the officer lets him tell his side of the story. That won’t stop the arrest, but it makes people feel that what is happening is reasonable. The theory is that if people are happy with the police, they will cooperate with them more.”
Haberfeld said she objects to the proposal because it would subject everyone to police intervention.
“That is not a pleasant experience,” she explained. “There is no need for it. … Stop-and-frisk is a legitimate police tool. It should be used based on the discretion of the police officer.”
Weisburd replied that his proposal is a “problematic strategy used broadly; it is appropriate, however, in limited use.”
stewart@jewishweek.org
Read More NEW YORK
A World Of Yiddish Converges On N.Y.
Weeklong Kulturfest features theater companies from Poland, Romania, Israel and more.
Ted Merwin
Special To The Jewish Week
“Bonjour Monsieur Chagall,” from Poland. Courtesy of Ester Rokhl and Ida Kaminska Jewish Theatre
On the Lower East Side at the turn of the 20th century, the Yiddish stage was such a staple of Jewish life that audiences were said to consume “broyt mit teater” — bread slathered with theater. Next week, the only Yiddish theater company that still survives from that era, the Folksbiene (now called the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene) serves up Kulturfest, a multi-course offering of Yiddish music, theater, film and dance, including Yiddish stage companies from around the world.
Among Kulturfest’s theatrical offerings are Sholom Aleichem’s “Wandering Stars,” presented by the State Jewish Theatre of Romania; “The Kishka Monologues,” a culinary adventure staged by Yiddishshpiel-the Yiddish Theatre of Israel; “Ek Velt,” produced by Zaftik, a Yiddish troupe from Australia; Bonjour Monsieur Chagall,” a musical presented by the Kaminska Jewish Theatre of Warsaw, Poland; “My First Sony,” featuring Israeli actor Roy Horovitz; and “The Mar Vista,” a dance/theater work by performance artist Yehuda Hyman.
In addition, Polish-born Lea Koenig-Stolper, dubbed the First Lady of Israeli Theater, will perform an evening of songs and stories; and Ben Gonshor’s play about Paul Robeson, “When Blood Ran Red,” the winner of the Folksbiene’s first annual Yiddish playwriting contest, will have a staged reading. Most of these shows will take place at the Abrons Cultural Center (Henry Street Settlement), the site of the Folksbiene’s first performance in 1915, at a time when there were 15 Yiddish theaters in the city.
Brynna Wasserman, the executive director of the Folksbiene, organized two international festivals when she headed the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre in Montreal — festivals that included many of the same theatrical troupes. But Kulturfest is her most ambitious festival to date, with more than 30 countries represented and a day-long symposium, organized by NYU’s Skirball Department of Hebrew at Judaic Studies, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which is the Folksbiene’s new home.
In an interview, Wasserman told The Jewish Week that the overarching purpose of the festival is to look back on the last century of Yiddish theater in New York and prepare for the next one. “We seek to relate Jewish influence to the culture of the city, country and world,” she said.
Horovitz’s one-man show, “My First Sony,” is based on a bestselling novel by the Israeli writer Benny Barbash. Directed by Dafna Widenfeld-Nagler, the play, which Horovitz has performed in Hebrew since 1996, is about the unraveling of a dysfunctional Israeli family, which an overweight 11-year-old boy, Yotam (played by Horovitz), obsessively documents with his tape recorder.
“My First Sony,” which has toured Israel and been performed in Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Europe (as well at universities ranging from Harvard and Yale to Cairo) is unusual in that much of the “dialogue” is provided by recorded actors. When it ran in 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa, critic Gayle Edmunds of the City Press called it a play about “how children process information and read situations, sometimes too literally, sometimes with piercingly accurate analysis.”
Those looking for a splashy musical may gravitate to “Bonjour Monsieur Chagall” from Poland, directed by David Szurmiej. The play, which will be performed this year in Warsaw as part of the 12th Annual Isaac Bashevis Singer Festival, was developed by Szurmiej’s father, Szymon, who founded the Kaminska Jewish Theatre and who once met Marc Chagall during a visit to Paris. The production brings the painter’s vibrant artworks to life, using them as the springboard for extravagant, nostalgic costumes, sets, music and movement. It premiered in Warsaw in the mid-1970s and ran there for a decade.
Szurmiej told The Jewish Week that Singer’s works “could have been painted by Chagall,” referring to the “nonexistent but colorful world” that the painter created. Chagall, he pointed out, “took Jewish life out of the shtetl and made it universal.” At a time when so many Polish non-Jews are discovering their Jewish roots, Szurmiej said (noting that before the Second World War, the overall population of Warsaw was almost one-third Jewish), Yiddish theater is occupying an increasingly important niche in his native country.
But not all the Kulturfest productions come from abroad. One home-grown production is Hyman’s “The Mar Vista,” which was developed at the 14th Street Y’s LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture. Hyman was last seen in “The Mad 7,” a dance piece based on the writing of Reb Nachman of Bratslav. He turns autobiographical in “The Mar Vista,” which takes its name from the seaside neighborhood in West Los Angeles where he grew up as the son of a Turkish Jewish mother (Amanda Schussel), who was a dancer, and a Polish Jewish father (Ron Kagan), who came from a family of tailors.
Hyman said that one of the challenges in creating the piece, which incorporates movement, gesture, spoken word and ritual, was “grappling with the inconsistencies in the lives of our parents, and with their sexuality.” His father “lost everyone in the Holocaust — he never saw his parents and siblings again.” His mother “needed to be by the sea,” as an integral part of her exotic personality. Hyman, who has moved back and forth repeatedly between New York and Los Angeles throughout his adult life, feels a similar need to “be by the water to connect with my ancestors,” he noted.
Whether as a form of ancestor worship, cultural exploration or rollicking entertainment, Kulturfest promises to satisfy many different agendas for performers and attendees alike. Indeed, with such a plethora of theatrical offerings on tap, the Folksbiene hopes to attract large numbers of both Jews and non-Jews to the productions. “We have the fefer [pepper] and zaltz [salt],” Wasserman concluded. “We have all the ingredients. Now what we need are the audiences.”
Kulturfest runs from June 14-21 at various venues in Manhattan. (The theatrical offerings are co-sponsored by UJA-Federation of New York and Capital One Bank.) For tickets (most of which are $18) and information, call OvationTix at (866) 811-4111 or visit kulturfestnyc.org.
Read More NEW YORK
Mandolin Strings Attached To A Long-Gone Polish Shtetl
George Robinson
Special To The Jewish Week
The Ger Mandolin Orchestra. Via germandolin.com
It started with a photograph.
It was a faded photograph of a very serious-looking group of young men in suits and ties, holding musical instruments. Avner Yonai immediately recognized his maternal grandfather and two granduncles among the musicians, and a plan took seed in his mind.
It is a long way from the Polish town of Gora Kalwaria, known as Ger in Yiddish, to the stage of the Skirball Centre at NYU, but Yonai’s idea has made the trip as the Ger Mandolin Orchestra. An ensemble of 11 of the best mandolinists in the world, they are a living, breathing — and swinging — memorial to Yonai’s family and an all-but-forgotten musical tradition. And the group is one of the musical highlights of next week’s sprawling and eclectic Kulturfest event.
Yonai, an Israeli-American businessman based in the Bay Area, saw the photo in the Yizkor book of Ger when visiting with family members in 2009. His grandfather had been a staunch Zionist and made aliyah in 1935, but the rest of his family was among the 3,500 Jews, half the town’s population, who were killed when the Nazis seized the town.
“My grandfather passed away in 1996,” Yonai says. “He never talked about life in Poland. When I saw the movie [based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel] ‘Everything Is Illuminated’ in 2007, I really connected with it, with the idea of going back to Europe to explore my family’s history. When the hero visits the site of a shtetl in Ukraine in the film, there’s a monument to the Jews who were murdered on March 18, 1942; I was born on March 18, 1971, so I took it for a sign. Two weeks later I went to Poland — no preparation, no research, I only knew the name of the town.”
The result was a warm and burgeoning relationship between Yonai’s family and the current residents of Gora Kalwaria, and a stone monument to the town’s victims of the Shoah. Yonai wasn’t satisfied. He wanted a living monument, but until he saw the photo he didn’t know what form it would take.
Now he knew and when he flew back to San Francisco, he contacted Mike Marshall, one of the world’s great string players, who has worked with an amazing range of musicians, including David Grisman, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, Joshua Bell, Darol Anger, Hamilton de Holanda, Hermeto Pascoal, Mark O’Connor and Stephane Grappelli.
“Marshall liked the idea and he knows a lot of musicians,” Yonai says with characteristic understatement.
Essentially, Marshall just spun his Rolodex and plucked a who’s who of mandolin players.
One of the musicians he called was Eric Stein, director of the Ashkenazi Foundation in Toronto, and founder and leader of the klezmer group Beyond the Pale.
“He said to me, ‘We’re putting together this interesting little ensemble and you were recommended to me, I understand that you do a lot of arranging work with Jewish music,’” Stein recalls. “Mike has been a huge influence on me. He was coming into the project without much experience in Jewish music and klezmer, but he brought together great musicians who could adapt to new material.”
But what material? As both Yonai and Stein note, there was no documentation of the repertoire of the original Ger ensemble.
“There are hundreds of photos as historical evidence of mandolin orchestras,” Stein says, “That was a context for amateurs to make music. They tended to be community groups with a mixture of professional and non-professional musicians. So there was less rigidity in terms of choices of repertoire.”
Jeff Warschauer, another member of the group, explains, “The mandolin orchestras here and in Europe [in the early 20th century] are a clear case of the flowering of secular Jewish culture, particularly in groups like the Workmen’s Circle, and organizations centered around unions. The secular organizations took the place of going to shul. The mandolin orchestras here played Italian music, classical, Jewish stuff.”
The make-up of the Ger Mandolin Orchestra reflects that eclecticism. Simply put, it’s a gathering of virtuosos of an under-appreciated instrument.
And it’s better than just a photograph.
The Ger Mandolin Ensemble will be performing Thursday, June 18, at the Skirball Centre, NYU (566 LaGuardia Pl.) at 8 p.m.
Read More
THEATER
Playing Another Larry David Misanthrope
Jason Alexander is back on the boards (25 years after his last Broadway role) in ‘Fish in the Dark.’
06/09/2015
Lonnie Firestone
Special To The Jewish Week
In new Broadway role, Alexander draws on his classical acting training, but he knows that “the comic in me has to win.”
When he first auditioned for “Seinfeld,” Jason Alexander received a copy of the script and noticed a Woody Allen vibe in the character of George Costanza. So he put on a pair of glasses, a New York accent, and the affect of a hapless curmudgeon. He had no idea at the time that George was meant to be an alter ego for the show’s co-creator, Larry David.
The epiphany happened eight or nineepisodes later when Alexander was taping a scene that felt implausible; he just didn’t understand why George would behave a certain way. Alexander reportedly mentioned it to David, who said, “What do you mean? That happened to me and that’s exactly how I reacted.” With that response, the deeper identity of George emerged. Alexander began to watch David for clues to developing George’s mannerisms, and the link between the character and the creator was solidified in the collective minds of fans.
This month, that connection stays firmly in place as Alexander takes on the role of Norman Drexel in “Fish in the Dark,” the Broadway play written by and originally starring David that opened in March. Norman isn’t George exactly, but one could say he’s cut from the same cloth. David had reportedly written the play with Alexander in mind, but producer Scott Rudin persuaded David to take the starring role. Thanks to an overwhelming demand for tickets, the show’s limited run has been extended, with Alexander in the lead role from June 9 through the final performance on July 18. It’s a brief window, but a milestone nonetheless: this is the second David incarnation of Alexander’s career.
During David’s run in the play, audiences recognized a likeness to his HBO series, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” perhaps more than “Seinfeld.” For devoted Larry David fans — and they are numerous in New York — the pleasure of seeing a familiar brand of comedy in real time is immeasurable. Directed with an eye toward fan satisfaction, the play is a live experience in the hilariously awkward world of David. Alexander considered the offer to play Norman an “unmissable opportunity,” so much so that he was able to bow out of another theater production in which he was scheduled to perform.
In an interview with The Jewish Week, held backstage at Broadway’s Cort Theatre, Alexander was everything that George Costanza is not. Where George is hostile, Alexander is personable. Where George deflects, Alexander intuits. A veteran stage actor, Alexander admits that seasoned theatergoers may notice that the play lacks character arcs and “does not have a classic two-act structure. But Larry never cared about those things. Larry loves the funny and the uncomfortable and he writes to those moments.”
Most “Seinfeld” fans don’t know it, but Alexander had an award-winning Broadway career in the years before he was known for a television show. Born Jay Greenspan, he was raised in New Jersey and looked to Manhattan with “get me there” urgency. By his early 20s, he had already starred in Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musical, “Merrily We Roll Along,” a dream for any musical theater actor. Though the show was a commercial miss, it led to subsequent Broadway gigs including the 1989 production, “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” — a compilation musical of scenes and dances created by Jerome Robbins, the legendary director/choreographer of “Fiddler on the Roof” and “West Side Story.” Alexander, not a dancer but by then a trained actor and singer, was instrumental in shaping the production, performing multiple characters including Tevye. That year, Alexander — at the young age of 29 — won a Tony award and caught the attention of Rob Reiner whose production company, Castle Rock Entertainment, was developing a television show with standup comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
Almost exactly 25 years after taking his last curtain call bow, Alexander is back on the Broadway stage. But, while playing another David misanthrope may seem as effortless as slipping on comfortable shoes, Alexander’s training in the theater has conditioned him to approach each role with dedication and careful character study. “I cannot separate myself from the process I would use as an actor if this was ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night,’” he jokes with partial seriousness.
Alexander knows well that “the comic in me has to win” and yet the classically trained actor side of him is compelled by “what drives and motivates the characters, what physical and emotional conditions they’re dealing with. Even though Larry doesn’t necessarily carry the echo of scene A into scene B, I have to explore those tendrils to see what is there,” he says.
Beyond that, there’s another challenge: “to do no harm” to a character that David has already embodied.
To that end, Alexander has been at work with director Anna D. Shapiro (the Tony award winner for “August: Osage County”) and with David, who agreed to attend Alexander’s rehearsals in order to tinker with the script. David’s signature catchphrase, “Pret-ty pret-ty good,” for instance, may be replaced. “I could make an argument for or against it,” Alexander says. “It could be a fun moment for the audience to go, ‘I know that you know that I know.’ Or he could put in a George reference like, “Serenity Now!”
Similar to “Seinfeld,” the main objective in “Fish in the Dark” is, “funny trumps.” In one of the play’s storylines, Norman battles with his younger, wealthier brother (Ben Shenkman) over whose house their mother should — or shouldn’t — move into after the death of their father. For this narrative as with the rest of the play, the specific plot points are less essential than the punch lines. “When Larry puts pen to paper, his primary concern has been, ‘where are the pools of laughs,’” Alexander says. “Where can I create a situation where no one is comfortable and force them to tough it out.”
One principle that Alexander keeps in mind for comic roles is the importance of balancing authenticity and humor. “Larry taught me a valuable lesson during ‘Seinfeld,’” he says. “There was an episode where George thought he was having a heart attack. And I started performing the heart attack, and Larry said, ‘No good.’ And I said, ‘But that’s a heart attack.’ And he said, ‘I know. I believe you’re having a heart attack! That’s not funny.’” In other words, authentic must yield to laughable.
In David’s work, humor regularly operates from a defensive position. A David character usually feels that he’s been undermined and reacts in a misfiring way so that the person he ultimately harms is himself. And of course, he’s a bit of a schlemiel. In Norman’s case, that means holding the unenviable job of urinal salesman.
Since playing George, Alexander has worked continuously as an actor and director, though no single project has reached the success of “Seinfeld.” To be fair, it’s an inimitable benchmark. And the Jerry Seinfeld/Larry David orbit is so enduringly magnetic that Alexander has been pulled back into it repeatedly: there was the “Seinfeld” reunion on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and, more recently, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” in which Seinfeld and Alexander enacted a Jerry and George sketch. Alexander tries not to “over-intellectualize” why audiences still get excited about watching those old friends play off each other. “It just makes people extremely happy,” he says.
“Fish in the Dark” has made fans extremely happy too. Before the start of previews, the show broke records for highest advance ticket sales on Broadway. And though it opened to some very negative reviews, the show didn’t break a sweat, continuing to charm audiences and sell out performances through the end of David’s run. It’s probable that Alexander’s casting will maintain that winning streak.
As he molds a new character within a familiar comic form, Alexander recalls something Jerome Robbins taught him. For an actor perfecting a role, the work is never done. “Your opening night is not going to be your best performance,” he says. “Hopefully your closing night will be your best performance. That’s the goal: that it keeps getting better.” These days, the theater is where Alexander feels most gratified as an actor. Every performance is another opportunity to find a character’s identity.
editor@jewishweek.org
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The Jewish Week
Riverdale ‘Sauna’ Rabbi May Be Leaving His Pulpit
Board votes to seek a settlement with Jonathan Rosenblatt and have him step down.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor and Publisher
Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt
In the wake of a controversy over Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt’s practice of inviting boys and young men to shower and share the sauna with him, it appears that his three-decade tenure at the Riverdale Jewish Center may be coming to an end, The Jewish Week has learned.
On Monday night, the board of directors voted 34-8 to seek a financial settlement with the rabbi and for him to step down, according to those involved in the issue.
The board’s discussion did not focus on the merits or harm involved in the rabbi’s longstanding outreach effort to males by playing squash or racquetball with them before showering and shmoozing in the sauna, sources said. Rather, its members appeared to be swayed by the argument that as a result of the controversy, set off by a May 30 New York Times article on the rabbi’s “unusual” behavior, Rabbi Rosenblatt would no longer be able to fulfill his rabbinic duties at the 700-member Modern Orthodox synagogue he leads.
Board members also were made aware that should the synagogue be sued civilly or criminally by an individual alleging abuse, they could be held financially accountable for damages awarded since they have fiduciary responsibility, and the rabbi’s practice was long known within the synagogue.
Speaking on behalf of Rabbi Rosenblatt, his attorney, Ben Brafman, told The Jewish Week on Tuesday: “We are working diligently and responsibly to address the issues that have been raised since the recent articles about Rabbi Rosenblatt have been published. I remind you, however, that Rabbi Rosenblatt has not been charged with any criminal offense.
“In my judgment,” he added, “he will never be charged. Accordingly, I caution everyone involved to take a deep breath so that this matter can be resolved fairly and with the dignity Rabbi Rosenblatt has earned in three decades of service to the community.”
The rabbi, whose six-month sabbatical is coming to an end soon, sent a letter to his congregants last week that expressed deep “regret if my conduct at any time inadvertently offended anyone during my many years of service.
“I want to assure you, however,” he wrote, “that it was never my intention to cause any harm, nor did I ever do anything that was unlawful. If any of you feel that my behavior, even if innocent, was inappropriate, I apologize to those affected.”
Rabbi Rosenblatt (no relation to this reporter) noted the “anguish” that he and his family feel, and said that his “silence in the face of public accusations and attacks” should not be “construed as my agreeing with my accusers. Nothing could be further from the truth.” He explained that his attorney “counseled silence on all matters of substance.”
Those close to the case on both sides say they are hopeful the issue can be resolved soon.
In the meantime, letters both in support of the rabbi and calling for his resignation have been circulating in the community. Amidst the different opinions being aired, virtually everyone involved described the situation as sad and one that could have been avoided.
Meanwhile, an annual educational and mentoring program in the fall for Orthodox pulpit rabbis that Rabbi Rosenblatt addressed for more than a dozen years, most recently under the auspices of the Orthodox Union, has ended. Rabbi Steven Weil, senior managing director of the OU, said the program, known as the West Coast Rav, began in California when he was rabbi of a congregation in Los Angeles, and it expanded nationally. He and others noted that Rabbi Rosenblatt’s participation was highly popular with the group.
Rabbi Weil brought the program to the OU when he became chief executive in 2009. It was scheduled to take place in the fall of 2014, but did not. Some suggest that the program was canceled after reports about Rabbi Rosenblatt’s uncommon outreach practice with young men began to circulate in the community.
OU officials did not comment on that theory.
NEW YORK
‘This Is A Jewish Cause’
Growing number of Jewish groups back East Ramapo oversight bill; board says funding, not supervision, is needed
Amy Sara Clark
Staff Writer
Protests over budget cuts are frequent at East Ramapo school board meetings. Michael Datikash/JW
A bill to install a state monitor to oversee the charedi-majority school board in upstate East Ramapo is gaining increasing support among Jewish groups.
The bill, #A5355, gives the monitor the power to override school board and superintendent decisions. The bill follows the recommendation of state-appointed investigator Hank Greenberg, who found that the East Ramapo Central School District favored yeshivas and would benefit from a state-appointed monitor.
The district, located roughly 30 miles north of New York City in Rockland County, includes the black-hat and chasidic enclaves of Monsey, Spring Valley and New Square. The student population includes about 8,500 public school students, the majority of them black and Latino, and some 24,000 yeshiva students. Since 2005, when charedi members gained a majority on the board, the district has made severe cuts, including reducing kindergarten from full- to half-day, slashing more than 400 staff positions and cutting about half of the district’s extracurricular activities. Some of the cuts were restored this year, but most remain.
In his Nov. 17 report recommending a monitor, Greenberg also faulted the board with systematically violating state open meeting laws by holding the majority of its meetings in closed-door executive session, making derogatory statements about public school students, paying “excessive” legal fees and allowing its attorney to “berate parents in an unspeakable way.”
The Orthodox social action group Uri L’Tzedek has long supported the appointment of a state monitor for the district, and recently an increasing number of Jewish organizations have followed suit. The most recent is the Anti-Defamation League, which released a statement last week calling installation of a state monitor “a necessary first step” towards restoring “public confidence in the district” and reducing “tension between members of the community.”
At a news conference last Thursday in front of the West Side Jewish Center in Midtown Manhattan, Marc Stern, general counsel of the American Jewish Committee, said the bill was “balanced” — and sorely needed.
“There are all sorts of valid criticisms one can make any time that one supersedes the democratic institution,” Stern said. “In this case the democratic institution is broken. It needs to be fixed. Fixing it is not anti-Semitism even if it happens that the group being limited is Jewish.”
Representatives from the New York ACLU and the New York NAACP also attended the news conference.
Former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger called the bill “the most narrow, but appropriate, remedy that legislators can possibly come up with.”
Noting that she was speaking as an individual and not as president of the American Jewish World Service, which doesn’t take stands on domestic issues, Messinger said the bill was long overdue.
“There have been ongoing problems in East Ramapo for a long time,” Messinger said. “And the remedy is simply to put someone in charge of the district to be sure that fairness and equity are again the guidelines for distribution of scarce public dollars.”
Yehudah Weissmandl, president of East Ramapo’s school board, said the problem comes down to a lack of funding, not how it’s distributed. He said the board would accept oversight only if it comes with an increase in public dollars.
“The school board has been pushing for months at all levels of the government to come up with a compromise that will bring oversight and funding to the district,” he said. “It’ll put money in the district, it’ll put programs back, and it will provide oversight to put people at ease that the money is actually going where it is supposed to go.”
Oversight without an increase in funding will only increase tensions in the community, he said, noting that roughly 6,000 area residents have signed a petition opposing the bill.
“This community needs some calm,” he said. “That will not be accomplished by instituting a controversial piece of legislation that will upset an entire segment of the community.”
It is unclear whether the bill will pass before the legislative session ends on June 17. Assembly speaker Carl E. Heastie has not said how he will vote on the bill, but John Flanagan, majority leader of the Republican-controlled Senate, said he’s concerned the bill would set a precedent for state interference in school districts.
Both sides have been lobbying heavily in Albany.
“It’s not going to be an easy pass, but we’ll be up in Albany again next week and we’ve got hundreds of people calling each day,” said Oscar Cohen, education committee chairman of the Spring Valley NAACP. “It’s not going to be an easy road ahead, but it’s the right thing to do and people know it’s the right thing to do.”
Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represents the heavily Orthodox neighborhoods of Borough Park and Midwood, has been a vocal critic of the bill, calling it “extreme.”
“The issue that’s raised that kids in public schools are being deprived of certain educational benefits —it’s just not true,” he said. “They may be deprived of certain extracurricular benefits, but in terms of what they need to succeed in America, to succeed in New York, they’re getting it.”
Assemblyman Walter Mosley, who represents Fort Greene and parts of Crown Heights, recently withdrew support for the bill, saying it had “overtones of anti-Semitism.”
Hikind said the bill itself is not anti-Semitic; he said Rockland County has a broader problem of resentment against the recent influx of Orthodox Jews.
“The community really feels under attack, to be singled out for a monitor,” he said, adding, “I think people who are living there have a problem with Jews who look like the Jews from my community ... with beards, who dress differently. ... They don’t want these types of Jews in their community.”
Last week, the ADL expressed concern over a campaign video supporting Rockland County sheriff candidate Richard Vasquez that shows the current sheriff surrounded by charedi Jews while the narration claims the sheriff “has refused to enforce illegal housing laws.”
But supporters of the oversight bill say linking it with anti-Semitism is unfair.
Ari Hart, Uri L’Tzedek’s co-founder, said during the news conference that calling the bill anti-Semitic is “both ludicrous and offensive.” Ludicrous, he said, because thousands of Jews support the bill, which was written by Jewish Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, and offensive because it questions his motives and ascribes “a very dangerous and harmful term to the good and holy work being done by legislators to provide protection and oversight for a district that sorely needs it.”
“By being here and expressing our strong support for this, we are expressing our authentic Torah values.” He said. “This is a Jewish cause.” A number of other Jewish groups have gotten behind the bill including the Rockland Board of Rabbis, Bend the Arc, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, the Jewish Labor Committee, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and theReligious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
The bill, which was approved by the Assembly Education Committee last week, would install the monitor for at least five years. The monitor’s duties would include submitting a five-year strategic plan for the district, attending all board meetings and executive sessions, submitting annual reports and updates to the commissioner of education and supervising the district’s fiscal and operational management. New City Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski introduced the bill along with Jaffee.
The Education Committee’s passage of the bill comes the same week as The New York Times published and op-ed supporting the bill written by Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents and David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center. Citing the Greenberg report, Tisch and Sciarra wrote in the June 3 op-ed that East Ramapo public school students “are being denied their state constitutional right to a sound basic education by a board that has grossly mismanaged the district’s finances and educational programs.”
editor@jewishweek.org
OPINION
How To Prevent Future Rabbinic Scandals
Journalistic expose is a sign that all our internal mechanisms have malfunctioned.
Judy Klitsner
Special to The Jewish Week
Judy Klitsner
We have been here before: persistent rumors and reports of sexual misconduct by a rabbi over the course of decades culminate in ascandalous expose in a newspaper (The Jewish Week, “With Sauna ‘Secret’ Out, Riverdale Faces Tough Choice,” June 5).
We have been here before and this is why I believe that if we don’t make immediate changes we will be here again.
There are four types of public reaction to such disclosures in the press; all of them can be observed in the current responses to the recent New York Times article.
Reaction No. 1: “Nothing happened.” If the allegations fall short of outright sexual molestation or violence, the story is dismissed as overblown drama. Perhaps the rabbi was guilty of faulty judgment, but not of harmful intent, and in any case no real harm was done.
Reaction No. 2: The accusations do point to serious wrongdoing, but they are false. But why the smear campaign? This group will argue that for a variety of reasons, all whistleblowers are lying. Some are said to have a personal vendetta or feelings of envy toward the rabbi. Others may have chosen to bring him down because of ideological differences. Often the journalist or newspaper will be accused of promoting a nefarious agenda, such as anti-Semitism or anti-Orthodoxy.
Reaction No. 3: Disingenuous expressions of shock and dismay by individuals and organizations that were in a position to stop the behavior but didn’t. Members of this group tend to dismiss and deny persistent reports of wrongdoing — too often over the course of many years — and often deal callously with those who report the problem. When the story breaks, this group abruptly switches tactics, distancing themselves from the rabbi and accusing him of betraying them personally.
Reaction No. 4: Sincere expressions of shock and dismay by members of the public, who never imagined that their rabbi could be capable of misusing his authority to harm innocent and vulnerable congregants. Members of this group trusted not only the rabbi, but also the leaders and organizations that were in a position to protect them, but chose not to.
The tragic story of prolonged rabbinic misconduct followed by public disgrace is likely to repeat itself, because to this day we have failed to acknowledge the fundamental errors in the first three reactions.
The fundamental error in Reaction No. 1: Even if no overt sexual or violent molestation took place, a great deal of psychological and emotional damage could have been done, especially given the hierarchy in the situation and the fact that the hierarchical figure is deemed to bear God’s authority.
In my experience with victims of rabbinic misconduct, the lingering effects of psychological manipulation can be even more profound and more lasting than those that accompany a physical assault. It is simply unfair to these people to summarily cast aside their distress.
The fundamental error in reaction No. 2: We would have to embrace the sheer improbability that the same lie would be told by so many people, in this case by a series of young men over the course of 30 years. Offending rabbis tend to repeat themselves and a good journalistic expose reveals the unmistakable patterns. It is up to the reasonable reader to draw the likeliest conclusion, which is that those who report offenses are in fact telling the truth.
The fundamental error in reaction No. 3: This group holds on to numerous errors and in my view bears the greatest responsibility for the persistence of rabbinic misconduct. Although charged with promoting the public interest, members of this group often choose instead to refrain from any action, and at times to actively protect and promote spiritual leaders who are accused of wrongdoing. In the current case, the synagogue leadership, which apparently was aware of the problem for decades, has the most to answer for. In addition, the reader will note the failed responses of Yeshiva University and the Rabbinical Council of America, whose most decisive action was to discreetly protect YU’s rabbinic students, but to withhold their concerns — and any kind of accompanying warning — from the public.
But why do so many leaders and organizations fail to act effectively? Here are some of the fundamental errors in their thinking that I have observed over the years: a sense of collegiality by rabbis toward other rabbis; a sense of loyalty to the rabbi (often actively fostered by the rabbi); sympathy for the rabbi, who is known and visible, but none for the victims, who are unknown and unseen. There is often a fear of washing dirty linen in public (chillul Hashem) or a sense of cognitive dissonance, which makes it impossible to believe that a man of God could do such disturbing things.
Often, normative rules of conduct are suspended for charismatic leaders. (As one rabbi once commented to me about another: “What can we do? Genius often has a dark side.) Worst of all is a human cost-benefit analysis, in which the rabbi’s good works are deemed to carry greater weight than any harm he might do. In the current case, many will point to those who benefited from the rabbi’s attentions — as if their experiences somehow cancel out the anguish caused to so many others.
Ultimately, it is that innocent public — group No. 4 — that we need to hold in mind at all times. When we truly see them, we will at long last stop our flawed thinking and address the problem with honesty and courage. We will write a code of ethics to make clear to all what our standards are, and we will set up committees to handle complaints of offense in an atmosphere of utter safety, discretion and professionalism. We will have a panel of leaders who will investigate reports of wrongdoing and who will boldly act to put a stop to problematic behavior; when that is impossible, they will dismiss the problematic leader and issue a clear warning to the public.
Journalistic expose is effective, but ultimately it is a signal that all of our internal mechanisms have malfunctioned. It is time to thank the press for their valuable contributions and to let them know that we can take it from here.
Judy Klitsner is a senior lecturer at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, where she has been teaching Bible and biblical exegesis for more than two decades.
THEATER
Playing Another Larry David Misanthrope
Jason Alexander is back on the boards (25 years after his last Broadway role) in ‘Fish in the Dark.’
Lonnie Firestone
Special To The Jewish Week
In new Broadway role, Alexander draws on his classical acting training, but he knows that “the comic in me has to win.”
When he first auditioned for “Seinfeld,” Jason Alexander received a copy of the script and noticed a Woody Allen vibe in the character of George Costanza. So he put on a pair of glasses, a New York accent, and the affect of a hapless curmudgeon. He had no idea at the time that George was meant to be an alter ego for the show’s co-creator, Larry David.
The epiphany happened eight or nineepisodes later when Alexander was taping a scene that felt implausible; he just didn’t understand why George would behave a certain way. Alexander reportedly mentioned it to David, who said, “What do you mean? That happened to me and that’s exactly how I reacted.” With that response, the deeper identity of George emerged. Alexander began to watch David for clues to developing George’s mannerisms, and the link between the character and the creator was solidified in the collective minds of fans.
This month, that connection stays firmly in place as Alexander takes on the role of Norman Drexel in “Fish in the Dark,” the Broadway play written by and originally starring David that opened in March. Norman isn’t George exactly, but one could say he’s cut from the same cloth. David had reportedly written the play with Alexander in mind, but producer Scott Rudin persuaded David to take the starring role. Thanks to an overwhelming demand for tickets, the show’s limited run has been extended, with Alexander in the lead role from June 9 through the final performance on July 18. It’s a brief window, but a milestone nonetheless: this is the second David incarnation of Alexander’s career.
During David’s run in the play, audiences recognized a likeness to his HBO series, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” perhaps more than “Seinfeld.” For devoted Larry David fans — and they are numerous in New York — the pleasure of seeing a familiar brand of comedy in real time is immeasurable. Directed with an eye toward fan satisfaction, the play is a live experience in the hilariously awkward world of David. Alexander considered the offer to play Norman an “unmissable opportunity,” so much so that he was able to bow out of another theater production in which he was scheduled to perform.
In an interview with The Jewish Week, held backstage at Broadway’s Cort Theatre, Alexander was everything that George Costanza is not. Where George is hostile, Alexander is personable. Where George deflects, Alexander intuits. A veteran stage actor, Alexander admits that seasoned theatergoers may notice that the play lacks character arcs and “does not have a classic two-act structure. But Larry never cared about those things. Larry loves the funny and the uncomfortable and he writes to those moments.”
Most “Seinfeld” fans don’t know it, but Alexander had an award-winning Broadway career in the years before he was known for a television show. Born Jay Greenspan, he was raised in New Jersey and looked to Manhattan with “get me there” urgency. By his early 20s, he had already starred in Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musical, “Merrily We Roll Along,” a dream for any musical theater actor. Though the show was a commercial miss, it led to subsequent Broadway gigs including the 1989 production, “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” — a compilation musical of scenes and dances created by Jerome Robbins, the legendary director/choreographer of “Fiddler on the Roof” and “West Side Story.” Alexander, not a dancer but by then a trained actor and singer, was instrumental in shaping the production, performing multiple characters including Tevye. That year, Alexander — at the young age of 29 — won a Tony award and caught the attention of Rob Reiner whose production company, Castle Rock Entertainment, was developing a television show with standup comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
Almost exactly 25 years after taking his last curtain call bow, Alexander is back on the Broadway stage. But, while playing another David misanthrope may seem as effortless as slipping on comfortable shoes, Alexander’s training in the theater has conditioned him to approach each role with dedication and careful character study. “I cannot separate myself from the process I would use as an actor if this was ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night,’” he jokes with partial seriousness.
Alexander knows well that “the comic in me has to win” and yet the classically trained actor side of him is compelled by “what drives and motivates the characters, what physical and emotional conditions they’re dealing with. Even though Larry doesn’t necessarily carry the echo of scene A into scene B, I have to explore those tendrils to see what is there,” he says.
Beyond that, there’s another challenge: “to do no harm” to a character that David has already embodied.
To that end, Alexander has been at work with director Anna D. Shapiro (the Tony award winner for “August: Osage County”) and with David, who agreed to attend Alexander’s rehearsals in order to tinker with the script. David’s signature catchphrase, “Pret-ty pret-ty good,” for instance, may be replaced. “I could make an argument for or against it,” Alexander says. “It could be a fun moment for the audience to go, ‘I know that you know that I know.’ Or he could put in a George reference like, “Serenity Now!”
Similar to “Seinfeld,” the main objective in “Fish in the Dark” is, “funny trumps.” In one of the play’s storylines, Norman battles with his younger, wealthier brother (Ben Shenkman) over whose house their mother should — or shouldn’t — move into after the death of their father. For this narrative as with the rest of the play, the specific plot points are less essential than the punch lines. “When Larry puts pen to paper, his primary concern has been, ‘where are the pools of laughs,’” Alexander says. “Where can I create a situation where no one is comfortable and force them to tough it out.”
One principle that Alexander keeps in mind for comic roles is the importance of balancing authenticity and humor. “Larry taught me a valuable lesson during ‘Seinfeld,’” he says. “There was an episode where George thought he was having a heart attack. And I started performing the heart attack, and Larry said, ‘No good.’ And I said, ‘But that’s a heart attack.’ And he said, ‘I know. I believe you’re having a heart attack! That’s not funny.’” In other words, authentic must yield to laughable.
In David’s work, humor regularly operates from a defensive position. A David character usually feels that he’s been undermined and reacts in a misfiring way so that the person he ultimately harms is himself. And of course, he’s a bit of a schlemiel. In Norman’s case, that means holding the unenviable job of urinal salesman.
Since playing George, Alexander has worked continuously as an actor and director, though no single project has reached the success of “Seinfeld.” To be fair, it’s an inimitable benchmark. And the Jerry Seinfeld/Larry David orbit is so enduringly magnetic that Alexander has been pulled back into it repeatedly: there was the “Seinfeld” reunion on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and, more recently, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” in which Seinfeld and Alexander enacted a Jerry and George sketch. Alexander tries not to “over-intellectualize” why audiences still get excited about watching those old friends play off each other. “It just makes people extremely happy,” he says.
“Fish in the Dark” has made fans extremely happy too. Before the start of previews, the show broke records for highest advance ticket sales on Broadway. And though it opened to some very negative reviews, the show didn’t break a sweat, continuing to charm audiences and sell out performances through the end of David’s run. It’s probable that Alexander’s casting will maintain that winning streak.
As he molds a new character within a familiar comic form, Alexander recalls something Jerome Robbins taught him. For an actor perfecting a role, the work is never done. “Your opening night is not going to be your best performance,” he says. “Hopefully your closing night will be your best performance. That’s the goal: that it keeps getting better.” These days, the theater is where Alexander feels most gratified as an actor. Every performance is another opportunity to find a character’s identity.
editor@jewishweek.org
Enjoy the read,
Gary Rosenblatt
P.S. Be sure to check out our website any time for breaking news and exclusive videos, blogs, opinion columns, and more.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/
BETWEEN THE LINES
GARY ROSENBLATT
50 Years On, Still Fighting Jewish Battles
As he prepares to step down, ADL’s iconic Abe Foxman speaks out on his hopes and fears.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor and Publisher
Gary Rosenblatt
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson sent the first U.S. combat troops to South Vietnam, Levi Eshkol was elected prime minister of Israel, and Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax chose not to pitch in the opening game of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. It was also that year that Abraham Foxman, a 25-year-old immigrant fresh out of law school, took a job as assistant director of the legal department of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
Much has changed in the last 50 years, including the famed Jewish defense agency’s name, now simply ADL. But Foxman has been there through it all, combating anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, speaking out for civil rights and human rights, and seeking to educate a generation born after the Holocaust he survived as a child and which shaped his worldview.
He, more than any other Jewish leader, has become synonymous with the organization he has led for the last 27 years as national director. It raises tens of millions of dollars annually, has more than two dozen regional offices, offers educational programs around the world, and has had dozens of lay national chairs during his tenure.
But mention ADL and people think simply, “Abe.”
Praised by presidents, a hero to countless Jews and a lightning rod for critics, Abe Foxman has forged his reputation as one of the most influential Jews in the world. He is often the first call for journalists looking for a Jewish response to the crisis of the moment because he is frank, outspoken, accessible, and speaks from his kishkes. Contrary to the corporate model of some Jewish organizations, he is passionate, emotional and he wears his deep commitment to Judaism on his sleeve, often sprinkling his remarks with Yiddishisms.
On Wednesday evening, Foxman, the son of Polish Jews who in desperation left their infant in the care of his Catholic nanny for four years during World War II, will be feted in grand style. A tribute dinner in the Waldorf Astoria is set to mark his “50 years of dedicated service to the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish people.”
Foxman will step down from his post a month later and be succeeded by Jonathan Greenblatt, 43, a social entrepreneur and special assistant to President Obama.
Among those paying tribute to Foxman at the dinner, reflecting his wide range of friends and associates, are Fox News CEO and chairman Roger Ailes, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, NYPD chief William Bratton, businessman S.A. Ibrahim, who is the first Muslim on the ADL board of directors, and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who as a teen had Foxman as a counselor at a Jewish summer camp.
Troubled By Obama
During an interview at Foxman’s spacious midtown office a few days ago, the outgoing leader sat down to share his thoughts on his career’s successes and challenges. He kept coming back to his worries about anti-Semitism, which he described as “the worst since World War II,” and his concern about Israel’s dependence on America, particularly at a time when President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are openly at odds.
He was characteristically blunt about his problems with Obama’s treatment of Israel.
He noted that Obama has taken his criticism of Netanyahu’s perceived delays on peace talks with the Palestinians directly to the Israeli public. In a recent Israeli television interview, the president said his views are consistent with those of Jewish liberals in the U.S.
“I’m very concerned about that,” Foxman said. “I don’t want to see the president align himself with Jewish liberals or conservatives; I want him to support what is best for the U.S. and for Israel.”
He went on to say that Obama consistently calls out Israel for the lack of progress on peace talks while giving the Palestinian leadership a pass.
Particularly “troubling” and “mischievous,” said Foxman, are the president’s assurances that the proposed Iran nuclear deal will make for a more secure Jewish state. “He thinks he knows what’s best for Israel,” he said, noting that the government in Jerusalem should be making that life-and-death decision for itself.
“The president is doing what he thinks is in the best interest of the U.S.,” Foxman added. “He’s not doing this to hurt Israel. But I think he’s wrong to trust Iran. The deal will bring more nuclear arms to the region. I told the president in our last meeting [a few weeks ago], ‘We don’t question your motives; we question your judgment.’”
He went on to say that Iran will remain the most important issue for Israel and the Mideast for a long time, and that “for America, it’s about safety, but for Israel it’s about survival.”
Obama, said Foxman, was a source of anxiety “from Day One” of his administration, and he recalled the question he posed to the president in a meeting with Jewish leaders early in his first administration. When would the Palestinians be pressured, as Israel had been, to be forthcoming in peace talks, he asked. And what would the consequences be if they were not? The answers were not forthcoming.
Foxman noted that ADL was the first major Jewish organization to speak out against White House pressure on Israel to freeze settlement building. A full-page ad in The New York Times in the summer of 2009, which also appeared in other U.S. newspapers, was headlined: “Mr. President – The problem isn’t settlements, it’s Arab rejection.”
The specifics have changed, Foxman said, but the sense that Obama holds Israel to an unrealistically high bar while largely ignoring Palestinian intransigence, and worse, prevails.
An ‘Old Man’ At 10
The issue of anti-Semitism is particularly poignant for Foxman because it speaks to both his personal history and his life’s work. Baptized as an infant and reclaimed by his parents after they survived World War II, as a small child he was the center of a custody battle between the nanny who saved his life and the parents he did not remember.
“As a hidden child,” he says, “I didn’t know who or what I was.”
Ever since arriving in the U.S. with his parents in 1950, he has felt a responsibility to “work on behalf of the Jewish people and fight the anti-Semitism that almost destroyed me,” he said, recalling that his father referred to him, when he was 10, as “the old man.”
Having survived the Holocaust, “how dare I be a pessimist?” he asks. But for a self-declared optimist, he worries a great deal about the future. Like many others, he had thought that anti-Semitism would not be a major problem in the 21st century, with the world having witnessed the tragic results of Hitler’s murderous racism and hatred.
One might argue that the ADL, after more than a century offering up large sums of money and countless educational programs to fight anti-Semitism, has failed in its mission, since hatred of Jews is back with a vengeance. But Foxman maintains that if not for the organization, and its worldwide efforts, the problem would be far worse.
It’s hard to prove, but while he acknowledges that “we haven’t found a vaccine” for anti-Semitism, he points out that “we have made anti-Semitism anti-Christian” and an act widely condemned by societal standards.
In other parts of the world, notably Europe, anti-Semitism has become “a clear and present danger,” says Foxman, who tries to find the balance between legitimate concern and unbridled fear. The key difference between now and the 1930s is that European governments are speaking out against anti-Semitism, he says, and Israel offers a haven for those who feel unsafe elsewhere.
“We’re not immune to it here” in the U.S., he says, and constant vigilance is required. But he adds that the U.S. “is still unique in world history” as a country of minority freedoms, and even anti-Israel activities on campus are mostly limited to a few dozen universities out of thousands across the U.S.
“I still want to make a difference,” Foxman said in looking to his own future. “I plan to rewire, not retire, and I don’t intend to be silent. The question is where and how.”
He will become national director emeritus at ADL, and has been approached about joining a think tank. He also wants to take time to catch up on his reading and go back to the Talmud study of his youth. “I miss that,” he says.
Softly, he acknowledges that “I can’t promise my grandchildren that they won’t need the ADL. Prejudice and bigotry remain with us.”
As for what keeps him up at night, Foxman says it’s the same thing that gives him comfort: the U.S.-Israel relationship.
“Israel is very fortunate it has the U.S. as its primary ally, and we have developed strong bipartisan support in Washington. That relationship is unique, even when we disagree.
“But what’s scary is that sense of dependence. There’s no one else to defend Israel politically, diplomatically and militarily. Israel has nowhere else to go, and we have to be super smart going forward.”
The ADL’s next director no doubt will have new ideas about the agency’s direction, style and tone. But whatever Abe Foxman’s formal title or role will be in the future, we are sure to hear from him when he feels the need to speak out.
“I do have credibility out there,” he says as the interview winds down.
“Call me.”
Gary@jewishweek.org
Read More MUSINGSThe Fire This Time
Rabbi David Wolpe
Special To The Jewish Week
Rabbi David Wolpe
The Greek hero Prometheus steals fire from the gods, for which he is chained to a rock and tortured endlessly. In Jewish lore, on the other hand, Adam is afraid when the first night arrives and God instructs him on how to create a fire. When the blaze ignites, Adam says gratefully, “Blessed be the creator of fire.”
In one story, people steal and are punished; in the other, God gives us fire as a gift and a comfort.
One can observe the same dichotomy of views about technology and innovation today. To many, each technological advance seems as if it is stolen from the gods and we will be punished for it. But I believe Judaism’s view is wiser and deeper. Our minds and ability to manipulate the world are gifts of God. Fire and its offspring, technology, can spread out of control and do great damage. But with wisdom, both can give us warmth and food and light.
All progress has a cost and every blessing exacts its price. But like Adam in the Garden we are given a great gift; the chance to take a darkened world and make it shine.
Rabbi David Wolpe is spiritual leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter: @RabbiWolpe. His latest book, “David: The Divided Heart” (Yale University Press), has recently been published.
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Waikiki Beach in Oahu. Wikimedia Commons
TRAVEL
If 'Aloha' Is In Your Future
Hilary Danailova
Travel WriterIt’s June, which means weddings — and honeymoons. That gets me thinking about Hawaii, a perennial favorite for that post-nuptial getaway, as well as a classic family vacation spot.
Hawaii may well be the most exotic destination in America; it’s undoubtedly one of the more expensive. Planning early is essential, both for honeymooners and for families eyeing next winter’s holiday.
So if “aloha” is in your future, here are some tips to get you started. (Many of these tips come courtesy of my sister, a longtime Californian who — like so many Left Coasters — jets off to Maui the way we New Yorkers weekend in Florida.)
For starters: When to go? Devotees swear that Hawaii, with its subtle seasons, is fabulous any time of year. Late winter is the peak for tourism; in February, Hawaii’s famous humpback whales frolic and spout just offshore, so whale watching is a major draw.
Summer is hotter but still pleasant. Hawaiian microclimates can vary dramatically, and rain tends to concentrate in particular areas rather than in a single wet season. Tropical downpours are usually short and sweet, though — and as any Hawaii visitor quickly learns, rainbows are a magical side effect.
Next question: Where to go? If you’re short on time or traveling with kids, consider flying directly into one of the larger islands, which saves a lot of time and money. Those looking for the widest variety of resources and activities — Jewish and otherwise — should head to Oahu, home to two-thirds of the state’s population, its capital, Honolulu, and historic Pearl Harbor.
If you love to dress up and go out, head for Ibiza; nature, not nightlife, is the Hawaiian strong suit. Hawaii gets up early, a habit that owes as much to an agrarian past as to a desire to sync with the mainland.
Oahu (home to the fabled Waikiki Beach district) and Maui (with abundant resort options) are the best bets for after-dark action. Both islands are popular precisely because they offer plenty to do — shopping, dining and culture, especially on Oahu — along with spectacular beaches and natural beauty.
Across the islands, resorts fill the nightlife gap, with most larger hotels offering evening entertainment. This can range from low-key Hawaiian music and mai tais to hula shows and all-out luaus — cultural spectacles featuring everything from torch runners on the beach to smorgasbords of local fare.
The Big Island, also called Hawai’i, is great for kosher eaters and volcano lovers. It is home to Chabad of Hawaii, which sells souvenir Hawaiian-style kippot, hosts weekly Shabbat dinners, and coordinates kosher meals for vacationers. As the only island to host an active volcano, Hawai’i is also the place to explore lava flows and craters at Volcanoes National Park.
With a larger budget and a sense of adventure, you can escape to two harder-to-reach spots: Lanai, a quaint isle of 3,000 inhabitants recently bought by the Oracle executive Larry Ellison, and the “Garden Island” of Kauai, a natural paradise largely untouched by development (though it does have a small Jewish congregation). These destinations are best for people who want to explore craters by helicopter, snorkel in secluded coves and go off-road through jungles and surf in a setting lost in time.
Anywhere in Hawaii, you’ll want to rent a car. Wheels are essential for exploring the islands properly, and certain scenic routes — along ocean cliffs or through waterfall-dotted rainforests — are destinations in their own right.
Pack carefully. Hawaii has particularly stringent entry requirements regarding the importation of plants, animals and foodstuffs, and going through controls can feel akin to entering a foreign country. With a unique, fragile ecosystem to protect, Hawaiian officials have tightened inspections for those entering the islands.
Now for the classic Jewish vacation question: How’s the food? The farm-to-table movement has lately put a sophisticated twist on Hawaiian dining, with upscale new eateries — especially in Honolulu — that exploit the local bounty. Island cuisine still relies on Asian staples like fresh fish, white rice, sweet flavors, and fruits: mango, pineapple and papaya. Vegetarians do better than ever in a region long given to meat-heavy dishes (a luau is essentially a pig roast); there’s even a Vegetarian Society of Hawaii, with a website full of resources and ideas for the herbivore visitor.
Kosher vacationers also have more options than ever, mostly on Maui, the Big Island and Oahu. Chabad of Hawaii organizes a kosher meal-delivery service for those staying locally, and coordinates with several hotels throughout the islands; check the website for more information.
Chabad can also help direct Oahu vacationers to local kosher options — including, on a recent visit, kosher meal providers and an online Israeli kosher supermarket with delivery service for many staples.
editor@jewishweek.org
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Featured on NYBLUEPRINT
'The Fat Jew' Has A Phat New Book
Talia Lakrtiz
Editorial InternInstagram phenomenon, Josh Ostrovsky, reveals new book cover
Talia Lakrtiz | Editorial Intern | Books, Comedy
Josh Ostrovsky is just a nice Jewish boy with an affinity for perfectly captioned memes and perpendicular ponytails. At least, that’s what his 4.4 million Instagram followers will tell you. Known as “The Fat Jew” across social media platforms, Ostrovksy’s posts run the gamut from adorable animals in costume to profanity-filled candid photos from all corners of the Internet.
Recently, a new kind of image graced The Fat Jew’s Instagram feed: the cover of his upcoming book.
“Money, Pizza, Respect,” which hits bookstores everywhere on October 27, laughs at itself from the inside out. The tightly framed greyscale headshot on the cover parodies Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, featuring Ostrovsky with a pensive thumb to his chin offset by his self-proclaimed “Jew unicorn” ponytail and scraggly beard.
The content within its pages promises to be just as facetious. This is, after all,coming from the guy who conducted SoulCycle classes for New York City’s homeless on CitiBikes and watched the Super Bowl laying nude in a giant vat of chili. Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, describes Ostrovsky’s debut book as “one ludicrous story from his life after another,” as well as “the type of absurd photos and captions that have catapulted Josh to insta-fame.”
In the caption of the cover reveal on Instagram, “The Fat Jew” promised that if the book is a raging success, he will legally change his name to “New York Times Bestseller.”
“THAT ALONE SHOULD BE ENOUGH,” he wrote, “NOT TO MENTION THAT THE BOOK CONTAINS MAJOR LOLS.”
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TOP STORIES:NEW YORK
Israel Prize Winner Offers New Take On Stop-And-Frisk
As city murder rate spikes, top criminologist tweaks his ‘hot spots policing’ approach.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
David Weisburd: His innovative strategy grew out of research on Brooklyn streets. Via youtube.com
During the year that criminologist David Weisburd walked the beat with New York City cops in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace back in 1985, he noticed something peculiar: crime was concentrated in just a few blocks.
Although each police officer had 20 square blocks to patrol, “they spent all of their time on one or two blocks,” he recalled. “I called that our ‘small world of crime,’ and if they [the police] spent time there, things got better. That contradicted the common wisdom at the time that the police could not prevent crime.”
Weisburd credits the work he did in Brooklyn with setting the stage for his groundbreaking work on “hot spots policing” — concentrating police in high-crime areas to actually deter crime. In fact, one study found that deploying more offices in high crime areas resulted in a 20 percent drop in crime, and more than 20 subsequent studies supported those findings.
Hot spots policing has now been embraced in cities around the world and earned Weisburd many prestigious awards, including the Stockholm Prize (considered criminology’s Nobel Prize); just last month he received Israel’s highest recognition, the Israel Prize in Social Work and Criminological Research.
Now, with a surprising spike in murders being recorded in cities across the country — including a 19.5 percent increase in New York through May of this year compared to a year ago — Weisburd is working on a revision of hot spots policing, one that seeks to convey a friendlier approach.
“He wants to do it in a way that is less offensive,” said Anthony Braga, a professor of evidence-based criminology at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University and a senior research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School who has worked with Weisburd over the years.
“It matters greatly the way people feel about police interaction, regardless of whether they get arrested or ticketed,” he said. “If they believe the officer acted fairly and reasonably, it diminishes their negative feeling about their contact with the police — they feel they are not targeted indiscriminately.”
Weisburd, 60, was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Great Neck, L.I. He made aliyah 23 years ago and is now a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Seven years ago he also accepted a tenured appointment at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
In bestowing the Israel Prize, the prize committee called Weisburd “one of the most prominent researchers in the field of criminology in the world and among the senior criminologists in Israel. … [His work] helped streamline and improve the quality of life of public citizens. As such, his studies suggest numerous explanations for the formation of crime areas constituting a base for targeted intervention for preventing and dealing with crime.”
Weisburd said he does not know the reason for the recent spike in violent crime here and some other cities. (Some here suggest it stems from tensions between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD over stop-and-frisk — the mayor believes it wrongly targets minorities — and from the “Black Lives Matter” movement, both of which, the thinking goes, have resulted in a kind of police work slowdown.) But Weisburd said his research has found that the tactic of stop-and-frisk — until recently a main crime-fighting tactic of the NYPD — is a deterrent to crime.
One of his recently completed studies now awaiting publication — a three-year project done as part of a study group at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan and supported by the Open Society Foundations — looked into the deterrent value of the city’s stop-and-frisk program. Preeti Chauhan, a research assistant on the project, said Weisburd focused on the “street segment level of crime” as opposed to crime on the precinct level.
It used stop-and-frisk data from the New York City Police Department — such things as the time and location of such stops — and the impact such searches had on crime on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.
“This was the most methodologically sophisticated study to determine the impact on crime,” she said.
Weisburd said earlier studies he conducted in five cities — New York (which began hot spots policing under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the 1990s), Cincinnati, Sacramento, Seattle and Tel Aviv — found that 50 percent of the crime came from about 5 percent of the streets, and that about 1 percent of the streets produced 25 percent of the crime.
In the study here awaiting publication, Weisburd found that stop-and-frisk was a “hot spots policing strategy.”
He said his work also debunked the belief that crime would move elsewhere if police focused on hot spots. Weisburd said he found that “not only did crime not move around the corner, but around the corner it got better.”
But the chairman of John Jay’s Department of Law and Police Science, Professor Maki Haberfeld, said she is suspicious about such a claim.
“I say that if you saturate an area with police for a period of time, you don’t eliminate crime, you just displace it,” she said. “I ask how many prostitutes who are moved from a particular corner go and get a legitimate job? How many drug dealerswho are moved from their spot go out and get a 9-to-5 job? Sometimes they travel a distance to relocate. It’s hard to measure.”
“People want to believe we are succeeding in the war against crime,” Haberfeld added. “But burglaries, street crime — everything is up in a significant way. Talk to any cop on the street.”
But Braga disagreed, saying his review of more than 20 studies found that when “police concentrate their resources in an area, crime can be reduced. … Even though New York is going through a little uptick [in shootings], crime is down throughout the U.S. — and this [hot spot] strategy is responsible for a piece of that downturn.”
The question now is how best to concentrate officers in a high crime area, Braga said, adding that some of the work he did with Weisburd “suggests that community problem solving that changes the reasons why an area is hot might be better [than simply making arrests].”
Weisburd said his work has convinced him that stop-and-frisk should not be used as a general strategy but “only in very specific situations. And it should be used only when it is legal to do so, such as when it’s believed a suspicious person may have committed a crime or there is a gun dropping out of a man’s pants. We want people stopped when it is believed a potentially serious crime is being committed. …”
His proposal for a more just approach to policing — for which he is seeking funding from the National Institute of Justice — involves identifying 40 to 50 hot spots in each of three American cities whose police departments have already agreed to participate (South Bend, Ind.; Milwaukee, Wis., and Wilmington, Del.). One group of police officers would be asked to do traditional hot spots policing. A second group would be given training in how to make the public feel it is treated fairly. Specially trained supervisors would monitor the work of both groups.
“The second group of officers, instead of just saying to someone, ‘Let me look in your pockets,’ would stop the person and say, ‘There have been a lot of robberies and other problems on this street and we are stopping everyone for a few months to make sure they are not carrying a weapon,’” Weisburd explained.
“In that way the police are saying that people have been getting hurt over here — which justifies the stop — and that they are stopping everyone, not just singling you out. And if the officer finds contraband, he would say, ‘I’m going to arrest you, but do you have something to add to my report?’ In that way, the officer lets him tell his side of the story. That won’t stop the arrest, but it makes people feel that what is happening is reasonable. The theory is that if people are happy with the police, they will cooperate with them more.”
Haberfeld said she objects to the proposal because it would subject everyone to police intervention.
“That is not a pleasant experience,” she explained. “There is no need for it. … Stop-and-frisk is a legitimate police tool. It should be used based on the discretion of the police officer.”
Weisburd replied that his proposal is a “problematic strategy used broadly; it is appropriate, however, in limited use.”
stewart@jewishweek.org
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NEW YORKA World Of Yiddish Converges On N.Y.
Weeklong Kulturfest features theater companies from Poland, Romania, Israel and more.
Ted Merwin
Special To The Jewish Week
“Bonjour Monsieur Chagall,” from Poland. Courtesy of Ester Rokhl and Ida Kaminska Jewish Theatre
On the Lower East Side at the turn of the 20th century, the Yiddish stage was such a staple of Jewish life that audiences were said to consume “broyt mit teater” — bread slathered with theater. Next week, the only Yiddish theater company that still survives from that era, the Folksbiene (now called the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene) serves up Kulturfest, a multi-course offering of Yiddish music, theater, film and dance, including Yiddish stage companies from around the world.
Among Kulturfest’s theatrical offerings are Sholom Aleichem’s “Wandering Stars,” presented by the State Jewish Theatre of Romania; “The Kishka Monologues,” a culinary adventure staged by Yiddishshpiel-the Yiddish Theatre of Israel; “Ek Velt,” produced by Zaftik, a Yiddish troupe from Australia; Bonjour Monsieur Chagall,” a musical presented by the Kaminska Jewish Theatre of Warsaw, Poland; “My First Sony,” featuring Israeli actor Roy Horovitz; and “The Mar Vista,” a dance/theater work by performance artist Yehuda Hyman.
In addition, Polish-born Lea Koenig-Stolper, dubbed the First Lady of Israeli Theater, will perform an evening of songs and stories; and Ben Gonshor’s play about Paul Robeson, “When Blood Ran Red,” the winner of the Folksbiene’s first annual Yiddish playwriting contest, will have a staged reading. Most of these shows will take place at the Abrons Cultural Center (Henry Street Settlement), the site of the Folksbiene’s first performance in 1915, at a time when there were 15 Yiddish theaters in the city.
Brynna Wasserman, the executive director of the Folksbiene, organized two international festivals when she headed the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre in Montreal — festivals that included many of the same theatrical troupes. But Kulturfest is her most ambitious festival to date, with more than 30 countries represented and a day-long symposium, organized by NYU’s Skirball Department of Hebrew at Judaic Studies, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which is the Folksbiene’s new home.
In an interview, Wasserman told The Jewish Week that the overarching purpose of the festival is to look back on the last century of Yiddish theater in New York and prepare for the next one. “We seek to relate Jewish influence to the culture of the city, country and world,” she said.
Horovitz’s one-man show, “My First Sony,” is based on a bestselling novel by the Israeli writer Benny Barbash. Directed by Dafna Widenfeld-Nagler, the play, which Horovitz has performed in Hebrew since 1996, is about the unraveling of a dysfunctional Israeli family, which an overweight 11-year-old boy, Yotam (played by Horovitz), obsessively documents with his tape recorder.
“My First Sony,” which has toured Israel and been performed in Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Europe (as well at universities ranging from Harvard and Yale to Cairo) is unusual in that much of the “dialogue” is provided by recorded actors. When it ran in 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa, critic Gayle Edmunds of the City Press called it a play about “how children process information and read situations, sometimes too literally, sometimes with piercingly accurate analysis.”
Those looking for a splashy musical may gravitate to “Bonjour Monsieur Chagall” from Poland, directed by David Szurmiej. The play, which will be performed this year in Warsaw as part of the 12th Annual Isaac Bashevis Singer Festival, was developed by Szurmiej’s father, Szymon, who founded the Kaminska Jewish Theatre and who once met Marc Chagall during a visit to Paris. The production brings the painter’s vibrant artworks to life, using them as the springboard for extravagant, nostalgic costumes, sets, music and movement. It premiered in Warsaw in the mid-1970s and ran there for a decade.
Szurmiej told The Jewish Week that Singer’s works “could have been painted by Chagall,” referring to the “nonexistent but colorful world” that the painter created. Chagall, he pointed out, “took Jewish life out of the shtetl and made it universal.” At a time when so many Polish non-Jews are discovering their Jewish roots, Szurmiej said (noting that before the Second World War, the overall population of Warsaw was almost one-third Jewish), Yiddish theater is occupying an increasingly important niche in his native country.
But not all the Kulturfest productions come from abroad. One home-grown production is Hyman’s “The Mar Vista,” which was developed at the 14th Street Y’s LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture. Hyman was last seen in “The Mad 7,” a dance piece based on the writing of Reb Nachman of Bratslav. He turns autobiographical in “The Mar Vista,” which takes its name from the seaside neighborhood in West Los Angeles where he grew up as the son of a Turkish Jewish mother (Amanda Schussel), who was a dancer, and a Polish Jewish father (Ron Kagan), who came from a family of tailors.
Hyman said that one of the challenges in creating the piece, which incorporates movement, gesture, spoken word and ritual, was “grappling with the inconsistencies in the lives of our parents, and with their sexuality.” His father “lost everyone in the Holocaust — he never saw his parents and siblings again.” His mother “needed to be by the sea,” as an integral part of her exotic personality. Hyman, who has moved back and forth repeatedly between New York and Los Angeles throughout his adult life, feels a similar need to “be by the water to connect with my ancestors,” he noted.
Whether as a form of ancestor worship, cultural exploration or rollicking entertainment, Kulturfest promises to satisfy many different agendas for performers and attendees alike. Indeed, with such a plethora of theatrical offerings on tap, the Folksbiene hopes to attract large numbers of both Jews and non-Jews to the productions. “We have the fefer [pepper] and zaltz [salt],” Wasserman concluded. “We have all the ingredients. Now what we need are the audiences.”
Kulturfest runs from June 14-21 at various venues in Manhattan. (The theatrical offerings are co-sponsored by UJA-Federation of New York and Capital One Bank.) For tickets (most of which are $18) and information, call OvationTix at (866) 811-4111 or visit kulturfestnyc.org.
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NEW YORKMandolin Strings Attached To A Long-Gone Polish Shtetl
George Robinson
Special To The Jewish Week
The Ger Mandolin Orchestra. Via germandolin.com
It started with a photograph.
It was a faded photograph of a very serious-looking group of young men in suits and ties, holding musical instruments. Avner Yonai immediately recognized his maternal grandfather and two granduncles among the musicians, and a plan took seed in his mind.
It is a long way from the Polish town of Gora Kalwaria, known as Ger in Yiddish, to the stage of the Skirball Centre at NYU, but Yonai’s idea has made the trip as the Ger Mandolin Orchestra. An ensemble of 11 of the best mandolinists in the world, they are a living, breathing — and swinging — memorial to Yonai’s family and an all-but-forgotten musical tradition. And the group is one of the musical highlights of next week’s sprawling and eclectic Kulturfest event.
Yonai, an Israeli-American businessman based in the Bay Area, saw the photo in the Yizkor book of Ger when visiting with family members in 2009. His grandfather had been a staunch Zionist and made aliyah in 1935, but the rest of his family was among the 3,500 Jews, half the town’s population, who were killed when the Nazis seized the town.
“My grandfather passed away in 1996,” Yonai says. “He never talked about life in Poland. When I saw the movie [based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel] ‘Everything Is Illuminated’ in 2007, I really connected with it, with the idea of going back to Europe to explore my family’s history. When the hero visits the site of a shtetl in Ukraine in the film, there’s a monument to the Jews who were murdered on March 18, 1942; I was born on March 18, 1971, so I took it for a sign. Two weeks later I went to Poland — no preparation, no research, I only knew the name of the town.”
The result was a warm and burgeoning relationship between Yonai’s family and the current residents of Gora Kalwaria, and a stone monument to the town’s victims of the Shoah. Yonai wasn’t satisfied. He wanted a living monument, but until he saw the photo he didn’t know what form it would take.
Now he knew and when he flew back to San Francisco, he contacted Mike Marshall, one of the world’s great string players, who has worked with an amazing range of musicians, including David Grisman, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, Joshua Bell, Darol Anger, Hamilton de Holanda, Hermeto Pascoal, Mark O’Connor and Stephane Grappelli.
“Marshall liked the idea and he knows a lot of musicians,” Yonai says with characteristic understatement.
Essentially, Marshall just spun his Rolodex and plucked a who’s who of mandolin players.
One of the musicians he called was Eric Stein, director of the Ashkenazi Foundation in Toronto, and founder and leader of the klezmer group Beyond the Pale.
“He said to me, ‘We’re putting together this interesting little ensemble and you were recommended to me, I understand that you do a lot of arranging work with Jewish music,’” Stein recalls. “Mike has been a huge influence on me. He was coming into the project without much experience in Jewish music and klezmer, but he brought together great musicians who could adapt to new material.”
But what material? As both Yonai and Stein note, there was no documentation of the repertoire of the original Ger ensemble.
“There are hundreds of photos as historical evidence of mandolin orchestras,” Stein says, “That was a context for amateurs to make music. They tended to be community groups with a mixture of professional and non-professional musicians. So there was less rigidity in terms of choices of repertoire.”
Jeff Warschauer, another member of the group, explains, “The mandolin orchestras here and in Europe [in the early 20th century] are a clear case of the flowering of secular Jewish culture, particularly in groups like the Workmen’s Circle, and organizations centered around unions. The secular organizations took the place of going to shul. The mandolin orchestras here played Italian music, classical, Jewish stuff.”
The make-up of the Ger Mandolin Orchestra reflects that eclecticism. Simply put, it’s a gathering of virtuosos of an under-appreciated instrument.
And it’s better than just a photograph.
The Ger Mandolin Ensemble will be performing Thursday, June 18, at the Skirball Centre, NYU (566 LaGuardia Pl.) at 8 p.m.
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THEATER
Playing Another Larry David Misanthrope
Jason Alexander is back on the boards (25 years after his last Broadway role) in ‘Fish in the Dark.’
06/09/2015
Lonnie Firestone
Special To The Jewish Week
In new Broadway role, Alexander draws on his classical acting training, but he knows that “the comic in me has to win.”
When he first auditioned for “Seinfeld,” Jason Alexander received a copy of the script and noticed a Woody Allen vibe in the character of George Costanza. So he put on a pair of glasses, a New York accent, and the affect of a hapless curmudgeon. He had no idea at the time that George was meant to be an alter ego for the show’s co-creator, Larry David.
The epiphany happened eight or nineepisodes later when Alexander was taping a scene that felt implausible; he just didn’t understand why George would behave a certain way. Alexander reportedly mentioned it to David, who said, “What do you mean? That happened to me and that’s exactly how I reacted.” With that response, the deeper identity of George emerged. Alexander began to watch David for clues to developing George’s mannerisms, and the link between the character and the creator was solidified in the collective minds of fans.
This month, that connection stays firmly in place as Alexander takes on the role of Norman Drexel in “Fish in the Dark,” the Broadway play written by and originally starring David that opened in March. Norman isn’t George exactly, but one could say he’s cut from the same cloth. David had reportedly written the play with Alexander in mind, but producer Scott Rudin persuaded David to take the starring role. Thanks to an overwhelming demand for tickets, the show’s limited run has been extended, with Alexander in the lead role from June 9 through the final performance on July 18. It’s a brief window, but a milestone nonetheless: this is the second David incarnation of Alexander’s career.
During David’s run in the play, audiences recognized a likeness to his HBO series, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” perhaps more than “Seinfeld.” For devoted Larry David fans — and they are numerous in New York — the pleasure of seeing a familiar brand of comedy in real time is immeasurable. Directed with an eye toward fan satisfaction, the play is a live experience in the hilariously awkward world of David. Alexander considered the offer to play Norman an “unmissable opportunity,” so much so that he was able to bow out of another theater production in which he was scheduled to perform.
In an interview with The Jewish Week, held backstage at Broadway’s Cort Theatre, Alexander was everything that George Costanza is not. Where George is hostile, Alexander is personable. Where George deflects, Alexander intuits. A veteran stage actor, Alexander admits that seasoned theatergoers may notice that the play lacks character arcs and “does not have a classic two-act structure. But Larry never cared about those things. Larry loves the funny and the uncomfortable and he writes to those moments.”
Most “Seinfeld” fans don’t know it, but Alexander had an award-winning Broadway career in the years before he was known for a television show. Born Jay Greenspan, he was raised in New Jersey and looked to Manhattan with “get me there” urgency. By his early 20s, he had already starred in Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musical, “Merrily We Roll Along,” a dream for any musical theater actor. Though the show was a commercial miss, it led to subsequent Broadway gigs including the 1989 production, “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” — a compilation musical of scenes and dances created by Jerome Robbins, the legendary director/choreographer of “Fiddler on the Roof” and “West Side Story.” Alexander, not a dancer but by then a trained actor and singer, was instrumental in shaping the production, performing multiple characters including Tevye. That year, Alexander — at the young age of 29 — won a Tony award and caught the attention of Rob Reiner whose production company, Castle Rock Entertainment, was developing a television show with standup comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
Almost exactly 25 years after taking his last curtain call bow, Alexander is back on the Broadway stage. But, while playing another David misanthrope may seem as effortless as slipping on comfortable shoes, Alexander’s training in the theater has conditioned him to approach each role with dedication and careful character study. “I cannot separate myself from the process I would use as an actor if this was ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night,’” he jokes with partial seriousness.
Alexander knows well that “the comic in me has to win” and yet the classically trained actor side of him is compelled by “what drives and motivates the characters, what physical and emotional conditions they’re dealing with. Even though Larry doesn’t necessarily carry the echo of scene A into scene B, I have to explore those tendrils to see what is there,” he says.
Beyond that, there’s another challenge: “to do no harm” to a character that David has already embodied.
To that end, Alexander has been at work with director Anna D. Shapiro (the Tony award winner for “August: Osage County”) and with David, who agreed to attend Alexander’s rehearsals in order to tinker with the script. David’s signature catchphrase, “Pret-ty pret-ty good,” for instance, may be replaced. “I could make an argument for or against it,” Alexander says. “It could be a fun moment for the audience to go, ‘I know that you know that I know.’ Or he could put in a George reference like, “Serenity Now!”
Similar to “Seinfeld,” the main objective in “Fish in the Dark” is, “funny trumps.” In one of the play’s storylines, Norman battles with his younger, wealthier brother (Ben Shenkman) over whose house their mother should — or shouldn’t — move into after the death of their father. For this narrative as with the rest of the play, the specific plot points are less essential than the punch lines. “When Larry puts pen to paper, his primary concern has been, ‘where are the pools of laughs,’” Alexander says. “Where can I create a situation where no one is comfortable and force them to tough it out.”
One principle that Alexander keeps in mind for comic roles is the importance of balancing authenticity and humor. “Larry taught me a valuable lesson during ‘Seinfeld,’” he says. “There was an episode where George thought he was having a heart attack. And I started performing the heart attack, and Larry said, ‘No good.’ And I said, ‘But that’s a heart attack.’ And he said, ‘I know. I believe you’re having a heart attack! That’s not funny.’” In other words, authentic must yield to laughable.
In David’s work, humor regularly operates from a defensive position. A David character usually feels that he’s been undermined and reacts in a misfiring way so that the person he ultimately harms is himself. And of course, he’s a bit of a schlemiel. In Norman’s case, that means holding the unenviable job of urinal salesman.
Since playing George, Alexander has worked continuously as an actor and director, though no single project has reached the success of “Seinfeld.” To be fair, it’s an inimitable benchmark. And the Jerry Seinfeld/Larry David orbit is so enduringly magnetic that Alexander has been pulled back into it repeatedly: there was the “Seinfeld” reunion on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and, more recently, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” in which Seinfeld and Alexander enacted a Jerry and George sketch. Alexander tries not to “over-intellectualize” why audiences still get excited about watching those old friends play off each other. “It just makes people extremely happy,” he says.
“Fish in the Dark” has made fans extremely happy too. Before the start of previews, the show broke records for highest advance ticket sales on Broadway. And though it opened to some very negative reviews, the show didn’t break a sweat, continuing to charm audiences and sell out performances through the end of David’s run. It’s probable that Alexander’s casting will maintain that winning streak.
As he molds a new character within a familiar comic form, Alexander recalls something Jerome Robbins taught him. For an actor perfecting a role, the work is never done. “Your opening night is not going to be your best performance,” he says. “Hopefully your closing night will be your best performance. That’s the goal: that it keeps getting better.” These days, the theater is where Alexander feels most gratified as an actor. Every performance is another opportunity to find a character’s identity.
editor@jewishweek.org
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