Overdose on these and you will fulfil the mitzvah of being unable to tell Haman from Mordechai*

By Liz Paratz

Liz continues her series on whether Judaism and Jewish practice are in fact good for the Jews. Previous posts in the series can be found here, here, and here. This week she puts chagim under the microscope.

Pesach : The Israel Poison Information Centre analysed over 5000 paediatric cases of poison exposure in the 12 weeks around Pesach. A highly significant 38% increase in the average weekly poison exposure rate was observed at the time when houses were being cleaned to remove all traces of chametz, compared to the 10 weeks after Pesach. This increase in poison exposure was attributed to children taste-testing chemicals and medicines from suddenly-unlocked cupboards.

But Pesach gets even more problematic. For apparently the rush to make matzah in under 18 minutes causes a spike in hand trauma cases among bakers. According to the article ‘Passover hand injuries’, typical injuries are amputations at different levels, crush injuries and burns. Oy.

So, while a certain matzah brand promises us its product has ‘NO….fat, cholesterol, salt, water, calories, air etc’, who knows what undeclared blood, sweat, tears and tendons did go into it?

But the Seder gets it right in some ways. Unlike what ClipArt might have you believe, the bronchi of the lungs are not at a protractor-perfect 90 degrees to each other. Instead, the right main bronchus is shorter, wider and more vertically-oriented than the left, meaning that food going down the wrong way is much more likely to head to the right lung and cause an aspiration pneumonia. In fact, one study quantified the difference ; more than 75% of inhaled foreign bodies fall to the right lung rather than the left.

Obviously, if we were to lean to the right, the risk would be even greater. So when ingesting large quantities of food, and particularly if 4 cups of wine are involved, it makes perfect anatomic sense to lean to our left.

And here’s some more happy news too. An article published in The Lancet in 1988 suggests that people in a terminal phase of illness are less likely to die at Pesach, but rather somehow manage to hold off death for a week to enjoy one last Seder.

In a somewhat farcical ‘Methods’ section, the researchers describe how, due to Constitutional reasons, religion does not appear on American death certificates and consequently they weren’t sure which deceased people were Jewish.

They therefore consulted the Dictionary Of Jewish Names And Their History, cross-referencing with the Los Angeles telephone directory in order to work out which Ashkenazi names could be considered ‘common’. By this super-scientific modus operandi they compiled a definitive list of ‘Common Jewish Names’ ranging all the way from Adler to Zaks, and taking in Weinberg, Weiner, Weinstein and Weintraub along the way.

The results? Unequivocally pro-Pesach. Examining the deathdates of almost 2000 recently-deceased Jews demonstrated that the number of deaths was significantly lower than expected in the week before Pesach, and then higher in the week after. This dip-peak pattern was not mirrored in the control groups, cringeworthily described as ‘Blacks, Orientals and Jewish infants’ (the article was written 21 years ago, but still….)

Interestingly, in years when Pesach fell on a weekend, the death rate dropped even more. The researchers postulate that this is because when Pesach is on a weekend it is easier for the entire family to come visit from interstate and overseas, making the Seders even more of a family/social event, thus providing an even greater incentive to postpone dying. Obviously, this depends on the family.

Purim : Purim is the festival of firecrackers, alcohol and drug overdose. It makes Pesach look as bland as matzah. First off, the firecrackers. The emergency department of the Western Galilee Hospital has compiled all their data from 1999-2003 of the Jewish, Druze and Arab patients who presented to the hospital with injuries secondary to fire-crackers, crackers, skyrockets and homemade explosive devices. Not so surprisingly, the Jewish patients’ presentation spiked during Purim.

The risks of alcohol intoxication are well-documented, and the link between Purim and alcohol abuse is hardly new. What is more intriguing is the possibility that even the quietest little cookie-monster may end up admitted to hospital under the Drug + Alcohol team.

In a case report in JAMA, an 8-year-old previously healthy boy was hospitalized with vomiting, abdominal pain, and pallor followed by hallucinations, sweating, and pinpoint pupils. These are classic signs of an overdose on an opioid such as heroin or morphine.

But the 8-year-old was no heroin addict, just a kid with a serious hamantashen habit who had devoured about 1.4kg of poppyseed in the last day. Poppies are the natural source of opium, with the drug located in the seed’s capsule.

Standard supermarket poppy-seeds are processed to remove the capsule, but unfortunately these hamantashen were proper homemade ones. Luckily the boy made an uneventful recovery over a 12-hour period.

High Holidays : For the intrepid shofar-blowers of any congregation, Rosh Hashanah is much more than honey and apples – it’s truly risky business. Again, JAMA has the details.

A 17-year-old boy was admitted with ‘notable pain in the midline of the neck anteriorly and difficulty swallowing after his blowing of the Shofar’.  A work-up in the emergency department resulted in a diagnosis of interstitial emphysema. In other words, the lungs had been subjected to such extreme pressure that air was forced out from the lungs into the surrounding tissues.

So, that rounds up chagim for now – next up, the medical considerations of going to shul, and other manifestations of ‘a religious lifestyle’.

* Image source: MelindaLewin.com

We knew it would happen eventually, and you know what they say – when the shit hits the fan, everyone gets covered in it.

I’m talking of course about the imminent ruling of the Supreme Court in Britain, regarding the case of a Jewish boy who was born to an Orthodox Jewish father and Progressive Jewish mother (a convert). This boy, whom the courts have dubbed ‘M’, was denied enrolment to the Jewish Free School (JFS) in London, on account of the fact that the school adheres to a strict Orthodox-only enrolment policy. M’s parents decided to sue on the grounds of racial discrimination, and so we find ourselves waiting with bated breath for the ruling that could change the very way we define ourselves, and our community as Jewish, right here in Australia.

Up until now, JFS’ admissions procedure has been protected by the laws in the UK governing religious freedoms, especially in running educational institutions. Now, whatever you believe about the validity of a school operating for the youth of a particular religion, this case is basically proposing that rather than a religion, being Jewish is purely a blood-line – a ’race’.

In fact, this case goes to the very fibre of what a ‘Jew’ is in our contemporary society – a race, ethnicity, culture, nation, religion – and whether it is possible to have our cake and eat it too.

I’ll begin with a story. As with most great stories, this is a tale follows a simple and popular narrative structure. There is a boy. He meets a girl. At a summer camp for young (Jewish) people. Needless to say, by the end of the camp, they are smitten, and they begin to date. He is a good Jewish boy, from a nice family in Sydney’s north, and she is a sweet, funny Jewess from the south-east of the city. The relationship barrels along, sparks fly, plans are made and before you know it, he is on one knee on a beach proposing they spend forever together.

Except that Mother didn’t tell her daughter that when she married the girl’s father, she converted as a Reform Jew. And that her Orthodox-educated, raised and believing daughter, according to Halacha, is one too.

Now at this point, the story shifts focus, and for many, it becomes a crash course in “choose-your-own-adventure” – something that many Jews are not prepared for at all. I mean, she was from the right side of the tracks – hell, she could even be more observant than he is, but it changes little in terms of the strict Halacha that governs these situations. And again, agree or not with the Jewish law, this is a purely religious standard, for those who wish to abide by it.

But what about civil liberties? Where is the space in this paradigm for human rights? The ability of a citizen of a country to choose his or her own destiny, regardless of their race, religion, class, sex or sexual orientation? Recent calls by prominent Muslim community spokesperson, Keysar Trad, to integrate Shariah Law into the Victorian legal system were met with anger and condemned as being an affront to the very independence and scope of justice. For all. Imagine if the laws governing Jewish marriage, death, divorce - were all suddenly absorbed into a secular, national system, and overruled by it.

Australians are beholden to a justice system steeped in British traditions, according to our history as a former British colony. Our government system, our pastimes, our eating habits - even the Jewish community in Australia looks to the London Beth Din to dictate the terms of Orthodoxy, and rule on matters of Jewish life and law.

So what happens if the British Supreme Court rules in M’s favour?

Well, no doubt its decision would need to be accepted by the London Beth Din, and changes made to the JFS accordingly. It means that the right to define who is a Jew is taken away from the community, and given to the courts, in direct contradiction to the human rights of the individual to practise their religion freely and without prejudice.

It means for Australian Jewish schools, clubs and organisations, precedents are being set removing the autonomy of the institution, and the religious structure of the Australian community may begin to erode. It means that while our claim as a nation may be upheld, our religious rights as Jews may not be.

It also means that for Australians, we may have to accept that being a Jew is no longer just an ethno-culture or religion, but strictly defined by the word ‘race’, a concept created by those groups who would have seen Jews eradicated – and almost did.

For our generation, and many more to come, this will have sweeping effects on our self-determination in Australia, and our choice to identify ourselves and our children, or not, as Jews.

And that is something I, and you, should not be forced to abide.

*

Postscript: I believe firmly in the rights of all people to believe and behave as they choose, as long as it does not impose itself on the rights of others to do the same. This is my personal opinion, and all hate mail should be directed to jewinthefat@gmail.com.

*

This article first published on Jewin’ the fat.

Life is Beautiful - the award winning film by Roberto Benigni, a Shoah story that used elements of comedy - way back in 1997!

This article by Talia Katz is the second of a two-part series on new and sometimes controversial forms of Shoah commemoration.  Part 1 can be seen here.

There seems to be a distinctly anti-Generation-Y movement which undercuts the question of Shoah re-commemoration. For years there has been a stable, rigidly enforced method of interacting with the history of Holocaust, and an especially enforced standard of commemoration of that history. It involves extreme reverence, highly emotive triggers and a heaviness of the soul that most Jewish youth associate with any Holocaust-related public conversation.

Then, after upwards of 50 years of silent, sombre and most sincere reflection, young Jewish people have begun to do with the Holocaust what young Jewish people have done with Shabbat, Zionism and other sacred cows – they have turned it on its head.

That is not to say today’s young Jews don’t appreciate the gravity of the Holocaust. Rather, they over-appreciate it. They are saturated in understanding. Like the children of Holocaust survivors who were drowning in the silence of their parents, these third-generation Jews are likewise drowning in the over-exposure their parents are kindly facilitating.

Is visiting a death camp at sixteen an age-appropriate experience? Indeed, can one ask eleven year-olds to comprehend or relate to the number one million, let alone light a candle to remember one million children killed in the Shoah? How do you explain hatred for hatred’s sake, without condescending, or killing for ethnicity’s sake, without terrifying?

Would it surprise you that even our nightmares are Shoah related? I challenge any Jewish person to deny that they have had at least one Holocaust-themed dream. Mine involved abattoir-like slaughterhouses, with loved ones forced like cattle through the turnstiles, awaiting their death, with nothing to be done. And for a long time, there was nothing to be done but tread water in the overwhelming tide that threatened to overpower our connection to our history altogether.

As time separated the generations from the immediacy of the tragedy and threatened to disconnect them from its meaning, humour became the bridge that allowed Jews to take back the power and stubbornly refused to submit to the magnitude of victimhood. Suddenly there was a means to process this massive influence in our lives – a method to understand the madness. What started with the Ghetto reinterpretations of Hitler’s masterpiece Mein Krampf (My Cramp) and the naming of dogs and pigs ‘Adolf’, became an essential communal and individual coping mechanism for those traumatised by Nazi policies. Survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl said in Man’s Search for Meaning:

“We knew that we had nothing to lose except our ridiculously naked lives. When the showers started to run, we all tried very hard to make fun, both about ourselves and about each other. After all, real water did flow from the sprays!”

Half a century later this tradition continues, to the chagrin and horror of the PC police and inflated egos that cannot understand that Heeb Magazine’s mockery of Holocaust memoirs stems from a moral disgust that the once noble premise of documenting history has become a moneymaking industry. Why not write your own Holocaust memoir? How better to destroy Hitler’s power than to belittle his memory and mock his self-righteousness character with a series of YouTube videos here, here and here? And here. And there. And here too.

People like Rosanne Barr hit the nail on the head: sure it’s sick and twisted to don a moustache and bake Burnt Jew Cookies in an oven, but how can we be so blinded by our pride and self-importance that we cannot see the irony and power of the inversion? When someone like Barr suggests such a photo shoot -a woman whose life has been dedicated to offending as many people as possible with her brand of take-no-prisoners humour – everything is fair game. As she herself told Heeb:

“He killed my whole family, it is true, but he is also dead, and I, a Jewish woman am still alive to make fun of him, and I will continue to make fun of the little runt for the rest of my life! He, and his ideas need to be laughed at even more these days, picked apart and analyzed up and down, as there are more and more people denying his crimes, and more and more despots trying to copy them.”

This peculiar cultural revenge is replicated again and again, from the infamous character actor Sacha Baron Cohen playing an anti-Semitic Kazakh in Borat, to the faux-terror of Seinfeld’s dreaded ’Soup Nazi’ - turning the stereotype on its head, and in so doing, fulfilling the hopes of the millions of victims encapsulated in the Talmudic verse: “The best revenge is to live”.

Call it revenge porn, but Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds could be the best antidote to the evils of the Nazi regime since Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Tellingly, after the screening of Tarantino’s film, I bumped into a Jewish couple in their mid-sixties who could not fathom how such a film was even produced, let alone enjoyed – such was their disgust for the film’s subversion of the traditional power-relationship of the Shoah.

This tale of Jews reclaiming their honour and lives from the Nazi regime that had tried to destroy them was a “once upon a time” fable that reverberated in cinemas across the world.  It reformed those Shoah nightmares into Shoah fantasies, littered with scalps and bullets and relief. Far from offensive, Inglourious Basterds gave young Jews the chance to divert the course of their people’s tragic history, even for only a couple of hours, in a recliner seat in a cinema in Sydney or Toronto or London.

So let’s not misread young Jewish attempts to re-imagine, re-define and re-tell the story of the Holocaust as out-of-touch, inappropriate, disrespectful or ignorant. Perhaps it is time to step out of the stranglehold of ‘traditional’ Holocaust commemoration and recognise that the light of satire does not diminish any of the truth of history. Rather, allow it to light the way to a better understanding and clearer picture of what the Holocaust means for Jews today.

This article was originally published at Jewin’ the Fat.

Speaking of whack re-interpretations: In Jane Yolen's 1988 novel, 12-year-old Hannah is transported through time from present-day America to Auschwitz when she opens the door for Elijah at her family's pesach seder.

by Talia Katz

Part 1 of 2

My earliest memory of the ‘Holocaust’ is the living history project I was asked to create with the help of Olga, a kindly seventy year-old Polish woman.  I was eleven.  She told us her life story and we dutifully recorded it on cassette (yep! cassette tapes) and transcribed it all: the childhood sweetheart, lost in the deportations, the persecution, the daring escape from the horrors of death camps, the starvation, and the… -

Wait.  Hang on.  Wrong story. No, Olga’s story was about immigration, having children, moving to Australia and learning English… in the 1920s. In fact, with one exception, none of the ‘Holocaust Survivors’ we met lived in Nazi Occupied Europe during the war. I felt… in a word… cheated.  Here I was, aged eleven and ready for the shock, inspiration and awe that would come with the vividness of the stories of the Holocaust.  The legacy of my people. Except it wasn’t like the black and white Spielberg movie we watched before the projects began. At least not the story we recorded.

So began my Holocaust education. I came to understand that every experience of the Shoah was different. Some were daring, some devastating, but all decidedly unique.  At that age, it was all one sweeping movie set – complete with language, plot lines, backdrops and scores.  I couldn’t tell you what the ‘real’ Holocaust was like, because all I had was Anne Frank’s journal, Spielberg’s vision, Escape from Sobibor, Elie Wiesel, Number the Stars, Exodus and Mila 18.  My bookshelf was full but I was no closer to the truth.

It wasn’t until I had the opportunity to go to Poland and walk through the gates of Auschwitz and inside the synagogues of Krakow that I appreciated the magnitude of the Shoah.  I was so appreciative that I decided not to go.  I could not bring myself to walk the paths of millions, stand in the places where they died, observe where thousands slept and where many never woke in the morning.  And afterwards eat lunch next to a bus outside the gates, wearing scarves and jackets, complaining about the weather and the food?  It seemed a cruel but honest reminder that no amount of tears or diary entries could really bring my understanding to a point where I could make sense of it. So I stayed home and enjoyed the summer of a normal sixteen year-old, content in my ignorance for a few more years.

My peers returned from Europe, shell-shocked and overwhelmed by the journey and the history. They had been hit in the head with a reality that they never saw coming.  Some never really came back.

* * * * *

Ten years later I find myself in a world where the connection to this culture-changing event seems to have suddenly shifted momentously. There is a distinct sub-culture emerging, and it is well documented. Phrases like ‘transgenerational trauma’ are a fancy contemporary way to describe the emotional suffering of the generations descended from Holocaust survivors, or indeed any people where an entire generation suffered. It even extends to those with no familial connection to the trauma.

Within these families, where repression and silence have replaced honesty and communication, the strange and politically incorrect phenomenon of ‘Holocaust Humour’ emerges. From the sardonic humour of the ghettos to the suburbs where survivors live today*, the jokes take on a melancholy, twisted quality, where the only way to relate to the tragedy of the Shoah is to laugh about it.

Like laughing at a funeral, this easing of tension by the younger generations is just as likely to inspire a giggle as cause offence. Even Shakespeare knew about the power of jest and its cautious relationship with the truth.  Yet rather than laughing at the victim as with all great comedy, this kind of humour is about laughing with the victim, at the perpetrator.

This humour pokes fun at the ritual and infrastructure of the tragedy: the tattooed numbers, the ovens, the yellow stars.  It does so not because the suffering is funny, but because if we can’t laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at?  Some think this post-Holocaust generation is too far removed from the horrors, mocks the tragedy too easily and is too quick to decontextualise then recontextualise the suffering. Such arguments say that re-imagining the Shoah destroys its integrity or stains its truth.

But isn’t the power of re-telling an integral part of the Jewish experience? We have a written law, and an oral interpretation of that law. We also have entire festivals dedicated to reminding our children: “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat”. Chaggim [festivals] like Purim and Hannukah were also probably once sacred events, placed on a pedestal and bequeathed to the younger generations with their own version of “never again”.  Nowadays Purim is about alcohol, costume parties and making a hell of a noise during the reading of Megillat Esther.  Chanuka is about commemorating another one of God’s miracles, eating donuts, lighting candles and even putting the conservationist message out there.

Even the great biblical pilgrim festival of Pesach has been manipulated by postmodernity. Last year I attended a Pesach Seder where instead of the traditional phrase “Tell your children that we were slaves in Egypt, and the Lord our God took me out of the bond of slavery”, the Haggadah read, “Tell your children that we were persecuted, tortured, starved and killed in Europe, but now we are free.” And now we are.

So why does this phenomena scare us so much when it comes to Shoah?

* * * * *

* Australia is home to the largest per capita Holocaust survivor community, outside of Israel.

Part 2 will be published next week.

This article was originally published at Jewin’ the Fat.

By Keren Tuch

As I sat sipping chai in a tea shop in the Indian town of McCleod Ganj, home to the Tibetan government in exile, I contemplated how it came to be that I could be so ignorant of the details of most conflicts in the world except the one which is closest to home, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We Jews can often be so absorbed by our own struggles and history that we tend to forget others. Do we not have a duty to be engaged with other people’s persecution stories as well?

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of self-imposed Tibetan exile, led by the Dalai Lama. Since March 10, 1959, it has been unsafe for Tibetans to practice their religion and celebrate their culture in their own homeland. Tibetans are routinely imprisoned and tortured. Peaceful protest and demonstrations are prohibited. Persecution, exile, religious restriction – it’s a story we Jews know only too well.

McCleod Ganj, also known as Little Lhasa, is a scenic and quaint town in North India, located at the chilling altitude of 2000 metres. The mesmerizing Himalayas loom majestically in the backdrop. It is a home away from home for approximately seventy thousand Tibetan refugees. The narrow streets are lined with colourful Tibetan prayer flags. The musky smell of Tibetan incense pervades the handicraft shops. Elderly Tibetans dressed in traditional attire fervently clasp their rosary beads and mutter ancient mantras. The trendy younger generation, dressed in jeans and sporting fancy haircuts, meander the streets aimlessly – they have no jobs. Buddhist mantras re-mixed with trance beats are repetitively played from shop windows, while “Save Tibet” beanies and t-shirts fill up the shelves of the souvenir shops. But of the six million Tibetans in the world, only 150 thousand of them may wear these t-shirts – in Tibet, it is illegal to even whisper the words. World media and international organizations report that the Chinese are imprisoning Tibetans merely for peaceful protesting and teaching Tibetan history. In many cases, incarceration also leads to torture. Over the past fifty years of the Tibetan struggle, it is estimated that 1.2 million Tibetans have died at the hands of the Chinese government. To my Jewish consciousness, this staggering figure brings up many images of our own suffering through history. This is another story we know all too well.

It is for this reason that thousands of Tibetans risk their lives every year to flee to Nepal or India. Parents and families gather huge sums and go into debt in order to send their children with mercenary Nepali guides, who promise to lead them through the perilous Himalayas. They do not know if they will ever see them again. The refugees walk at night for a month out of fear of being caught by Chinese patrols. Some develop frostbite but continue anyway, as the only other option is death, which often catches up with a few people along the way. Once across the border in Nepal or India, they are taken to a Refugee Centre to be medically treated and fed. Again, this reminds me of our own stories – of destitute columns fleeing across Europe to escape Nazi persecution.

In the past fifty years, the Tibetans in exile have done an incredible job of establishing a new home. Despite the looming obstacle of assimilation, they have managed to retain their Tibetan culture, language and sense of humour; but who knows what the situation will be in another fifty years. The children refugees are sent to a boarding school called a Tibetan Children’s Village (TCV). No matter how old they are, and despite what grade they are coming from, all the children start from grade one again. They are assigned a ‘home mother’ – a substitute figure who cooks and cares for groups of thirty students. They are nurtured, disciplined and given a top Tibetan education, which is one of the main reasons for emigrating.

Earlier this year, I was fortunate to meet 27 students from three different TCVs. Because of my previous experience as a madricha (Jewish youth leader), I was able to help lead at a Tibetan Youth Movement called Longsho (meaning “Rise Up”). In 2000, a British woman named Kalela Lancaster established the Tibetan Jewish Youth Exchange (TJYE). Kalela saw that the Tibetans faced the same problem that Jews in exile have been facing for 2000 years – loss of cultural identity, and the challenge of how to preserve it in exile.

The aim of TJYE is to enhance the cultural identity of both Jewish and Tibetan youth through informal education, mainly through a summer and winter camp each year.  Tibetan leaders are sent to England to learn how Jews successfully run youth camps; promoting culture and religion while uniting the community. When they return to India, they then bring their knowledge and skills to the Tibetan community. As part of the exchange, Jews who are traveling through Mcleod Ganj and have attended Jewish youth camps can help out and contribute their expertise.

The camp turned out to be a replica of the camps I have grown to know so well throughout my years of involvement with Hineni. All I had to do was substitute the Jewish content and context for the Tibetan equivalent. Surprisingly, they even chanted the same songs that were so familiar to me, including the one about a senorita going to a fair in Netanya. The students, fiercely proud of their identity, all shed tears at the end of the ten day camp, realizing what a special experience it was and the importance of retaining their culture.

By the end of the camp, I realized that for we Jews, this is one small way we can help another people in need.  We may not be able to directly convince the Chinese government to give autonomy to the Tibetans, but we can support initiatives such as TJYE, which are beneficial to both parties and put our years of expertise to good use.

For those interested in reading more about TJYE projects, check out www.tjye.org.uk.

Keren Tuch is a Sydney-based physiotherapist, former Hineni madricha and intrepid world traveller.

Source: abc.net.au

Live, from 9.30pm tonight!

Tune your TV to ABC1 and your internet browser to GalusAustralis.com.

The story so far:

John Safran Gets Busy with Cross-Cultural Love.

Pasty bespectacled comic John Safran is coming back to ABC TV with an eight-part comedy-documentary, and it’s his most daring and personal adventure yet. It’s about cross-cultural, interracial and interfaith love.

Torn between his Jewish upbringing and his inclination to hit on Eurasians, Safran comes up with some of the craziest television ever. Safran’s insane globetrotting takes him to Israel, Palestine, Togo, Japan, The Philippines, Thailand, The UK, The Netherlands and the United States. He turns black and goes undercover in Chicago, talks to his dead mother, becomes a ladyboy and an Elephant Man, all in an attempt to make sense of cross-cultural love.

Safran might be figuratively crucified for this series – but seeing he is literally crucified in the climax, he’s not too worried. You see, John Safran just needs to know: when it comes to love, should you stick with your tribe or escape your tribe?

Source: ABC press release

John Safran’s Race Relations starts Wednesday October 21 at 9.30pm on ABC1.

*

9.29pm – Waiting. Brief promo. Hope this thing works.

9.29pm – Oh yes, of course the internet is down.

9.30pm – Back up. Yeehaa.

9.32pm – C’mon ABC

9:33pm – Yay!

9:35pm – Rabbi Groner back from the grave? Oooh, ouch. Oh well, Yeshiva’s probably disowned Safran already. Justin Heazlewood’s khet pronunciation is commendable! And tefillin will never seem not-kinky ever again.

9:37pm – Carlisle St is the beating heart of Melbourne, OF COURSE, but I didn’t know it had an international airport.

9:38pm – “Cogolese”? Oy! She must be thinking something along the lines of, “When the hell is this moron going to start asking the real questions? I have women’s rights to champion!” Oh yeah, that little sideways eyeroll says it all.

9:39pm – “What about me?” Yep. It always comes down to this. At least he’s honest about being self-absorbed, unlike the rest of us pseudo-humanitarians.

9:39pm – Did you catch that headline from the Women’s Weekly mag article about Michiko’s parents wedding?! “The Bride Wore a Kimono”!

9:40pm – Really hope this letter to ex-GF bit isn’t true.

9:42pm – UNDERGARMENT TEST?!!!! HAAA HAAA. This bit is GOLD.

9:43pm – OH YVETTE NO

9:45pm – Is he seriously stealing Pussycat Doll undies? They’ve gotta be fake. No way.

9:45pm – So that’s why Dools and Linda on JJJ is now just Dools. (This whole collecting things in plastic baggies is very reminiscent of Jonathan Safran Foer’s character in the film adaptation of Everything is Illuminated.)

9:45pm – “So Penny won’t return my calls, she thinks she’s too good for me?!” Exactly. She knows what’s good for her. Or her publicist does.

9:46pm – “One Eurasian underpants short” – Been waiting my whole life to hear those words in a sentence together. Look at how he’s inhaling those puppies. Argh.

9:50pm – JELLYSTINIAN?! (Am I spelling it right?)

9:51pm – “How long do people take in there?” Puh-leeze.

9:51pm – Even the dedicated masturbation room gets a mezuzah.

9:52pm – John looks like a kid in a lolly shop. Fakest masturbation scene ever…. at least I hope that was fake… Hmm. Now even John looks kind of uncomfortable.

9:55pm – I’ve always admired Yasser Arafat too! He IS a great guy.

9:58pm – “He’ll be throwing rocks at himself” – THAT’S THE MONEY SHOT, RIGHT THERE

You know, despite (or perhaps because of?) the tasteless humour, this episode in general is actually quite a nuanced take on racial tensions – the whole bit about John’s Baha’i girlfriend feeling it’s OK for her to mock Muslims; the skin-shade tensions in Bolivia (no better place to discuss racial tension than Caulfield park, right?); the joke about Palestinians making their own Schindler’s List... This is what good satire does – it enables the viewer to both relate to the non-PC views s/he shares with Safran (but in a guilt-free, “I’m in on the joke” way), and also see them for what they are – hypocritical/racist/rude, etc.

10:00pm – Well. That wasn’t so bad, was it?

FURTHER READING: Here, there, everywhere.

Andrew Harris

After his stellar Australian debut with Y-Love earlier this year, Diwon’s been a busy, busy boy. Apart from his unenviable, gruelling tour schedule, and keeping up with Y-Love and his roster of Shemspeed artists, the DJ of diverse influences has been working on two very different projects – the cinematic Serene Poetic as Dreams in Static, with guitarist co-conspirator Dugans, and the super-cool Sabra Sessions, the sort of mixtape that plays in Diwon’s head.

ELSEWHERE: Serene Poetic is a major departure from your previous work – it’s more loungey, it’s relaxed and ethereal – but it still retains an essential Diwon sort of a beat: what have you and Dugans achieved with the record?

DIWON: The Diwon element is the consistency of layered drums and percussion, which finds its way through most of my work. The idea was to compose instrumental music that stands strong without sung melody lines, and release that as its own cinematic instrumental masterpiece and get the music placed in movies and such, but all along we wanted to also record the songs, reconstructed or as is, depending on which song, with various singers that we love and have this great melodic song with music underneath that is more layered and complex than what would normally be played with a singer, but also have the music be catchy and not too experimental…

ELSEWHERE: Could you tell us a bit about Dugans, like where you know him from, what else he does apart from Dreams in Static?

DIWON: Dugans is an amazing guitarist who comes from Austin, Texas, where the rock scene is really big. He played there for ten years, mostly every night in different groups. He also had a band called ‘Raliss’, which he was making some noise with in the rock scene. Now he lives down the block from me in Crown Heights, New York. We have a production team called ‘Dreams in Static’, we also produced Shir HaShirim, mixing heartfelt Moroccan song with hypnotic hip-hop, rock, and Middle Eastern beats, and next up is a project called ‘Levi Mordechai’, which is reminiscent of early Israeli records such as Shalom Chanoch and is very live, but also has some beat elements to it.

ELSEWHERE: What pushed you in the direction of Dreams in Static?

DIWON: I had started making these really cinematic beats, playin’ keys and synths over beats I was putting together and thought it would be great to send to Dugans to lay some guitar, and cut that up as if it were sampled and just keep cutting it up and rearranging it so that it would be a mix of a live band, a hip-hop producer, but beyond the loop-driven hip-hop that’s played on the radio. Something that big music enthusiasts could really listen to on repeat and find new elements with each listen…

ELSEWHERE: How did you arrive at the duo name and the album name?

DIWON: ‘Dreams in Static’ just came to me. It sounded cool and seemed the perfect name for such a project. The album name, ‘Serene Poetic’ came from back in college when I was really into poetry and spoken word, I was going to put together my work and call it ‘Serene Poetic Cacophony’ I remember telling [poet, hip-hop artist and actor] Saul Williams about it and he seemed stoked on the name – fast forward a slew of years and I just cut off the cacophonous part, even the music, at times, probably warrants the adjective.

ELSEWHERE: Most people might not know, but you do a lot of your own artwork – what’s the story behind the two latest covers in your catalogue?

DIWON: I direct everything for my label [Shemspeed] and I do seventy-five percent of the designing. The Dreams cover was something I always had in my head, and then, once, stumbled on this French artist who was creating work similar to what I had in mind. Just very surreal situations, scenes that look real and could be possible, but at the same time visually don’t make sense. I collaborated on the cover with a designer who does work for the ultra-ortho[dox] labels in Brooklyn. He is great at extraction, something I am really bad at. Anyway, we finally got all the elements and he layered ’em in as per what I saw in my head. It was pretty fun. The Sabra Sessions is basically a play on designs I have been messing with for a while. Sort of the collage, cut and paste; retro, but new-school, fresh style; I wanted it to look like it could be a record cover from the 60s or from right now. I put the cover in a Polaroid-simulator-type thing to get the edges to look like that, and bam!

ELSEWHERE: What other side projects are you working on?

DIWON: my Others album which is a bunch of my different style songs with singers from around the world as well as this Diwon Riddim, record which is where singers in all languages get down to one of my Riddims, making club music in French, Jamaican English, Hebrew, German, Russian, English and so on. On the side of that, I am producing for a bunch of the Shemspeed artists, including Y-Love and DeScribe.

ELSEWHERE: Can we look forward to more Yemenite action from Diwon?

DIWON: The Yemeniteness will always be in some of my music. I still haven’t found a Yemenite singer or rapper to fit what I am going for, but I will always sneak Arabic and Yemenite styles into my hip hop beats.

ELSEWHERE: Are you and Dugans going to tour Serene Poetic?

DIWON: I doubt it. I want to be home in case Tarantino calls us to score his next film! We are workin’ on the vocal version next and a kids’ album as well, with [singer-songwriter] Jill Sobule.

ELSEWHERE: The Sabra Sessions is a little closer to what most listeners would know you for – it sounds like a funky Tel Aviv rooftop party – how did you end up putting it together?

DIWON: It’s sort of music that I have been enjoying, but the mix is how it’s always been played in my head, remixed, chopped, sped up. Sort of the style of Baltimore and Miami club music, which I haven’t found in Israel, so I tried my best to mix it up in a way that the Hebrew songs fit the style and tempo. I threw in some throwback tunes like ‘Funky Town’ because no-one ever DJs that in a hi- hop set for some reason, but it’s the most amazing track!

ELSEWHERE: What’s the next big thing in Jewish music – what’s turning you on right now?

DIWON: Middle Eastern Hip Hop in English, like Benyamin Brody (who features on Shir HaShirim) and Ephryme.

ELSEWHERE: Any parting words?

DIWON: It was such a blessing touring with you all in Melbourne, looking forward to the next thing!

No release dates as yet for Serene Poetic or The Sabra Sessions. For musical delights in the meantime, check out www.shemspeed.com, www.myspace.com/eprhyme and www.myspace.com/benyaminbrody

Annnddddd….. (drum roll!): You can download free music samples here and here.

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This interview was first published here.

Andrew Harris is a freelance scribbler and snapper and is one third of the three-headed beast that is elsewhere promotions, who brought Diwon and multilingual rapper Y-Love to Melbourne’s East Brunswick Club in June.

When reading a recent New York Times magazine article by James Traub about the emergence of a left-of centre ‘Israel Lobby’, I was particularly struck by how completely different the situation is in this country, and how we are still more or less mired in a quite elitist form of political lobbying, based on wealth and privileged political links with the major parties.

Alternative Jewish-identified voices ranging from what might be characterised as left Zionist (Australian Jewish Democratic Society) to anti-Zionist (Antony Loewenstein, John Docker, Ned Curthoys) are ignored, criticised or stigmatised to varying degrees. It is not contentious  to state that even the views of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS), which often parallel those of the anti-occupation Israel left, are never invited to share a level playing field with the ‘official’ suits.

It’s worth recounting what’s going on (at least according to Traub), in the US.

Over the past year, a new organisation called J Street has stormed Washington with the help of a number of young enthusiasts, some liberal-minded philanthropists, and contemporary web 2.0 connecting and lobbying. J Street has shocked the Jewish establishment (AIPAC, the ADL) by being invited to meet Obama, and being heard by Cabinet secretaries and officials. Traub’s article agitated AIPAC so much that the Times had to issue a ‘clarification’, stating  AIPAC’s views were not sought for the article.

One sentence in Traub’s article is particularly notable: “J Street specializes in mounting campaigns that may appeal to the 92 percent [of Jews] who care about other causes more than they do about Israel.” Many American Jews identify as Americans first, and J Street attempts to cater to those who do not feel Israel should be made ‘a special case’ when it comes to such issues as the Occupation. If, as Americans, they could not accept certain behaviour from the US government; they cannot make a special exception for Israel, particularly because the Israel is such a massive recipient of foreign aid. Thus J Street has been pushing a ‘pro peace, pro Israel’ line on Capitol Hill, particularly since about eight percent of Members of Congress are Jewish.

Now, contrast J Street with the traditional and exclusive club of ECAJ-State Community Councils-Zionist Councils-AIJAC, and its effective monopoly of Jewish opinion in Canberra. The leadership of this group of organisations is self-referential. Organisations such as AIJAC are financially independent (including paid, professional staff), and there is a cross over of board membership between AIJAC and Federal Parliament — Mark Dreyfus (MP for Isaacs) was on its National Editorial Board, and Michael Danby (Member for Melbourne Ports) is former employee of AIJAC.   Danby is well known for his vocal positions on Israel.

The newest player on the leadership front, the Australian Israel Cultural Exchange (AICE), lead by Albert Dadon, appears to have gazumped the traditionalists by achieving the controversial Joint Declaration between the Australian and Israeli Governments (read this article in The Age for background). Dadon takes a less aggressive approach to the Israel question, focusing on fostering cultural exchange with Israel — and thus confronting the boycott Israel campaign. It is clear that Labour is somewhat enamoured of Dadon, and a more critical approach to Middle Eastern affairs will not necessarily be forthcoming (witness Julia Gillard’s statements regarding the Gaza War, or quietness over the Goldstone Report).

I’d suggest that the traditional elitist/oligarchical characteristic of Jewish political organisations has been a continuing feature of Australian Jewish life ever since the establishment of the first Anglo-Jewish organisations. Despite the change in the ethnic background of Australian Jews, the need for independent wealth or substantial subsidy, coupled with free time, means that very few people can afford a commitment to community leadership. This model, combined with a highly parochial Jewish press, means that alternatives have not been forthcoming.

Furthermore, we know of an increasing conservative political trend in the Australian Jewish community, which contrasts with the much broader, liberal social agenda of the American Jewish community. Increasing affluence and connection to Israel seems to have led to increased introversion and strengthening of cultural and religious life, without a concomitant expression in commitment to non-Jewish liberal/left causes. And those who are “alienated” ― perhaps those who identify as secular or non-Zionist ― represent the ‘outliers’ who end up not connecting at all; while  in the US, this group is probably at the core of the politically progressive Jewish community.

The only liberal trend in Australia appears to be in the emergence of religious alternatives, but this reflects a turn to personal ‘liberation’ rather than political activism (and again, this may be due to experience of alternatives in Israel). This can be contrasted with the spiritual renewal movement associated with Michael Lerner and Tikkun Magazine in the US that has been going on for about twenty years now. We have seen nothing from clergy here about the link between Jewish belief and progressive political action, including an acceptance of, and outreach, to disaffected members of the Jewish community on issues of common concern. But I suspect it’s part of their contracts to be quiet.

Given the strength of the political establishment, is there any way that web 2.0, which has become such an important campaigning and informational tool in the US, could be adopted here for Jewish-related political causes? It’s still a bit thin, and perhaps early in the peace.

What can we expect from the local Jewish social media then, as a way of putting out alternatives? Not much in the way of direct, critical politics on either a local or international front, at least for the moment. The concerns of the Jewish News online and J-wire are parochial (business and entertainment), and non-threatening reportage or press releases about Israel.

Sites such as The Sensible Jew and even Galus Australis, reflective of a tiny ‘let a hundred flowers bloom’ period, are culturally focussed, oecumenical, and essentially non-political: without a specific cause except the cause of print and oneness. The explicitly political AJDS website is the product of an equally small group of people (which is not to detract from the importance of the messages, and I declare a conflict of interest here as a content developer for the AJDS website).

This issue of broadcasting an alternate message in a new media is a problem facing many small groups and organisations.  One alternative I have thought of is for a number of organisations to pool their electronic resources, despite differences around the margins, and share substantial amounts of content while pushing their particular editorial line.

Unfortunately, no one has been able to locate a rich sugar daddy or mamma to support a liberal political message like J Street’s, with its many thousands of  (probably younger) American Jewish supporters.

Perhaps one hundred baby boomers need to each contribute $1000 to support alternative voices through an independent foundation that supports the new media with all its opportunities for creativity, and, as we used to say, ‘let it all hang out’ for the sake of a politically and culturally progressive Jewish Australian presence that can bypass the lugubrious and self-interested group at the top. There certainly is a core of talented younger people who could take up the challenge, and I suspect many of them are not part of existing networks and structures, but would thrive with the new media.

A hundred other intelligent and creative voices are certainly better than the usual dozen (ageing) voices (and I am one of the older guys now).

Larry Stillman is an executive member of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society.

References:

Jews and Australian politics, eds Geoffrey Brahm 
Levey and Philip Mendes, Sussex Academic 
Press, 2004.

Power And Powerlessness in Jewish History, David Biale, Schocken Books, 1986.

The News About the Internet, Michael Massing, New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 13 · August 13, 2009

Do you always have a piece of chalk handy for correcting restaurant menu spelling mistakes?

Does the impeding release of the fifth edition of the Macquarie Dictionary give you that tingly feeling in your tuches? (November 1, peeeps! [*Happy dance*] You know what we’re asking for for Christmukkah.)

If you answered yes to any or all of the above, WE NEED YOU.

Galus Australis is seeking a capable student intern (or interns) to help with editing, web design, marketing and general dogsbody tasks (a few hours a week). It’s an excellent opportunity to gain some web development/publishing experience and will surely look tres hip on your CV.

For now, the position is unpaid, but we provide SCINTILLATING conversation and excellent nosh for free. And you get to play a part in the very important task of cultivating intellectual Jewish-Australian life (cough, cough). Howzat?

Email your resume and a brief shpiel to editorial at galusaustralis dot com if you’re interested.

Love,

The Galus Australis eds

By The Hasid

Many of you may have read Mark Dapin’s article about second generation Holocaust survivors, “Stories My Parents Told Me”, in Good Weekend last Saturday (22 August). The article was sensitive and well-written, and the experiences of the interviewees were probably very familiar to anyone who has grown up Jewish in Melbourne. Unfortunately I can’t provide a link to the complete article as Good Weekend content is not posted on any of the Fairfax websites (get thee to a hard copy).

What irked me slightly about the piece, though, was the ending. Dapin quotes one of the interviewees, who mentions her children going out for drinks on Friday night, and he seems to extrapolate this as representative of a general concern that second generation survivors have about their children – that they may not fully appreciate the sacrifices made by their grandparents. It seems an odd conclusion to me – one that comes in through the back door, so to speak, when no grandchildren of Holocaust survivors have been interviewed or mentioned in the article at all.

“It’s one of the things I’m struggling with now,” says Magda, “because my kids work in the city and it’s the done thing that you go for drinks after work on a Friday night. In my day, I wouldn’t dream of not being home for Friday night [for the Sabbath dinner]. They don’t feel the pull of what our parents would’ve said. That is, ‘You’re not missing out by not drinking.’”

“But our parents had a wonderful way of working with words,” says Erica, “to get us to do what they wanted us to do. They knew which buttons were the guilt buttons.”

“And our kids don’t feel guilt about anything,” says Magda. “We over-compensated. Our kids have to be happy. Our kids have to never feel guilty. Our kids have to have options.”

Nobody wants to keep alive their parents’ anguish and apprehension, their mistrust and dismay, but some of the second generation worry their children have forgotten the lessons learnt behind barbed wire, and don’t understand the sacrifices made in the camps and in the forests, the unstated pacts across family lines. While the second generation grew up feeling the weight – or even the reward – of the history of the 20th century, they fear that the past has lost meaning for the present – and, in the future, not even memory will survive.

Weird conclusion, no?

It’s something of a sombre, depressing ending. And kind of makes me (a grandchild of Holocaust survivors) angry. The suggestion that the third generation may not “understand the sacrifices made in the camps” could not be further from my experience and that of my friends. The Holocaust was in the ether of my childhood and education. My parents have been deeply affected by the experiences of their parents, older relatives and friends’ parents. As an adult, it informs who I am and how I see the world. Call it guilt, memory, whatever you like: not a day goes by when I do not reflect (however briefly) upon my grandparents’ survival, the ‘accident’ of my birth, and the responsibility of perpetuating the memory of the Holocaust. I think it makes me a better, more compassionate person. And sometimes a bit… prone to worrying. But in a good way, you know?

A friend of mine, also in her twenties, recently told me a story I found at once funny, sad and poignant. She clearly remembers attending an after-school activity when she was very young (5 or 6, I think). Many of the other children in attendance were Jewish. My friend asked one of the other children if she was Jewish, to which she responded in the affirmative, but added in a hushed tone, “Shhh. Don’t tell anyone!” My friend asked why. “Because of the the Holocaust,” the other girl whispered.

Part of me gets the angle Dapin is going for. I can understand the concerns expressed by the individuals he interviewed (though they wouldn’t have been aware of how Dapin would interpret their comments). If that’s how they feel, then that’s how they feel. But for Dapin to suggest (and to be fair, he suggests, doesn’t assert) that my generation not feeling guilty (and ohhhh, let me assure you, we feel guilty!) means that we don’t understand the sacrifices made by our grandparents, or don’t appreciate the lessons of history, is kind of simplistic. And also not true. While I don’t go out for drinks on Friday night, I don’t really see why doing so precludes one from having a deep appreciation of the legacy of the Holocaust. (I’m not sure that that’s what Kron was implying either – it seemed to me more that she was pointing out the generational differences. But I’m just speculating here, because obviously I have no way of knowing what went on in the interview.)

What do you think? Is Dapin right?

How do you relate to this conclusion, whether you’re a descendant of Holocaust survivors or not?