Tag: Jews

In Memory of Pat Robertson

from Harper’s Magazine, November 1988

From an exchange of letters last summer between Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, and Pat Robertson, chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network.

August 1, 1988

Dear Pat:

I am sure that you have followed the controversy surrounding the film The Last Temptation of Christ. No doubt you are also aware that some in the Christian community have seized upon this film, without even having seen it, to make scapegoats of Jews.

If the film is offensive, I am confident that all Americans, regardless of their religious affiliation, will condemn it. However, I am sure you will also agree that Jews should not be made scapegoats for a work created by individuals of many diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds. Those who have been blaming Jews have served merely to foster divisiveness and hatred at the expense of the mutual tolerance and understanding that has always been the hallmark of this nation’s religious pluralism.

As someone whose voice is widely respected in the Christian community, you are in a unique position to condemn and counsel those who are using this film to foment anti-Semitism. We urge you to do so, and we would be pleased to bring any statement you make to the attention of our constituents.

Sincerely,
 Abe

August 1, 1988

Dear Abe:

Thank you for your letter, which I just received. Please be assured that I will indeed raise my voice against any suggestion of emerging anti-Semitism that may come about from the release of The Last Temptation of Christ.

However, you must know that when word of the release of this picture came to me I knew immediately that, because MCA [the company that produced the movie] has been identified with Jewish management since its inception, the release of this movie would be viewed by many evangelicals as a Jewish affront to Jesus Christ and the Christian faith. This may not be rational, but as I found during the presidential campaign, perceptions are not always rational. Perceptions, however, quickly become reality.

This movie, as you realize, is an offense to 100 million Christians. It ridicules and blasphemes the faith that we have all committed our lives to. In my estimation, The Last Tempta- tion of Christ will be a great detriment to the framework of brotherhood that you and I and others have worked so very hard to bring about between Jews and Christians in America.

I would urge you to do everything you can to exercise your influence with Lew Wasserman and others at MCA to eliminate this affront to Christianity before the trouble begins.

Sincerely,
 Pat

August 3, 1988

Dear Pat:

I appreciate your prompt reply but must admit to serious disappointment with its contents. You say you will raise your voice against “any suggestion of emerging anti-Semitism that may come about,” but open invitations to anti-Semitism have already come about, and yet you have been and continue to be silent. This is the time for you to speak out and confront those perceptions before they become reality.

Our immediate concern is the scapegoating the film has provoked. Since this film is obviously not a “Jewish affront” to Christianity, I cannot understand why you are willing to let this dangerous and divisive lie spread unchecked. I would ask again that you speak out publicly against anti-Semitism and condemn those who are using this film to foment it.

Sincerely,
 Abe

August 8, 1988

Dear Abe:

I am your friend. Please read this letter carefully. It is obvious from your answer that you did not read my last letter.

Saturday night I was taken to dinner by a millionaire housing developer, who had been a member of the city council of one of our largest cities, who is a prominent Republican, and a national vice president of a major religious organization. He asked me, “What do you think of this movie about Jesus?” I said to him, “What do you think?” He answered immediately, “It is a couple of Jews trying to make a buck.”

There will probably be 50 million people, Catholic and Protestant, who will mirror his sentiments. I can’t do much by myself to stop that, but you can deflect it with the proper strategy.

If the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, an active Jewish organization, comes out against this blasphemous movie and in the process condemns MCA for a tasteless, un-American attack on the cherished religious beliefs of a large group of our citizens, you will have said to all Americans that you are not a part of this movie and that it does not have the endorsement of the Jewish leadership in America.

When you make such a statement I will then be delighted to feature your statement on my television network and to give it as much press as I possibly can in the other media. Then instead of your coming off as shrilly blaming Christians for a problem caused by MCA, you will come off as you are—a champion of all people against all forms of bigotry and intolerance.

Please give this deep consideration because whether we like it or not the thing is going to get Out of hand.

With warm personal regards, I am

Sincerely,
 Pat

August 10, 1988

Dear Pat:

I had asked you, as someone whose voice is widely respected in the Christian community, to speak out against, and counsel, those who are using the film The Last Temptation of Christ to foment anti-Semitism. Certain that you would understand, I pointed out that Jews should not be made scapegoats for a work created by individuals of many diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds. How disappointing your response.

I am flabbergasted at your accusation that the Anti-Defamation League or anyone else is “shrilly blasting [sic] Christians for a problem caused by MCA.” The problem is anti-Semitism, as exemplified by the housing developer’s comments to you.

Did you answer him? Did you tell him that Jews did not write the novel or direct the film? Did you tell him that the issue is not “Jews trying to make a buck”?

Pat, if you didn’t straighten him out, you should have. And you are someone who can straighten out others who might, in your words, “mirror his opinion.”

For you to even suggest that “the Jewish leadership in America” should tell the American people that we are not part of this movie and do not endorse it is outrageous. “The Jewish leadership” is not the film industry—why should anyone believe otherwise? Why should Jews be put on the defensive because age-old false stereotypes unfortunately still exist in some quarters? We will not be blamed for the Crucifixion a second time.

There is one point in your letter with which we agree. The ADL does, indeed, oppose and condemn bigotry and intolerance wherever it occurs. Sad to say, in connection with this film it has come from some who are erstwhile friends.

I ask you once again, Pat, to speak out against the anti-Semitism surrounding this film.

Sincerely,
 Abe

DISCLOSURE: I spent an hour on the phone with a friend today whose kid was getting bullied for being a Jew. The response from our local public school system has been only a shade more supportive than Pat Robertson’s response to Abe Foxman, and a helluva lot less honest.

Happy Non-Denominational Gift Giving Holiday Season!

I’m a mixed Jew who’s lived in the American Midwest for his entire life. I think these songs, more than anything else I’ve ever written, are honest about that experience.

(Incidentally, given that this year is one of the few when Xmas and Xanukah overlap, all of these songs are especially appropriate.)

  • Another Dark Xmastime (FUN FACT: I wrote this during my first year as a fundamentally unemployable stay-at-home dad; my children believe it is an accepted part of the general Xmas Music Canon.)
  • Dreidel Bells (FUN FACT: The beat here is an original GameBoy running an early German Nanoloop cartridge. Both voices are obviously me, but the filters for the robot voice badly overburdened my old iBook, causing significant lag–which is why Mr. Roboto struggles so badly to hit his marks.)
  • DreidelDreidelDreidel (FUN FACT: The beat here is a vintage analog Boss DR-55 once owned by POE, crammed through a heavy-metal distortion stompbox.)

“Who’s Coming to Hurt Us?”✡︎

I first came across this image 20 (!!!) years ago in a Something Awful “Photoshop Phriday” thread (it’s evidently a riff on Who is Coming to Our House? by Joseph Slate and illustrator Ashley Wolff). It’s served as my shorthand for what it feels like being a Jew in America ever since.

(Brought to mind by this—which happened at my parent’s synagogue last week; that’s only about 40 minutes from where I live with my wife and kids today—but it really could have been basically anything from the last two weeks, right?)

My funny, glamorous, gracious Aunt Lola was enslaved in Auschwitz at 16.

[Today is Yom Ha’Shoa. Yesterday I was at lunch and my Aunt Lola was brought to mind, so I thought I’d share this post from 2015: My funny, glamorous, gracious Aunt Lola died last night. She was enslaved in Auschwitz at 16. The full text I wrote then follows.]

I just learned that my Aunt Lola died last night–great aunt, technically, the wife of one of my father’s uncles. Although we’ve lived in the same town for twenty years, Lola and I, I had only seen her a small handful of times during those decades; there’s been bad blood in our family. Not with Lola and me, but elsewhere, and we wound up on different sides. That’s just how it goes.

I loved her very much when I was small. She was small–putting her at my level, as a tall dweeb in a clip-on tie and penny loafers–and glamorous and funny. She glowed. Her rich, thick Czech accent always reminded me of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, which is a not-super-insane association for a boy who watched a ton of TV in the ’80s. I remember one time, at a summer party at my Aunt Denise’s house, at the end of the party, she slipped off her shoes–fancy gold, sharp-toed, high heels. Her toes were twisted and calloused, almost as though her feet had been bound–which I guess they had, although by American women’s fashion, not some out-modded and backward cultural obsession with ideals of beauty (ha! Joke!)

I remember her gingerly stepping from foot to foot on the thick shag in her hose, “Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh!” as though it was hot as coals–and she wasn’t play acting; her feet were aching from the shoes and the standing and the heat of the day. She looked up to see me sitting on the sofa across from her, looking on in dismay.

“Oh David,” she smiled, “Sometimes you need to suffer to be beautiful.”

I didn’t know then that, at 16, she been shipped to Auschwitz like a crate of shoes–a slow three-day train ride, because of the congestion on the tracks created by shipping so many other folks to camps, like cattle or shoes or some other commodity. There she’d been disgorged onto a ramp, and at the bottom stood Dr. Mengele. He was making a selection. Some were sent right, other left. Her folks went one way, she the other. She became my aunt, they became ash. She was stripped and shaved and tattooed and beaten, and sent walking to her new life.

She ended up in the barracks closest to the crematory ovens, and so her job was to sort the belongings of the dead–the clothes, the luggage–searching for jewelry and food and blankets and meds and anything of use. To sort it, to box it up for storage, or to be redistributed to widows and orphans.

There’s more, there’s lots more–heck, there’s a second run-in with Dr. Mengele. You can read and listen to her testimony here.

But I didn’t know any of that when I was small–I mean, I knew all of that, because such stories were not rare where I grew up, nor such survivors. But I did not know her story until I was much older–older than she was when she was enslaved–and I’m still learning bits and pieces, because I never heard it from her.

Which I don’t take personally; there was never a good time to share it with me, and there was no bad blood between us. When I last saw her, even though the folks around her were shooting me and my sisters daggers–gosh, even though one of my cousins later sought me out to hassle me about that chance encounter–Aunt Lola was still as charming and gracious as ever.

And I still loved her very much. Let her name be a blessing.

Her name is Lola Taubman; she sorted the laundry in Hell for a time as a teen, and then lived 72 years more, largely here, largely in good health.

A Holiday Tip for Gentile Schoolteachers🎅🏿🕎

Last year, during the pandemic, I eavesdropped the most brilliant piece of classroom third-rail navigation I’ve ever seen in my life.

This was in my then-third grader’s Zoom music class (we’ll leave for another day any discussion of the crime against humanity that is “grade-school Zoom music class”).

This is always a fraught time of year for grade-school music teachers: They wanna sing Xmas songs, most of the kids wanna sing Xmas songs, but the constant Othering definitely grinds away at the Jewish kids (esp. when they try and “include” you be singing the “Dreidel Song”; that song is crap, and we know it. The Xmas songs are way better).

So in my daughter’s class, the teacher shows this slide: it’s an unremarkable middle-aged White dude, “Mitchell Parish.”  Who the heck is Mitchell Parish? Well, he was born in Lithuania, and brought here by his parents, who were Jews (my daughter immediately perks up; Jews! Like us!) and he was a popular songwriter in New York in the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s—and he wrote the lyrics to “Sleigh Ride”!  

*advance to next slide* 

*kids sing “Sleigh Ride”* 

*EVERYONE IS A WINNER!*

My daughter felt seen, gentiles got their Christmas carol, and no one had to sing the goddamned “Dreidel Song.” 

So there’s the trick to getting to sing Christmas carols in public school: 

Start out with a brief bio of the Jews who wrote your Xmas song

(all your favorite Xmas songs were written by Jews; you’re welcome).

Heck, you can do a whole Winter Concert—featuring “Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and “Run, Run Rudolph”—on just a single bio slide: All four of those classics were written by the same Jew (the inimitable Johnny Marks, whose Jewish brother-in-law was the guy who created Rudolph to begin with).

May We Be Brought Back from the Mouth of Annihilation

“After the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting my coworker at the Hebrew school admits she wishes we had less windows” by Joshua Elbaum

​​I bet birds wish the same thing.
That anyone would take the sky, crack it,
put its pieces where they don’t belong,
astonishes them. The birds fear our foolishness.
We who dare to choose between gifts
the sky offers: light without rain, heat
without hail, stars without the space between—   
I remember the stained glass of Sundays,
how it stained the light too, shape of Jacob,
Joseph, Miriam. Shape of a dove,
of an ox. Shape of a story our faith arrives
through, refracted. My mouth forming
the shape of someone else’s mother
tongue, the prayers too a window,
through which a song might pass
but not the meaning. We are to be ready
for what the children ask in the morning.
We are to be ready to barricade the doors.
Windows are most dangerous when they are so clean
you could mistake them for air.
When I tell my family about this job they laugh
because all I ever used to ask about at holidays
were the plot holes. These children ask nothing,
as if knowing they could slip away into American
suburbia if they had to. It is said Jews fear transcendent
relationship with G-d because it reminds us
of assimilation. There is a reason for every law,
like skin they keep the self inside the self.
A person should pray only in a house
with windows, as it is written.
The Orthodox draw a circle in the sand
saying everything to one side of this is holy.
The Mystics draw a circle around a circle
and erase little holes into the smaller one.
My grandparents kept glass cases
filled with children and birds,
a tiny fiddler, a goose with golden eggs.
Each case a window into a childhood
that might be bought back retroactively
from the mouth of annihilation,
from the night of too many stars,
the streets covered in little pieces of sky.
The body perishes because it is permeable.
To weather and disease and bullets.
If you want to be king of the world
make your world very small. Plug every plot hole.
Take the lightless box and pray in it.
The killer too sat at a dark window others
at other dark windows whispered through.
Windows are most dangerous when they are so clean
you could mistake them for a mirror.
There is a teaching that Moses at Mount Sinai
received no tablets, no commandments
not even a word, just one soundless letter
the noise of the larynx clicking into gear,
glottal seed to spool story around like pearl to grit,
plot hole that vacuums creation in around it.
On another stained Sunday I wonder why
any sound needs my mouth to make it at all.
When I open to ask, a pigeon flies down my throat.
I close my eyes and everything I can’t see is spared.
God whispers through the window of the sky at night
saying, the body perishes unless it is permeable.
A kid at work tells me my eyes look like the universe.
I thank him, and he corrects me: the universe is dead.
My eyes look like the dead universe. He is my favorite.
The sky is running out of birds to throw at us.
Soon there will be no wings to carry our prayers up.
I am trying to keep breathing. I am trying not to look away.
A miracle, that no matter how much we see,
there never seems to be any less light.

for Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, and Irving Younger

…for all of my slaughtered brothers and sisters…

May their memories be for a blessing. May HaShem avenge their blood.