2 big anniversaries: Yitzhak & Yasir. Billie Jean & Bobby Riggs. Bat mitzvah per Adam Sandler. Golda Meir doc. Amazing new course at Streicker. 3 terrific books. Israel's shame.
Newsletter #146
Two September anniversaries trigger vivid memories for me:
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
*Thirty years ago, today, September 13, 1993, Pres. Bill Clinton presided over the signing of the Oslo Accords by Yitzhak Rabin, then Israeli Prime Minister, and Yasir Arafat, President of the Palestinian Authority. As Chair of Americans for Peace Now, I had a seat about 20 yards from the famous handshake on the White House lawn. I remember reveling in the euphoria of the seismic moment that marked the end of hostilities between two historic enemies and, we thought, the dawn of a new era of peace.
* Sadly, Oslo’s framework was fundamentally flawed, opportunities were squandered by both sides, and the vaunted “peace process” stalled. These days I put my energy into APN and my hopes in a two-state confederation, an option described here by A Land for All (Eretz L’chulam), the Israeli-Palestinian organization whose new CEO, May Pundak, explains how her end-of-conflict vision differs from that of her father, an architect of Oslo.
* “Three (not so) Little Words,” my just-posted column in Moment magazine, argues for straight talk about the corrupt, corrosive policies of the Israeli government. The time for euphemisms has passed. The three words are: Apartheid. Racist. Fascist. “Living in denial is not loyalty. The first step to righting a wrong is to name it.”
* Faustian bargain. Defying his nation’s official boycott of authoritarian regimes, Israel’s Ambassador to Romania recently met with the leader of that country’s fascist party whose idol is their pro-Nazi WWII prime minister, Ion Antonescu (above, left, with Hitler), the man who oversaw the slaughter of 400,000 Romanian Jews. Why would the envoy of the Jewish State pander to a fascist? Because Netanyahu and his racist-nationalist-ultraOrthodox ministers will sell their souls to any leader who turns a blind eye to Israel’s illegal land grab in the West Bank and its shameful treatment of the Palestinians under its control. In plain words, it’s a shanda.
*”Collisions in a Fractured Israel, “today’s front page story in the Times, underscores the impact on everyday life of festering political and religious differences. What’s happening in the Jewish State eerily mirrors current schisms in the United States. Canary in the mine, anyone?
WOMEN
*Fifty years ago, on September 20, 1973, in a match dubbed “The Battle of the Sexes,” Billie Jean King, then the #1 female tennis player in the world, defeated one-time tennis champion, Bobby Riggs, a self-proclaimed male chauvinist braggart, in straight sets in the Houston Astrodome. That night, my husband Bert and I, and dozens of my Ms. Magazine colleagues, were crammed around a TV set at the home of Ronnie Eldridge, a former executive director of the Ms. Foundation. The air bristled with tension, all of us cheering King on while secretly fearing her humiliation by a man who’d flagrantly taunted and ridiculed female athletes. In the half century since Billie Jean’s decisive victory, she’s been an icon of women’s equality in sports and life, a “shero” to little girls, and a powerful avatar of feminist activism.
POLITICS
*Timely reminder: Reproductive freedom is a winning issue for Democrats. “Republicans felt the impact [last] November when five states across the political spectrum put abortion referendums on the ballot, and voters in each case chose to safeguard access,” reports The WashPost. “Even in conservative strongholds, typically sleepy statewide contests have seen unusually high turnout when abortion access was at stake — most recently in Ohio, where a hearty majority rejected a measure that would have made it tougher to enshrine protections.” In other words, it doesn’t take that much courage for our candidates to lead with prochoice advocacy.
JEWS
* My New Years Resolution: Though I’m pretty well-educated Jewishly, I’ve decided to sign up for a two-year course on Jews and Judaism. The program, called YESOD, will cover the sweep of Jewish history, plumb for a richer, deeper understanding of our holidays and rituals, and examine every aspect of Jewish experience in modern life. No homework required. I’ve signed up because I’m dazzled by its remarkable guest faculty, who include many of the most eminent scholars, rabbis, cantors and public intellectuals in the U.S and Israel. For some participants, it will be an introduction to Judaism, Jewish texts, traditions, wisdom, and concerns. For others like myself, it will be a refresher course or master class. (There will also be special tracks for adults interested in studying for a belated bar or bat mitzvah, and for nonJews considering conversion. )
I encourage you to explore YESOD’S website and make this extraordinary program your Jewish New Year’s resolution, too. Classes meet at Manhattan’s Streicker Center, 1 East 65 St., and on Zoom, every Tuesday night from 6:30-8 PM for the next two years (except during holiday breaks). Recordings available to those who miss a session. I repeat, no homework required so it won’t take a big bite out of your busy schedule. The first class is Tues Oct 10th. Hope to see you then. Register here.
FILM
* Adam Sandler’s new Netflix movie, “You are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah,” (trailer) is racking up impressive stats and reviews —97% on Rotten Tomatoes. Naturally, since it’s about Jews and its sweetness is tinctured with materialism, Jewish opinion is divided: Lior Zeitzman, in The Kveller, calls it “good for the Jews,” and the best bat/bar mitzvah film “of all time.” Keren David, in The Jewish Chronicle, loves it but worries that people might get “the message that Christians are somehow better than Jews.”
*I've yet to see the new biopic “Golda,” now in theaters (trailer here; reviews here), but since it’s about the 1973 war — which some feel “changed Israel to the core,” and which resulted in 2,600 military deaths and nearly 12,000 total casualties — the film has opened old wounds. See Golda Meir: did she let the Yom Kippur War happen? The film maker, Guy Nattiv, says, “It’s kind of crazy that today we see the Yom Kippur of democracy in Israel, The blindness again, the same debacle that happened in 1973 is returning now.”
BOOKS
*A House Full of Daughters, Juliet Nicolson’s captivating multi-generational memoir, burrows deep into the lives of her high-toned, famously unconventional British family, especially its female rebels. My grandma was Jenny Halpern, who grew up in a Hungarian shtetl and raised seven children in a tenement on the Lower East Side. Juliet’s grandmother, who grew up in an English “country house” (think Downton Abbey), was Vita Sackville-West, the celebrated novelist, diarist, poet, and bisexual baroness largely (and unfairly) remembered today for her affair with Virginia Woolf. Yet Nicolson’s illumination of the secrets and sacrifices of her grandmother and other aristocratic relatives before and since sheds light at a slant on the “house full of daughters” in my Jewish immigrant family. Order here.
*It’s “a murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel,” is how the Times Book Review critic distilled the wonder of wonders that is James McBride’s The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. It “opens with the discovery of a skeleton in a well, and then flashes back to explore its connection to a town’s Black, Jewish and immigrant history.” It’s about “a community of people bonded together by the links of love and duty.” It’a “charming, smart, heart-blistering and heart-healing novel.” It’s all that and more. Don’t miss it. Order here.
*If you fall in love with the immigrant Jewish woman at the heart of the book, and you haven’t read about the real-life immigrant Jewish woman who at least partly inspired that fictional character, get a copy of McBride’s 1995 bestseller, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
*Richard Michelson’s new book of poems, Sleeping as Fast as I Can, is both elegant and accessible, a seamless weave of the poet’s unique life experience, incisive self-reflection and admirable social justice concerns. Every metaphor is mint-fresh, every emotion well-earned and beautifully expressed. Order here. ”
SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION (author’s note)
*Speaking of anniversaries, today marks a year since the publication of Shanda: A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy. For 12 months, I’ve been posting my personal appearances and positive reviews in an attempt to arouse your interest in the book. At the same time, to mitigate my lack of humility, I dubbed this section of the Newsletter (ironically, given my book’s title) “Shameless Self Promotion,” That’s because I came of age in an era when it was considered undignified for writers to hawk their own books. Hawking was the purview of the publisher. These days, however, their publicity staffs have shrunk drastically so we authors must either promote ourselves or watch our work die in the dark. Necessary as it is, this enterprise still feels a bit crass and embarrassing. So on its one year anniversary, I’m not selling Shanda, just sending thanks to those of you who’ve bought and read it. And a special shout out to readers who, in response to my family’s secrets, have written to share their own.
*** SHANA TOVH U’METUKAH. Wishing a sweet new year to my Jewish subscribers and anyone inclined to recalibrate their behavior and reboot their lives during these ten days of awe, judgement, atonement, and remembrance.
Dear Letty , another fabulous newsletter 👍❤️