Two seders in Kathmandu. Joan Baez. Margaret Atwood. Two Justins. 50 Years of Free Children. Thousands of kidnapped Yemeni children. Wonderful WWII letters.
Gun fact: Schools are safer than homes.
Newsletter #138
PASSOVER GLEANINGS
* Thursday night, I gratefully retired the last box of matzah and resumed mainlining bread and pasta. But since Passover is my favorite Jewish holiday (because it’s all about freedom) I’m sharing two items about Pesach before it retreats too far into your rear view mirror.
* Ethan Klaris, my eldest grandson, who’s been living in a Buddhist community in Kathmandu, Nepal, for the last four months (before entering Columbia Law School in September), published a lively, provocative piece in The Forward about the two seders he attended in that faraway place-- one hosted by Chabad for about 1000 people (above), one by a gaggle of bluegrass musicians.
* In her illuminating Tablet essay, historian Jenna Weissman Joselit revealed that the first American Haggadah was the work of a woman. The compilation by Mrs. Philip Cowen (nee, Lillie Goldsmith) “made it possible for an Orthodox Jew and a Reform Jew to sit side by side at the same Seder table by signaling through means of typeface and layout which aspects of the Seder were not to be skipped (see: large type, full lines) and which could be passed over (see: small print, indented lines).”
FREE CHILDREN
*Last fall marked the 50th anniversary of “Free to Be, You and Me,” Marlo Thomas’ nonsexist, anti-racist, multicultural family entertainment now being enjoyed by yet another generation of kids. The project, a record, book, and ABC-TV Special, gave birth to the Free to Be Foundation, 50 years old this year, which funds groups whose work advances the simple goal of liberating children from the constraints of sex role socialization and gendered, racialized hierarchies. For boys, the constraints often begin with the cruel admonition that “Boys don’t cry” and metastasize into the toxic masculine stereotype that “real men don’t show their feelings.”
*Imagine if more grownup guys felt free to express their emotions the way the dear little boy does in this video.
THEATER
*Daughter of the Wicked,” a solo piece, written & performed by Shanit Keter Schwartz, is premiering at NY City Center now through 5/14. Schwartz dramatizes her return to Israel in search of her missing sister, one of thousands of Yemenite Jewish children who were mysteriously “disappeared” between 1948 and ‘54 (below) and adopted by Ashkenazi Israelis.
POLITICS
* After the school shooting in Nashville, one of the Tennessee state lawmakers who voted to relax gun laws was asked if he was concerned about his own children. He said no, because his kids are homeschooled. Fact check: In 2022 almost 3600 kids under 18 were fatally shot, only around 100 of them in school shootings. The rest mostly in homes. 1000 of the kids were suicides. The other 2500 were accidentally shot dead either by the child, a sibling, parent, relative, or friend; or during gang violence or a robbery. “There’s a lot to take away from these stats,” says my friend, Roy. “One is that the Tennessee legislator’s kid would be safer in a school.”
*After their unexpected encounter at the airport, folksinging icon, Joan Baez, and Rep. Justin Jones, one of the Democratic legislators expelled from the Tennessee State House of Representatives, joined in singing “We Shall Overcome.” Jones and his ousted colleague Justin Pearson, since reinstated as new members, are entitled to file 15 bills, each of which, Jones told CNN. would be about gun reform.
*For a semiotic take on Jones’ white suit see Vanessa Friedman’s essay.
*Margaret Atwood, author, poet and “dystopia prophet,” had quite a conversation with Jon Favreau, political commentator and former Obama speechwriter, about real world authoritarians, censorship, colonialism, theocracy, and hope.
*Randy Rainbow roasts the “Grumpy Trumpy Felon!”
BOOKS
* I would have used the word “magisterial” to describe Brooke Kroeger’s soon-to-be published, Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism” but for an odd omission. The promotional blurb says, “Kroeger examines the lives of the best-remembered and long-forgotten woman journalists.” Yet she herself seems to have forgotten an important piece of that history: the impact of women writing for feminist broadsheets, zines, online publications, and, most notably (though I’m admittedly biased), Ms. magazine, a national periodical which, by foregrounding women’s issues, deeply influenced and radicalized mainstream media coverage for all time. Despite this “oversight,” read her book! Then preorder a copy of:
*Coming in September, 50 Years of Ms. (the subtitle says it all) boasts a Foreword by Gloria Steinem and an Introduction by Katherine Spillar and Eleanor Smeal. with commentary from Spillar and the editors of Ms.
*Deborah Kaufman, a documentary film maker and founder of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, has written a poetry-infused memoir, Flower Child Noir, about her traumas, Jewish identities, sexual awakening, and the experience of growing up in S.F. when “both her family and the cultural order were unraveling.”
*Wartime buffs and fans of captivating epistolary revelations will relish A Doctor’s War: Letters and Reflections from the Frontlines of World War II, “A daughter’s discovery of her father as a passionate, courageous, and engaging young man.” Peggy Ludwick’s painstaking compilation of correspondence from her physician father, Arthur, to his young wife, Jean is enhanced by Peggy’s incisive interviews with him before he died.
WOMEN
*Women Fighting for Women’s Rights will host a Zoom “meet-up” tomorrow, 4/18 @8-9 PM EDT. This is a great way to connect with other activist women, get involved in the political process, and learn about groups working on the issues you care about.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
*Israel is “racing to formalize inequality and persecute Israel’s Arab-Palestinian minority,” argues political scientist, Dahlia Scheindlin, in a sinus-clearing essay about creeping apartheid inside the Green Line not just on the West Bank.
*Nobody says one country should tolerate rocket attacks from another. But what sense did it make for Israeli police to retaliate against recent bombardments from Lebanon by beating up Palestinians in Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem? This video — which shows the cops using clubs and rifle butts to batter demonstrators who were already down — eerily recalls historical photos of us Jews cowering on the ground with armed men smashing our bones. Three questions loom large. 1: How can we be doing this to another people? 2: Why punish random Palestinians for rockets launched by militants elsewhere? (Collective punishment is a war crime, by the way. Israel is already being investigated by the International Criminal Court for similar acts, putting its “officials at risk of arrest if they travel abroad.”) 3: Given that it’s the holy month of Ramadan, and Al Aqsa has long been a hotly contested site for both Arabs and Jews, why add police provocations to the volatile mix?
VIDEOS THAT MADE ME HAPPY THIS WEEK
* A construction worker dumps dirt delighting a little boy.
* A dad helps his son to help himself.
SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
*My column in Moment challenges knee-jerk love of Israel.
*Upcoming Shanda book talks listed here.
HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my splendid #1 (and only) son, David.
I am surprised and saddened to find so little mention of Israeli treatment of Palestinians in your newsletter. Being a woman who cares about current issues as I believe you are this surely deserves more attention.