A Hanukkah Treasure: The Safran Dreidel Collection

http://www.jidaily.com/xHmYO/e



Jewish Music App: iJewish Songbook

This is a great tool for musicians, students and for ALL whom interested in Jewish music. One can use it no matter your a professional piano player or you just know a few open chords for guitar.

iJewish Songbook is the first App ever collecting Jewish sheet music. The songs are divided into categories like Klezmer tunes, Z'mirot for Sabbath, pieces for Holidays (Channuka, Pesach) and Weddings, Israeli, Yiddish, Sephardic tunes and Hassidic nigunim. Because of copyright law NO melodies are included, only the chords.

How many times have you been at a Hanukkah or at a Passover ritual where someone calls a tune and you don't know the chords? With iJewish Songbook you'll have the chord changes to all the songs you need.
Or you go to welcome Sabbath for a different place where they sing everything in an other key as you use to? No problem you can comp the songs in different keys because iJewish Songbook will transpose it all for you.

The paper music books are limited with their number of songs contained. The only way to update them is to buy a new one. With iJewish Songbook you have instant access to a library of more than hundred songs right in your pocket and more songs are added regularly with free updates.


Hanukkah recipes

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hanukkah/hanukkah_recipes/index.html

Overnight Makeover for a Kosher First Kitchen
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/dining/making-the-white-house-kitchen-kosher-for-a-party.html?ref=hanukkahrecipes


HOLOCAUST KITSCH

I have good news for James Inverne.
On this page last week, James highlighted the regularity with which arts events of specific interest to Jews are scheduled for days when no remotely observant Jew can attend.
The latest example is The Passenger, the much-hyped opera set in Auschwitz, which lay unperformed on stage from its composition by Mieczyslaw Weinberg in 1967 until last year.
ENO gave its UK premiere on Monday. But the next six performances are either on Yom Tov or Shabbat. Only the last night isn't.
So here's the good news. You're not missing much.
In fact, I'd put it more strongly. I've rarely encountered a starker mismatch between the seriousness and obvious good intentions of everyone involved in a performance and the tawdry, distasteful spectacle that emerged.
Let's leave aside the fact that Weinberg's music is derivative in the extreme. The notion that any of it is fit to represent the Shoah ought to have been so obviously and self-evidently ridiculous to any discerning listener that it is bizarre that the plug was not pulled on any proposed staging at the start.
The ENO programme cites Jurg Amann's observation that, "In the face of the reality, all invention is obscene", only to dismiss it by arguing that "the authenticity and standpoint" of The Passenger, having been written by a Polish refugee to the USSR based on a novel by a survivor, render it inapplicable in this instance.
Whether or not Amann's assertion is true - are Primo Levi's works obscene? - that is no rebuttal. Many survivors had artistic responses to their experience. The fact they were inspired by direct experience of the Shoah does not make them, of itself, worthy of public performance.
Indeed, it's that public element which is so critical here. Whatever private response to the Shoah anyone creates is their own business.
But when that response is played out on stage in a fictional psycho-drama about the relationship between a guard and an inmate, with a love story between two inmates as the engine of the plot, performed in a glossy production, with actorly rictus expressions of misery, to an audience nipping off for champagne bar refreshment at the interval, then it moves from the private sphere to the obscenely inappropriate public sphere.
The intentions of everyone involved in The Passenger are clearly honourable. But the result is - cannot be otherwise - the Shoah as fodder for entertainment.
Worst of all, it is difficult to see what purpose is served by the opera's exhumation beyond artistic self-aggrandisement - showing off just how moved the performers and the cultural chattering classes are by the Holocaust. Oh yes, they care.
Clearly, however, not enough.
The Jewish Chronicle, 3 October 2001
http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/55708/a-tawdry-holocaust-opera



The Day of Judgement

The portrayal of Rosh Hashanah as a "Day of Judgement" dominates the liturgy and customs of the holiday season. As the tradition perceives it, between the New Year and the Day of Atonement God sits in judgement over all mankind to determine our fates for the coming year.
This symbolism is drawn upon to great effect by the authors of the piyyutim, the liturgical poems composed to enhance the statutory prayers of the season. The Jewish people, alongside the rest of humanity, are depicted as standing in a divine court-room, pleading for mercy.
If judged according to the merits of our case, we all deserve punishment. Our only hope is to persuade God to suspend the laws, or to remind him of outstanding favours owed to our forefathers.
In describing the atmosphere of the court, the rabbis and poets based themselves upon settings that were familiar to them. The court-room is of course a well-trodden venue of Talmudic Judaism and provides a wealth of details that can be elaborated in sermons and piyyutim.

No Lawyers
It is therefore most surprising to find that the court scenes that appear so prominently in rabbinic midrash and prayers as models for God's judgment of mankind are, for the most part (for reasons that are not entirely evident to me), not Jewish courts at all, but Hellenistic and Roman ones.
This fact becomes clear when we look at some of the procedural terms that are mentioned. In many of the texts, we read of debates between a sanegor and a kategor--a prosecuting and defending attorney. These are none other than the synegoros and kategoros of the Hellenistic judicial system.
In our sources the position of kategor is often filled by angels, who are believed to hold a mild grudge against the Jews for usurping Gods special favours. The job of sanegor is likely to be held by the Hebrew Patriarchs, by personified representations of the "Congregation of Israel," by a person's virtuous deeds, etc.
Thus, in a well-known talmudic discussion, the rabbis explain why a shofar cannot be fashioned from a cow's horn because "the kategor cannot serve as sanegor;" that is to say, the cow's horn, which holds incriminating associations with the Israelites' worship of the Golden Calf, cannot properly perform its designated function of arguing the Jews' case before the divine tribunal.
Actually, the traditional Jewish court does not permit the use of lawyers at all (though the office of "rabbinic pleader" has developed in recent years in Israel). The talmudic sources, which were familiar with the Roman court system and its susceptibility to persuasion by mellifluous rhetoric, warned the Rabbis, "Do not act like the professional pleaders" (orkhei hadayyanim). It was the judge's job to get at the truth, without its being packaged by a professional.
Nevertheless, one of the favourite High Holy Days hymns uses the same expression to designate God himself as El Orekh Din--the God who presides over judgement.

Military Metaphors
The Mishnah also resorts to imagery taken from Roman military life when it compares God's judgement of humankind to a commander reviewing his troops: "All the denizens of the world pass before him like a numeron (regiment)."
The terminology, taken from the vocabulary of the Roman legions, was unfamiliar to some of the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud, who took it to refer to a flock of sheep being counted by the shepherd. In this version, it entered the haunting poetry of the "Untanneh Tokef" prayer.
A conventional sign of a victorious soldier was his return bearing in his hand a baian, a palm-frond. The midrash saw in this Roman custom a fitting analogy to the Jewish taking of the lulav on Sukkot, a few days after the judgement of Yom Kippur:
Consider two parties who go to trial before a king, and no one but the king himself knows which was declared victorious. In the end, it is evident that the one who emerges holding the baian was the victor.
Another version of this passage uses the metaphor of a triumphant chariot-racer being decorated with a wreath. So too, Sukkot is a celebration of our favourable judgement on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Justice and Mercy
By building upon the imagery of the Roman judicial system the midrash was able to contrast imperfect human justice with the ideal of God's judgement.
On the one hand, unlike a mortal judge, God is not subject to error, corruption or bribery. But on the other hand, unlike most worldly judges, God's justice has the advantage of being tempered by compassion. The human being can implore God not to decree according to the standard of law, but to temper his decision with the measure of mercy.
In later midrashim the qualities of divine justice and mercy were no longer depicted as merely ways in which God judged His creatures, but were transformed into personalities in their own right, fulfilling the roles of kategor and sanegor in the celestial court, supplying God respectively with reasons for condemning or acquitting His creatures.

God on Trial
A feature which has typified Jews' relationships to God from as far back as Abraham and Moses is that God can be argued with and persuaded to change his mind.
The selichot petitionary prayers recited at this time of year, in addition to expressing a contrite recognition of our sinfulness and powerlessness before God's will, are often characterized by an aggressive "bargaining" posture. The authors "remind" God of the suffering to which we have been subjected and of the merits earned by our righteous ancestors, and ask that these factors be counted to our credit.
This pious familiarity before God, who is perceived not only as a judge but also as a patient and forgiving father, was taken to extremes by the famous Hasidic master Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev.
Known as the "Sanegor of Israel" for his insistence on always seeing his fellow Jews in a favourable light, Levi Yitzhak is said to have challenged God one Rosh Hashanah to a lawsuit--a din Torah. God, he argued, had no right to prolong Israel's exile when other more sinful nations were allowed to live in peace and prosperity.
A grim variation on this story is recounted by Elie Wiesel in his Holocaust memoir Night, and later formed the basis for his play "The Trial of God." On Rosh Hashanah, from the depths of their sorrow and despair, the inmates of Auschwitz called God to judgement and condemned him for allowing such evil and suffering in His world.
Both stories, that of Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev and that of the Auschwitz inmates, end in the same way. After declaring God's guilt the accusers rise to recite the Kaddish--the proclamation of God's sovereignty over the universe.
The point is a profound one: For the Jew, it is possible to argue against God, but not to live without him.
May all our judgements during the coming year be favourable ones.


ROSH HASHANA CARDS THAT TOLD THE STORY OF ZIONISM & ESTABLISHMENT of THE STATE of ISRAEL

http://www.jidaily.com/k27/e


The Jewish Gandhi from India

http://relicsofcranganore.blogspot.com/2011/09/jewish-gandhi.html


Mel and the Maccabee Jewish Ideas Daily Sep.20 2011
By Alex Joffe

Australian-American actor and director Mel Gibson—he of the anti-Semitic outbursts, the abused girlfriend, The Passion of the Christ—has just closed a deal to make a film for Warner Bros. with screenwriter Joe Eszterhas about the life of Judah Maccabee. Gibson described his project in an interview with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg: "Oh, my God, the odds they faced. The armies they faced had elephants! How cinematic is this! Even Judah's dad—what's his name? Mattathias?—you kind of get this guy who more or less is trying to avoid the whole thing, but he just gets to a place where he had enough, and he just snapped!"

The Gospel According to Mel Jeffrey Goldberg, Atlantic. In a freewheeling interview, Mel Gibson discourses on anti-Semitism, atheism, Christianity, circumcision, and his forthcoming movie about Judah Maccabee. (Includes obscene language.)
Crack-Up Peter Biskind, Vanity Fair. How, in five short years, did one of the best-loved and best-paid talents in Hollywood become an industry pariah? (Includes obscene language.)
Jews, Christians, and The Passion David Berger, Commentary. The good will that Christians and Jews have painstakingly established over the last generation is sorely tested by this movie.
Despite the Jews' celebration of Hannukah, the Book of Maccabees belongs to the Christian rather than the Jewish canon. Still, for some, the combination of Gibson and Jews is beyond the pale. "It would be a travesty," said Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, "to have the story of the Maccabees told by one who has no respect and sensitivity for other people's religious views."
Gibson has long raised the ire of those who defend the public reputation of the Jews. He was raised as a traditionalist Catholic, steeped in the doctrine that salvation is impossible for non-Catholics. The Passion of the Christ, Gibson's 2004 film about the last hours of Jesus, with dialogue entirely in Aramaic and Latin (by some measures it was the most profitable non-English-language film ever made) was harshly criticized for both its violence and its critical depiction of the Sanhedrin and the Jewish high priest Caiaphas. During a drunk-driving arrest in 2006, Gibson averred to police that "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."
But in some respects, few people are better equipped than Gibson to tackle the character of Judah Maccabee and the Jewish revolt against the Syrian Greeks, which took place from 167 to 160 B.C.E. In his 1979 breakthrough movie Mad Max, Gibson fought his way across the post-apocalyptic Australian outback. In the Lethal Weapon series, Martin Riggs, the Los Angeles detective played by Gibson was chronically on the edge of a breakdown. In the more recent Edge of Darkness, Gibson's homicide cop pursued his daughter's killer. Gibson's most iconic characters have been damaged loners who are roused by adversity to lead against-the-odds battles against injustice.
Gibson also has a long cinematic history with freedom fighters. In the 1995 Braveheart, of which he was director and star, he played the doomed 13th-century Scots leader William Wallace, driven by an outrage committed against his beloved into warring against the English. In The Patriot in 2000, he portrayed a South Carolina farmer drawn into the Revolutionary War after his son was brutally killed by the British. When it comes to reluctant heroes who "just snapped," no one does it better than Gibson.
Moreover, the biblical epic as a cinematic form in America is in grave need of a reboot.
The era of American epic sword-and-sandal films lasted from just after World War II through the mid-1960's. In those pre-Brando days, American filmmakers minimized their heroes' inner conflict in order to celebrate their earnest nature, divine calling, and noble deeds. The biblical heroes of American movies could be initially reluctant, like Moses; or flawed, like David; or transcendent and doomed, like Jesus; but they were rarely tormented by their roles and responsibilities. In the 1949 movie Samson and Delilah, Victor Mature's smug Samson was partly played for laughs. Gregory Peck's David, in the 1951 David and Bathsheba, was carved out of wood. In 1956, in The Ten Commandments, Charlton Heston's austere and inaccessible Moses was light-years away from any sort of modern film protagonist.
More recently, though, the biblical epic has fallen on hard times. Monty Python's 1979 Life of Brian—freethinking, satirical, hilarious—is the type of movie attuned to our cynical and ironic era. More serious biblical epics have been, to understate the case, a distinctly mixed bag. In Martin Scorsese's 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus, played by Willem Dafoe, seems to have been pushed to the edge of insanity: "God loves me. I know He loves me. I want Him to stop." The spectacle of Richard Gere's King David in the 1985 film of that name is hard to forget, no matter how hard one tries. Little wonder that the Bible has been largely relegated to less-than-memorable made-for-TV dramas.
Gibson, though, has the technical skills for epic movie-making. He has the ability to direct vast crowds and battle scenes, a talent that has all but disappeared from Hollywood. Extreme violence, dwelt upon almost lovingly, is another one of his specialties.
But Judah Maccabee may not be the kind of Jewish hero who merits an epic—or whose reputation deserves protection against treatment by Mel Gibson. After all, in addition to his war against the Greeks in Syria, Judah Maccabee and his faction waged war against numerous other parties, including countless fellow Hellenizing Jews. Judah Maccabee also concluded the treaty with the Roman Republic that set the Jews of Judea on the road to their ultimate downfall and dispersal. Maybe he deserves not a biblical epic but something darker and more ironic, like a Christopher Nolan Batman film. The larger question is whether the American relationship with the Bible can be rebooted by the movies in the first place.
Alex Joffe is a research scholar with the Institute for Jewish and Community Research.
You can find this online at: http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2011/9/22/main-feature/1/mel-and-the-maccabee


Turkish Jews Voice Wary Confidence About Future

Despite Rift With Israel, Community Feels Strong Bond to Homeland

By Ben Hartman
Published September 20, 2011, issue of September 30, 2011. FORWARD
Istanbul — The diplomatic clash between Israel and Turkey may be escalating, but many within Turkey’s 23,000-strong Jewish population insist that it is nothing more than politics for them, with no practical effect on their lives or security.
“In daily life, we don’t fear anything from the Turks,” said Nisya Isman Allovi, manager of the Jewish Museum in Istanbul. But, acknowledging the thick protection her institution and many others in the Jewish community receive, she also said, “Security is, it’s done just to be cautious about everything.”
The targeting of the community over the years by terrorists — albeit by non-Turks — explains the blast-proof doors and X-ray machines found at Turkish synagogues, where outsiders can attend services only after making advanced reservations with the rabbinate. It may also explain the guarded manner in which members of the community responded to questions from the press.
Related
• Lost Music of Istanbul's Sephardic Jews
• Israeli Turks Wrestle With Turkey’s Involvement in Gaza Flotilla Incident
• Fragments of a Lost Jewish World
At services held on September 16 at Sicli synagogue, the city’s busiest, one man complained of Turkish anti-Semitism, only to respond that everything was fine in Turkey once he was informed that he was speaking to a journalist. The same scene played out repeatedly: Someone would express apprehension about Turkish attitudes toward Jews, or express no fear whatsoever, while demanding that his or her name not be printed.
One of those Jews, “Haim,” a 76-year-old retiree, said he doesn’t believe that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an anti-Semite or that he will allow any harm to befall Turkey’s Jews.
“His problem is only with the Israeli government and not the people,” Haim said. “Erdogan won’t let the Jews be hurt, because we’re his citizens, we pay taxes. He’s said this. He just wants to attract Arab support, Arab business and tourism. I don’t believe he hates Jews. It’s politics only.”
Holding a key chain that held a locket with a picture of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of Turkey as a modern secular state, and a quarter-sized bronze menorah, Haim said that there was nothing for Jews to fear in regard to anti-Semitism in Turkey, but then he asked that his real name not be used. Haim related that his brother was killed in a 1986 terror attack on Congregation Neve Shalom.
Allovi, one of the few Jews willing to speak on the record, said: “The problems between Israel and Turkey are not between the people, they are between the countries. It’s like, if you go to Greece you can drink ouzo and talk to people and be fine, just… don’t talk about politics.”
When asked if young Turkish Jews were inclined to leave the country for Israel or North America once they reach adulthood, Allovi, a 32-year-old Istanbul native, said: “The young Jews usually stay. It’s [Turkey] where I was born, the place I feel the most attached to. It’s also my native language and the food, everything. Most of my friends are Muslim, and I feel that I have more similarities with a Turkish Muslim than, say, a French Jew or a Jew from somewhere else just because they’re Jewish. We grow up together, go to the same schools, watch the same soap operas.”
The Karakoy neighborhood’s Jewish museum, which Allovi administers, traces a narrative of co-existence from the sheltering of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 through the rule of Ataturk and the founding of the modern Turkish republic. The theme of Turkish tolerance of Jews and Jewish assimilation in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire is highlighted with exhibits that include photos of Jewish soldiers in Ottoman military uniforms, a tallit from 1898 stitched with the crescent and star and a menorah built in the shape of a minaret.
Turkey’s Jewish population has been depleted by decades of immigration to Israel and elsewhere. Today, about 90% of Jews in Turkey live in Istanbul. A small community of about 2,300 Jews resides in Izmir. More than 96% of the community is Sephardi, and Ladino is still spoken widely, especially among the older generation.
The high security at Jewish sites across the country attests to the caution and trauma that remain from several devastating terrorist attacks over the past three decades. On November 15, 2003, trucks carrying explosives slammed into the Neve Shalom and Beth Israel synagogues during Sabbath services, killing 27 people and wounding hundreds. In a previous attack at the Neve Shalom synagogue, in 1986, men from the Abu Nidal terrorist organization gunned down 22 worshippers on a Sabbath morning. Years later, in 1992, a bomb exploded outside the synagogue, causing no casualties.
Taylan Bilgic, a senior editor at the Hurriyet Daily News, the English-language version of the Turkish Daily Hurriyet, spoke of the Palestinian issue as something that stokes strong passions across Turkish society and will continue to be highlighted by players like Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development party and others who want to enhance their support in the country.
“On the left and right, [from] Muslims to atheists they all have a connection to the Palestinian cause. It’s beyond ideology,” Bilgic said. “You may have primitive Islamists who are trying to utilize this emotional bond for their own purposes, but what politician wouldn’t?”
Bilgic added that he believes that Erdogan and many of his base supporters subscribe to a sort of “primitive anti-Semitism.” It is a sentiment that is not common among Turks generally, he said, but could potentially affect the country’s Jewish community if the tension with Israel worsens.
“If the government manages to make its primitive anti-Semitic ideology take root in society, it could spill over on the Jews here, but I don’t think it will. It depends on Israel and what Israel agrees to do about the Palestinians,” he said.
Contact Ben Hartman at feedback@forward.com

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/143047/#ixzz1YiN8N7is


Perceptions of Jews by Renowned Gentiles:


#1
"Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny
the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the
most remarkable race which has appeared in the world."

-- Winston Churchill

-------------------------------------------------------------- ----------
-#2
"The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the
everlasting fire, and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the
religious source, spring, and fountain out of which all the rest of the
peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions."

-- Leo Tolstoy

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#3

"It was in vain that we locked them up for several hundred years behind the
walls of the Ghetto. No sooner were their prison gates unbarred than they
easily caught up with us, even on those paths which we opened up without
their aid."

-- A. A. Leroy Beaulieu, French publicist, 1842

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#4

"The Jew gave us the Outside and the Inside - our outlook and ou r inner
life. We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being
Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best
words, in fact - new, adventure, surprise, unique, individual, person,
vocation, time, history, future, freedom, progress, spirit, faith, hope,
justice - are the gifts of the Jews."

-- Thomas Cahill, Irish Author

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#5

"One of the gifts of the Jewish culture to Christianity is that it has
taught Christians to think like Jews, and any modern man who has not learned
to think as though he were a Jew can hardly be said to have learned to think
at all."

-- William Rees-Mogg, former Editor-in-Chief for The Times of London and a
member of the House of Lords

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#6

"It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar
people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the
Jewish people....

This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a
singular long time... For whereas the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta,
Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago,
these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have
tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as
can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell
of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation
was foretold... My encounter with this people amazes me..."

-- Blaise Pascal, French Mathematician

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-#7
"The Jewish vision became the prototype for many similar grand designs for
humanity, both divine and man made The Jews, therefore, stand at the center
of the perennial attempt to give human life the dignity of a purpose."


--Paul Johnson, American Historian

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#8

"As long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness
will come to Israel for inspiration as to the people who had the sense for
righteousness most glowing and strongest."

--Matthew Arnold, British poet and critic

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#9

"Indeed it is difficult for all other nations of the world to live in the
presence of the Jews. It is irritating and most uncomfortable. The Jews
embarrass the world as they have done things which are beyond the
imaginable. They have become moral strangers since the day their forefather,
Abraham, introduced the world to high ethical standards and to the fear of
Heaven. They brought the world the Ten Commandments, which many nations
prefer to defy. They violated the rules of history by staying alive, totally
at odds with common sense and historical evidence. They outlived all their
former enemies, including vast empires such as the Romans and the Greeks.
They angered the world with their return to their homeland after 2000 years
of exile and after the murder of six million of their brothers and sisters.

They aggravated mankind by building, in the wink of an eye, a democratic
State which others were not able to create in even hundreds of years. They
built living monuments such as the duty to be holy and the privilege to
serve one's fellow men.

They had their hands in every human progressive endeavor, whether in
science, medicine, psychology or any other discipline, while totally out of
proportion to their actual numbers. They gave the world the Bible and even
their "savior."

Jews taught the world not to accept the world as it is, but to transform it,
yet only a few nations wanted to listen. Moreover, the Jews introduced the
world to one God, yet only a minority wanted to draw the moral consequences.
So the nations of the world realize that they would have been lost without
the Jews.. And while their subconscious tries to remind them of how much of
Western civilization is framed in terms of concepts first articulated by the
Jews, they do anything to suppress it.

They deny that Jews remind them of a higher purpose of life and the need to
be honorable, and do anything to escape its consequences.. It is simply too
much to handle for them, too embarrassing to admit, and above all, too
difficult to live by.

So the nations of the world decided once again to go out of 'their' way in
order to find a stick to hit the Jews. The goal: to prove that Jews are as
immoral and guilty of massacre and genocide as some of they themselves are.

All this in order to hide and justify their own failure to even protest when
six million Jews were brought to the slaughterhouses of Auschwitz and
Dachau; so as to wipe out the moral conscience of which the Jews remind
them, and they found a stick.

Nothing could be more gratifying for them than to find the Jews in a
struggle with another people (who are completely terrorized by their own
leaders) against whom the Jews, against their best wishes, have to defend
themselves in order to survive. With great satisfaction, the world allows
and initiates the rewriting of history so as to fuel the rage of yet another
people against the Jews. This in spite of the fact that the nations
understand very well that peace between the parties could have come a long
time ago, if only the Jews would have had a fair chance. Instead, they
happily jumped on the wagon of hate so as to justify their jealousy of the
Jews and their incompetence to deal with their own moral issues.

When Jews look at the bizarre play taking place in The Hague , they can only
smile as this artificial game once more proves how the world paradoxically
admits the Jews' uniqueness. It is in their need to undermine the Jews that
they actually raise them.

The study of history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one
uniform lesson: That the nations which received and in any way dealt fairly
and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have
tortured and oppressed them have written out their own curse."

--Olive Schreiner, South African novelist and social activist

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#10

"If there is any honor in all the world that I should like, it would be to
be an honorary Jewish citizen."

--A.L Rowse, authority on Shakespeare



Brandnew Jewish fiction homepage

http://www.jewishfiction.net/index.php/current-issue/


SIGNANDSIGHT.COM

German website, translated in English, often brings articles of Jewish interest. That is what they say about themselves.
signandsight.com translates outstanding articles by non English-language authors bringing them to a global readership. signandsight.com gathers voices from across Europe on a broad range of topics, with the aim of fostering trans-European debate and creating a European public sphere.

To this end in 2005 a registered association has been founded based in Berlin: Let's Talk European e.V. is a non-profit organisation, whose primary objective is to produce the Internet magazine signandsight.com and promote the interests of the association.
signandsight.com is the English version of the German online cultural magazine Perlentaucher.

signandsight.com provides a lively and informative view of cultural and intellectual life in Germany. From the Feuilletons, which appears every Friday at 12 noon CET, summarises the highlights of the cultural pages of the major German language newspapers. Where possible, we link to the articles themselves.

In the Features section, they publish a selection of especially interesting articles in English translation: two or three a week. The Features are saved in an archive, sorted according to date, category, keyword, author and country.
Books this Season is a selection of the most interesting and most discussed (for better or worse) recent literature.
Using the search function, all the articles can be found by name or topic.

Signandsight.com says:

“signandsight.com offers translations of German feuilleton articles into English. We endeavour to provide the highest quality of translations, yet note that the original German text is the sole authoritative version.
Why from the German press?
German newspapers have the best feuilleton pages in the world. They reflect the cultural landscape of a country where almost every mid-sized city has a first class opera and museum. And they're a forum for lively public debate. But the German language rivalling ancient Greek in popularity, most readers outside Germany don't know what they're missing. By Thierry Chervel

http://www.signandsight.com/


Wallenberg’s Heroism Becomes a Musical

White Plains Performing Arts Center’s just staged the new world-premiere production of “Wallenberg.” According to the reviews, the highlight, by far, is the anthem finale,
“A Million Tomorrows.” It is sung by a stage full of actors representing people and the descendants of others whose lives were saved by Wallenberg, it is sincere, melodic and worth waiting for.

Leah Horowitz plays the Baroness Elisabeth Kemény, a love interest of sorts for Wallenberg; Joe Cassidy is Adolf Eichmann;

Mr. Rosenbluth’s music is pleasant enough. The songs (a staggering 33 of them, including reprises) do tend to sound a lot alike, but hey, that was a criticism leveled at the young Stephen Sondheim.
The critics find most of the music unimaginative and unoriginal, admirable only in the fact that they successfully rhyme. Granted, the same can be said of numbers in “The Addams Family,” built with Broadway millions. But surely Wallenberg deserves better.

Man Booker prizewinner on Hanukkah

British Howard Jacobson in New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/opinion/01jacobson.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a212


Super Sad True Love Story

Gary Shteyngart’s wonderful new novel, “Super Sad True Love Story,” is a supersad, superfunny, superaffecting performance — a book that also uncovers his abilities to write deeply and movingly about love and loss and mortality. It’s a novel that gives us a cutting comic portrait of a futuristic America, nearly ungovernable and perched on the abyss of fiscal collapse, and at the same time it is a novel that chronicles a sweetly real love affair as it blossoms from its awkward, improbable beginnings.

“Super Sad” takes as its Romeo and Juliet, its Tristan and Iseult, a middle-aged sad sack named Lenny Abramov and a much younger beauty named Eunice Park. He is the son of Russian immigrants, she the daughter of Korean immigrants, and for all their differences, both are afflicted by a lack of self-esteem — insecurities manifested in Lenny’s self-deprecating humor, his compulsive need to try to make others like him, and in Eunice’s bouts of anger and self-loathing, her fear that nothing she cares about can really last. Both are burdened with their striving parents’ unbearable expectations, and both are plagued by unlucky experiences in love. Slowly, haltingly, nervously, they begin to forge a partnership they hope will keep them safe in an unsafe world.
But while Mr. Shteyngart’s descriptions of America have a darkly satiric edge, his descriptions of New York are infused with a deep affection for the city that is partly nostalgia for a vanished metropolis (in other words, Gotham as we know it today) and partly an immigrant’s awestruck love for a place mythologized by books and songs and movies

In recounting the story of Lenny and Eunice in his antic, supercaffeinated prose, Mr. Shteyngart gives us his most powerful and heartfelt novel yet — a novel that performs the delightful feat of mashing up an apocalyptic satire with a genuine supersad true love story.



The King of Klezmer Dave Tarras

Hailed as "The Benny Goodman of klezmer," Dave Tarras is considered the most influential klezmer musician of the Twentieth Century. Scion of a musical family in Ternovke, Ukraine, Tarras played at weddings for Jews and non-Jews − even playing in the Czarist army − up to World War One. He immigrated to America and after a brief stint as a furrier, began to make a living with his clarinet. From 1925 until his death in 1989, Dave Tarras set the standard for klezmer musicianship and virtuosity. Even the great be-bop artists Charlie Parker and Miles Davis travelled to the Catskills to study the technique of this complex and compelling virtuoso.
Author Yale Strom spent months interviewing the people who knew Tarras best: his musical collaborators and family members. The first biography authorized by the Tarras family, this book includes newly discovered personal and historical facts about Dave Tarras and the world in which he lived and played, and priceless photographs from the family archives.

Twenty-eight of Tarras' melodies as written by Tarras and discovered in his manuscripts are presented in arrangements for C and B-Flat instruments. An essential book for anyone interested in klezmer or Jewish cultural history.

Yale Strom is an internationally recognized authority on klezmer. Through more than 25 years and 75 research expeditions, Strom has become one of the world's leading ethnographer artists of klezmer culture. His books include The Absolutely Complete Klezmer Songbook (Transcontinental), The Book of Klezmer: The History, The Music, The Folklore – From the 14th Century to the 21st (A Cappella Books), and the children’s book The Wedding That Saved a Town (Kar-Ben Publishers). With his band Hot Pstromi he has released 13 globally acclaimed recordings. Currently, Strom is artist-in-residence in the Jewish Studies Program at San Diego State University.

OR-TAV Music Publications is Israel’s leading independent publisher of music and books on music.

Dave Tarras – The King of Klezmer may be ordered directly from the publisher (contact information above), or from our international distributors:
North America: Worldwide Music Services, Chicago, Tel. (312) 854-8427, fax (312) 376-3567, www.worldwidemusicservices.com


From the Jewish world

India
In Kerala state in the town of North-Paravur the 400-year-old synagogue is being renovated. The synagogue was built on the foundations of a church from the 12th century. This synagogue was the religious centre of the 3000 Cochin Jews. Most of them left India for Israel after the establishment of the Jewish state. According to Jerusalem Post, there are appr. 35 Jews left in the region.
The Kerala tourist minister said that by renovating the synagogue they want to commemorate the disappeared Jewish community and present the multicultural face of the region. The renovation will cost 1,6 million dollars.

Poland
Wroclaw’s Great Synagogue was also renovated and rededicated recently. The synagogue was originally built in 1829 in the style of Neo-Classicism and was heavily vandalised during the Night of the Broken Glass in 1938. Later the Nazis used it as a warehouse and garage. At the rededication festivities Swedish-born Chief Rabbi, Jichak Rapoport, said prayers. There were 800 guests, among them the Israeli ambassador, the bishop of Wroclaw and the city leaders.

Israel
More than 200 journalists, editors and publishers and representatives of the Russian government participated in the 12th world congress of the Russian-speaking media in Tel-Aviv. The participants visited Yad Vashem and other places. Participants arrived from 49 different countries, also from the Usa, Canada and Vietnam. In Yad Vashem they were told about Holocaust research in the post-Soviet region and were informed about the new Russian-speaking website.

Greece
The Central Council of the Greek Jewish communities issued a statement about the rising number of anti-Semitic incidents, as a consequence of the financial crisis in Greece. Among others the following incidents were mentioned: the Jewish cemetery in Saloniki was vandalised and the Holocaust-monument in Rhodos damaged. In January there was an attack against the synagogue in Crete. The Jewish organisations demanded from the government to punish the responsible and hinder future incidents. There are about 6000 Jews in Greece. Between 1941 and 1944 65000 Jews were deported and most of them perished in death camps.

Hungary
MAZSIHISZ, the Central Council of Hungarian Jewish communities held a press conference about the project ”The Gate of the Jewish Quarter.” The project is about the area around the Great Synagogue in Dohány Street in Budapest, which served as one of the gates of the Budapest ghetto during the war. The Jewish Museum is situated next to the synagogue. The museum is built where Theodore Herzl’s house stood before. At the festivities commemorating the birth of Herzl 150 years earlier, the little square, actually a triangle, was named Theodore Herzl Square. The place was lovingly renovated with flowers and benches. Since then the tourist information centre Jewinform has been established (also online) in the synagogue arcades. According to the plans an elevator will be built in the museum and an audioguide will be created in 7 languages. The bathrooms will also be modernised (very necessary!) The block also comprises the famous Goldmark Hall, which played a decisive role during the war. This was the only concert hall where Jewish artists (and their sympathisers) could perform publicly. The hall has since been used for theatre performances, concerts and other cultural events, but it is in a sorry shape. Now it will be modernised and renovated. Adjoining the hall the geneology centre ”Roots” is planned and access to the Jewish Archives. The purpose of this major project is to attract more visitors and tourists and to inform about Jewish culture and life form.
The tourists are there already, the parking in front of the synagogue is swarming with tourist coaches and foreign visitors. But in the Hungarian society, Jews are still a taboo subject.


Jewish jokes on the net

http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/j/jews.asp