But it’s not as intense as it seems. Some of our most commonly used Hebrew and Yiddish phrases have astrological origins. The phrase mazel tov comes from the word mazzal, meaning constellation or destiny—that is, one’s fate as determined by the stars. The Yiddish word schlemazel means “one on whom the stars don’t shine.” 

I first became interested in astrology, and how it intersects with elements of Judaism, while preparing for my bat mitzvah, which took place on October 23, 1999. I had been reading the play Inherit the Wind and fortuitously came across Clarence Darrow’s contention that creation began on October 23, 4004 BC at 9 A.M. That’s all a teenager needs to hear to know that everything does, in fact, revolve around her.

Although I pay attention to trends in planetary movement—taking into consideration planet retrogrades and moon cycles, as Susan Miller does—I do not directly observe planets. These horoscopes are based on people and my study and comparison of individuals. It is a fusion of personology based on astrological patterns, rather than pure technical astrology.

CANCER (JUNE 21-JULY 20): Ruled as you are by the moon, you are especially affected by lunar phases, particularly new moons and lunar eclipses. A water sign, Cancers rule the cyclical rhythms of the universe. Although water flows, taking on the shape of its container, Cancers often find it difficult to remain flexible. Instead, you hide inside of your shells of logic, skepticism, and neuroses.



Cancer is the widest ranging of all the signs. Because you are ruled by the moon, you often find yourself in the thrall of your extreme mood swings. Cancers are very contradictory creatures—some are fundamentally conservative and give the impression of being unemotional and uncompromising, unyielding and sulky, inclined to self pity and self-absorption.


Alternately, Cancers can use their sensitivity as a way to relate to others. If they’re able to embrace this sensitivity and turn it outwards, they can be some of the most nurturing and emotional individuals in the zodiac. Often romantic and idealistic, Cancers rule domesticity and motherhood—it tends to be a feminine sign. Your connection to the lunar energies and attraction to the mystery of night keeps you up at all hours.



Because Cancers are very private people, you thrive when left to your own devices. But as much as you may want to seclude yourself in your private nest of doom and gloom, it is important that you share your gifts with the world. 



With several planets in retrograde (appearing to move backward through the zodiac), now is not the best time to start a romantic entanglement. Cancers will be pleased to hear that they should avoid making any radical changes to their life at this time. Saturn turns direct on June 25th, which will help in any decision-making processes that you’ve been putting off.

Venus ends her retrograde cycle on June 27, opening up the possibilities for progress in romance and career. Let yourself break the rules sometimes—after all, you’ve gotta have something to atone for! 



Famous Cancer Jews: Carl Levin, Emma Goldman, Emma Lazarus, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, Marc Chagall, Mel Brooks, Walter Benjamin, Larry David, Richard Lewis, Dear Abby, Ann Landers, Harrison Ford (1/2 Jewish), Fred Savage

LEO (JULY 21-AUGUST 20):
You may have felt like you were on top of your game last month, but now you’ve been forced into a powerless position—which is something Leos will simply not tolerate. While you lions have the monopoly on chutzpah, you tend to sink into a pit of despair when not getting the attention you crave. Snap out of it! Although you hate to wait, if you’re patient for just a bit longer you’ll see that your efforts weren’t for nothing.



VIRGO (AUGUST 21-SEPTEMBER 20): 
While you’re predisposed to all things practical, now is the time to pay extra attention to your fantasy life. Although you are an Earth sign, you are ruled by swift-moving Mercury, the god of communication. Your strengths lie in system-building, but it is essential that you pay attention to your fantasies. It’s time you either acted or put the kibosh on them once and for all. 



LIBRA (SEPTEMBER 21-OCTOBER 20
): There’s no need to look to one extreme or the other—what mishegas!  You’ll find your balance once you’re able to see how ridiculous it is to reduce life to either/or. Once Venus turns direct on June 27, matters of the heart gain momentum. But remember: with too many irons in the fire, you’ll never be able to pinpoint your true calling. 



SCORPIO (OCTOBER 21-NOVEMBER 20): 
You have been working hard to maintain your so-called values. But by forcing yourself into a position for form’s sake you have given up an essential part of your character. Rather than getting defensive, relinquish some control and get real with yourself. Playing with fire might get you burnt, but it can also be an essential element in the process of self-discovery. So let it burn.



SAGITTARIUS (NOVEMBER 21-DECEMBER 20): 
A tendency to over-analyze can ruin something before it’s even begun.  Sometimes you lose sight of your passionate origins: fire signs rely on intuition, not logic. Suppressing your instincts is dangerous. If you find yourself stymied by an idea of what you should have accomplished by now, you will only secure yourself a position in the dark chasm of spiritual deadlock.  



CAPRICORN (DECEMBER 21-JANUARY 20): 
It might do you some good to embrace your subconscious desires. Ruled by Saturn, the planet of boundaries and limitations, you often err on the side of rationality. While you prefer to fly solo, blaming other people for cramping your style isn’t going to hold up for much longer. You only have yourself to blame.



AQUARIUS (JANUARY 21-FEBRUARY 20
): Ruled by wild and erratic Uranus, you are able to detach yourself from your emotions. You hold grudges and play for keeps. Your dispassionate approach to relationships means you tend to value career over your personal life, but this is often to your detriment. Focus your energy on letting go of resentments. Whatever you put into the universe will come back to you. 



PISCES (FEBRUARY 21-MARCH 20)
: With your ruling planet Neptune in retrograde until November 11, you and your heightened psychic perceptions will go on a supernatural wild ride. Because your intuition is strongest now, it would be wise to avoid psychic overload. Whatever happens, just know that everything will make sense in the calm after the storm. 



ARIES (MARCH 21-APRIL 20
): Warrior Mars, your ruling god and planet, does not spend needless time devising strategies for love. However, he does often take impetuous, reckless action, seizing the beloved in a knock-down drag-out fight. Consider your opponent’s strengths without taking their weaknesses for granted. You’ll be glad you did.  



TAURUS (APRIL 21- MAY 20): 
You’ve been through so much this year. With your ruling planet Venus turning direct on June 27, you finally have the opportunity to assess the value of the decisions you’ve made and figure out what’s working for you—and what isn’t. If you aren’t getting the most of a situation, then give it the kiss off. Good riddance to bad rubbish!



GEMINI (MAY 21- JUNE 20): 
Your mischievous duality is wearing thin, you tricky little dybbuk. You may have let some of your most treasured passions fall by the wayside in deference to others, and you’ve been questioning your choices. Use the next few months wisely to determine where your priorities lie. 

(Art by Margarita Korol)

The post Introducing Jewcy Horoscopes: Cancer, June 21-July 20 appeared first on Jewcy.

To be fair, at the moment, no one should call me a rabbi; I still have a few years of studies before I will be ordained at the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem. However, even after my ordination, I do not want the government to judge my worthiness to be a religious leader. I would much prefer the government worry about issues other than the way its citizens connect to God, spirituality, and halacha.

Instead, I would prefer the government worry about the services it provides its citizens, such as national defense, infrastructure, and education. The state provides a number of social services, such as health care, funerals, and even weddings, and it is precisely for this reason that I am so glad that the state has decided to fund non-Orthodox rabbis.

Maintaining a practice that goes back to the Ottoman period, Israel recognizes a number of religions that it then funds to provide certain services. These services, in turn, can only be provided by a religious body. As a result, two Catholics who wish to marry must do so via a state-recognized priest, while two Jews who wish to marry must do so via a state-recognized rabbi, who is always Orthodox. The system has a number of flaws, most seriously in that it does not allow someone who is not recognized as a member of any of these religions to marry at all, a particularly common problem among some immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not recognized as Jewish by Orthodox halacha. In addition, the system forces one who wishes to get married, apparently considered a civil right by the state, to adhere to a certain religious standard when doing so.

The recent ruling in favor of funding non-Orthodox rabbis does not address this problem of marriage. But it does allow Israelis to have more freedom in choosing the color and flavor of many other meaningful aspects of their lives, and this is to be applauded.

In the past year, I have had the privilege of interning at the Masorti (Conservative) community in Kfar Vradim, a small town in the Western Galilee. Kfar Vradim is a unique example in Israel of a town where ‘the synagogue they don’t go to’ for many secular Jews is actually the Masorti one. In practice this means that many families choose to have their children’s bar or bat mitzvah at the Masorti synagogue, go there for one service during Yom Kippur, and are generally pleased that such an option exists.

The residents of Kfar Vradim are also unique because their town does not have a religious council. If they had a religious council, that council would be responsible for funerals in the town. Instead, when a resident of the town dies, the family calls the local council, who immediately informs them that they can choose a Masorti leader to officiate or an Orthodox one. The family makes its decision, and the leaders of both communities readily oblige to be with the family in their time of need.

The town’s mayor, Sivan Yechieli, is to be commended for his active role in promoting religious pluralism in his town. However, the burden of paying for such services—after all, the rabbi who officiates such a funeral deserves to be paid for his time—falls on the few dozen families who pay membership dues to the synagogue, plus any donations received from abroad. The tax shekels of all Israelis already go to provide services such as funerals, and so it is only fitting that now the state will give that money to the ones who in fact do the work.

Many have commented that the court’s ruling toward funding non-Orthodox rabbis is only the first step toward a more open Israel, and they are right. However, the next step is not government recognition of the non-Orthodox as rabbis; it is government recognition that myriad social services can be performed in a variety of ways. It is beautiful that the state helps fund people’s ability to seek counseling, to mark life cycle events in a meaningful way, and to grapple with a rich collection of Jewish literature. The state should take the brave step of saying that there are different ways to approach these things. If Israel is to have true religious freedom, it will not only fund Orthodox rabbis, but will support leaders of all kinds, including both non-Orthodox rabbis and non-religious leaders, in offering such public services.

As a Masorti rabbi-in-training, I am glad that Israel has taken a step toward helping me make a living while following my passion. But more importantly, I am glad that Israel has taken the first step toward recognizing that its government should not be telling its citizens how to be Jews.

(image via Shutterstock)

Arie Hasit is studying in the rabbinical school at the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem. He has worked with synagogues in Tel Aviv and Kfar Vradim as well as the Masorti Movement’s youth group, Noam.

The post Why I Don’t Want the Israeli Government to Consider Me a Rabbi appeared first on Jewcy.

We were heading to Kasserine partly because of its outward lack of anything interesting or unique. Coastal Tunisians think of their country’s interior as backward and distant, indistinguishable flecks in the vast Arab desert, rather than a living participant in the country’s distinct, part-French, part-Magrebi hybrid culture. If you drive in from the coast, Kasserine hadly feels like the same country as Tunis’s Parisian-style Avenue Habib Bourguiba, or the self-orientalizing Disneyland of Sidi Bou Said.

But the coast underestimated the interior at its own expense: Kasserine was the second city to experience widespread protests against the quarter-century-old rule of dictator Zine Al Abedine Ben Ali, 10 days after an unlicensed fruit seller named Mohammad Bouazizi publically burned himself (to death, it would turn out) in front of the governorate building in nearby Sidi Bouzid on Dec. 16, 2010. The seemingly-permanent Ben Ali fled the country just one month later. Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid, cultural and historical outsiders worn down over decades of inertia and official neglect, had been in flames long before urbane and liberal-minded Tunis.

As journalists, we were in Kasserine to probe the poignant banality of the places and people that launched the greatest wave of civil protest the modern Arab world has ever seen. The two labor organizers we were scheduled to interview were typical of the kind of activists who had helped the Sidi Bouzid protests go national. Their concerns were local—the regional illiteracy rate hovered at 35%, and unemployment wasn’t much lower than that. But when the protests began, these were the people who had helped flood the streets with discontented union members, breaking Ben Ali’s meticulous illusion of absolute control.

I wanted to like and respect these people. But my colleague and I would find this quite impossible. “Are you a Zionist?” the plumper of the two men asked us, before we could even get a question in. If we were, the interview was off. My journalist friend had interviewed members of Hezbollah—actual terrorists, in other words—and they had never asked him such a question.

Later in the interview, the activists explained that their union encompassed the entire political spectrum in Tunisia, accommodating communists, Islamists, really anyone who stood up for the rights of the country’s workers. I asked if they would tolerate a party that wanted to restore the diplomatic relations that Israel and Tunisia had maintained until 2000.

“We’re not only against normalizing with Israel, “the balder one said. “We’re for criminalizing normalization with Israel…Being with Israel, or even thinking of normalizing with Israel, is almost like holding a Kalishnakov and shooting a Tunisian citizen.”

Now nothing feels more dishonest than mindlessly nodding along to something that I privately consider to be poisonous nonsense, but it’s a position that only the most timid of journalists will never find themselves in. When this happens, you know you’re not in immediate physical danger or anything, but you can feel the tension rise as your conscience bristles, and as your own self-censorship becomes a very real part of the news-gathering process. Will I give anything away? I wondered. Am I about to be angrily expelled from this office—from this town perhaps? The answers to these questions were “no” and “probably not,” but the discomfort was tangible.

As the meeting progressed, I found myself cycling through all the coastal stereotypes about those backwards and uneducated Tunisian country folk, and even guiltily agreeing with a few of them. Except that in Tunis, the prevailing views on Israel—even among members of the educated, liberal establishment—were even worse.

“I always explain,” Zeynab Farhat, the director of Tunisia’s national theatre, told my colleague the day before I arrived in the country, “that even though I am just a citizen without any importance in this world, I say shit for Israel. It doesn’t exist for me.”

“We are not people like Sadat,” Ahmed Ounaies, Foreign Minister for a few chaotic months after Ben Ali’s ouster, told us. “We will not land in occupied Jerusalem and embrace whoever claims to be the leader of Israel while they still occupy Arab territories.” But don’t worry, he said later in the interview. “We have no ideological complex with Israel. None at all.”

On one of our last nights in Tunis, a young Tunisian journalist who seemed to fear the recently elected and avowedly Islamist Ennahda party as much as he had once despised the corrupt and inflexible Ben Ali regime, gave us his opinion on the current situation in Syria. It’s bad, he said. But, he added, the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians is worse. (At that point, Bashar al-Assad’s government had killed over 9,000 civilians in a little under a year.)

Whenever Israel came up, I dutifully continued typing, recording opinions that were ignorant or uninformed, corrosive even, considering that Tunisia’s was the first society to demand and even affect the destruction of a modern Arab autocracy. In such a revolutionary environment it was notable that narrow-mindedness towards Israel was immune from reassessment. It was notable, but also discouraging, particularly in Kasserine. Whatever brief romance I had with rural Tunisia—with the country’s underdogs, the unheralded heroes of the Arab Spring—ended with the question, “Are you a Zionist?”

(photo of the Kasserine marketplace, by the author)

Armin Rosen is a New York-based freelance writer.

The post In Rural Tunisia, Answering Everyone’s First Question: ‘Are You a Zionist?’ appeared first on Jewcy.

Almost immediately, a female police officer approached me with a video camera about 10 inches from my face. “Change your tallit to look like a scarf,” she said. I looked at her puzzled. I’ve prayed with Women of the Wall a few times throughout the year, and no one from security had ever made a request like that. “Change your tallit!,” she barked again. “But everyone else is wearing their tallit in a regular way,”—hanging over their shoulders—I said as I motioned to rest of the crowd. She didn’t budge, and I draped one side of my tallit around my neck. Another officer approached and said, “that’s not good enough. Make it look like a scarf.”

I got frustrated at this point. “Can you please leave me alone, I’m trying to pray.” “You have to change your tallit,” said the male officer, as he volunteered to help change the way I was wearing my tallit. I rolled my eyes and draped the second corner of my tallit over my neck, creating a cape of tzitzit. I finished praying and all of us at the Wall began to join in song, arm in arm, making our way over to Robinson’s Arch to read Torah and begin the additional musaf prayer for Rosh Chodesh.

The women’s rights struggle within the religious sphere in Israel is nothing new. Throughout my year in Israel, there have been campaigns about women’s voices being heard (literally), gender segregated buses, and public images of women allowed on posters or billboards. Women’s rights in public prayer spaces is just one of the many issues. An article about this week’s Kotel incident cites a 2001 law that states, “it is illegal for women to perform religious practices traditionally done by men in Orthodox Jewish practice at the Western Wall, such as reading from a Torah scroll, wearing tefillin or a tallit, or blowing a shofar.”

I had no idea that the police had their eyes on us, but as we moved through the security gates I made eye contact with the same female officer who recorded me and gave me the initial instructions to change my tallit. She pointed at me and said to another officer, “that’s her.” Immediately I was brought to a stairway along with two other rabbinical students.

“Israeli ID, now”

“I’m not an Israeli citizen.”

“OK, passport.”

“I don’t have it on me.” (Thank God.)

“OK, any other ID.” I handed him my Texas state driver’s license, which I’m sure meant nothing to him, and he took down my full name and address. He asked me for my phone number in Israel and my address. I hesitated, but then offered the officer my information. I was told, after a bit of waiting, that we will be contacted for further questioning and investigation, but that we were not being arrested at this point.

Behind me, I felt the support of the dozens of women and men singing, along with the spirits of all those who cry out against the injustice I am experiencing, standing there with the police. The voices behind me changed from a niggun, or tune, to the words of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, “kol haolam kulo, gesher tzar me’od, vahaikar lo l’fached klal—The whole entire world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is not to fear at all.” These words have never felt more powerful to me.

As the officer took down our information, I sang, with tears in my eyes, “vahaikar lo l’fached klal.” Yes, this is scary. But I will not fear. The homeland we dream of, that we have dreamed of for thousands of years, is not one that arrests women for religious expression through wearing a tallit. The homeland I know we can attain is one that embraces multiple forms of Judaism to create a richer, deeper, and stronger Jewish State.

Sarit Horwitz is a second year Rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary, currently studying in Jerusalem at the Schechter Institute.

(photo: flickr)

The post Detained at the Western Wall for Praying in a Tallit, One Woman Speaks Out appeared first on Jewcy.

The cast members are, as expected, out of touch and generally unlikeable, transforming into caricatures of themselves when the cameras start rolling. There were, however, nuggets of intrigue during the first episode, specifically a conversation at a booze-filled dinner that highlighted tension between the group’s Jews and Muslims. GG, clearly cast as the trouble-maker, suggested that Mike (who we see having Shabbat dinner with his family in the episode) might date Muslim women but would inevitably end up marrying a Jewish woman. Granted, that moment may have been manufactured, perhaps to build speculation that something is going on between Mike and GG, who is Muslim.

Hopefully, Shahs of Sunset delves into cultural issues more significant than discussions of appropriate pool party attire, but we’re not holding our breath. In the meantime, we’re totally learning Farsi—the following subtitles appeared on screen during the premiere:

“Joon = dear”

“Heyvoon bazi = animal party”

“Khobi = how’s it going”

“Pishi = kitty, kitty, kitty”

and,

“TPG = typical Persian guy”

The post Learning Farsi with ‘Shahs of Sunset’ appeared first on Jewcy.

With Book of Mormon winning a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album this weekend, super-producer Scott Rudin became the 11^th person to ever win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony or as it’s commonly referred, EGOT. Rudin is the sixth Jew to do so (6.5 if you count Whoopi Goldberg, which you probably shouldn’t). Controlling the media or not, that is still an incredibly high percentage for a people that make up such a small percentage of the non-Hollywood population. Moreover, there are many Jews fighting Ms. Kate Winslet for the chance to be the next EGOT. Here are the five most likely to pull it off:

Person: Matt Stone
Awards Won: Emmy for South Park, Grammy for Book of Mormon, Tony for Book of Mormon
Missing Award: Oscar
Likely Path to the EGOT: An adaption of Book of Mormon into film. At minimum it would be a lock for a Best Original Song nomination. If it is executed incredibly well, there is also the potential for Best Adapted Screenplay and even Best Picture. Of all the people on this list, this seems most weirdly plausible.
Odds: 3:1

Person: Barbara Streisand
Awards Worn: Emmy for multiple projects, Grammy for multiple projects, Oscar for Funny Girl
Missing Award: Tony
Likely Path to the EGOT: Some say Streisand has already EGOTted, due to her Special Achievement Tony Award, but they are not EGOT purists like you or I. Personally, it feels sacrilegious to presume that The Babs wouldn’t be able to win a Tony on her own.  Hey Mr. Broadway Producer Man, do I have a show for, it’s called: “An Evening with Barbara Streisand.” She’ll win all the Tonys.
Odds: 4:1

Person: Stephen Spielberg
Awards Worn: Emmy for multiple projects, Oscar for multiple projects
Missing Awards: Grammy, Tony
Likely Path to the EGOT: S-squared is the only member of this list missing two awards; however, considering his all-consuming Hollywood power, an EGOT is firmly within his reach—especially, if he is reaching to Smash something (ba dump cha). Smash was designed to be such a runaway success that it would effectively work as promotion for a Broadway version of the show within the show. Marilyn The Musical very possibly can win a Tony for Best New Musical and a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. If not those, there are probably a zillion other projects he has in the works. The man is going to EGOT, even if he has to turn Jurassic Park into a Broadway show.
Odds: 8:1

Person: Randy Newman
Awards Won: Emmy for multiple projects (including Cop Rock!), Grammy for multiple projects, Oscar for multiple projects
Missing Award: Tony
Likely Path to the EGOT: Four words: “Short People The Musical”. Seriously though, Randy Newman is an incredibly gifted songwriter, especially in the realm of hired composition. It stands to reason that even if Newman doesn’t write a musical himself, Disney might ask him to spearhead the music for a big Broadway adaption of Toy Story or The Princess and the Frog.
Odds: 10:1

Person: Stephen Sondheim
Awards Won: Grammy for multiple projects, Oscar for Dick Tracy, Tony for multiple projects
Missing Award: Emmy
Likely Way to EGOT: It’s not an easy road for him, but in this recycled culture, some Producer (maybe Scott Rudin) might turn a Sondheim classic into a TV show, any day now. West Side Story, on Wednesdays at 10pm on NBC; you know you’d watch that and you know The Sondhammer would get nominated for it. He might be the dark horse in this race but maybe the Emmy voters will pity his age.
Odds: 20:1

The post Who Will Be the Next Jewish EGOT? appeared first on Jewcy.

As far as minority representation on television is concerned, some seem to think that Jews have gotten off pretty lucky.  TVTropes.org a collection of recurring tropes and archetypes in TV, Film and books posits that Jews are plentiful in TV and film because the influence Jews wield in Hollywood.  A section on the site titled, “You Have To Have Jews” lists the examples of TV shows with predominant Jewish characters, it is however surprisingly short, and filled with almost entirely contemporary examples.   On Wikipedia’s List Of Fictional Jewish Characters, the same characteristic is present, examples of Jewish TV characters from before the 1990’s are few, and from before the 1970’s non-existent.   TVTropes has also compiled of tropes specific to Judaism including some predictable, and some less so.  Predictably Jews are stereotyped as: cheap, argumentative, bad-ass (only if they’re Israeli), nerdy, complaining, sexy (to non-Jews) and sexually obsessed (with non-Jewish women.)  More interestingly, the site points out the tendency for Jews on TV to be always be portrayed as Ashkenazi, never Sephardic as well as the tendency for Jewish characters to be paired with Irish characters.  Then there’s “The Ambiguous Jews” characters often played by Jewish actors with Jewish characteristics or tendencies but who are either never identified as Jewish or only cryptically so, such as David Duchovny as Fox Mulder on The X Files. In attempt to quell any sensitivity, the site goes onto reason that there was once few career options for the ambitious, educated non-Christians, and that Jews happened to be among the few willing to take the risk on both film and TV when they were new mediums.  As a result, the Jews practically built Hollywood, yet they are still so under and misrepresented.  Spike Lee popularized the term, “The Magical Negro” while lecturing to a group of students at Washington State University, but it had been ostensibly identified as a trope some time before that.  Most authors cite Sidney Portier’s role in The Defiant Ones as the first of this kind, but similar examples of African American characters span up to the present. Though the stereotypical and often demeaning trope is most pervasive with black fictional characters, in more recent years it’s seemingly spread to other minorities.  The Magical Minority has 3 basic characteristics.

1. A Sacrificial Lamb: A magical minority is put into a fictional world to further the agenda of the white male protagonist.  Most often to help them see some kind of evident truth and overcome some kind of obstacle.  Not always, but often the Magical Minority will give their lives for the protagonist’s cause.
2. Sagacious: Particularly when applied to an African American Character, a sort of folksy, “seen it all” kind of wisdom is needed in order for the Magical Minority to further the agenda of the protagonist.
3. Magic: The extent of a magical minority’s magic differs from character to character, story to story and minority to minority, and some characters’ powers are more overt than others.

The examples of such characters are many but here’s a start.  Notable Magical African American Characters include, Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance, Scatman Crothers in The Shining, Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty and Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile. These characters all share folksy wisdom, martyrdom and numerous magical abilities.  But the Magical Character Trope has made its way across the rainbow, pervading minorities throughout movies and TV.  Magical Native American characters such as Jose Chavez in Young Guns are given wisdom and magic with categorically spiritual implications while Magical Gay characters’ wisdom and power is a mixture of one part wisdom and one part camp.  Magical Female characters have been represented in a number of markedly different ways but “A Magical Girlfreind” is a character brings a protagonist out of some kind of funk and helps them discover their real purpose in life.  Recently, a more specific version of the Magical Girlfriend has emerged in the form of, “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl,” a term cooked up by The Onion AV Club’s Nathan Rabin.  Manic Pixie Dream Girl’s include Kirsten Dunst’s character in Elizabethatown and Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  According to Rabin, these characters exist, “solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” Often Manic Pixie Dream Girls are characterized as Jews, either ambiguously or not, as is the case with Dharma Finkelstein in Dharma and Greg or Jenny Shecter in The L Word or even Barbara Streisand in What’s Up Doc.

Interestingly, Jews have yet to be formally included in the Magic Minority archetype, and that may be a mistake. Mandy Pantinkin compellingly plays the role of the role of Saul Berenson on Showtime’s Homeland. As the methodic and wise CIA boss over protagonist Carrie Mathison, it seems Patinkin has perhaps shed light on the current TV writers’ rendition of “A Magical Jew.”  Carrie Mathison, the haphazardly brilliant, bi-polar CIA agent played the oh-so-waspy Claire Daines (who once played a Jewish Manic Pixie Dream Girl in Igby Goes Down) depends on Saul to bring her down to earth during her incremental manic binges.  Carrie also looks to Saul to push her frowned upon hunches through CIA red tape, often to his detriment.   She even goes as far as to offer herself to him sexually skirt the rules.  However, in true Magic Minority fashion, Saul refuses her advances (seemingly he’s the only character capable of doing so, such is the magic of the Jew) and always sacrifices himself to her whims.  When Mathison goes off her medication and has to be watched after 24/7, Patinkin steps in despite his marriage crumbling on the periphery.   As Saul, Patinkin plays a magic Jew.  He may be educated which seems to go against the usual Magic Minority archetype, but in a sense, this is his magic.   Practical scholarly wisdom intended to bring down the more folksy, charming WASP protagonist is the magic or the Jew.

If the theory is that magical Jews are written just as other magical minority characters only with wisdom pertaining specifically to practicality and book smarts, then another notable Magical Jew in recent TV history would be The West Wing’s Toby Ziegler.  Though Ziegler notably went a city school rather than an Ivy like the rest of the Bartlet White House staff, Ziegler remains the quiet, even-keel wise man of Sorkin’s West Wing, always ready with a raspy-voiced aphorism to put Martin Sheen’s world into perspective.  Ziegler, the son of an ex-Jewish gangster who is supposedly based on Clinton advisor Patrick Cohen, is always willing to let his personal life fall apart (he divorces early in the show) in order to aid President Bartlett. Zeilger’s magical abilities include his acerbic wit, keen eye and the ability to “fix” social security after a sleepless night.  The identifying characteristic of the Magical Jew is that he’s an advisor of sorts to the protagonist, always able to pull practical wisdom out of his yarmulkah in order to save the day.

In the end, there have been Magical Jews all along; only a more uniform version has begun to take shape on TV in recent years.  The Magical Jew embodies all the stereotypical characteristics TV writers have been attributing to Jews for decades: they’re nerdy and argumentative, they’re sometimes irresistible, sometimes full of lust, and like all other minority characters, they’re self-sacrificing for the good of the protagonist, and until Jewish characters are given room to exist as full fledged three-dimensional characters, or even (gasp) as the protagonists themselves, we’ll just have to settle for borderline magical intellect as a sort of door prize instead.

The post The Search For TV’s Magical Jews appeared first on Jewcy.

I imagine Ben Marcus, despite his prodigious talent, sadly, doesn’t make the biggest splash outside of the literary world. His previous works: experimental, challenging and brilliant, have drawn wide acclaim and a cult-like following, but he lacks the controversial nature of other authors (unless you count an argument with Jonathan Franzen in Harper’s Magazine) and often writes with a density that precludes a mass audience. However, in his new book, perhaps his most stylistically conventional to date, The Flame Alphabet, Marcus attempts to meld his ambitious intelligence with a more classic narrative style. Not shockingly, our conversation touched upon a range of subjects including the power and limitations of language, Kabbalah, the nature of family dynamics, and the state of the American novel.

Jewcy: Your book describes a world in which the language of children literally kills adults, both a scary and ambitious idea for a novel. Where did this idea come from?

I have always thought of language as something very potent, something that could change us on a biological level, the way a drug can. It affects our feelings, changes our behavior, and when I thought of it that way, and magnified it, I wondered what would happen if we consumed too much of it, if it could or would be poisonous, and that was the first idea of language as a virus, which seemed to generate a lot of stories for me. But it was equally important to be happening to a family. It was important for me to portray the struggle of a parent. I was really interested in having a parent go through the challenge of having to choose between staying with a child and perishing because of it, or leaving and dealing with that shame.

You chose to unleash this nightmare virus on a family that already displayed some pretty dysfunctional relationships…

Yea, that’s right. It’s not as though they had a perfect relationship beforehand, and I thought of that, but it seemed that if this toxic language visited a happy family, it seemed too easy to just pick on this joyful and peaceful family and send this meteor down on their house. This choice seemed to me more morally complicated, that they already had trouble and issues. I think one of the things that I try to do throughout the book is to slowly escalate the moral problems.

You speak of morally complicated situations, and your characters are morally complex as well, almost to the extent that some of them can engender a lack of sympathy. I’m thinking of Esther who gives the angst ridden teenager a new dimension. What do you think of her as a character?

Well she might have been a teenage bitch to her parents, but quite possibly she was not to her friends.  We only have the story from one person, her parent, Samuel’s eye, and I am fascinated how people are different around their parents than around their friends and everyone outside in the world. In a way, parents are a punching bag, of course that’s not all they are, but it’s safe to misbehave around your parents because they wont break up with you. I think what attracts me is that in our lives and in our imagination family is completely essential and yet it is a cauldron of a lot of bad behavior, tension, and vulnerability.  You don’t love anyone the way you love your family, but it’s also the safest place to test out your fears and bad behavior. I like Esther, but I was aware that I was just showing one side of her. Plus to me, her teenage rebelliousness made a kind of sense; the logic of a teenager. I think what it comes down to is that it is not her story, we see ultimately as her father sees her.

There seems to be an inherent tension in a book full of words attempting to describe the danger and limits of language.

Well, that’s a kind way to put it. I basically gave a gift to a reviewer who didn’t like the book. It’s a huge unanswerable paradox to use language to write about the end of language. I can’t imagine my life without language. I have the craziest and the most delusional belief that there is far more to language than we’ve even discovered. Consequently, to try to write with language about this paradox can be one of the most fascinating things I can try to do, and I keep thinking that more is possible and if you put the right words in the right order we will unlock deeper riches of human experiences. It’s a lot of faith in language, and that’s partly why I wanted to reverse the idea for myself. I try this a lot, to reverse my belief so as to feel vulnerable when I’m actually writing about it, because if it’s antithetical to what I really feel it almost forces me to live the bad dream I am writing and to try think differently.

This idea of the untapped potential of language leads us into the mysticism of the book.

To me I couldn’t imagine this book without mysticism.  It’s fundamentally, at least how I understand it, opposed to using language to try label our deep spiritual experience.  It suggests that deep spiritual mystical experiences are beyond language, which is an amazing taunt to me.  On the one hand people chase after it and try to describe describe and describe, but I think there is something romantic and alluring and compelling to the idea that language can’t reach a certain level of experience, not only can’t, but that language is almost a suspicious decoy away from those experiences.

Besides mysticism, there seem to be a little bit of Nietzschean idea of the limits of language.

He’s an interesting reference, but even on the sweeter side, it’s funny, but for some reason I am noticing more and more people going on retreats were they take vows of silence. Places where the whole idea is to not speak for a while, to pursue this fantasy of what you might think and feel if you weren’t constantly trying to say what you think or feel. The more I read into Kabbalah, I found that what I had invented at least with the way these characters worshipped in the woods and their relationship to language, made my idea of language feel less invented, and more of an ancient idea, maybe I just needed to delude myself, but I am pretty sure there are many antecedents.

In terms of style, this seems to be the least experimental of your books. This is a book with almost a classical narrative arc. How did you make this choice?

Well, I found it essential that one person tell it.  As opposed to my earlier books which used different narrators, or unseen or removed omniscient narrators, here, I felt very compelled that this wasn’t supposed to be told that way, that it needed to be a story of one person, and that is why it has the look and feel of a more traditional narrative. Additionally, I felt that I wanted to have a lot of momentum to move along as quickly as possible so that in a certain sense the hurdles to the believability of the idea wouldn’t settle in, because the conceit would put too much pressure and leave the reader scratching their head. So the ruse was to keep changing and moving things so that people wouldn’t stop and think about.

In a book of evil, grotesque, and disgusting situations, there are moments of beautiful poetic transcendence in the writing. How does that fit in with the larger tone of the book? Specifically, you wax poetically on the potential of the Hebrew language.

Well I think that it is intentional there. The narrator is trying to invent a new language and out of some dim notion of respect he has refused to use Hebrew to test on the subjects because he doesn’t want to injure anyone with the Hebrew language, but he starts to think he might find a sort of personal antidote in it.  I wanted to suffuse that feeling with some reverence and hope.  Sam feels reverence towards this, and believes that the Hebrew language is not finished, that the whole mystical idea of the Hebrew alphabet has sort of these potential missing pieces if plotted together, or built out, would release everybody from this difficulty.

This is a novel full of mysteries, riddles, and philosophical ideas underlying the compelling narrative, did you ever think that there is a saturation point of philosophy or ideas in a novel?

Yes. The saturation depends on trendiness. It also depends on how commercial you want to think about a reader, and what kind of reader you write for.  I think I did put thoughtful material in the book, but I did not want it to feel inert or just a repository of ideas, although there is all that, I think I used to do that more often, but here I was more interested in illustrating or embodying ideas, setting it in motion, so that a reader could find it there if he or she wanted to, but it wasn’t feeling like you were getting schooled in this book.

These questions sound similar to those you tackled in your Harper’s article on experimental fiction and Jonathan Franzen

Look, it’s an interesting question about American fiction in general and the kind of books we consider major. I try to think of the ten major books of the last decade, and it’s an interesting question. I think the basic question is how to write substantive books that you want to write without alienating people. I don’t feel that readers need to be forced to read anything, and if something feels didactic to them, they shouldn’t read it. In the end I think the challenge and problem and responsibility comes back to the writer, and the writer needs to accept how much they care about something.  The artistic challenge is whether they can find a delivery system for their material that is engaging vital and entertaining without forfeiting the issues that started their novel off.

The post Jewcy Interviews: Ben Marcus On “The Flame Alphabet” appeared first on Jewcy.

Shalom Auslander has emerged as a cultural phenomenon and phenom. You can spot an Auslander piece, whether in the New York Times, or GQ, or The New Yorker by its superficial bark, and contrasting serious, often existential bite. He writes with the comedic timing of a cynical seasoned veteran, but with the ferocity and intellect of an impassioned philosopher. His new book–his first novel–Hope: A Tragedy depicts Solomon Kugel’s struggle with a mom convinced she went through the Holocaust, a child allergic to the world, and a wife who doesn’t understand why throwing Anne Frank out of their new house crosses some serious Jewish boundaries. And yes, the real Anne Frank lives in Kugel’s attic. Beneath the story lies deep questions about history, the consolations of philosophy, and of course that omnipresent ghost in Auslander’s world, God. Here, in this interview, Auslander discusses the main themes of his book: the burdens of memory, the need to give up hope, and the questions facing a father trying to raise a family in a crazed world.

Jewcy: This book and your writing in general evinces a struggle, whether with ideas, family, God, or here, the idea of memory and hope, do you find writing to be exploratory in that way?

Auslander: For better or for worse, and probably worse, I spend a lot of time thinking about these kind of things perhaps because of my background: religious, theological, philosophical questions were raised early for me, and now I am trying to find a place for some type of answer, or maybe it’s just a question of liking fucking with things.

Often those go hand in hand, no?

Yes, I would say I don’t just enjoy fucking with things just to fuck with them; there’s a definite awareness what is everyone’s real sensibility, so I don’t know that I sit around and think about certain ideas I want to struggle with, I just think my characters are going to be people somewhat like me, if not in age weight and nationality, they are going to be people who think and struggle with these things. I don’t know how to write about a person, although it would be fun to, about a person with not a care in the world. Instead, I ended up writing about someone trying to give up hope.

Does it annoy you that sometimes you get portrayed as an angry cynic?

Look, I work very hard not to read reviews or comments, having said that, it was Mark Twain who said- “against the assault of humor nothing can stand,” and because of that people are afraid of humor, and the only real weapon is to say “he’s just doing it to be whatever. I don’t have to address the comments, because he’s just being whatever.” it’s funny because it’s used the other way also, like Jon Stewart, who says it’s just a comedy show, but bullshit it’s not just a comedy show, I think it’s an easy way for people to dismiss anything and everything.

One of the main ideas of the book is the idea of memory that can inspire but ultimately can also act as a huge burden, something that informs a lot of Jewish History, and obviously informs your book. Ultimately in the end, memory kills your character, Kugel. Can you speak more about this idea?

You are right, and that is where the book ends, that’s what happens, I didn’t map his death out, although when it did happen it was very obvious that it needed to happen. Look, it’s not specifically a Jewish problem, I think history is a bitch, you know, Adam had it easy, because he could sit there and tell Eve and his kids that things will be great, we are the best species on the planet and maybe you can continue that lie for 100 years or so, but 2011, we know too much, so how do you, distinctly when you have a kid, how do you tell your kids, why the fuck did I have this kid, it’s so selfish to commit someone to this madhouse, what do I tell him as to who we are as people, do I lie to him, do I not? In the book everyone has an answer, and I’m not sure if anyone is right or wrong. There are times when I’m exactly like the mother and I think that maybe paranoia is the way to survival, certainly it’s working for Israel. I don’t know. And that’s the same with Google, there’s no forgetting anymore, to a certain degree – nature has memory as a survival instinct, forgetting as a survival instinct, and we’ve erased that, because knowledge is power, but it’s often crippling.

So, is this idea, the idea of no hope, of a mad world, is this where the satire of  Steven Pinker came from – of his idea of our progressing into a non-violent culture?

Hey you know, I hope to whomever that he is right, it’s just hard to believe it. I didn’t know he had a book coming out; he had an excerpt two years ago in a magazine that I kept and decided I wanted to respond to this claim. Because, not as an attack, he’s crunched the numbers, but I’m just think, hopefully, when I’m reading this in an oven, this will cheer me up. I am right there with him, and rationality and math is math, but I don’t know. Go to tell that to a gypsy, or go ask a Kenyan right now what he thinks. I doubt there are a lot of Amazon prime orders for this book in Africa, Look I can see the argument, but I can’t see that were are getting better, we are just a little less worse, a little less awful.

Was there ever a point that you worried about the propriety of the book, perhaps of having Anne Frank say, “Blow me?”

Look, whenever you poke fun at a sacred cow, people will complain. But, I don’t think there’s anything in the book that attempts to say that we shouldn’t remember. Trust me, we are not going to forget anytime soon, but perhaps as Anne Frank herself says – there’s a difference between never forgetting and never shutting the hell up about it. I just think people misinterpret this obsessive need to never forget. The main point doesn’t come from a need to never forget because we will never forget, but rather, this obsessiveness stems from a sense of guilt, like the mother in the book has, of not having suffered enough.

Your idea – about hope, or the lack thereof, in some way’s it seems like a very generational, post-Jewish Question. We grow up being told that books, religious books have the answers, but for many they don’t, then many turn to other books, to literature, and they don’t really have the answer either, so where do you go from there?

Well, that’ seems to be the main question of the book. I don’t know the answer. For me, the next place was philosophy, and though some will debate this point, but philosophy is just a bunch of smart people asking more questions, but I already have plenty of questions, and I kept thinking of this quote from Jules Renard in his journal – paraphrasing here- to the degree that writers and artists cant tell me why we are here or why we die then I don’t give a damn about what they have to say, and that’s a very emotional reaction to the same question – this is what we do, we ask questions and there are no answers. Some people think asking is the point, it doesn’t help; also, I guarantee you the answer will be a bummer, whatever it is, we will respond with a shrug, and “that’s it?” For me, it’s never going to make total sense, no answer will help me solve the problem of was life worth the hemorrhoids, the family members or friends with cancer, or burying children, there are no sides to this algebra equation that balances.

This main idea, giving up hope to live a better life, there’s a bit of a Buddhist idea here of confronting the immensity of suffering before we can embark on the path of contentment. But you only go half way; you only take a look at the suffering.

I don’t know if Buddhism really helps me either. To me all of this, it’s just a shrug, and I don’t know if there is anything more than a shrug that I can hope for, you know there is the Buddhist idea of trying not to answer the question of why, but rather we should be asking how, and here’s the how, how to live, and that is supposed to help that when you reach that level somehow you can go on living when the worst thing in the world happens, but would you want to reach that level where its OK when children die, on any level? Even Buddhism, ultimately is still a promise, a hope, a hope that in giving up hope we can obtain real or true happiness, which doesn’t really work for me.

In one part of the book, Kugel looks at his old books and refers to them as old bottles of medicine that didn’t work. And yet, you add yourself to the larger world of literature. Did you feel any tension in still taking part in that great conversation of literature?

Ha, yea, that’s a good point. But look, I don’t have any answers more than they did. I am as useless as anybody. All I know is what I fear, and what hurts, and what I am worried about.  To a large degree writing for me is pouring all my fear into one work or the other and seeing it for what it is, and what it is, is usually funny and pathetic, it’s kind of like, yea, someone might say to me chill out have a cigarette.

I imagine that’s not lost on you that you’ve thought it through.

Yea – I’ve tried it, trust me, cigarettes used to help, now I can feel the tumor growing, and I can only think that I am killing my son’s father. It makes me sick with anxiety. Look, my main point is, that it’s all a guess, we are all trying to make ourselves OK with something. Even if it’s just saying I am not OK with this. And that’s what the book is about.

The post The Hope And Tragedy Of Shalom Auslander appeared first on Jewcy.

“On Friday, Jan 6th, 2012, a group of 250 women from Bet Shemesh decided to raise their voices against the exclusion of women from the public domain by holding a mass public dance in the city square. The women, residents of the city from all ages and sectors, religious, traditional and secular, gathered together in a flashmob dance, in the city square and started dancing towards a change.”

The post Jewish Women Fight Misogyny By Dancing To Queen appeared first on Jewcy.