In the aftermath of Trump’s election, there has been no shortage of topical, ultra-relevant stage productions. To name a few, this past year brought us The Public Theater’s controversial Julius Caeser, an off-Broadway production of 1984, a concert production of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, a limited engagement transfer of Angels in America, and, of course, the upcoming Mean Girls musical.

My question is, where is Parade?

Parade is a 1998 musical about the hanging of Leo Frank, a Jewish man living in Georgia, accused in 1913 of killing a 13-year old girl. Although Leo Frank was originally sentenced to death, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment based on overwhelming evidence that he was wrongfully convicted. Before he could be cleared further, he was kidnapped from his jail cell and lynched.

Parade touches on all the pressure points of America in crisis: dark, xenophobic nationalism; boiling racial tensions and anti-semitism; the resentment between rural Southerners and urban Northerners; the dangers of fake news and mob mentality.

On top of that, it’s a masterpiece. Credit Alfred Uhry, the Atlanta-born Jewish book writer, and composer Jason Robert Brown (New York Jewish). Jewish theatre writers are common, but the hanging of Leo Frank is a significant piece of Jewish history—it inspired the founding of the Anti-Defamation League—so it’s especially important that it is rendered by Jews.

There was a special concert revival of the show in 2012, but that was a lifetime ago. Obama was president. White nationalist rallies were generally frowned upon. Conversations about Nazis didn’t end with smug centrist “Well, aren’t people who hate Nazis just as bad as real Nazis?”

The show opens with a rousing patriotic hymn sung by a young Confederate soldier. “Old Red Hills of Home” doesn’t work if there is any East Coast liberal elite judginess about what the Civil War was really about, and to his credit, Jason Robert Brown keeps it earnest. Form the soldier’s perspective, he is not fighting for slavery or hatred or love of violence. He is fighting for values, for “a way of life that’s pure/[For] the truth that must endure.” (You know, these values and purity were rooted in the belief that people could be property, but that’s for the audience to bring to the material.)

Flashforward to 1913. The soldier has lost his leg and the South has lost the war, but neither have lost their pride. Their fierce protectiveness for their way of life and their bitter hatred for the North have only intensified. Most of the city is excited to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, except Leo Frank, a Jewish Brooklyn transplant. Four years prior, wife’s uncle offered him a great job running a pencil factory but, as Leo laments, “I should have known it pays so much because you have to move to Atlanta to do it.”

He remarks to his wife “Confederate Memorial Day is asinine. Why would anyone want to celebrate losing a war?” (Right?) His wife, Lucille, doesn’t share his attitude. She is Georgian born and raised, and proud of it. To Leo, Atlanta is “the land that time forgot.”

Leo’s song, “How Could I Call This Home?” highlights his wry Jewish humor and outsider status.  “These people make no sense, I live in fear they’ll start a conversation,” he says. Even his connection to Judaism is strained: “These Jews are not like Jews/I thought that Jews were Jews but I was wrong.” His wife would prefer that he say “howdy, not shalom.”

From there, things move quickly: An young employee of the pencil factory, Mary Phagan, is found dead in the basement, Leo Frank is the immediate suspect, and a desperate reporter, Britt Craig, leaps on the story.

The city is out for blood. They want justice, and they want it fast. Suspicion falls on Leo and keeps piling up, regardless of whether it’s based on fact. As Craig points out, Leo is an educated Jew from Brooklyn, an easy target to villainize in Georgia. Craig deals in anti-Semitic caricatures: “Give him fangs, give him horns, give him scaly, hairy palms.” It sells papers, it gets clicks—what else matters?

At the trial, from a combination of false testimony and playing on the emotions of the white, Southern jury, Frank is sentenced to death. The city celebrates with yet another parade.

As Leo awaits his death, Lucille has no choice but to spread his story outside the city. Atlanta is divided on racial lines, with members of each group looking out for each other, and Lucille and Leo belong to neither. (There is an uncomfortable caveat to Parade: Historically, Jim Conley, an African-American man, was most likely Phagan’s murderer. The show’s writers attempt to balance his presumed guilt with the fear of violence the black citizens of Georgia lived under constantly, contrasted with the far rarer historical anecdotes of violence against Jews.)

Public pressure reaches Governor John M. Slaton and he decides to re-examine Leo’s case. With Lucille’s help, they gather enough evidence to have Leo’s sentence commuted. Leo and Lucille hope he will eventually be exonerated.

But the public outcry, the new evidence, the redacted testimony, the judicial system—none of that matters to the city and surrounding neighborhoods. They are convinced that a Jewish outsider assaulted and murdered an innocent child.  In the middle of the night, a mob of angry men break into Leo’s cell, kidnap him, and lynch him.

After Leo’s murder, Lucille chooses to stay in Georgia, which she still considers her home. When Confederate Memorial Day rolls around again, Lucille watches the parade. The show is mostly devoid of reprises, but the first number, “Old Red Hills of Home” returns as the finale.  The lyrics don’t change, but  they are cast in a new harrowing light. What, exactly, do these proud citizens stand for? What is the “way of life that’s pure?” What does a parade really represent? The final image of Confederate flags flying across the stage in a militaristic parade evokes a chill today that they wouldn’t have five years ago, let alone in 1998 when the show opened on Broadway.

Parade is not a crowd-pleaser. In fact, it closed after 84 performances despite good reviews and nine Tony nominations (it won two: Best Book and Best Score). It’s a bleak musical, but it’s derived from bleak history, and we’re living through a bleak present. (And as for casting, Jewish two-time Tony nominee Brandon Uranowitz really wants to play Leo Frank.)

There’s never been a better time to bring Parade back in any capacity, and we can only hope that it is never more relevant than it is now.

Image via Musical Theatre International

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If you make the mistake of reading the news (except for this, of course), you’ve probably seen a lot of articles about a current production of Julius Caesar for Shakespeare in the Park. Basically, the show casts Caesar and Calpurnia respectively, as clear Donald and Melania Trump analogues, complete with crotch-grabbing, naked tweeting, and an updated reference to potential murders on Fifth Avenue. And, spoiler alert, about halfway through the play, Caesar is assassinated, and audiences in Central Park are watching a man who looks and sounds an awful lot like the current president get stabbed to death.

The news of these directorial choices slowly gained traction, and eventually, corporate sponsors pulled their support, turning this play into an ideological battle, generally between those who decry the idea of depicting violence against a sitting leader and those who are fierce freedom of expression defenders, who find the show brilliant. In an opinion piece for The New York Times James Shapiro said that he hopes audiences “will rush to the Delacorte”— and this was after a review that named it a Critics’ Pick. Entertainment Weekly gave it an A. Fareed Zakaria called it a “masterpiece” on Twitter.

…Really? Seriously, why do all the defenders of this production seem to love it so much? It’s an interesting theatrical exercise, but it’s by no means a great production by the standards of the Public Theater. You can believe in the show’s right to do what it did (amen!) but still feel it missed the mark; it doesn’t weaken your argument.

Certainly, Julius Caesar is a play for our times— as Oskar Eustis, the production’s director (and artistic director of the Public Theater), explains it in the Playbill’s notes, it shows us how fragile our democratic institutions really are, and how violence, tempting though it might be, often begets more violence. It’s by no means a celebration of the hypothetical assassination of President Trump, as its detractors assume— it shows just one of many, many ways the transformation of a populist demagogue into a tyrant can lead to chaos. But that didn’t mean the best way to communicate this was to put a Melania Trump impersonator onstage to garner laughs every time she speaks in a vague European accent.

Most importantly, because the last couple of years have been so gosh-darned surreal, truth has become stranger than fiction. The play is one of Shakespeare’s best tragedies largely because there are so many morally nuanced, complicated characters in it. Brutus (a great Corey Stoll, who’s Jewish FYI) loves Caesar as a person, and doesn’t even seem opposed to the general’s policies. He simply fears Caesar’s ambition, and what will happen if one man holds all the power.

Gregg Henry, who’s going to be remembered most for this play, does a great Trump impersonation, knowing when to curb the cartoonishness enough that the assassination feels raw, and ugly, like the murder of a man, rather than of a caricature. But not for one moment are we able to believe that he’s as lovable and noble as the text keeps telling us. Julius Caesar is a recent war hero, beloved by Romans for the glory he’s brought the empire. Making him Donald Trump feels ham-fisted and forced, and since he dies halfway through, it’s like the play starts over with his absence, when the tone is finally allowed to find its own level (that level being very dark).

What most reviews are omitting is that there’s one more suggested analogue— Octavian Augustus to Jared Kushner. Well that can’t be right… Octavian is a speaking role. Well, the production doesn’t run with it; it’s a subtle reference. When Octavian shows up to wage war with his uncle’s killers, he’s wearing a military-style vest over what looks to be a very expensive suit. Sound familiar? Once again, this analogue doesn’t quite work, other than that both men are trusted, younger male relatives of the leaders. Eustis couldn’t resist pointing this out, but it doesn’t add to the production overall.

For what it’s worth, the real-life Julius Caesar had a generally favorable relationship to the Jews, who on the whole supported him during his civil war with Pompey. Jews voted overwhelmingly against Donald Trump. Is that a historical detail that needs to line up to the reality of this play? Of course not. But presenting Trump so literally as Caesar, rather than letting the audience make their own connections to current events, makes the seams show.

Photo by Joan Marcus, via Playbill.

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AIPAC is the closest the Jewish community comes to endorsing and participating in blood sports. The first one takes place in the Verizon Center, which turns into an enormous Roman Colosseum, complete with political gladiators. But, instead of fighting each other with swords or tridents, they battle for the love and adulation of the crowd with applause lines, tossing piece after bloody piece of red meat to the fawning masses. The politicians feed off the cheers while AIPAC participants gnaw on the steaks.

But the other blood sport that AIPAC inspires takes place in Mt. Vernon Square, right outside the convention center. Yearly, a protest contingent inevitably appears, fully equipped with signs calling for a Palestinian state from the river to the sea, accusing Israel of war crimes and genocide, and reminding everyone that Zionism=Racism. Traditionally made up of far-right Islamists and far-left activists, with a few members of Neturei Karta thrown in for good measure, they merge with people protesting the Occupation to form an angry mob, only held at bay by the police and the enormous glass windows of the convention center. AIPAC participants, looking through the panes that separate them from their antagonists, treat this spectacle with the special sense of bravado that comes from a noxious mixture of self-righteousness and sturdy walls.

It was into this combative and troubled climate that I made my way, a volunteer for one of the organizations presenting at AIPAC. Last year, my first chance to attend the AIPAC Policy Conference, I jumped at the chance to watch presidential candidates pander to me, even if I didn’t necessarily agree with their positions. (As a New York liberal, the only chance I get to see a presidential candidate locally would be at the $10,000-a-head dinners in NYC when the candidate needs money to go down to Iowa, Ohio, or Florida and genuflect to those more strategic voters.) And it was quite a year to attend, surrounded by Trumpian drama and completed by the thundering applause he received for his ability to complete full sentences, read off a teleprompter, and hit at every frustration that the audience had with the past eight Obama years. I had floor seats to the American-Jewish community’s mass dereliction of duty, as they provided a standing ovation to a xenophobic white nationalist, simply because he echoed their talking points at that particular moment. Needless to say, it was not the Jewish community’s finest hour.

This year, I declined to attend the general sessions. The meat being thrown to the crowds this year was going to be rancid and the rhetoric either inflammatory or stale. It was preordained by the results of the election, the state of the American and Israeli democracies, and the hyper-partisan environment that was already infecting U.S.-Israel relations. I couldn’t bear to be in the same stadium with members of the administration, let alone watch my fellow landsmen fawn over the emissaries of a fascist.

But my discomfort extended beyond the speeches at the Verizon Center, and into the oft-repeated critiques of AIPAC’s role in implicitly enabling the continuation of the Occupation through silence and legitimizing the activities of two race-baiting right-wing heads of state through an unstoppable commitment to bipartisanship and an immovable rejection of any criticism of Israeli government policies. This wasn’t an organization that could speak for me or represented my views on Israel, Palestine, and the U.S.-Israel relationship in the way I would want. While I believe firmly in their mission, a stronger U.S.-Israel relationship, I continue to remain concerned about the detritus left by the wayside as AIPAC pursues its goal.

In an attempt to cleanse my palate, and perhaps to seek a morsel of absolution for my sin of association, I traveled beyond the confines of the convention center to the demonstration developing outside, where I knew that a different type of protest was brewing. This year, Mt. Vernon Sq. was emptier than usual, and almost exclusively controlled by IfNotNow, the scrappy upstarts of the Jewish world, who chose that spot to plant their flags (specifically Palestinian flags, from what I could see), and once again do battle against the gigantic institutions of the Jewish world. Shouting for an end to the occupation, striving to link the Jews inside to the historically unpopular Trump Administration, and summoning up a facet of the values they were taught in youth groups and religious school, the IfNotNow protests of Sunday afternoon sought a greater recognition that AIPAC and its support for the Occupation doesn’t represent all American Jews. (As if any statement could be agreed upon by every Jew in America. There’s even an anti-chicken soup contingent out there.)

I waded into this crowd of happy warriors, who were singing traditional Jewish songs I knew (albeit with unfamiliar melodies,) but my level of anxiety didn’t recede. I had only found the opposite side of the spectrum, AIPAC’s rhetorical counterbalance. I was in the presence of iconoclastic idealists, people whose sense of Jewish morality was so great, and whose belief in their cause was so strong, that they would damage or destroy pillars of American Jewry and tear the community and Israel asunder in order to further their more perfect world.

AIPAC’s implicit support for the occupation is mirrored by IfNotNow’s rejection of an explicit position on the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Both sides are equally unwilling to risk taking a stand that might compromise their greater mission, while continuing to shelter people and positions working to destroy the two-state consensus and the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Rejecting the occupation and supporting Israel seems like it should be a feasible political platform, but it was all but invisible. I couldn’t attain absolution for my sins from equally guilty sinners.

AIPAC ended without the hoopla that had plagued it a year ago, but the quiet conclusion should not fool anyone into believing that it signals concord. Uncertainty about Israel’s future, the growing rifts in the American Jewish community, and the potential collapse of American democracy leave all American Jews with a minefield of issues buried right below the surface. Public battles over agendas and associations have left nothing but scorched earth and bruised feelings, and everyone has retreated to their corners. As for myself, I continue to hope that the organizations with both a hope for and a stake in Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic country will continue to grow, nudge the agenda, and reclaim their place as the true voices of America’s Jews, because we are in sore need of that rarest of qualities, a Jewish consensus.

Image of IfNotNow Protesters via Twitter.

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Israel, go home, you’re drunk.

Just in time for Purim revelries to come and go, it seems Knesset is determined to show us how deep their character study of Ahasuerus is. I am impressed with how thoroughly a modern democratic state can imitate a petty, short-tempered tyrant, and doubly so because they seem to be intent on doing it by committee. That takes some serious workshopping, you guys.

First off, we have the so-called “BDS ban,” except that ban doesn’t just include folks who are involved with BDS, even tangentially. (Besides, Israel has long been denying entry to anyone they deem a potential threat to the state, including some activists.) But even the ADL and the AJC have condemned the bill because it is so vague, it could easily cover anyone who endorses even a partial boycott. This means not just settlement-only boycotts, but any foreign national who boycotts any Israeli institution, for any reason, ever.

Do you know who that covers?
Nearly every Jewish person ever.

Sure, right-wingers are crowing over their victory, even though a law like this is unlikely to stand up in Israel’s Supreme Court. What they don’t realize is that this law, and anti-free-speech ethos it espouses, are corrosive to democracy and civil society as a whole. Today, the law takes its aims at leftists, but tomorrow those tables could easily turn.

Not to be outdone, a bill being debated is aimed at the mosques in the country. The “muezzin bill” is framed as a way to protect the sleep of citizens by restricting how loud the muezzins can broadcast their calls to prayer, and at what times. Unsurprisingly, it’s been roundly lambasted as discriminatory, and Knesset Member Ayman Odeh ripped up a copy of the bill before he was escorted out of the chamber. The bill has a ways to go before it becomes law, and if it does make it that far, there’s a strong chance that the Supreme Court will kill it. Which, like the bill before it, doesn’t make it less corrosive to the society that spawned it.

As if that isn’t bad enough, a Knesset panel is trying to put forward a bill that would prohibit civil service in left-wing organizations. Civil service, or Sheirut Leumi, is a key part of the state’s function. Alongside conscription in the army, civil service is considered a rite of passage, and is an important way for young adults to provide much needed aid in various ways around the country. Especially for those who cannot go to the army, for medical, religious, or other reasons, civil service is an important way to give back to their society. The casting of these NGOs as “foreign agents” and the people working for them as working “against the state” is making use of ideological rhetoric to limit dissent and strangle progressive organizations in a single blow.

This bizarre turn to the regressive isn’t new. Just over a year ago, a bill was proposed that would essentially force NGOs to label themselves as “foreign interests,” by forcing them to disclose private foreign donations. It was a move aimed to cripple liberal organizations, which often receive funding from abroad. Had it passed, it would have likely resulted in both a chilling effect on free speech contradicting the government, and result in a drop in donations when donors did not want their privacy breached. It was voted down 42-40.

These bills, among others are part of an ugly turn in Israel’s ongoing culture wars, that stress clashes between the ultra-Orthodox, who seek to impose religious-based restrictions on Israel’s mostly secular majority, between the ultra-nationalists and two-staters, and ethnic tensions between Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, Palestinians, and so on. The cleavages in Israeli society are many and multi-layered, and they contribute to an increasingly fractured society.

But perhaps nothing is quite so indicative of the slide into the amoral and absurd as the fact that people dressed up their kids as Elor Azaria for Purim.

Why people would think it is a good idea for their kid to dress up as someone who was convicted for manslaughter is a pretty tough nut to crack. After Azaria shot and killed an already subdued assailant, Abdel Fatah al-Sharif, some openly campaigned for his pardon and release, whilst others thought his sentencing was so light that it was a mere slap on the wrist.  Israeli society has been deeply divided on the issue, with some who took the soldier’s side saying that his actions were responsible, permissible, and praiseworthy, and that despite Sharif’s immobilization, Sharif posed a credible threat.

The court disagreed, to the ire of many,  including those desiring he be pardoned. Many were saying they’d wish more Palestinian assailants a similar fate. These people see Azaria as a hero, or even as a martyr of sorts, a Mizrahi, religious low-ranking soldier rigged to take the fall for his superiors in a rigged, leftist court system. Some powerful right-wing voices, including Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman expressed support, and a rally in his support even attracted local pop stars.

In contrast, others see him as an impulsive young man, whose anger was no excuse for the murder of a young Palestinian, especially since he was already in custody and subdued. In his actions, some see the ugly results on a society poisoned by half a century of militarily occupying another people, including dehumanization that leads to unnecessary violence. Even Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu (no leftist, he!) and Moshe Ya’alon spoke against it as a clear violation of the IDF’s ethical code. And al-Sharif’s father called the sentence a “joke,” and considering that Palestinians have gotten multiple years for throwing stones that didn’t result in death, it’s not hard for people who condemn Azaria to agree with that sentiment.

There’s many reasons why this divide in Israeli society exists, and why the Azaria case is something of a cipher for all of them. There’s a lot to say about enduring Ashkenazi-Mizrahi tension in Israeli society, despite the closing socioeconomic gap between the two populations. There is also much to say about the toxicity of the fundamentalist-influenced ethno-nationalist camp and their alliance with the religious right. But dressing up your kids in honor of someone who shot and killed someone – whether you think it was in self defense or not – shows that our society is ill.

Looking back on a holiday where we celebrate our deliverance from genocide thanks to a queen who used her words and her wits, not the sword, maybe we should reconsider what lessons the Book of Esther has for us— and if we want our leaders to be like Esther and Mordechai, or to emulate a petty, cowardly tyrant like Ahasuerus.

Elor Azaria at a military appeals court in Tel Aviv, April 18, 2016. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images), Via Tablet.

The post Losing the Plot appeared first on Jewcy.

Melania Trump made her first public appearance as First Lady without her husband yesterday, reading to hospitalized children in New York. Her choice of literature? Oh, the Places You’ll Go! The choice was no coincidence— it was the anniversary of the birth of its author, Dr. Seuss (happy 113th!).

Articles have been quick to point out that the book, which Ms. Trump claims as a favorite, contains the rather apt passage: “You’ll be as famous as famous can be,/With the whole wide world watching you win on TV.” But that doesn’t touch the tip of the ironic iceberg that was that literary choice.

First— we’ll say it— Oh, the Places You’ll Go!  is the most over-read of all of Dr. Seuss’s works (though not the most misappropriated— that honor would likely go to anti-abortion advocates using Horton Hears a Who). The rhymes are as clever as always, and the illustrations of course are great, but the message comes down to platitudes that your kid graduating high school has already heard a million times, thanks. Melania’s choice decidedly lacked imagination; it’s like a male teenager saying his favorite movie is Fight Club.

But that’s not the real issue here. As many people (though likely not Ms. Trump) know, in addition to writing for children, Dr. Seuss (the pen name of Theodore Geisel) was a political cartoonist, seriously leftist in bent. He was hypercritical of fascism long before it was the social norm, for example urging the United States to resist Nazism overseas and to decry Nazi-sympathizers at home.

For example, remember when President Trump invoked “America first” in his inauguration speech, a phrase with an explicitly fascist background? Let’s look at what Mr. Geisel had to say about that back in 1941:

Yikes. No one tell Melania.

Beyond broad anti-Nazi sentiment, Seuss was also a staunch advocate for protecting Jews against anti-Semitism, something the current administration is currently facing criticism for not rising to the occasion amidst a surge in anti-Semitic incidents.

And when it comes to his children’s books, Dr. Seuss’s often revealed his politics, like in the Battle Butter Book, decrying the folly of conflict during the Cold War. And so, for Ms. Trump’s next public reading appointment, there’s lots of good options— like The Lorax, the environmentalist’s bible. But if we here at Jewcy could pick just one, might we suggest… Yertle the Turtle? If Ms. Trump is too busy to read the whole thing, we’ve boiled it down to the relevant essentials:

Yertle, the king of them all/Decided the kingdom he ruled was too small./”I’m ruler,” said Yertle, “of all that I see./But I don’t see enough. That’s the trouble with me./With this stone for a throne, I look down on my pond/But I cannot look down on the places beyond./This throne that I sit on is too, too low down./It ought to be higher!” he said with a frown./”If I could sit high, how much greater I’d be!/What a king! I’d be ruler of all that I see.”

…

“Turtles! More turtles!” he bellowed and brayed. And the turtles ‘way down in the pond were afraid. They trembled. They shook. But they came. They obeyed.

…

Yertle, the King of all Sala-ma-Sond/Fell off his high throne and fell Plunk! in the pond!/And tosay the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,/Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see./And the turtles, of course… all the turtles are free/As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.

Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss.

Images via Wikipedia and Artsy.

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David Friedman isn’t having an easy time in the final steps towards becoming Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel and the controversy over his appointment reveals deep rifts within the Jewish community.

The bankruptcy attorney’s Senate confirmation hearing last Friday revealed his contradictory stances on Israel, his complete lack of experience in foreign relations, and the outright cronyism of the new administration. Friedman used the opportunity to retract controversial statements he’s made in the past, leading one senator to comment to Friedman that he was there “having to recant every single strongly held belief that you’ve expressed.” But he couldn’t escape several activists protesting his appointment.

Yesterday, the resistance continued, and I and two dozen members of the movement If Not Now protested David Friedman outside his Midtown Manhattan law office. Since Friedman’s Senate confirmation hearing last week didn’t go so well, we thought we’d host our own. We took over the lobby of his office, set up a very official-looking podium (made of cardboard), and proceeded to grill Friedman (played in drag by one of our members) about why he should be chosen to represent the United States to the State of Israel. And, what did we decide? We decided that Friedman is a terrible choice and should not be chosen as Ambassador. Sad!

This conclusion was no surprise, and the reasons are simple. Friedman has advocated strongly for settlements in the West Bank, with word and pocketbook. He has written that Palestinians have no legitimate claims to the land. He’s even insisted that liberal and progressive Jews who are critical of Israeli state policies are “worse than Kapos,” associating a majority of American Jews with people accused of collaborating with the Nazis and condemning their fellow Jews to extermination.

While Friedman used his confirmation hearing to qualify and walk back his hateful remarks, these views echo the racist and xenophobic language of white supremacists like senior White House advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon talks about the current global climate as a struggle between the “Judaeo-Christian” West and the Muslim Middle East. For people like Friedman and Bannon, Israel is the buffer between the West and radical Islamic terrorists hell-bent on destroying us. They paint all Muslims with the same brush, and ignore the nuances of a diverse Middle East, and lets blind hatred rule the day.

According to that so-called logic, Israel is perfectly justified in creating a state where Palestinians are subject to violence, racism, and second-class citizenship. American Jews overwhelmingly oppose such a philosophy. But in part because of the influence of conservative donors like Sheldon Adelson, many Jewish community leaders either espouse similar beliefs or silently tolerate extremists in their midst.

Our alternative “hearing” was a way to use protest, media, and theatre to imagine the world as we’d like to see it. Like Melissa McCarthy’s portrayal of Sean Spicer on SNL or Keegan-Michael Key as Barack Obama’s Anger Translator, humor or mockery can make us challenge our complacency. While many Jewish organizations would rather speak delicately about Trump, this protest took on Friedman’s abhorrent views.

It was also, however, a painful reminder that the delicate tapestry of American Jewish life is quickly unraveling. Young Jews are fed up with the contradiction between our progressive Jewish values and the institutional Jewish establishment’s support for Israel, without nuance, at any moral, political, and financial cost.

The fantasy of the protest wasn’t just Friedman admitting what he really thinks. It was the tough line of questioning, how we wish our government and mainstream Jewish institutions would challenge Trump and his administration. And, like many protests, it provides hope that these unraveling threads might be rewoven into something vibrant and beautiful.

You can watch our “hearing” of Friedman below:

Dan Rosen writes about media, Internet culture, and the networked life. He is currently struggling with the realization that nothing is implausible anymore.

Photo credit Gili Getz.

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Since the election, it has begun to dawn on me that the Jewish community might be facing a reckoning.

It hit me Saturday night, when at the protest at JFK. There were other Jews there, but most surprising to me was seeing a lone Haredi man. Haredim don’t usually come to any protests but their own, and generally stay away from loud activist actions. Usually, the community prefers to fly under the radar and not rock the boat, so his presence there was in its own way extraordinary. He was American and Israeli, and admitted he was there to support the protest against the Ban, and like many Jews I have spoken to, recalled the deaths that resulted when the United States turned away Jewish refugees during WWII. But he still held himself apart from the group, smoking a cigarette, and looking over at the shouting, exuberant crowd. “If I go in there [into the crowd] and start a ‘Free Palestine’ chant, will they chant with me? If they do, then there is no place for me here.”

He isn’t the only Jew who feels this way.

It’s no secret that there is tension between the mostly pro-Israel politics of the American Jewish community, and the mostly progressive politics of the same group. For decades, we have been trying to square the circle— pointing out that Jews have legitimate roots in the area, the multiple international agreements, the belief in a two-state solution, and the altogether nuanced nature of the conflict in the face of the reductive sloganeering so common in politicized spaces.

It’s never really worked — there’s too much pressure from the extremes on the Left and the Right — but I think the jig is up now. There’s no more center ground on which to stand.

It’s not because arguments for nuance are any less true. A two-state solution is still the one supported by the international community, and the one the UN expects and demands. Jews still do and will always have deep-rooted history in the Holy Land, and self-determination is no less of a national right for us than it is for anyone else. But the actions of Bibi’s government make such arguments fall flat. No one wants to hear it when the state is led by a man plagued by corruption scandals, who constantly undermines the two-state solution while pretending to uphold it, who increasingly marginalizes the already crippled center and left parties in Knesset, empowers the extremists in Israeli society, and embarrasses the head of the country by addressing Congress on his own. Simply put, when the head of state continues on with antics like this, no one will care to hear your defenses. It’s kind of like asking the world not to worry about the actions of the USA with Trump at the helm: no one has time to waste with such a request.

On the one hand, the pressure on Diaspora Jews to take the “right stance” on Israel is anti-Semitic. No Iranian national is expected to disavow the actions of their government in order to be welcomed in activist spaces. Nor is any Palestinian, Chinese, Turkish, Saudi, or German citizen. It’s a standard put on no one but the Jews, and it’s hypocritical. We should call that like it is.

On the other hand, we are nonetheless faced with internal accountability to ourselves and each other, whether we choose to deal with it or not (and for the most part, our community is continuing to dodge the issue).

What else are we to make of it when Bibi Netanyahu praises Donald Trump’s repeated intentions to build a wall, when both southern-border walls were built for similar ethnonationalist exclusionary reasons? What else do we expect when we excuse one wall, but condemn the other? Why are we protesting at JFK to allow the entry of refugees, but not at Ben Gurion? We correctly see ourselves in today’s refugees barred entry, recognize in them the ghosts of our pasts, so why don’t we see ourselves in Palestinians? How come Trump’s wall is bad, but ours is OK?

There are real differences between Israel’s desire for security, which is based on multiple wars and even outright genocidal speech coming from its neighbors at different times. Such things are not the case for the United States, and never have been. But if you spend time trying to point this out, you are missing the point. This article is not about how Israel differs from America and should be judged on its own standards, nor is it about the praise-worthy grassroots movements of young Diaspora Jews to address Israel’s illiberalism, like J Street, Open Hillel, and If Not Now; it’s about how leadership in Israel and America are becoming increasingly similar, to the detriment of both. Trump’s supporters are making comparisons between the two states as part of their rhetoric to bolster their opinions and policy preferences. Some of their comparisons only bear the slightest resemblance to facts; other comparisons are a little too on-point for comfort. While they’re half-wrong, they are also half-right.

If Bibi gets replaced with someone dedicated to moving forward with the peace process, maybe the American Jewish community can continue to kick the issue down the road. But I am not so sure that will happen, or that we should try. I think if we don’t expect anyone to give the slightest inch to Trump and his supporters, then demanding it for Bibi due to our own community loyalties is nothing short of hypocritical. If we can see and praise the domestic and international backlash against Trump, and understand that it does not mean the entire world hates America, then we can probably understand similar sentiment aimed at Bibi. (That doesn’t mean we should confuse them for people who want to eliminate Jewish presence in the Levant altogether, but it is a mistake to assume that this Venn Diagram is a circle.) And I think we will be a better, stronger community if we stop enabling the lazy rhetoric among ourselves and avoiding responsibility for it by labeling that support for Israel. Supporting Israel should mean supporting the tough decisions that leave everyone better off, not supporting extremist policies that hurt both Israelis and Palestinians. That kind of “support” only aids the people who want to blow up our bus stops, or worse (much like how Trump’s “Muslim Ban” is a boon for ISIS recruiters).

There are really only two ways this can end. Israel can retreat from its hyper-ethno-nationalist right wing positions. This would be good for the country, good for both Israelis and Palestinians, and good for the Diaspora Jews who increasingly feel alienated from a state that less and less holds the liberal ideas common to the majority of Diaspora, especially American Jews. Or, the country can, like the USA, like Britain, like Turkey, like Hungary, like Venezuela, continue on its regressive path. This will entrench social and political trends that locally will result in hardship, bloodshed, and anguish, as well as increasingly alienate a mostly liberal Diaspora— except for an increasingly hyper-conservative, tribalist, and vocal minority.

This was a trend that was happening before Trump’s election, or his monstrous “Muslim Ban.” But the election helped speed up the collapse of the status quo. And the results can be seen on the streets. Fellow American Jews: do you want to support an Israeli Prime Minister who keeps silent when the American President erases Jews from the Holocaust? Do you want to support a Prime Minister who plays sycophant with Trump over Twitter to support the latter’s harmful and bigoted policies? Why do we let gangsters with an unquenchable thirst for violence against anyone not like them dictate our community’s political position?

We should continue to hit the streets in support of immigrants and refugees, for we too were strangers, and we viscerally understand the high stakes for people fleeing war only to be greeted with closed doors. But maybe we should bring back some of that feeling to our internal community politics as well.

Photo by B. Lana Guggenheim

The post ‘But Our Wall is Different!’ appeared first on Jewcy.

In case you were eagerly awaiting Shia LaBeouf’s next durational art installation, know that the wait is over! The actor, recent husband, potential Christian convert, and Louis Stevens, has released perhaps his most political work yet: HE WILL NOT DIVIDE US.

HE WILL NOT DIVIDE US is fairly straightforward; there’s a camera outside of the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. You walk up to the camera, and say the words “He will not divide us.” If you like you can say it again— and again, and again, until you feel you have done your part and you let someone else take a turn. Lather, rinse, repeat until Donald Trump is no longer president.

No, really, the camera is streaming 24/7, for as long as Trump is in office. That’s the “he” in question, here.

According to LaBeouf and his collaborators Luke Turner and Nastja Säde Rönkkö, “the mantra ‘he will not divide us’ acts as a show of resistance or insistence, opposition or optimism, guided by the spirit of each individual participant and the community.”

Actually, so far it’s rather compelling.The first performer, on Inauguration Day, was Jaden Smith (because of course he was), so there’s always that Marina Abramović-esque “Who’ll show up next?” factor. And in only a few short days, and lots of interest, several tiny dramas have played out, from singing the mantra as a duet to the stream freezing up (OK, less dramatic, and more the way of all technology).

Most notably, considering that the point of the project is to not divide us, multiple fights have already ensued, when white supremacists, having gotten wind of the thing, have shown up to be trolls. Shia used the mantra to shout one of them down himself (rock on, Shia!), and one woman left her bed in Brooklyn in the middle of the night to come support a man holding vigil despite harassment. Aw!

Can’t make it to New York to participate yourself? You can still view the project; the camera live stream is on HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US.

Image via Twitter.

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If you’re mad both about the new president and that you have to wait until the summer for the fourth season of Broad City, then welcome to the right website for you. Also, there’s a new video that addresses both of your concerns.

Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer have released a video of how their characters are dealing with today’s Inauguration, and they say everything we’re feeling.

The setup is that Abbi’s stuck in an elevator, because instead of preparing for the Apocalypse, she went to her pre-paid laser hair removal appointment (though she still has a hiking backpack), while Ilana, with an outfit that says, “Resist in both style and comfort,” Skypes her bestie with both words of comfort and panic. Oh, and hey! Law & Order SVU is filming outside Ilana’s building! As the two count down to Tr*mp taking power, they consider our future.

“It is about to get I Am Legend up in here,” declaims Ilana. Abbi carries a butterfly knife. They recall what they learned in krav maga class together.

This video is somewhat uncensored; the two spew profanities, but the only word bleeped out is “Trump.” You’ll get the idea.

You can watch the video below, and if you don’t feel better, it certainly won’t make you feel worse:

Image via YouTube

The post The ‘Broad City’ Duo Gets You Through Today appeared first on Jewcy.

If the thought of tomorrow’s inauguration makes you lose your appetite, why not harness that feeling and join in the Jewish-started interfaith fast?

The number of people participating in the fast seems to currently be in the triple digits, according to Rabbi Michael Latz, who first tweeted about the initiative.

“This fast is in preparation for spiritual resistance,” Latz told Jewcy via email, “To stand up to an administration that traffics in bigotry and tweets with white supremacists, that degrades women and belittles people with disabilities; an administration that does not honor our nation’s moral values nor voters.”

A few high-profile Jews have pledged to fast on Friday, beginning at sunrise, from Danya Rutenberg to Ruth Messinger. For example, feminist icon Letty Cottin Pogrebin tweeted that she’s in:

I will be fasting along with Rabbi Latz & thousands of people of all faiths and no faiths but the faith in people's power to resist. https://t.co/gmDejuP1Gr

— LettyCPogrebin (@LettyCPogrebin) January 17, 2017

Also on board is Shmuley Yanklowitz, the prominent progressive rabbi. He posted on Facebook:

Please consider joining us in Fasting this Friday on Inauguration Day. In an era where greed, selfishness, & hate have become validated & normalized, we must nourish our souls with Spiritual Resistance for Love & Justice.

For those who fast, I would recommend reading the Yom Kippur haftarah that morning which emphasizes that religion, in general, and fasting, in particular, is only of value if it prioritizes the needs of the most vulnerable in society. Here’s a little taste from Isaiah (57:14 – 58:14):

“This is the fast I desire: To break open the shackles of wickedness, And undo the bonds of injustice. To let the oppressed go free; To annul all perversion. It is to share your bread with the hungry, And to take the moaning poor into your home; When you see the naked, to clothe them, And not to ignore your own kin.”

Image via Flickr.

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