NO CARS—A Jerusalem thoroughfare is devoid of cars on Yom Kippur
Israel News Agency photo

A day when the cars stayed home

JERUSALEM—I know most Jews call Yom Kippur by various holy names, but here in Jerusalem I call it the ‘Day of No Traffic Lights.’ There are no working traffic lights because there's no traffic on Yom Kippur in Jerusalem. Imagine--a capital city without any motor vehicle traffic at all except for emergency vehicles and army patrol jeeps. The quiet is absolutely stunning.

Starting from sundown on erev Yom Kippur until the final shofar blast that concludes the fast are 25 hours of blissful peace and quiet. All radio and TV stations go off the air. Pedestrians share the road with bicycles ridden by hundreds of secular Israelis who savor the day as a safe opportunity to try out their biking skills with no irritating traffic lights or crazy Israeli drivers. But the overwhelming sense is of a people taking a full day to recharge themselves.

Walking to Kol Nidre, the streets are thronged with people clad in white, to signify purity and a withdrawal for one day from the vanities of our usual fancy clothing.

Synagogues are packed to overflowing, and several hundred community centers around the country offer Yom Kippur services too, with emphasis on discussion and openness for those who might never have stepped foot in a synagogue.

After the Kol Nidre prayers are over, it's as if the entire city spills out onto the streets. Strolling along in the middle of roads usually clogged with cars is the main pastime as people saunter off home, greeting friends along the way.

At my Jerusalem congregation, Shir Hadash, the inspiring tefilla is led for most of the day by Rabbi Shlomo Katz a former Baal Tefilah and spiritual guide in the Carlebach Minyan of Beth Jacob of Beverly Hills. At the closing service, Rabbi Ian Pear urges all those who can to stand and so we stack the chairs and crowd around the chazan for a two-way flow of spiritual energy. The singing and dancing on both sides of the mechitza is long and strong as we join together to pray for “Next Year in a rebuilt Jerusalem.”

Last year, I spent the closing Neilah service of Yom Kippur at a shul just down the street. I was too tired to trek back down to my regular shul after the afternoon break--doesn't matter if Yom Kippur is in early September or mid-October, it's always hot and dry here. Yom Kippur 2006 was no exception.

As soon as I took a seat at the very back of the shul, an elderly woman was wheeled in by her son who parked her wheelchair just in front of me. Her fingers were severely misshapen and she wore thick glasses. She carefully unfolded a Xerox copy of the Mussaf part of the Neilah service that had been blown up on large sheets of paper. Next she carefully extracted a magnifying glass from a little box and oblivious to the Hazzan, she proceeded to painstakingly slide the magnifying glass over every word of the prayers. She got done as the congregation came to the closing verses and she joined in the fervent singing of 'Next year in a Rebuilt Jerusalem.' She even managed to clap as the men danced in a lively circle to express joy at having been given another opportunity to make amends before God.

After the piercing tones of the shofar marked the conclusion of another ‘Day of No Traffic Lights’ and the congregation clamored out of the doors to get home for refreshments, half a dozen secular people from the neighborhood were just arriving hoping to hear the shofar. This particular shul finished a few minutes before the appointed time for the end of the holiday, (official summer time is thoughtfully brought to an end right after Rosh Hashana as we turned the clocks back to make sure that Yom Kippur ends no later than 6:15 p.m.) so they were disappointed to have missed it, but another group was still praying in another part of the building, so they quickly made their way down the stairs to take in the tradition.

Before I even made it home, a few cars were already on the streets and the ‘Day of No Traffic Lights’ was no more.

 
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____________________ The Jewish Citizen          by Donald H. Harrison

Some advice for Jewish grandparents with children who are intermarried

SAN DIEGO — Phil Snyder says he meets heartbroken Jewish grandparents again and again. Their children have married out of the Jewish faith, and the grandchildren are being raised either as Christians or in no faith whatsoever. 

Snyder is a western states trainer for the Keruv program of Conservative Judaism.  That program reaches out to interfaith families,  tying to make certain that family members feel comfortable and welcomed  by Judaism regardless of whether they practice it.

Phil Snyder

During a recent interview, Snyder told of  grandparents who say that whenever they try to bring up the subject of Judaism, their children bristle.  “We’ve made our decision!  Don’t interfere!” say some intermarried children.  “Why are you so insistent on Judaism now?  It wasn’t a big deal to you when we were growing up!” say others.

Afraid that their grandchildren will know nothing of their Jewish heritage and that their family’s Jewish connection soon will die out, these grandparents are both miserable and guilt-ridden, Snyder said.  And they ask him: “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

In counseling them, Snyder draws on the advice of Rabbi Charles Simon, who heads the national Keruv movement under the auspices of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs.  Snyder is president of the Men's Club at Tifereth Israel Synagogue in San Diego.

Snyder said that Rabbi Simon stresses first and foremost that the grandparents need to acknowledge that their children are indeed the decision makers for their grandchildren.  Power struggles only worsen the situation.

Second, Snyder said, when the grandchildren visit, it’s important that they encounter in grandma’s and grandpa’s house things that might lead them to want to know more about the Jewish side of their family.  For example, children have a natural curiosity about their ancestors, Snyder said.  Framed photographs of members of the immigrant generation might prompt questions about those relatives' experiences settling in the United States, about what their lives were like before immigration, and about what their lives were like afterwards.

The grandparents’ house can also include visual references to Judaism, its holidays, and traditions.  There might be a painting or drawing of a Jewish scene on the wall, a menorah on a counter, Shabbat candlesticks on the table, a dreidel by the fire place, Jewish books in the library, and so forth.  Don’t insist that the grandchildren learn about these, or even that they take notice of them, but if these objects should prompt questions, be ready to answer, Snyder counsels.

Invite the children and grandchildren over for Shabbat dinners and for other holiday celebrations like Pesach and Chanukah, he suggests. Try to make the occasions as warm and memorable as you can. 

The grandparents also can travel to Israel, and bring back gifts for the family that might occasion more wonderment and interest on the part of the grandchildren, Snyder says

The interfaith couples who attend Keruv meetings at Tifereth Israel and at other Conservative synagogues across the country obviously want to know more about Judaism, he said.  In these situations, it’s important that the non-Jewish spouse be made to feel welcome and to not feel pressured to convert.  The message should be “our tent is big; it is open to everyone,” he says.

“Keruv” translates from Hebrew as “to draw close.”  The group’s reason for being is to assure interfaith couples that they are welcome and wanted.

At one meeting, Snyder recalls being approached by a Christian woman who told him that she is satisfied being a Christian but wanted to know how she could make her Jewish husband more happy.

He said he responded that the purpose of Keruv is not to get her to change her religion; only to make her and her husband more knowledgeable about Judaism.

One of the toughest issues that Keruv deals with is the question of the faith in which the children of a mixed marriage should be raised.

Snyder said he agrees with Msgr. Dennis Mikulanis, the vicar of inter-religious and ecumenical affairs for the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, that parents need to choose one faith or another and that attempting to raise the children in two faiths simultaneously is too confusing for the children.

“We don’t believe there’s such a thing as Christmas-akah,” Snyder said.

Besides carrying the message of Judaism to interfaith couples, the Keruv organization also carries back the couples’ messages to Judaism.  Are there synagogue rules and regulations that make the non-Jewish partner feel like an outsider?   Sometimes, though certainly not always, those rules can be modified or even dropped. 

Snyder and his wife Sharyl plan on hosting a free potluck Keruv Shabbat dinner at their home in October. They invite calls for more information at  (619) 579-7700.

Third and last not Wasserstein's best but it's well-worth seeing

LOS ANGELES -In her final play, Third, Jewish playwright Wendy Wasserstein has two plots going.  One is a rather inconclusive tempest in a teapot.  The other is King Lear. But in an elegant production at the Geffen starring the incomparable Christine Lahti and spiked with Wasserstein’s wry humor, who’s going to quibble about the plot(s)?

Lahti plays a much-respected professor at a prestigious New England college much like Mt. Holyoke, Wasserstein’s alma mater.  A Shakespearean scholar, she advocates a revisionist view of King Lear, in which the king’s two “evil” daughters are seen as most dutiful in that the fulsome praise they heap on their father is exactly what the narcissistic old tyrant demands of them.

One of her students, an attractive young man named Woodson Bull III (nicknamed “Third”), played by a hunky Matt Czuchry, becomes the object of her derision because he is attending college on a wrestling scholarship and because she instantly pegs him as a child of privilege.  He then becomes her obsession when he turns in a brilliant paper on King Lear. Jumping to the conclusion that he is incapable of writing such a paper and therefore must have plagiarized it, she brings him up for judgment by a faculty committee.  When he is exonerated, she is left to apologize and to reexamine her own convictions.

It’s a rather abrupt denouement, since we don’t learn much about the young man’s views on Lear, nor how he defended himself before the faculty committee.

Meanwhile, Lahti is struggling with her own problems.  She is embedded in a rather indifferent relationship with her husband; her best friend (played with compassion and humor by Jayne Brook) is presumably dying of cancer; and she, like Cordelia, is the principal caretaker of her senile old father (played with impeccable Lear-like sturm und drang by M. Emmet Walsh).

The analogy to Shakespeare’s Lear and Lear’s three daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, in case you might miss it, includes Wasserstein’s three familial women: in this case, Lahti, plus a never-seen, but talked-about sister, plus Lahti’s precocious college-age daughter, played by Sarah Drew.

And, to cap it all off, there is even a scene where Walsh wanders, lost and  pitiful, through a full-scale, crackling thunderstorm!  A masterful effect by lighting designer David Lander.

New York-based director Maria Mileaf is no stranger to the Geffen stage: she directed Yasmina Reza’s The Unexpected Man here in 2002.  She is also no stranger to Wasserstein’s plays, having directed The Heidi Chronicles at the Berkshire Theater Festival.  She has done a masterful job with Third as well: Lahti is superb, as she always is, and Walsh literally chews up the stage in two raving/poignant scenes.  Brook, as the dying friend who lives to marry a rabbi, is also excellent.

Alex Jaeger’s costumes are suitably New England frumpy and composer Michael Roth’s between-scenes music is lively and appealing.  But the award goes to Vince Mountain for his beautiful scenic design.  As an army of helpers expeditiously move the scenery (silhouetted against a softly lit scrim), the seasonal changes are recorded outside the large cathedral window by trees whose leaves turn from autumnal bronze and orange, through a twiggy winter snowstorm, to the lush green foliage of spring.

So, even though Third is not one of Wasserstein’s best plays (the ending is not only unexpected and unconvincing, it appears to be an almost desperate add-on), it is still well worth seeing, if only for the fine acting, for Wasserstein’s flippant brand of humor, and for what it has to say about the conflicts that sometimes challenge rigidly closed minds.

Third will continue at the Geffen Playhouse, 10886 LeConte Ave. in Westwood through October 21.  Call (310) 208-5454 for tickets.

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Multi-talented Larry Zeiger named critic-at-large for S.D. Jewish World

SAN DIEGO—Plays, movies, DVDs, almost anything you might watch to be entertained, will be reviewed from time to time on the San Diego Jewish World website by Larry Zeiger, who developed the curriculum on cinema studies and literature of musical theatre for the San Diego City Schools.

Recently retired after a long career teaching an award-winning class at  Point Loma High School, Zeiger will serve as the critic-at-large for San Diego Jewish World.

Over the years Zeiger collected numerous awards for his teaching including the San Diego Teacher of the Year Award, San Diego County Film Educator of the Year, San Diego City Council Recognition Award for Outstanding teacher, UCSD Outstanding Educator Award, Rotary Club Excellence in Teaching Award, Channel Ten Leadership Award and the Old Globe Theatre Richard B. Wilson Memorial Award for using "living literature that speaks and touches the hearts and enriches the lives" of his students.

A soft-spoken man, Zeiger takes pride in the fact that his students have gone on to win numerous prizes for essay writing, scriptwriting, public service announcements, original poetry, film and video projects and acting competitions. Their student films were shown at the Palm Springs Film festival, Los Angeles International Shorts Festival, San Diego Film Festival, BEST FEST, Imperial Beach Film festival, the Museum of Photographic Arts, Student Film Confidential and at the Innovative Video in Education (IVIE) Awards Program.  Some student films have been judged as grand prize winners at the IVIE Awards.

Some of his students have gone on to successful careers in the performing arts.  More than 30 years of his program's alumni have become directors, writers, producers, performers, designers, artists, animators, cinematographers, TV anchors, journalists, musicians, composers, concert pianists and recording artists.

In 1996, Point Loma High Schools performing arts center was named as the Larry Zeiger Performing Arts Center in his honor.  He also has been active outside the school arena, having served as president of the San Diego Visual Arts Foundation, a board member of the Latino Film Festival, artistic director of the Imperial Beach International Film Festival and founder and director of the San Diego's Best Fest film festival.

His hobby is music composition, and with a colleague, Joy Woodward, he wrote a musical: Sweating Palms: A STeamy Tale of Passion with a Coffee Aroma.

Born and raised in Cleveland Heights, Ohio,  Zeiger comes from a talented family.  His mother, an attorney and writer, and father, a physician, instilled within him a lifelong appreciation of the cultural arts.  His sister is an author, musician and professor of mathematics at Boston University.  His brother, Richard is an attorney and lover of theatre.

Zeiger's inaugural column appears below.

   
  
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Larry Zeiger Critic at large

A Nightmare in Paradise

Film review: MANDA BALA (Send a Bullet)


SAN DIEGO—Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Cinematography Award at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, MANDA BALA (Send a Bullet) is a shocking expose of political corruption in Brazil directed by first time filmmaker, Jason Kohn and produced by Jared Ian Goldman and Joey Frank (also credited for assistant directing).  The film is opening September 28 at the Ken Cinema.

Kohn, Goldman, and Frank were close college friends who met at Brandeis University (a fine Jewish institution which has wonderful programs in arts, and humanities) , and their film illustrates the harrowing nature of corruption in one of the most beautiful cities in the South America. 

The documentary tells the story of very divided society in San Paulo, Brazil, a magnificent city of gleaming skyscrapers, unsurpassed wealth, magnificent mansions with swimming pools in contrast to a forgotten world of impoverished people who live in dilapidated homes who are barely making it from day to day.  At the core of the film is
Jader Barbalho, one of the most powerful politicians in Brazil who is in charge of a multibillion dollar program to help the economy in the poorest areas of Brazil, but is accused of laundering billions of dollars from the fund for his own political and personal gain. Through his analytical style of filmmaking, Jason Kohn shows us the horrific cycle of violence that spins out of a control in a society consumed by fear, lies, and deceit.

In San Paulo, a city of 20 million, on average one kidnapping takes place every day of the year. Kidnappers from the lower economic class target families of the wealthy and ask for large ransoms.  Using actual footage sent to the family of a victim to convince them to send the ransom, we see the shocking scene of a young woman’s ear being cut off as a means of influencing the wealthy family to send the ransom immediately.

Because these kidnappings have become a daily occurrence in San Paulo, an entire industry of specialized plastic surgery has developed. Dr. Juarrez Avelar has become a celebrated physician who has revolutionized a process of reconstructing ears for individuals who have been victimized by kidnappers. The surgical procedure, graphically shown in the film, may be difficult for some to watch.  My father, a doctor, would have found the medical procedure fascinating but his son is another story!

Later we learn that the wealthy class thinks nothing of purchasing bulletproof cars which adds about $55,000 onto the purchase price.  Classes are also offered on how to escape someone who shoots at you while driving a car in and around  San Paolo.  Shockingly, it is revealed that San Paulo is the home of more bulletproof cars and privately owned helicopters than any other city in the world.

In one section of the documentary which plays almost like a science fiction film, one man explains how he is hoping to have a sub-dermal Global Positioning microchip planted in his arm in order for a hired company to locate him in the event that he is a victim of street violence or kidnapping.  His paranoia is so extreme that he says that when this technology is available, he will actually invest in two microchips from two different companies just in case one fails to work.

The film contains fascinating interviews with a wide variety of residents of San Paulo including corrupt politicians, a young man in constant fear of being robbed or kidnapped, a Federal Police Marshal, a young wealthy woman who was held hostage for over two weeks, the surgeon who reconstructed both of the woman’s ears, government officials, and the owner of a frog farm which is part of a money laundering scheme. 

Towards the end of the film, a young man who grew up in the slums of San Paulo is interviewed.  His story of how he begins to steal at the age of nine and later becomes involved in drug trafficking, robbing banks, and ultimately kidnapping, is perhaps the most disturbing section of the film. 

What makes the film so powerful is the Cinema Verite approach used by Kohn to tell a story so shocking, yet so mesmerizing.  This film gives one insight into how and why corruption occurs and cycles of violence exist in societies throughout the world.  Complimenting this often violent story is a lush Brazilian score with music performed by
Tom Ze, Barco Do Sol, Jorge Mautner, Papete, and other great Latin musicians.

The cinematography by Heloisa Passos is superb and the scenes of Brazil are so beautiful that it is hard to believe there is such an undercurrent of fear and violence in this society. 

This is a significant and provocative work by first time filmmaker Jason Kohn  that has been banned from being shown in Brazil.  It would be interesting to see a follow-up film to see how he and his talented group of young filmmakers were able to obtain some of the interviews and the footage to tell this powerful story.  One warning – the footage of the kidnappings and the surgical scenes are extremely graphic.

MANDA BALA opens September 28 at the Ken Cinema   
 

Reading our 'happiness' thermostats

LA JOLLA —We all live somewhere between depression and exuberance. Just under exuberant is happiness, then a bit lower is satisfaction, then we get to “just treading water” kind of waiting for something to happen. Under that, there is dissatisfaction, then unhappiness, and finally, depression. So our scale (which I just made up) goes from one: depression to seven: exuberance.

Where do you place yourself in the morning as you wake up? Do you jump out of bed and look forward to your day or do you groan and pull the covers up tighter? Where are you on the scale after breakfast, mid-day, evening? Do you see yourself going up on the scale as the day goes by or going down?

Of course it depends a lot on the activities of the day. Some days are just more fun and others are necessary drudgery. But studies have shown that we have a pretty consistent happiness gage and some of us manage to be in the same spot on the scale no matter what goes on in our day or in our lives. In other words, we are born with a happiness thermostat¾an emotional profile that changes little whether we are winning the state lottery or losing a spouse. After the initial euphoria of winning or the grieving of losing, most people return to their original emotional state.

Seldom do we, as adults, become exuberant. We did as children. I remember how much I looked forward to going for an ice cream at the corner drug store or how wonderful it was to go to a Saturday matinee with my friends. Children are exuberant; they jump up and down and clap their hands. Puppies and kittens can also be exuberant. When I tell my dog Molly that we’re going for a walk, she starts running around and jumping¾hardly able to contain her excitement. Molly is exuberant.

Do we become jaded, so that the ice cream is on the radar only as extra calories and the afternoon movie interferes with the work to be done? What still excites us?

I look forward to a lot of things and can muster a lot of happiness for seeing my kids and grandkids or going to a really good movie or play or going out with friends. But mostly I sit on the scale between happiness and satisfaction, often dipping into the “treading water” level and once in a while into dissatisfaction. All this is normal, and I should be thrilled that this is where I situate myself. But I miss exuberance¾I miss passion.

Exuberance is a more energetic, creative, excited version of happiness. There is a feeling that everything is possible, there is joy in the moment. The usual hang-ups have disappeared; one is confident in one’s capacities and abilities; you can take risks in a safe environment and feel rewarded.

If not exuberance, how about happiness? This is easier to achieve on a regular basis. Stop and consider the last time you felt exuberant or happy about anything? What was it and how did it come about? Can you repeat this experience, can you factor it in to your daily life, or at least on weekends?

So I tried to do this exercise myself and came up with the feelings I get when I have written a good article, that one might do it for satisfaction. I got a phone call that a friend is quite ill, and I was unhappy; if it were a family member I would have been depressed. But both of these feelings are temporary until some other event replaces them. The prospect of a walk on the beach would make me happy, yet while walking there, seeing a glorious sunset, I could become exuberant. Music also affects moods; it raises levels of the brain chemical dopamine, which can induce euphoria.

So listen to music, walk on the beach, go out with friends, see a good movie, read a book, dance, play, have fun and be exuberant.