Magic Jewball

So I’ve gotten several Jew & A questions over the last week, excellent! You see, I love it when people tell me what to write about, it works out much better. I hope to get to one per day this week. We’ll see. If you are waiting for yours, I am going in the order in which they were received. Yes, I learned that from the phone tree.

Now then, I wasn’t sure about this one. It could be 3 or 4 different questions based on where you put commas. Hmmm.

william(yeah not so jewish) writes:

Adin Steinsaltz, the most enlightened man woman or beast on the planet, has a take on reincarnation, definitely a path for the tribe…what’s your take and when you’re running ….Who are you?

Ow, that broke my brain. I don’t really know much about Adin Steinsaltz, honestly. I know he is a famous Rabbi (still alive!) who translated the Talmud, which is the series of arguments about and commentaries on the Torah that form most of Jewish law, into English. I know this because that’s what I used on the side to get myself through Talmud class in High School. ZOMG, that made things so much easier. Come on, only Mel Gibson speaks Aramaic!

I gather he’s also somewhat into kabbalah and mysticism. Does he believe in reincarnation? I’ll take your word for that, William not so Jewish. Now, here’s where it gets tricky. Is the question, what’s my take on reincarnation? On Adin Steinsaltz? On the path for the tribe? And is it, who am I when I’m running? Or, what’s my take when I’m running and by the way, who am I?

This is where my brain explodes.

I don’t know much about Kabbalah, as the world I grew up in didn’t emphasize it except to mention Yosef Caro and the Zohar for a couple of minutes. I do think Madonna/Esther and the folks who run that center in LA exploit it for their own ends. That doesn’t seem very mystical.

For those who are curious about the whole red-string part of Judaism, it’s about the mystical, hidden meanings in the Torah and other Jewish writings. It’s controversial with many Jews eschewing it completely and others going whole-hog. So to speak.

The point is, on this one, I can give you my opinion but I’m not really an expert.

For me personally, I don’t believe in reincarnation. I think each soul is utterly unique and there’s never been one like it before or since. And I don’t even believe in your loved ones looking down from Heaven. I don’t know if there’s an afterlife but tend to doubt it and I believe when you’re dead, you’re dead and that’s it. Is that the Jewish view? Not really, it’s a lot more “world to come” based. But you asked for my take.

If your question is, “who am I?” then the answer is in the FAQ but it just points you to the sidebar. As I’ve indicated lots of times over the course of the blog, I try to keep my private life out of the blog and the blog out of my private life. I’ve been semi-successful with that.

If it’s “Who am I” in the metaphysical sense, I dropped out of philosophy after two classes. You may have noticed, my brain is fragile and prone to confusion at difficult concepts.

If the question is, when I’m running who am I, then that is easy. When I’m running I am a jet engine which takes off with a flourish, has lots of turbulence but also some smooth sailing, and in the end, everyone’s just glad to be in one piece and at the destination.

By the way, I know several Jewish Williams. Thanks for writing!

Even though I only need to apologize to IrishCardinal on this one, I’m going to apologize to everyone. Because I swear it won’t take me this long to answer your Jew & A question. It’s just that I knew very little about this topic and so I had to research it. And by that I mean ask a couple of people I know. We’re very scientific in our approach here. Anyway, finally the question. I mean, finally, the answer. Because I’ve had the question a while now.

IrishCardinal asks:

Is there still Yiddish theater, newspapers, etc in NYC? Is Yiddish a single language, or are the dialects from country to country different enough that a Russian Jew couldn’t understand a Hungarian Jew if both were speaking Yiddish? Or is it more like a person from Brooklyn speaking American-English with a person from West Memphis–close enough but a few words you aren’t so sure about?

First off, some education for the rest of you not as involved with languages as I know Irish is. Yiddish (or Jewish - Yid means Jew in Yiddish) is a language which is a combination of German, Hebrew, Russian, and several other things, spoken primarily by the Jews of Eastern Europe over the last few centuries of diaspora living. Anyone who has eaten Jewish food (gefilte means filled or stuffed) or practiced modern Judaism (aufruf, to be called to the Torah before your wedding, comes from “call up” in German - I know this because I saw it on an unemployment poster in Berlin) knows some Yiddish.

When the large influx of Jews from that area started coming to America in the late 19th century, Yiddish was hugely prevalent in New York with many newspapers (in 1915 there were 5 dailies here) and a thriving cultural scene. These days, not so much. More on that in a minute. But these days, Yiddish is mostly kept alive by force of will and lots of effort. The only community here which regularly speaks Yiddish is the Hassidic one. I’ve often sat on the train or in a shop on the Lower East Side overhearing a conversation between folks speaking in Yiddish. These sects came over together from Europe and still speak that language to this day. Unlike the secular folks who wanted to shed the vestiges of the old country ASAP, the Hassidim didn’t really assimilate and thus, Hassidic kids probably aren’t snickering at their parents’ accents as my Grandma did. Well, I assume, I can’t really ask her.

Yiddish Theater was large and active in New York at the turn of the century and probably through the 30’s. It had many stars, including the one you’ve all seen playing Yente the Matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof, Molly Picon. My source tells me there is still one Yiddish Theater in New York, the Foksbiene. Hassidim don’t go to the theater, which is too bad.

As for newspapers, I was really interested in this question myself, because one of my favorite books for ages has been A Bintel Brief which is a selection from the advice column of the Forverts, or Jewish Daily Forward, a paper that exists to this day. But way back when, it had a no-nonsense advice column for new immigrants confusedly trying to navigate Die Goldene Medina, the golden land, i.e., here. Anyway, the situations ranged from the mundane (”my boss docks two cents from my wages when I’m late”) to the religious (”I’m a free-thinker but I have a sweet voice - am I permitted to take a job as a Cantor?”) to the poignant (”My husband said he’d send for me in Russia when he had enough money saved but he never did and now I came on my own with my poor children and found he had married someone else.”). And they are all translated from Yiddish and preserved the flavor and phrasing of the original, (”Well, dear editor, I ran from that situation as if from a fire!”).

I knew The Forward was still around but it turns out they only put a weekend edition out in Yiddish, the rest is English. There are several other papers which also put out a once-a-week edition, including one by the Satmar, a large Hassidic sect.

As for dialects, this was harder to get an answer on. As far as I know, there were differences in the Yiddish spoken by the Jews of different areas of Europe coming to New York in the big immigration wave, but not enough to keep them from understanding each other. Plus, most of the immigrants came from areas of Eastern Europe which had the dialect closest to each other (as opposed to German and then Western European communities). And like everything else, when they all got mixed here, things became more standardized. I’m not sure whether the different Hassidic sects, which are the folks mostly using Yiddish today, have different dialects from each other. Since none of them will really talk to me, that answer will have to wait, unless any of my readers know. But they all seem to be able to argue with each other just fine, so there must be some understanding there.

For further research, the biggest archive and library of Yiddish is the YIVO Institute, which started out in Vilna (then Poland, now Vilnius, Lithiuania) in 1925 but is alive and kicking.

So now you all know why we refer to kipah (yarmulke)-wearing Jews as Yids With Lids. And as always, thanks for writing!

I know that classic rock is woefully underrepresented in iSotW’s so let’s help put a bit more on this side of the scale, shall we? Because classic rock is still my first love, the style of music that first made me realize that this what I loved best in the world and that, in fact, my whole future would be based on it.

There are several reasons I’m choosing this song and it being my favorite song by Yes isn’t even one of them. Because it’s not. My favorite Yes song is And You And I which may be the one song with the most other songs contained within it. Part of that is because it’s 11 minutes long (this is one of the shorter ones at five and a half minutes). But mostly it’s because, although AYAI is really a beautiful and haunting song(s), it’s not the mood I’m in at the moment, and that mood would be happiness. See, I think if I had to attach one track to the feeling of joy and hope and bubbling optimism, it would be this one. Like most Yes songs, I have no idea at all what it’s about, I just go on mood and tone. And it just feels like “great things are happening!” and it always has, ever since childhood. And that’s how I’m feeling just now at this juncture.

The other reason to pick a Yes song is because I’ve recently (shut up!) put up a real and actual Facebook profile under my childhood nickname in order to connect with old friends. It has been awesome! One person I could not find, though, was my freshman roommate from college and I’m sorry about that because I just saw that Yes is getting it back together and taking it on the road. I know I’ve mentioned this before but I turned her on to Yes and she turned me onto the Beatles. Since we had to agree on a CD to play as we went to sleep, I heard a lot of Classic Yes and Revolver that year. I guess I wonder if her love for Yes has lasted as long as mine for the Fab Four. And now I’ll never know because she’s not on FB. Damn.

Lastly but not leastly, I picked this song because its title encapsulates what I have been feeling as I enter the last two weeks of training for my first 5k, the Philly Race for the Cure. Too bad it has no beat or I’d run to it.

Still, I assume I’ll be doing the same thing at that race as I am every time I listen to this song: grinning like an idiot.

Streaming audio:

Napster:
Yes - Going For The One

Is it still Tuesday? I know, that’s when I said J-Ball would return. Crazy people! J-ball is always here right in your computer! I, however, have been busy planning the most fabulous May known to mankind. Not only am I seeing a whole bunch of shows (did someone say Duran Duran?) and still training tirelessly (actually, that’s a lie, I’m really really tired) for Philly Komen on Mother’s Day, but I’ve booked a trip to see Maureen & TJ and lots of other people I dig in Atlanta the week after.

That is to say, I haven’t been blogging. Listen, making dinner out of matzah mel and potato starch is hard work. It wears a person down. I did discover a new chocolate pudding that is Casher Lepessah, meaning it’s both Kosher for Passover and French. That kind of scares me because the use-by date is 6/4 which says to me that everywhere in the world other than here it’s expired. I choose to remain ignorant, however. It’s for export, right? Right?

Is that girl wearing a kipah? Maybe it’s a long-haired boy.

The Sugarcubes - Delicious Demon

Well, I met Tami and I know you will all be shocked, shocked to learn that she did not come to New York in a bonnet. I didn’t even make that up! Tami said she should have come to NY in a bonnet. I didn’t even have a mental association between Mormons and bonnets. But now I do! Note to self: Laura Ingalls - Mormon.

Anyway, you may wonder what’s with all the Mormon hype but I really do think there’s a big connection between the experience of being Jewish in America and being LDS. People don’t get us and think we’re wacky. They say things like, “do you wear weird underwear? How come you go to Temple and not church? I couldn’t live without alcohol-caffeine/lobster-McDonald’s. You believe that literally? It’s 2008!”

So Tami and I bonded and decided to call ourselves MormoJew in a show of unity. She even told me the secret of why those break away polygamists (who are NOT Mormons, by the way) have such high hair. Like I’m going to tell you! I told her how Jewish ladies don’t have to wear a tallit (prayer shawl to the less Jewey - you can see them in Fiddler on the Roof, as Tami did) and she told me that Mormon ladies don’t have to go on missions. But she did. She went to Sri Lanka and exploded from spicy food.

Speaking of spicy food, here is Tami, at left, with former Reader of the Month, RNerd, and our waiter, Mr. SellALot. Shhh, he doesn’t realize he’s on this blog. We left your tip in the Ganesha, Mr. SellALot!

To all the world’s religions, happy Passover, happy Orthodox Easter, happy Papal visit! JBall will be back Tuesday!

Swear to God! This is my favorite Duran Duran song.
Duran Duran - New Religion