Vox Tablet

Malgorzata Lubinska, a 50-something Warsaw resident, always knew there was “something strange about our family,” she says. When she was in her 30s, she learned what that something was: Her family had been Jewish. After World War II, violence toward Jews and discrimination were facts of life in Poland; those who chose to stay were, almost by definition, those who were prepared to leave their Jewishness behind, as did Lubinska’s family. But as things have changed, a new generation that includes Malgorzata is exploring the faith and culture their parents took pains to conceal. Lubinska spoke to Natalie Kestecher for the Australian radio documentary “My Fear of Poland,” produced for ABC Radio National’s 360documentaries, in which Kestecher traces her family’s Polish heritage and explores the country’s Jewish renaissance. Vox Tablet presents Lubinska’s story, and you can find the entire broadcast here. [Running time: 8:41.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

Simone Dinnerstein was living the relatively obscure life of a freelance classical pianist until 2007, when the Telarc label released her recording of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Her intense and original interpretation reached the top of the Billboard Classical Chart within a week of its release, and it was included in many best-classical-album lists from that year. The Brooklyn-based musician has been in high demand ever since. Now Dinnerstein is releasing a new album, titled Bach: A Strange Beauty, on Sony Classical. The recording includes both solo and orchestral works, plus cover art by her father, renowned painter Simon Dinnerstein. Vox Tablet’s Sara Ivry visited Dinnerstein to talk about her journey to classical music stardom—from her art-centric childhood to her encounters with the Goldberg Variations while pregnant. [Running time: 18:27.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

Georgii Zelma, Semyon Fridlyand, and Evgenii Khaldei aren’t among the best-known 20th-century Jewish photographers—those would be men like Roman Vishniac and Robert Capa—but their work is equally important. They’re some of the Soviet Jewish photographers who documented life on the far side of the Iron Curtain, shooting haunting images of Soviet industrialization, of the creation of the Birobidzhan, the Jewish autonomous region established by the late 1920s, and of the Holocaust. Historian Shneer examines their work, and that of other Soviet Jewish photographers, in his new book, Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust. Shneer, who directs the Jewish studies program at the University of Colorado, spoke to Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about this new view on early-20th century European history and how it reshapes our perception of Jewish life then. [Running time: 26:55.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

The NFL playoffs are upon us. Over the next three weekends, 12 teams will vie for the opportunity to represent their conference on February 6 at Cowboys Stadium, outside Dallas, in the Super Bowl. On Vox Tablet, staff writer (and indefatigable Redskins fan) Marc Tracy talks to Aaron Schatz, the founder and editor of the website Football Outsiders, which looks at the game through the prism of seemingly quirky but rigidly logical statistics. Tracy and Schatz discuss the method behind the stats—which have frequently proved better predictors of team success than the TV-sports pundits —as well as which teams the numbers favor this year, and they determine what stake Jewish fans have in the contests over the next month. (Fortunately, the stats and the Jews appear to be in alignment this year.) [Running time: 17:40.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

Holocaust memorials seem destined to seed controversy, particularly in Berlin. When the city’s first Holocaust memorial—2,711 stone blocks designed by Peter Eisenman—opened in 2005, it provoked a barrage of criticism. Some disliked Eisenman’s abstract concept. Others objected to its location after it was discovered that the bunker where Joseph Goebbels had committed suicide was on the site. And many were horrified to learn that the anti-graffiti coating applied to the memorial was manufactured by a subsidiary of the company that produced Zyklon B, the poison used in concentration-camp gas chambers. Now a monument directly across the street from the Holocaust memorial has sparked an entirely different conflict. Erected in 2008, it is a memorial to gay victims of the Nazi regime. Echoing the design of Eisenman’s Holocaust memorial, it consists a single cement column, which holds a video monitor playing a continuously looping film of two men kissing. The video has prompted outrage, but not from the parties one might expect. Daniel Estrin reported for Vox Tablet from Berlin. [Running time: 12:00.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

Writer and performer Janice Erlbaum had agreed to work the Christmas Eve shift at the homeless shelter for teens where she was a volunteer. She’d figured she’d celebrate with the girls the way she would at home: with a few video rentals and some takeout Chinese. This plan was met with pleasure on the part of some, but suspicion on the part of others, who wanted answers to a few tough questions before placing their order. Here’s her story, from our archive. (You can listen to another one of our favorite Janice stories here.) [Running time: 6:53.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

Luzer Twersky spent the first 23 years of his life in Hasidic enclaves in Brooklyn, London, and suburban New York. For much of that time, he struggled to square his own beliefs and desires with those of his family and community. Two years ago, he gave up and left. It was a painful decision, and one for which he paid dearly, if predictably—his family now considers him as good as dead. Reporter Josh Gleason shadowed Twersky during much of the first year on his own. Here is Gleason’s portrait of a young man searching for work and housing, exploring online dating, and seeking a community to replace the one he lost. [Running time: 23:16.]

It’s the time of year when top-10 lists abound. They’re nothing new—in fact, if you consider the well-known injunctions not to kill or steal that are part of the Decalogue, you’ll see top-10 lists have been around for millennia. But though old, the Ten Commandments are hardly out of date. So argues journalist David Hazony in his new book The Ten Commandments: How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life. In conversation with Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry, Hazony warns against dismissing these ancient pronouncements as simple or obvious. Rather, he says, they are worthy of study, and of being followed—even the one about not coveting our neighbor’s ox. [Running time: 20:26.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

Marc Weidenbaum, the founder of Disquiet, a blog about sound art and electronic and ambient music, is an expert in the art of the remix: taking a piece of already recorded music and reworking it into something both reminiscent of the original and also entirely new. For Hanukkah, he picked eight songs—some, like “Maoz Tzur,” holiday favorites, others, like “Die Goldene Chasene,” familiar from Jewish celebrations—which he then handed off to innovative producers around the world to reinvent. The result is a hypnotic album that invokes everything from children’s music to klezmer to trance. It’s called Anander Mol, Anander Veig (Another Time, Another Way) and it’s downloadable—along with liner notes and cover art—here. Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry spoke to Weidenbaum about some of the album’s tracks, about making remixes, and about how he, a non-musician, got into the remixing business in the first place. [Running time: 14:15.] Listen to the interview: Your browser does not support the audio element. Weidenbaum also commissioned remixes of the Vox Tablet theme song, originally composed by Jewlia Eisenberg and performed by Red Pocket. You can listen to several versions here: Remix by Paula Daunt: Your browser does not support the audio element. Remix by Mystified (aka Thomas Park): Your browser does not support the audio element. Remix by Cedar AV: Your browser does not support the audio element.

Erez Safar, a producer and DJ who performs under the name Diwon, is enchanted by music and sounds from the Sephardic world. Six years ago, he founded the annual Sephardic Music Festival, which takes place in New York City over Hanukkah and features artists who meld Sephardic motifs with hip-hop, house music, electronica, and pretty much every musical genre, with the exception of klezmer. Now Safar has produced a Sephardic Music Festival compilation album, which captures the sounds of the festival even for those who couldn’t be in New York for it. It includes songs by well-known musicians Matisyahu, Yasmin Levy, and Galeet Dardashti, along with less-familiar artists, like DeScribe and Shmoolik, who team up for a reggaeton-meets-Middle East pop track in French and Hebrew. For Vox Tablet this week, Rob Weisberg, the host of WFMU’s Transpacific Sound Paradise—“New York’s peerless world music show,” according to Time Out—took a look at the album. [Running time: 15:33.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

Half of all food sold in U.S. supermarkets today is certified as kosher, according to some estimates. Depending on who’s doing the certifying, that means not just that milk and meat haven’t mixed, but potentially also that the food was handled only by certain people, that animals and workers were treated humanely, and that tiny insects have not made their way into the food’s crevices (consumers of broccoli, beware!), among other things. Journalist Sue Fishkoff spent the past few years studying the vast and expanding world of kosher food. She talked to manufacturers, mashgichim (who give kosher certification), rabbis, restaurateurs, and home cooks, all committed to adhering to Jewish dietary laws as variously interpreted. She’s gathered her findings in a new book, Kosher Nation, and she joined Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss who’s eating kosher these days, what makes a good mashgiach, and about how her research and writing changed her own approach to food. [Running time: 15:02] Your browser does not support the audio element.

The stalwart institutions of American Jewish life, like the UJA, Hadassah, and even local synagogues, are facing increased competition for members as younger Jews turn to less traditional avenues of cultural and religious identification, from Stand With Us, a group that focuses on Israel advocacy on campus, to small, independent minyanim, or prayer groups. Concern that the movement toward non-establishment Jewish enterprises could sap the strength of American Jewish life drives the research in “Generation of Change: How Leaders in Their Twenties and Thirties are Reshaping American Jewish Life,” a new report commissioned by the Avi Chai Foundation, a non-profit devoted to Jewish continuity and inter-denominational understanding. (Avi Chai’s funders also support Tablet Magazine.) Ari Y. Kelman, a professor of American studies at the University of California, Davis, is one of the study’s authors. He joined Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss his findings, including the fact that the Internet is weakening denominational differences among Jews, that “non-establishment” young Jewish leaders come from surprisingly “establishment” backgrounds, and that the economics of Jewish life deserve a closer look. [Running time: 16:40] Your browser does not support the audio element.

“Jewish food” means different things to different people. Some think of Jewish food as kugel, the Ashkenazi casserole, others bimuelos, a Sephardic Hanukkah specialty, still others kibbeh mahshi, a Syrian meat-and-crust dish. Gil Marks—a rabbi, chef, and James Beard Award-winning cookbook author—thinks of all of these and much more. His new Encyclopedia of Jewish Food collects Biblical, historical, and cultural references to foods from all over the world and across millennia that in one way or another have played a role in Jewish life. No food is too humble (mustard) or too remote (gozinaki, a Georgian walnut and honey candy) for the encyclopedia’s 650-plus entries. Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry spoke to Marks about the research involved in this enormous undertaking, about eating as a form of time travel, and about the flavor of grasshoppers. [Running time: 12:50] ASHKENAZIC HONEY CAKE (LEKACH) Makes one 10-inch tube cake, one 13- by- 9-inch cake, or two large loaves [pareve] 3 cups (15 ounces) all-purpose flour, or 1½ cups white flour and 1½ cups rye flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 teaspoons baking soda ½ teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon or 1 teaspoon ground ginger, or 1 teaspoon cinnamon and ½ teaspoon ginger ½ teaspoon ground cardamom, nutmeg, or allspice ¼ teaspoon ground cloves 4 large eggs, lightly beaten 1 cup vegetable oil 1 cup (11.75 ounces) honey 1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar 1 cup (8.5 ounces) dark brown sugar, packed 1 cup strong liquid coffee (from about 1 tablespoon instant coffee) or tea (from 2 tea bags) 1 to 1½ cups raisins, diced candied citron, mixed candied fruit, or chopped toasted walnuts or pecans; or ½ cup raisins, ½ cup chopped dried apricots, and ½ cup chopped nuts (optional) 1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease one 10-inch Bundt or tube pan, one 13-by-9-inch baking pan, or two 9-inch loaf pans, line the bottom and sides with parchment paper, and regrease. 2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, oil, honey, and sugars. Add the coffee. Stir in the flour mixture until smooth. If using, add the fruit. 3. Pour into the prepared pan and place on a baking sheet. Bake until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly touched, about 1 hour for a Bundt or tube pan, 40 to 45 minutes for a 13-by-9-inch pan, or 45 to 55 minutes for loaf pans. Do not overbake or the outside will burn and the interior will dry out. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then transfer the cake(s) to a wire rack and let cool completely. Wrap in plastic wrap or aluminum foil and let stand for at least 24 hours. The flavor improves as the cake matures for a day or two. ROMANIAN CHEESE-CORNMEAL DUMPLINGS (PAPANASH) Makes about 20 dumplings [dairy] 16 ounces (2 cups) farmer or pot cheese 1 to 3 tablespoons sugar (optional) 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest (optional) ½ teaspoon table salt or 1 teaspoon kosher salt 2 large eggs, lightly beaten 2 tablespoons softened butter or olive oil About ½ cup fine cornmeal 1. In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, blender, or electric mixer, combine the cheese, sugar, zest, and salt. Add the eggs and beat until smooth. Beat in the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. Stir in enough cornmeal to produce a firm but soft dough. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight. 2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a low boil. With moistened hands, form heaping tablespoons of batter into 1½-inch balls. 3. Drop the dumplings in the water. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, until cooked through, 10 to 15 minutes (they are done about 5 minutes after they rise to the surface). Remove the dumplings with a slotted spoon. If not serving immediately, keep warm in a 200°F oven.

Fyvush Finkel made his stage debut nearly 80 years ago, when he was 9 years old, singing “O, Promise Me” at a theater in Brooklyn. Soon after, he crossed the East River to take roles in the legendary Yiddish theaters of Second Avenue. From there, he made his way onto Broadway and then into films by the likes of Sidney Lumet, Oliver Stone, and the Coen brothers. Finkel also had recurring roles on Picket Fences, for which he won an Emmy, and Boston Public. Now he’s starring in Fyvush Finkel Live!, a musical revue that runs through November 7 in Manhattan. On his day off, Finkel regaled Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry with stories about the early days of Yiddish theater, his expedited entry into serial television, and the mesmerizing maggid of his neighborhood shul. And he sang for her, too. Running time: 14:22. Your browser does not support the audio element.

Shanghai’s Expo 2010 will draw to a close on October 31. It is the largest World’s Fair in history, with 200 pavilions and nearly 70 million attendees expected. (Tablet Magazine’s Matthew Fishbane previewed the Expo, and its display of growing ties between China and Israel, in March.) For Chinese visitors, many of whom have never traveled abroad, the Expo has functioned something like a very crowded and slow-moving world cruise (waits for the most popular pavilions—Saudi Arabia, China, Japan—can take 12 hours). The Expo has also given Shanghai’s Jewish residents access to a local treasure: the Ohel Rachel Synagogue. Built in 1920, the ornate synagogue, which was a place of worship for Shanghai’s Sephardic business community, has been shuttered for more than 50 years. Jewish leaders were granted permission to hold Shabbat services there for the sixth-month duration of the Expo. Rebecca Kanthor reports for Vox Tablet from Shanghai on the history of the synagogue and its congregants and on its prospects for the future. Running time: 8:23. Your browser does not support the audio element.