Vox Tablet show

Vox Tablet

Summary: This is Vox Tablet, the weekly podcast of Tablet Magazine, the online Jewish arts and culture magazine that used to be known as Nextbook.org. Our archive of podcasts is available on our site, tablet2015.wpengine.com. Vox Tablet, hosted by Sara Ivry, varies widely in subject matter and sound -- one week it's a conversation with novelist Michael Chabon, theater critic Alisa Solomon, or anthropologist Ruth Behar. Another week brings the listener to "the etrog man" hocking his wares at a fruit-juice stand in a Jersualem market. Or into the hotel room with poet and rock musician David Berman an hour before he and his band, Silver Jews, head over to their next gig. Recent guests include Alex Ross, Shalom Auslander, Aline K. Crumb, Howard Jacobson, and the late Norman Mailer.

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Podcasts:

 Four-Letter Words: Why Jews Have Led the Making and Defense of Obscenity in America | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

A warning to listeners: This episode of Vox Tablet contains explicit language and content you wouldn’t normally hear on our podcast. To censor such language, offensive as it may be, felt contrary to the spirit of Lambert’s argument, which posits a connection between “obscenity” and Jewish culture and continuity. Jews are oversexed. That’s a long-held stereotype. And, like most stereotypes, it’s baloney. What is true, however, is that Jews in America have been fighters on the front lines in producing, distributing, and defending sexually explicit materials for more than a century. Josh Lambert, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts and a Tablet contributing editor, addresses why that has been the case—especially in the literary world—in Unclean Lips: Obscenity, Jews, and American Culture. He joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss how stories about masturbation and incest work as metaphors for the struggles over Jewish continuity, to explain why the likes of Sarah Silverman and Larry David still use four-letter words with relish and abandon, and to resolve once and for all whether Yiddish is a saltier language than English.

 Sephardic Singer Flory Jagoda Keeps the Music of Her Prewar Bosnian Childhood Alive | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

The Hanukkah song “Ocho Kandelikas” (Eight Little Candles) is often referred to as a “traditional Sephardic song.” In fact, it was written in 1983 by Flory Jagoda, an 88-year-old Sephardic folk singer who still performs today. “Ocho Kandelikas” is one of dozens of songs Jagoda has written and recorded, drawing from a rich musical tradition and sung in Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, the language she grew up with as a child in Bosnia. She carried that language and musical tradition with her to the United States, after WWII destroyed most of her family and the way of life she’d known. Here, Jagoda offers her memories of making music with her mother, grandmother, aunts, and uncles as a child, and of her journey to becoming a standard bearer of Sephardic folk music, recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts. The piece is from our archive; she shared her story with Vox Tablet’s Julie Subrin back in 2007.

 How Thanksgiving Became Holy for One Iranian Jewish Woman and Her Family | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Esther Amini’s mother—or Bibi (“grandma” in Farsi), as the family calls her—grew up in Mashhad, a holy Islamic city in Iran. To escape persecution, Bibi and other Jews kept their religious observance well-hidden. She immigrated in 1948 to the United States, where Esther was born. In the years that followed, the holiday of Thanksgiving—celebrating, among other things, the gift of religious freedom—came to hold a privileged place for her and her family, alongside Rosh Hashanah and Passover. Amini’s account of this family tradition is one of eight narratives in Saffron and Rosewater: Songs and Stories From Persian Women, a theatrical production of the Jewish Women’s Theater making its East Coast premiere this Saturday, Nov. 23, at the 92Y. In the show, and on today’s podcast, the story is performed by Roxana Rastegar. First, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry speaks with Ronda Spinak, artistic director of the Jewish Women’s Theater, about the origins of the production.

 Famous People’s Reflections on Being Jewish, Now Rendered on Stage, in Song | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

When producer Aaron Harnick approached Abigail Pogrebin about adapting her book Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish to the stage, her first reaction was, “What have you been drinking?” Eventually she came around, and now Stars of David: Story to Song is making its off-Broadway debut. The show is a mix of songs—written by 17 song-writing teams, including Marvin Hamlisch, Sheldon Harnick, Gaby Alter, and Marilyn and Alan Bergman—and monologues, all based on Pogrebin’s interviews with high-profile Jews like Aaron Sorkin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Dustin Hoffman. Michele Siegel talks to creators of the show about how, and why, they transformed a collection of stories and reflections on Jewish identity into musical theater.

 Femmes Fatales: How German Women Used Femininity for Evil During World War II | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

We know from witness testimony, and the work of historians, that though there were a handful of women among the most notoriously violent Nazi camp guards and bureaucrats, for the most part, German women were absent from Nazi positions of power. That might lead us to conclude that they were not active participants in the genocide that took place. In Hitler’s Furies, historian Wendy Lower tells us such a conclusion is wrong. She argues that many young women seeking opportunity during the war headed to the eastern territories where the vast majority of the killing took place. There they took on essential roles as teachers, nurses, secretaries, and wives and lovers. In those capacities, they were not only aiding in the Final Solution but also witnessing it, and in some cases committing acts of violence themselves. Lower joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss why young German women working in social welfare roles headed to the east, what sort of research was required to uncover the stories of women who wanted to put their pasts behind them, and how her findings about the importance of women in domestic roles complicate our traditional understanding of genocidal systems.

 On the Making of ‘Aftermath,’ the Controversial Polish Film Now Opening in the U.S. | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Last year, a film was released in Poland that was so controversial it was banned in some towns. Opening in New York on Friday and Los Angeles later this month, Pokłosie—or, Aftermath—is a thriller that tells the story of a rural farmer on a mission. At night, Józek Kalina digs up Jewish grave markers that were looted from a local cemetery and used by fellow villagers in their roads and gardens. Józek is trying to give the village’s Jewish dead a proper burial, but there’s a high cost to his activity. His wife has left him and taken the children, and his neighbors are reacting with growing menace. The film is brutal and haunting, invoking the horrors of the Holocaust and bringing up unsettling questions about the relationship between Jews and Poles during World War II and about Poles’ willingness to grapple with the darker side of that history. These questions are so uncomfortable, in fact, that the Polish actor playing Józek received death threats for his performance. Aftermath took more than seven years to get made—funders were leery of stirring up discomfiting history. But made it got, thanks to the persistence and vision of director Władysław Pasikowski and producer Dariusz Jabłoński. Jabłoński (who has worked on acclaimed films including Decalogue and Photographer), joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about the challenges of seeing the project through (they include the logistics of growing, and then destroying, a wheat field), and about what was most encouraging, and discouraging, about the public reaction to the film.

 The Show That Made the World Fall in Love With the Jews and Grow Nostalgic for Tevye | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

It’s fairly common nowadays to hear renditions of “Sunrise, Sunset,” for instance, or “The Sabbath Prayer,” memorable melodies from the Fiddler on the Roof, at bar mitzvahs or weddings. Songs from that musical—whose story is inspired by the work of Sholem Aleichem—have become an indelible part of our popular cultural lexicon not just in the United States, but worldwide. Directed by Jerome Robbins and starring Zero Mostel, Fiddler debuted on Broadway in 1964 and quickly became a smash, resonating with Jewish audiences comfortable enough in their assimilated lives in America to be able to look fondly back at the shtetl their parents left behind. How the play got made and what its significance has been for peoples of all ethnicities and backgrounds is the subject of a new book by Columbia University professor Alisa Solomon. Solomon joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof. She talks about the postwar exuberance that Jews were reveling in when the curtain went up in the ’60s, the contrasting backgrounds of Robbins and Mostel (the former was deeply ambivalent about his Jewishness and named names at the HUAC hearings in the 1950s; the latter grew up Orthodox, left that world to become an artist and performer, and was a fellow traveler with the type of person Robbins exposed) and their creative tensions; and she sings a few bars from her favorite song—one that didn’t make it into the final production. [Running time: 30:21.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

 Painting a Portrait of a Political, Literary and Journalistic Powerhouse | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

For most of its first 50-plus years, the Yiddish language Jewish Daily Forward (now 116 years old) was edited by its founder, Abraham Cahan. Cahan was a Lithuanian immigrant and socialist who came to this country alone at the age of 22, in 1882. Within five years, he’d established himself as a leader of the Jewish immigrant community and as an industrious reporter with friends like the muckraker journalist Lincoln Steffins and the literary critic William Dean Howells. How Cahan climbed the political, journalistic, and literary (he wrote the critically acclaimed novel The Rise of David Levinsky) ranks of 20th century America is the topic of The Rise of Abraham Cahan, a new biography by Seth Lipsky. In 1990, Lipsky founded the English-language Forward. He joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss how Cahan managed to wear the seemingly conflicting hats of political activist and newspaperman, Cahan’s love of Tolstoy, and what fearlessness he possessed when it came to feuding publicly with rivals. [Running time: 26:10.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

 From Teen Chronicler of Yiddish Curses to Global Fame: Sholem Aleichem’s Multitudes | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

When people hear the name Sholem Aleichem, they very often think of Tevye the Dairyman and his Broadway showstoppers. It’s true, Sholem Aleichem wrote the stories on which Fiddler on the Roof is based, but his body of work is much broader than that. In dozens of stories, novels, newspaper articles, plays, and even poems, Sholem Aleichem, who was born Sholem Rabinovich, depicted the humor and despair that characterized shtetl life at a moment when it faced threats from within and without. He was also a great advocate of Yiddish, and of the Jewish people. Readers and critics considered him the “Jewish Mark Twain” and when he died from tuberculosis in 1916 at the age of 57, he left behind tens of thousands of fans in Europe and the United States. His life was relatively short but it made a lasting mark. Sholem Aleichem is now the subject of a new biography by Jeremy Dauber, a professor of Yiddish at Columbia University. The book is called The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem and it’s the newest title from Nextbook Press. Dauber joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss the real-life milkman behind Tevye, how it was that Sholem Aleichem reached epic levels of adoration, and his unforgettable humorous prose. [Running time: 22:20.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

 Seeing the Strengths and Pitfalls of a Whole Country in the Lives of Seven Paratroopers | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

In June of 1967, the world watched with disbelief as the young Israeli army turned a perilous threat—enemy troops gathering at its borders—into a tremendous military victory. The symbol of that victory, for many, was a photograph of soldiers standing before the Western Wall soon after the sacred site was reclaimed by Israel in the fighting. Those soldiers were members of the 55th Paratroopers Reserve Brigade. Most of them were in their early 20s. They included socialist kibbutzniks and religious Zionists. A surprising number of them would go on to be leaders in the movements those two groups spawned—the peace movement on the Left, and the settlement movement on the Right. In his new book, Like Dreamers, veteran journalist Yossi Klein Halevi examines the lives of seven of these paratroopers, including a rock star, a terrorist, the founder of the Peace Now movement, and, conversely, of the Gush Emunim settler movement. In recounting their experiences, Halevi gives readers access to the complexities of Israeli society as it has evolved over the past half century. Halevi grew up in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and was a member of the radical Jewish Defense League as a teenager. In 1982, he made aliyah and moved away from radicalism, becoming a writer and a journalist. He speaks with Vox Tablet about how Israel has grown up, easing away from the socialist and messianic dreams that so animated the country in June of 1967, and about his own evolution alongside that of his adopted country. [Running time: 33:13.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

 Amos Oz Still Dreams of Life on the Kibbutz | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Amos Oz died December 28 at age 79. Here’s his 2013 Vox Tablet interview with Daniel Estrin. You can listen to it or read the transcript below. TRANSCRIPT

 Alan Berliner’s Newest Cinematic Poem Reflects on a Relative With Alzheimer’s | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

For nearly 30 years, the filmmaker Alan Berliner has made uniquely personal documentaries that mine his life and the lives of his relatives, chipping away at seemingly routine stories to find a more precise, poetic, and nuanced narrative. His films display a relentless curiosity about the people closest to him—territory fraught with pitfalls. Berliner’s 1996 film Nobody’s Business examined his father, a lonely, divorced, retired salesman. Throughout the documentary, we hear the senior Berliner barking his objections with “my life is nothing!” and “you’re boring the shit out of me!” But as details of his past are revealed, Berliner’s father becomes a complex, lively figure in history, while, at every turn, the audience is compelled to adjust their perception of him. In Berliner’s newest film, First Cousin Once Removed, the filmmaker again focuses on family: in this case Edwin Honig, a relative, poet, friend, and mentor with Alzheimer’s Disease. Because of—and despite—his illness, Honig remains a surprisingly deep and thoughtful person whose views of the world color his interactions with Berliner. Sometimes, Honig is unable even to speak. The film is painful, beautiful, and, as with Berliner’s previous works, makes us consider again and again what we think of this man, and of the value of memory. First Cousin Once Removed will have its broadcast premiere on Monday, Sept. 23, on HBO. Berliner joins Tablet arts and culture editor Matthew Fishbane to discuss how Edwin Honig viewed his loss of memory, how forgetting can sometimes be a blessing, and how Berliner understands his own work as a way to stave off a similar fate. [Running time: 27:23.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

 Helène Aylon’s Journey From Rebbetzin to Internationally Acclaimed Feminist Artist | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Helène Aylon grew up in Borough Park, Brooklyn, in a tight-knit world of Orthodox families. From early on, she was a bit of a rebel, but that didn’t stop her from following the path prescribed for her. At 18, she married a rabbi, and they had two children. Then, when she was just 25, her husband fell ill; she was a widow by 30. This was in 1960. The assumption then was that a woman in her position would marry her husband’s brother. Instead, Aylon became an artist. Her work, as she explains in a memoir published last year and titled Whatever Is Contained Must Be Released: My Jewish Orthodox Girlhood, My Life as a Feminist Artist, engaged with the liberation movements of her time—women from patriarchy, the colonized from colonizer, the earth from nuclear devastation—until she tackled the ultimate liberation: that of God from man. Now, at 82, Aylon looks back at a remarkable career. Her work has been shown at the Whitney Museum in New York, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and throughout the world. In fact, there’s something of an Aylon revival right now; her work is on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as part of the group show called “Beyond Belief: 100 Years of the Spiritual in Modern Art,” and she’s included in “The Seventh Day: Revisiting Shabbat,” at Hebrew Union College in New York. She’s also giving readings from her memoir this fall, at the Jewish Museum in New York and elsewhere. This past spring, Julie Burstein visited Aylon at her loft in lower Manhattan to talk about her Orthodox upbringing, her evolution as a feminist artist, and her enduring (if sometimes fraught) relationship with her mother, who died in 1998 at the age of 100. Burstein is an independent radio producer and the author of Spark: How Creativity Works. [Running time: 19:35.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

 Ancient Roman Jews Meet Wartime Partisans on a Raucous and Lush Avant-rock Album | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

When guitarist and composer Dan Kaufman headed to Rome in 2009 to study the liturgical melodies of the city’s ancient Jewish community, he stumbled upon the site of a famous partisan attack against the Nazis. Bullet-marked, the building where the action took place remained as a testament to resistance. That story joined together in his imagination with that of the city’s inhabitants from millennia before, inspiring him to create the new album Bella Ciao. Like previous projects Kaufman has undertaken with his band Barbez—he joined the podcast in 2007 to discuss his album inspired by the work of Paul Celan—Bella Ciao draws on poetry and uses theramin, vibraphone, and more traditional instruments to produce an invigorating mix of sound and ideas. He joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about how he came upon this ancient liturgical music, dramatic chapters in the history of the Italian resistance movement, and his take on the international protest anthem “Bella Ciao.” [Running time: 20:21.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

 A New Era of Anti-Semitism Is Here. Daniel Goldhagen Blames Globalization. | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

In 1996, Daniel Goldhagen unleashed a fury of controversy when he published the book Hitler’s Willing Executioners, in which he argued that the Holocaust took place not because Germans were especially obedient to authority, or because a few bad apples came into power, but because an eliminationist prejudice against Jews was woven into the very fabric of German culture. Germans “considered the slaughter to be just,” Goldhagen wrote. His book hit a nerve—critics called Goldhagen out for using overly broad generalizations to indict an entire country—but that criticism didn’t hurt the book’s reception; it was a phenomenal success in Germany and around the world. Nearly 20 years later, Goldhagen has broadened his scope in a new work. The Devil That Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism offers an in-depth look at anti-Semitism around the world. He argues that it’s an almost pathological prejudice that spans centuries and cultures and therefore is a uniquely destructive force that has redoubled its strength thanks to a new age of globalization and information-sharing. Goldhagen joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss why anti-Semitism is distinct from other forms of prejudice, how globalization has contributed to its resurgence, and what we can do to combat this scourge. [Running time: 29:40.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

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