Vox Tablet

To read more Tablet in Warsaw coverage, click here. This week, Tablet is reporting from Warsaw, which is commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The new Museum of the History of Polish Jews, opening today after formal ceremonies, is a spectacular glass-and-concrete structure—still empty, for the most part—that has been 20 years in the making, at a cost of more than 100 million dollars. Proponents of the museum believe it represents a huge step forward in healing Polish-Jewish relations. Critics say it’s too Jewish, or not Jewish enough. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that, like it or not, this museum—which will rely on multimedia exhibits to tell its story—is not, and will never be, a home to artifacts. Yet about a mile away, on a slightly run-down side street, sits an archive that has been collecting Polish Jewish artifacts continually from before the war to the present. Reopened in 1947, Warsaw’s Jewish Historical Institute is essentially a continuation of an institute started in 1928. Today it holds what is arguably one of the most precious collections of Jewish life: the contents of 10 metal boxes and two milk canisters dug up shortly after the war and then several years later, in near-miraculous survivals of documents, letters, and other records of daily life from the annihilated Warsaw Ghetto. Vox Tablet’s Julie Subrin went to visit this archive earlier in the week. With her was Agnieszka Reszka, the head of the archive, and Samuel Kassow, an American historian who wrote a book on the archive and its creator, Emanuel Ringelblum. For Reszka and Kassow, the archive offers us the opportunity to breathe new life into a lost world. [Running time: 14:26.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

In the wake of horrific crimes, there is a mantra from politicians, lawyers, and victims: They don’t want revenge, they say; they just want justice. Thane Rosenbaum, a novelist, essayist, and professor at Fordham Law School, says a distinction between the two is both disingenuous and misguided. In his new book, Payback: The Case for Revenge, Rosenbaum argues that the modern American judicial system in fact needs an injection of Old-Testament-style vengeance. From the killing of Osama Bin Laden to popular films like Munich and Braveheart, Rosenbaum highlights the contradiction between our desire for vengeance and our public disavowal of that desire. In a conversation with Tablet Magazine’s Bari Weiss, he made his case. [Running time: 23:42.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

In the Book of Numbers, it is written that God said to Moses: “Speak to the sons of Israel, and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue.” Yet it is comparatively rare to see Jews wearing prayer shawls with blue thread added to the fringes. Why this intransigence? The short answer is that it’s an extraordinarily difficult commandment to fulfill, and one over which people have puzzled for centuries. Religious Jews believe that the blue used on tzitzit must be the same blue as was used in ancient times, and the source of that blue, referred to in the Bible as tekhelet, has been shrouded in mystery for over a thousand years. Now, thanks to the efforts of a motley crew of rabbis, chemists, marine biologists, and archaeologists from around the world, it appears the mystery has been solved. Vox Tablet sent reporter Zak Rosen to the Mediterranean coast of Israel to meet tekhelet expert Baruch Sterman, author of The Rarest Blue: The Remarkable Story of an Ancient Color Lost to History and Rediscovered, to find out why this discovery took so long. [Running time: 17:31.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

As an author and literary critic (including for Tablet), Adam Kirsch has written about Lionel Trilling, Benjamin Disraeli, Emily Dickinson, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, among many others. This past August, he moved into less familiar territory when he joined the tens of thousands of Jews participating in Daf Yomi, studying a page of Talmud a day. The study cycle will take seven and a half years to complete. Since he began, Kirsch has been writing a weekly column to share his reflections on these essential Jewish texts, and on the Daf Yomi process itself. On today’s Vox Tablet, Kirsch shares some of those reflections with Jonathan Rosen, author of The Talmud and the Internet, and editor of the Jewish Encounters series, published by Nextbook Press. Together, they consider the value of studying Jewish law even if you don’t intend to follow it and marvel at the complex logic, outlandish scenarios, and deeply human responses to be found within these pages. [Running time: 22:28.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

Rachel Shukert is well known to Tablet followers as our pop culture expert, writing her Tattler column about everything from reality TV to the British royal family. She even wrote and performed an Oscar-night medley. Shukert is also the author of two memoirs: Have You No Shame? and Everything Is Going to Be Great. In her new young-adult novel Starstruck, the first of a three-part series, Shukert focuses on pop culture, but from a historical perspective. Set in the 1930s, the Golden Age of Hollywood, the book follows three young women trying to break into the movie industry. The most shocking things in Starstruck happen off-screen, though: betrayals, unimaginable secrets, sexual misconduct, and manipulation from the studio chiefs who run the show. Tablet’s Managing Editor Wayne Hoffman sat down with Shukert to talk about her new book, her own experiences trying to break into show biz, and the changing roles of Jews in Hollywood. [Running time: 16:00.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

Twenty years ago, while studying Hebrew and Latin in high school, London writer Naomi Alderman found herself fascinated by the conflicting and overlapping Jewish and Christian accounts she was reading of the first century AD. She remembers telling her Hebrew teacher, “Someone should write a novel about Jesus, but from the Jewish perspective.” Her teacher thought it was a terrible, if not outright dangerous, idea. Now Alderman herself has written that novel. The Liars’ Gospel tells the story of the life and death of Jesus from four perspectives: that of his mother Miryam (Mary); his disciple and later betrayer Iehuda from Qeriot (Judas Iscariot); the High Priest Caiaphas; and Bar-Avo (Barabbas), the murderer and rebel whom Pontius Pilate releases instead of Jesus. Each of the four characters is drawn from the New Testament, but in Alderman’s telling, they are fully Jews, like Jesus himself, and are steeped in the rituals and beliefs of their time. It’s a provocative and fascinating retelling of one of the foundational narratives of Western culture. This is not the first time Alderman has used fiction to challenge orthodoxies. Her first novel, Disobedience, told the story of Ronit Krushka, a lapsed Orthodox Jew who returns to London when her estranged father, a revered rabbi, dies. The novel portrays adulterous and lesbian love affairs, among other transgressions, and it offended some in the Orthodox community in which Alderman grew up. It also earned Alderman the U.K.’s 2006 Orange Prize for New Writers. Vox Tablet’s Julie Subrin speaks with Alderman about how she tackled the story of Jesus, reactions to her novel from Christian readers, and how Jews can and should shed their fear of Christianity. Give a listen, and if the conversation leaves you wanting more, enter our sweepstakes to win a free copy of The Liars’ Gospel. [Running time: 24:35.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

When Mereleh Luft arrived in New York as a teenager in 1914, she had big plans: to meet a man and start a Jewish family, and to earn enough money to bring the rest of her family over from Latvia. By the 1930s, however, she had little to show for her years in America; she’d been slaving away in garment factories, living in rented rooms, and clinging to a manipulative playboy who refused to marry her. Meanwhile, her family remained stuck in Latvia, even as Hitler’s armies marched east and made their escape a matter of life and death. In a new biography, Luft’s daughter Lillian Faderman recounts her mother’s travails. Faderman is an award-winning historian best known for her books on lesbian history and for her first memoir, Naked in the Promised Land. In the new book, called My Mother’s Wars, Faderman draws on her skills as a historian and also as a remarkably empathic daughter, to piece together her mother’s life story and all she endured—the bad relationships, exploitative sweatshops, secret abortions, and the crushing guilt she felt for failing to save her family. Tablet Managing Editor Wayne Hoffman spoke with Faderman about her mother’s tragic yet heroic life story and how writing this biography helped her view her mother in a new light. [Running time: 15:30.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

“Hava Nagila” is perhaps the best-known Jewish song in the United States. Jewish and non-Jewish wedding and bar/bat mitzvah attendees alike know that its first few notes are our cue to link arms on the dance floor and drag or be dragged through a never-ending and increasingly chaotic hora. But how many people know that the song originated not in Israel (Hebrew lyrics not withstanding) but in Ukraine, and that its greatest ambassador was not Jewish at all? In Hava Nagila (The Movie), a documentary that opens in a limited theatrical release this month, director Roberta Grossman traces the song’s history from a Hasidic enclave in the Pale of Settlement to Palestine and then the United States. She also looks at how affection for the song has waxed and waned, in some ways reflecting American Jews’ (and others’) relationship to Jewishness, through interviews with actor Leonard Nimoy, singers and musicians Regina Spektor, Harry Belafonte, Henry Sapoznik, ethno-musicologist Josh Kun, and many others. (If, after seeing the film, you feel that you still haven’t had your fill of “Hava Nagila” history, there’s also an exhibit on the song on view at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage.) On today’s podcast, guest host Rebecca Soffer, a New York-based producer and writer, talks to Grossman about how this project came to be, the song’s status among American Jews today, and Bob Dylan’s “talking blues” interpretation which is, depending on your perspective, a mangling or a brilliant articulation of Jewish ambivalence. [Running time: 19:50.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

A central component of Purim observance is, of course, the raucous, collective reading of the Book of Esther. That tradition has evolved into a virtual industry of theatrical storytelling events, or Purimspiels. This year, Vox Tablet decided to jump on the bandwagon. We commissioned four young comedians and/or comedy writers—Josh Gondelman (of recent Modern Seinfeld fame), Emily Heller, Rob Kutner, and Judy Batalion—to share personal stories related to one of several Purim-related themes. With guest host Rebecca Soffer as emcee, here are their stories, which take us on ill-advised cross-country road trips, deposit us in awkward dinner conversations, and remind us of the many ways one can hide one’s identity, or re-discover it. Music for today’s podcast is courtesy of the klezmer band Isle of Klezbos. [Running time: 23:11.] Your browser does not support the audio element. *** Listen to individual stories here: Josh Gondelman, “The Kindness of Strangers” Emily Heller, “Bait and Switch” Rob Kutner, “Skiing With Jesus” Judy Batalion, “Chicken”

When a bullying incident makes the news, a flurry of collective hand-wringing generally follows. We call for schools to be stricter, punishment to be harsher, kids to be kinder. But what have we actually learned about the dynamic of bullying and, more important, the most effective ways to prevent it? Slate writer and editor Emily Bazelon tackles these questions in a new book, Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy. Bazelon has reported on bullying since 2009. In the book, she profiles three teens—two victims of bullying, and one who was accused of bullying—and then goes beyond to define what bullying is, and is not; what works, and what doesn’t, to interrupt a cycle of bullying; and what needs to be done to prevent a culture of bullying from taking hold in schools and online. Bazelon speaks with Tablet Magazine’s Liel Leibovitz about bullying and the role schools, parents, Jewish values, and Mark Zuckerberg could play in stopping it. [Running time: 24:23] Your browser does not support the audio element.

It is rare for an Israeli and a Palestinian to fall in love. There are physical barriers— Israelis can’t enter Palestinian areas, and Palestinians can’t enter Israeli areas, without special permits. There are also cultural barriers—Israelis and Palestinians are enmeshed in a bitter conflict. But sometimes love can be found. A year ago, two 29-year-olds met on an online dating site. One is from Jerusalem, the other from a West Bank village. Reporter Daniel Estrin brings us their story, courtesy of the radio production house Bending Borders. It is the latest installment in our Hidden Jerusalem series.

If you’ve spent any time on the streets or subways of New York City in the past decade, you’ve probably encountered the ads for Manhattan Mini Storage. The company is famous for its no-holds-barred billboards and subway posters, which sometimes poke fun at New Yorkers’ over-crowded lives, and other times skewer those who don’t hold unapologotically liberal political views. As chief branding officer of Edison Properties, the parent company of Manhattan Mini Storage, Archie Gottesman is the brains and wit behind those ads. She’s third-generation in the real-estate business and was eager to find a way to make the job of selling storage space more fun. Gottesman later found herself provoking and entertaining readers with a different marketing effort. Despairing over the take-it-or-leave-it attitude many of her Jewish friends and neighbors held with regard to their religious birthright, she published a call to arms that she dubbed a “New Ten Commandments.” We invited Gottesman to speak with guest host Julie Burstein about this new mission, figuring if there’s anyone who can reengage Jews in Jewishness, it’s the woman who made many, if not all, New Yorkers come to have feelings of affection for a storage company. [Running time: 26:28.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

Vladimir Vysotsky, Russia’s beloved balladeer, would have turned 75 this week. Though he died more than three decades ago, at the age of 42, he is still revered as a singer and poet who captured the mood, and the soul, of a dejected generation. But while Vysotsky’s music and persona clearly spoke to a particular time and place (the USSR in the post-Stalinist “Thaw” era), his songs have been adopted by social movements all over the world, including, most recently, Israel’s tent protesters during the summer of 2011. Today, on Vox Tablet, Liel Leibovitz looks at the too-short life, and enduring afterlife, of this remarkable man and considers what it is that makes his ballads so resonant for so many. [Running time: 10:11.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

Israeli voters go to the polls today to elect the next Knesset. Regardless of the outcome, undoubtedly the biggest story of the campaign season has been the rise of Naftali Bennett, a rookie politician who, against the odds, helped religious Zionism grow from a strong but discombobulated movement into an electoral powerhouse. This ideology, increasingly embraced by mainstream, secular Israelis, has its roots in the thinking of two influential rabbis: Abraham Isaac Kook and his son, Zvi Yehuda. Tablet Magazine’s Liel Leibovitz speaks to Rabbi Shai Held, co-founder and dean of Mechon Hadar, an egalitarian yeshiva in New York, about the Kooks, the history of the religious Zionist movement, and why it is such a force in Israeli politics and culture today. [Running time:39:20.] Your browser does not support the audio element.

When reporter Daniel Estrin first heard through the grapevine that Jerusalemites were planning on participating in the international 12th annual No Pants Subway Ride, he thought: This cannot go well. For those who aren’t familiar, the No Pants Subway Ride invites participants to ride together without acknowledging one another or the fact that they are significantly underdressed. (Nudity is not allowed; participants must sport some form of underwear.) Since its inception, it has grown exponentially. Four thousand New Yorkers participated this past Sunday, along with thousands more across the United States and in 17 countries around the world. But Jerusalem? A town where, in some quarters, visitors may be assaulted for “immodest dress” even when they are fully clothed? Estrin decided to tag along to see how the pantsless commuters fared. His dispatch is the second installment in our Hidden Jerusalem series, which reports on aspects of Jerusalem life that are usually obscured—like underwear. [Running time: 11:37.] Your browser does not support the audio element.