Beyond the Pale

Alex Kane and Lizzy Ratner host this show, which toggles between Iran, Poland and the vast spaces between. We begin by exploring the diplomatic haggling between Western powers and Iran over Iran's nuclear program. Jamal Abdi, policy director of the National Iranian American Council, helps lay out what is at stake and why this round of negotiations may -- or may not -- make the difference. Next we speak with film producer Dariusz Jablonski about Aftermath, the startling Polish thriller loosely based on the story of the Jedwabne massacre, the 1941 pogrom in which at least 340 Jews were killed by their Polish neighbors.  The film has been kicking up controversy in Poland, particularly among right-wing nationalists who have descibed it as "anti-Polish propaganda." Finally, we end with a conversation about contemporary Jewish life in Poland, from the nascent Jewish revival in Warsaw, Krakow and other towns to the hysterical anti-Semitic reaction to Aftermath.  Our guest is Denise Grollmus, writer and recent Fulbright Scholar.  

Today’s Beyond the Pale is the first of what we hope will be a monthly re-broadcast of Disorderly Conduct, co-hosted by Jesse Myerson and Alexis Goldstein.  On today’s show our co-hosts examine (and proceed to demolish) the right wing’s take on the financial crisis: that it was all the fault of poor people (aided and abetted by The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), commonly known as Fannie Mae, and The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), known as Freddie Mac).   Next Myerson and Goldstein report on a trade deal--the Transpacific Partnership (TPP)-- that is being secretly negotiated (secret that is, only to us citizens, but not to corporate lobbyists).  The TPP will mark the end of national sovereignty and the beginning of corporate sovereignty in international trade.     The show ends with Reuters.com contributor Cate Long explaining the key issues in dispute in the Detroit bankruptcy filing.  Is there any way to protect the interests of pensioners?   

 First, Eve speaks with director Moshe Yassur about world premiere Yiddish-language production of "Waiting for Godot" by the New Yiddish Rep company, and Yassur's own remarkable decades in theater from Yiddish to Ionesco.  Next, we hear musician Benjy Fox-Rosen, recently returned from his Fulbright scholarship in Moldova, singing first a traditional Romanian doyna, followed by a witty yet foreboding allegory by Bessarabian Yiddish songwriter Zelig Barditshever (1898-1937), "Eyle Toldes Noyekh" ("This is the History of Noah").  Then Eve talks with Professor Olga Gershenson about her latest book, Phantom Holocaust: Soviet Cinema & Jewish Catastrophe -- a history of films made & suppressed, of political intrigue, cultural encoding, and artistic struggle from late 1930's Stalinist times to post-perestroika.  Next, director Peter Miller describes his new documentary "AKA Doc Pomus," profiling the legendary tunesmith (ne Jerome Felder), screening soon in theaters across the country; NYC run opens October 4 at Village East Cinemas. Our second live in-studio music performance is Jacob Garchik's solo trombone paraphrase of "Dialogue with My Great-Grandfather" from his CD "The Heavens: Atheist Gospel Trombone Album." Finally, Eve speaks with Dr. Barbara Siminovich-Blok about correspondences between traditional Chinese medical meridians and Jewish prayer practice of wrapping tefillin (based in part on "Tefillin: Ancient Acupuncture Point Prescription for Mental Clarity" by Dr. Steven Schram).

 Today's show is a rebroadcast of our April 17 2011 show.  For details and audio, click here.

Co-hosts Alex Kane and Lizzy Ratner talk with Josh Ruebner, National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and author of Shattered Hopes: Obama's Failure to Broker Israeli Palestinian Peace, about the latest efforts at peace talks. Next they talk with Laurence Zuckerman, author of a recent article in the Nation magazine: FDR's Jewish Problem.How did Franklin Delano Roosvelt (FDR), beloved by American Jews, come to be viewed by some as an anti-Semite who refused to save Jews from the Nazis?  And finally they talk with mayoral candidate Bill DiBlasio and home care attendant Vivian Wegman about trying to  live on the minimum wage in New York City.

Eve Sicular talks with playwright Jonathan Tolins, whose well-received comedy about Barbara Streisand, Buyer and Cellar, has just moved to the Barrow Street Theater after completing a successful run at the Rattlestick Theater this past spring.  New York’s LGBT synagogue, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, celebrates the overturning of DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) at their Gay Pride Shabbat.  We hear Roberta Kaplan, the lead attorney, and plaintiff Edie Windsor, address the ecstatic congregation.    Eve Sicular talks about the sea change in the Conservative movement’s views of same sex relations with Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, the spiritual leader of the Conservative Synagogue of the Hamptons and the Rabbinic Director of Nohar.   

As NSA whistleblower and former Booz Allen employee, Edward Snowden, flees Hong Kong for destinations unknown, we interview philosopher Peter Ludlow on the rise of the corporate-surveillance state. Then we pivot in time and tone for an extended discussion with Dr. Robert Adler Peckerar about the Helix Project, a kind of counter-Birthright program that takes students to Eastern Europe to learn about the Jewish culture that once thrived there. Finally, we conclude with a conversation with Linda Sarsour, Palestinian-American community organizer and activist, about the New York City mayoral election, with specific emphasis on a question that has gotten sadly little attention: what are the candidates' positions on the New York City Police Department's surveillance of Muslims?

Today's all-music show, a tribute to Fathers' Day and the upcoming Gay Pride, was hosted by Eve Sicular.  Here's a run-down (with some useful links) of the tunes she spun:  Inbal Segev, “Dance” by Joachim Stuchewsky. From her album NIGUN https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/nigun-celebration-jewish-music/id270648511 REUT REGEV’s R*Time: “Breaking the Silence” from new CD exploRing the vibe  http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=44141#.UcBWB-uG9ok  “Luftmentsh Theme” (3:02) & “Sher” from CUBO-FUTURIST KLEZMER, CD re-release of 78's from the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre, 1922-1938; co-produced by J. Hoberman & Prof. Mel Gordon, http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-judaic&month=0201&week=a&msg=uxDut2YK6exfTg3meCie0w&user=&pw= “Moldovan Wedding” from eponymous EP, EZEKIEL’S WHEELS http://www.citywinery.com/newyork/klezmer-brunch-ezekiel-s-wheels-6-23.html  “Yiddish Hula Boy” [Becky I Ain’t Coming Back]: Janet Klein & her Parlor Boys, from PUT A FLAVOR TO LOVE http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/kleinj3 “My Home in Morgan Street” ; “Old Solomon Levy”; Dray Shvester” from CD by Vivi Lachs & Klezmer Klub, WHITECHAPEL, MAYN VAYTSHEPL Huckleberry Duck”  THE MUSIC OF RAYMOND SCOTT, https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/music-raymond-scott-reckless/id192755964  Once in the Desert” - from YEMEN: MUSIC OF THE YEMENITE JEWS, by Robinson, Zarang, Roginski, and Zimpel   Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand, together on “The Judy Garland Show,” or as the CD release also names it, “The Show That Got Away.”  http://www.amazon.com/The-Judy-Garland-Show-That/dp/B000062YBX http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFVxX3RtyhQ      

When Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, among others on the right, discovered that Barack Obama’s nominee to head the bureau of labor statistics had sent her children to progressive, secular Jewish Camp Kinderland, allegations of  left wing extremism and communists in the Department of Labor  were quickly unleashed. Former Kinderland camper, film maker and comedian Katie Halper talks with BTP’s Kiera Feldman about her new documentary, Commie Camp, in which she sets the record straight about the camp and the values that have shaped three generations of campers and counting.  Commie Camp will be screened on June 28th and 29th at Visionfest at Tribeca Cinemas before moving on to the San Franscisco Jewish film festival . When the renowned German philosopher, Hannah Arendt, wrote about the 1961 trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi’s “Administrator for Jewish Affairs,” in a series of articles for The New Yorker magazine, her portrayal of Eichmann and her criticism of the Jewish councils for cooperating with the Nazis unleashed a fire storm of protest that persists in some circles to this day.  The  German filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta focuses on this fraught period in Arendt’s life in her latest film, Hannah Arendt,now showing at the Film Forum.  She talks about Arendt and the film with BTP’s Marissa Brostoff and Eve Sicular. For more about Arendt and the film see Jim Hoberman's review in Tablet.  Since the 1990s, some $57 million set aside by the German government and earmarked for Holocaust survivors has been disbursed to false claimants through the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.   Kiera Feldman talks with Paul Berger, staff writer at The Jewish Daily Forward, who has been reporting on the scandal and the failure of the Conference to follow-up on its own investigations. 

With today's broadcast, Beyond the Pale welcomes the newest members of our radio team, Jesse Meyerson and Alexis Goldstein.  On today's show, the team take on Sherrod Brown's (Dem Ohio) and David Vitter's (Rep Louisiana) Brown-Vitter  proposed legislation: "Terminating Bailouts for Taxpayer Fairness Act" (a/k/a Too Big To Fail).  What is the bill about and why does it have the big banks in a panic?  Could it really rein in the behemoths?  And would guaranteeing every permanent resident a universal basic income not only solve our unemployment problem but also make us a happier and more creative society?   Journalist Sam Knight talks with Jesse and Alexis about the outcome of Iceland's kitchen ware revolution; was Iceland the only European country that got it right after the 2008 crash? And finally, in recognition of mothers' day, we rebroadcast Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz's interview with Joyce Antler, author of You Never Call! Your Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother. Beyond the Pale will be pre-empted for the balance of WBAI's fund raising drive.  We'll be back on the air on June 9th.  

Hosted by Alex Kane and Lizzy Ratner, today's Beyond the Pale is an eclectic mix of history, geography, and genres. We begin by talking to scholar and writer Moustafa Bayoumi about the tragic Boston bombings and the anti-Muslim reaction that has erupted in some quarters. From there we turn to theater -- Yiddish theater -- and the magical-allegorical world created by the National Yiddish Theater - Folksbiene's production of "The Megile of Itzik Manger." And we end with a conversation about the struggles of New York's retail workers and the efforts by one group, the Retail Action Project, to bring basic labor standards to one of the city's fastest-growing, and least remunerated, professions.

Fight-back against Chicago school closures: labor journalists Josh Eidelson and Sarah Jaffe talk with Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis in this excerpt from Belabored, a newly launched podcast from Dissent magazine. BTP is thrilled to partner with Dissent and will be featuring more highlights from Belabored in the future. And Europe will be Stunned: A 3-part video installation by Israeli artist Yael Bartana, at the Petzel Gallery, 456 W. 18th Street in Chelsea, now through May 4th. BTP re-broadcasts Alisa Solomon's July 2009 interview with Bartana.  The Child Catchers: Rescue,Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption. BTP co-host Kiera Feldman talks with author Kathryn Joyce about her investigation of the dark side of adoption. You can read an excerpt of Joyce's book, "Orphan Fever: The Evangelical Movement's Adoption Obsession," in the current issue of Mother Jones.

Five million stop and frisks and the NYPD is still counting.  Today's hosts, Marissa Brostoff and Kiera Feldman, talk with Candis Tolliver, senior organizer at the New York Civil Liberties Union  (NYCL) about the NY City Council's proposed Community Safety Act, which, among other provisions, includes the creation of an Inspector General to oversee the NYPD. Is it possible for Israel to be both a Jewish and a democratic state.? BTP broadcasts excerpts from a panel addressing the question that took place last week at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (CBST) in Manhattan.   BTP talks with poet, novelist, translator, critic and scholar Ammiel Alcalay about his most recent book, A Little History.    

New York City Council finally passes the paid sick leave bill.  First, BTP talks with independent journalist Sarah Jaffe. Next, BTP's Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark and Alisa Solomon talk about the 2013 Hungarian Theater Showcase --a beacon of democracy.  Finally, Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin is out now in paperback.  We rebroadcast Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark's July 2011 conversation with Robin.

Co-hosts Lizzy Ratner and Jesse Meyerson talk with Joshua Oppenheimer about his remarkable, rivetting, award winning film, The Act of Killing, about the death squad leaders who helped the Indonesian army slaughter of morel than one million Communists, ethnic Chinese and intellectuals in 1965. Filmmaker Werner Artist Ruth Sergel talks with Lizzy and Jesse about the street-art project,  Chalk, dedicated to preserving the memory victims of the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory fire. BTP co-host Alex Kane talks with us from Israel and Palestine where he has been covering President Obama's visit and the ongoing Palestinian resistance movement.