Stealing Mom

Upon returning from a pre-emptive Passover pilgrimage to Mom’s house in Massachusetts, prior to Mother’s Day, it dawned on me how the symbolism of Jewish motherhood has gotten yanked from us over the ages.

Along with so many other notions now inherently part of Christianity and Islam, motherhood, too, got morphed into Mary.

Perhaps it was my own wish fulfillment, but it seemed everywhere I looked in my old hometown, there were statues of Mary with her arms stretched out in adoring fashion. In front of churches, on top of them and amongst the shrubbery in front — she was ubiquitous in the largely Portuguese enclave of southeastern Massachusetts.

How did Mary, a nice Jewish girl, become so dominant a figure by paradoxically embracing motherhood and virginity at the same time?

She’s part of an ongoing pattern. First there was Jesus. He was our guy and then … they stole him.

Then the Sabbath got moved from the seventh day, Saturday, to the numerically dyslexic seventh day of … Sunday.

But taking a Jewish mother, saints that they all are, and, with a strange Midas touch, mass-producing them into plastic ornaments, statues and collectibles is like downloading music for free without attributing the rights to the original artists.

In many forms of Christianity, the venerated symbol of Mary has assumed so much power that she casts a shadow over her son. Right there, it would seem to me we have a direct patent infringement.

And while the impact of a Jewish mother has weighed heavily on sons like myself, their presence in pop culture has dissipated.

Who can still remember Nancy Walker as Rhoda’s mom? Or Mrs. Goldberg? If you can, is there a top-of-mind, contemporary icon of such Q-rated strength today?

Motherhood isn’t just another holiday either. We all understand how Christmas eats Chanukah’s lunch. And the movie isn’t called “Passover Pageant,” but “Easter Parade.” Admit that we’ve come to accept a certain level of defeat while still celebrating our historic victories and making what we have as awesome as possible.

But motherhood is where we need to draw the line.

They say when a brand is lost it should go back to its roots. Some do and are revived (think Apple) and others veer off and don’t (think Cadillac, which combated sagging sales with muscle trucks).

During the Amidah in our shul’s new prayer book (Siddur Eit Ratzon), there is reference to not only our patriarchs, but to Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah as well.

Perhaps if more shuls incorporated this approach and showed our youth that we have some pretty mighty matriarchs of our own, they would realize their song, in its original form, was pretty cool too.

A lot of us today look back at our rich maternal heritage as if staring at a phonograph record wondering, “What is it?” and “How does it work?” It’s time we raised our matriarch’s profiles to their rightful place.

As Mother’s Day approaches, and as a Jewish son whose mom is a plucky 90 and living in the house I grew up in, her oomph has inspired me to hang on and fight for that last piece of Mother Earth we own.

Flying back from our Passover visit, the inescapable linguistic irony wasn’t lost on me; I flew on Easter weekend between Mass. and home to Maryland; after we touched down, my children ran into their mother’s arms.

As a husband who has played Mr. Mom on many occasions and with an economy creating even more of us, perhaps it’s God’s way of giving us a lesson on how the other half lives. Now it’s time to embrace how they live, and love them ever more for it.

Meshugge News

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or to cry.

Last November, once it was apparent that Tina Fey’s impersonation of Sarah Palin was to live out its life only in re-run history on YouTube, many predicted a dearth of satire. Who were we going to laugh and poke fun at now that W was out of office and McCain and Palin weren’t going to be front and center to throw pies at?

As became evident, when the world turned upside-down and the market split in two, the one throwing pies (and bulls and other toys) turned out to be Jim Cramer, the supposed history guru on CNBC. But in Bizarro-world, the one doggedly reporting the financial mess and holding the press accountable — and Cramer’s feet to the fire — turned out to be comedian/“The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart.

With the fall of once great news icons that focused their lens on corruption and shenanigans (think CBS’s eye), and once great newspapers that dug out the facts to find falsehoods, it’s fallen on comedians to uncover and report the news.

CNBC was/is supposed to be a news network. Granted no one mistook Cramer for a journalist, but how many other news networks have their share of Cramers? This is a small indication of a larger trend. When newsrooms are cut to the bone and investigative reporters are sent packing, whose eye is watching?

Indeed with newsroom staffs set free, comedians like Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, who trails him nightly on Comedy Central, have come to the rescue as journalism and news reporting go AWOL. Through a glass darkly, they’ve become the seers, the truth tellers and another warped lens on the world.

Stewart’s line to Cramer on March 12 encapsulated the irony: “Look, we’re both snake-oil salesmen to a certain extent, but we do label the show as snake oil here. Isn’t there a problem selling snake oil as vitamin tonic?”

Stewart’s show has been called “fake news,” and everyone knows it. Although Cramer’s never was given the adjective “fake,” it’s news wrapped in entertainment. Either way, with a dearth of investigative news reporting, a hungry public seeks out information any way it can, and with news becoming more like entertainment and vice-versa, we were bound to have a smackdown.

By the time this reaches print, the hoopla over the match may be over, which also is indicative of the predicament. Like a fast-changing comic repertory company, with the multiplicity of media options and viewing choices, the public sees it, shares it, laughs and moves on to the next scene change.

In fact, two days after Cramer was eviscerated by Stewart, HBO aired a live broadcast of Will Ferrell in “You’re Welcome America/A Final Night With George W. Bush.”

In this case, the comedian began to set the record straight on the legacy of our 43rd president. As one of the first out of the post-Bush gate with a take on his presidency, Ferrell is likely to have set a course for historians to follow.

Ever since Aristophanes, comedians have held sway over the shape of history. In his “Clouds,” for example, the Greek playwright lampoons Socrates, portraying him as the arch-Sophist who runs educational cult called the “Thinkery.”

Today the Thinkery could be replaced as the Punditocracy, with satirists like Ferrell and Stewart lampooning and shaping our perceptions of the windbags.

The difference, however, is television, Internet and the like are all garbled together, one medium commenting on another in talmudic fashion, leaving us to peel away the onion layers to determine what’s truth and what’s fiction.

To butcher McLuhan’s famous aphorism: The medium is meshugge.

Bagel Flambé

It all began with a bagel. In my last column I spoke of the inspiration I got from my first class at the Darrell D. Friedman Institute by realizing the connection I had with Judah Maccabee.

Now the bagel is complete. Our class had a siyyum.

Siyyum means completion. However, I was informed by one of my co-fellows in the STAR program that the Hebrew word begins with the letter Samech and ends in a Final Mem. Both are round, circular-like letters — kind of like a bagel. Where do they begin and where do they end?

With an election and inauguration still fresh in our collective conscience, it is indeed a new beginning. After a year of hearing about “change” though, I think we’re ready to say, “Enough of the change, already!” In fact, I could use a little stability. I’d be happy if the stocks would just hold steady.

Yet perhaps an important element we missed, when all of us were ready for change, is that change is constant. That may sound like a cliché, but if we think about it, it’s also inherent in the meaning of siyyum’s circuitous lettering.

In class each morning we read a parshah from Exodus. No other portion of the Torah is more representative of change than Exodus — leaving one world and entering another. Also interesting is that in it God often takes the form of fire.

Now as a former philosophy major and an ad man, too, that wasn’t lost on me. In fact, I came across a book that incorporates both callings — “The Philosophy of Branding.” In chapter one, the focus is on Heraclitus, who was a Pre-Socratic. His greatest perception was that the world is continually in flux, and to demonstrate this he uses a flame as a metaphor. A flame being a “thing,” but not the same thing from moment to moment.

Judaism, too, uses the flame, and its symbol for many occasions, from Shabbat to yahrzeit, and even the ner tamid connotes this same notion of continuity — eternal.

So if that’s a symbol of our creed, what does a flame need to survive and to grow and to be strong?

Well, it needs air. All kinds of air. Especially new, fresh air.

But oxygen that’s too pure can be dangerous. Likewise, Judaism needs a blend and needs to have a breath from outside of itself to live and spread and catch.

Can either extreme be dangerous — too pure or not pure enough? Sure. So we must all tend the flame.

What I also learned from the siyyum is, like so many Jewish holidays — from Simchat Torah, when we end and then begin the Torah, or Rosh Hashanah, when we end the year and celebrate the new — is that the beat goes on.

We mark the occasions, but they don’t end there.

And like that flame, built into Judaism is a richness of thinking and knowledge that we offer back to the world for it to soak up its rays.

Likewise, there’s a lesson for America, too. As we go through our economic crisis, there’ll be a tendency to smother ourselves off. But as Tom Friedman has pointed out, we became the wealthiest country in the world not by protectionism or fearing free trade. Rather, we invited the smartest most diverse ideas and people into the U.S. and it is they who fueled our growth.

I feel extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to be a part of the DFI and the STAR program, and I can’t wait to breathe air back into it to help continue the flame.

And so, thank you Cindy Goldstein for agreeing to meet me for a bagel that morning in Mount Washington.

Abe Novick writes monthly for the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES. More of his work is at abenovick.com.

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The Defiant Ones

Recently, while I was seated at a class at the Darrell Friedman Institute for Professional Development, the moderator for the seminar began the class with a list of Jewish heroes from the Bible. She then asked, which one do we relate to?

On the list were Moses and Abraham, as well as Sarah and Leah. But there, way down on the bottom, on the boy’s side, was Judah Maccabee.

Having the lingering scent of Chanukah candles still in my sniffer and, truth be told, it being my favorite Jewish holiday due to the lasting emotional connection of receiving presents as a kid, I said, “Judah.”

When asked why, I said, “Because he’s a fighter.

I didn’t grow up in Baltimore. But in many ways New Bedford, Mass., possesses many similarities to the city that bleeds. Both are gritty seaports with tough, edgy peeps in them. While I grew up with peace signs and Peter, Paul and Mary and one set of friends, the reality of hitting the crumbling neglect of the city’s junior high school, with its discordant set of races and cultures, caused conflict and combat.

Like in a Charles Atlas ad in the back of comic books, I set out to get tough. Many Jewish pals, while they respected my desire, stuck to their books and baseball cards and aimed for Brandeis.

Fast forwarding to the present, and witnessing the conflict in Gaza, which intensified right in the middle of Chanukah, I can relate to an Israel that — like that kid that gets tormented one too many times — says “Enough.”

Israel the nation is like the smart Jewish kid many of us were in junior high, who after getting shoved and beaten up, tries to talk reason with the bullies, but realizes there is only one language they’ll understand. Of course, after bulking up and pulverizing the pesky persecutor, the cowards they truly are turn around and cry to the principal (in this case the U.N.).

Rather than being a victim, as Jews have been for centuries, Israel stands defiant and delves into its Judah Maccabee persona.

I hope my kids never have to receive or inflict the kind of damage done in Gaza. But unlike me, who learned the necessity of strength as a teen, I’ve already enrolled my 6- and 8-year-olds in karate. And it’s never too late to learn. At 47, I’ve started karate, too. (All of us are now blue belts.)

While recently stepping into this fight club, I discovered Krav Maga, a self-defense style originated in Czechoslovakia by a Jew in the 1930s and further developed in Israel

According to a recent article in The Forward, it’s gained widespread popularity due to celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez and Leonardo DiCaprio training with it. And as past articles in the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES have reported, it’s become big in Owings Mills, too.

I knew Jews could be tough, but who knew we had our own martial art?

While movies, comic books and even nations go through various incarnations of hero worship, whether the wisdom of Solomon we seek in Obama or the bravado of Bibi, the current Judeo juggernaut is wrestling with the drama inherent in defiance.

And that’s where all of the past month’s actions, from a global scale to a personal one, from Judah to Judaism, were projected and came together for me. From sitting in the DFI to the Senator movie theater to watch “Defiance,” whether Jews are being hunted in the woods of Belarus or bombed by rockets in Ashkelon, we are at a pivotal moment and how we maneuver will result in us getting hurt or standing victorious.

Krav Maga, by definition, shows no quarter (no mercy) and emphasizes threat neutralization. Carrying the fire of Judah means occasionally having to use it. ••

Abe Novick writes monthly for the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES on the intersection of Jewish and popular culture. More of his work is at abenovick.com

Let It Burn

Abe Novick
Special to the Jewish Times

For many of us having grown up during the decade when the Rolling Stones’ “Let It Bleed” was all the rage, the phrase “Let it burn” may not be as familiar.

But some 60 years before that December in 1969 when the English rock band released its immortal album, George Bernard Shaw shook and rattled the rafters on another London stage.

At the height of Act II, in Shaw’s “Caesar & Cleopatra,” Caesar is informed the great library of Alexandria is burning. Caesar — Shaw’s doppelganger — replies, “Let it burn.”

Why would Shaw, a writer and bibliophile, have his emperor utter such a literary blaspheme? It was a new age and a fresh millennia, and Shaw wanted to dispense with the past and usher in a new era of, you got it, change.

Just as the 1960s were an era when the times were a changin’, putting an end to the past was the leitmotif during Shaw’s Fin de si’ecle.

And while our own millennium has already come and gone, we now have to confront much of the pain we were anesthetized to since Y2K.

The Bush years have been like living in a false reality. The Iraq war was fought on false premises. The environment was ignored because the truth was inconvenient. The real estate bubble, which led to this economic meltdown, was driven by overly inflated home prices that were helped in large measure by credit that wasn’t backed up with any real collateral.

Whole industries once pillars of strength and stability have or are buckling and could cave in further — from Wall Street to Detroit to newsprint.

Consequently, we’ve been met with the question: Do we let them go down or save them? Do we let them burn?

Like an angry mob with torches, most Americans are against bailing out these industries and saying they got what they deserved, polls show. CNN/Opinion Research revealed that 77 percent thought a government bailout of financial institutions rewarded bad behavior. Likewise, 61 percent oppose government assistance to U.S. automakers.

Contemporaneous to this current state of social combustion comes Chanukah — the Festival of Lights. The story couldn’t be more apt.

We don’t snuff their flame, but sing songs as we stare at the melting candles, which represent a cleansing and rededication of the temple. We think back to when Judah ordered the Temple cleansed and a new altar built in place of the polluted one.

Shaw wasn’t nihilistic enough to let his Caesar advocate nothingness in the library’s wake. Rather, when the emperor is asked, “Will you destroy the past?” Caesar replies, “Ay, and build the future with its ruins.”

Chanukah, which comes at the end of a year that many will be only too glad to dispense with, is a time for celebration. And even though we may look around and wonder what there is to celebrate, perhaps the answer is… what lies ahead.

We have a new and vibrant president-elect in this country and the first African-American to ever hold that mantle. In January he’ll be inaugurated and already it looks as if the crowd that will gather for that occasion will rival Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech that spoke not about the past but the future.

So like King, Caesar, Judah and yes, even like the bad boys of rock ‘n’ roll (who endured more change than any other band of brothers and live on today), let’s continue onward in our quest to build and enlighten.

Let’s gather strength from the past, and while it burns and fades away, look to a brighter future.

Remember, we’re not supposed to blow out the candles, but we’re to behold them and, yes, let them burn.

Arise Dark Knight

Americans have always been pragmatists when it comes to the truth. From John Dewey to John Wayne, we’re a practical people. Our quest for the purity of truth and justice comes into constant conflict with the jagged everyday landscape of compromise.

Now with a newly elected leader, the country seems to be clamoring for the truth. From the economic hardships that lie ahead and the sacrifices we’ll have to make, to what dangers are being cooked up in caves on the Afghani-Pakistani border — we seek straight answers.

But while it’s a cliché to say the truth hurts, the pure truth, while refreshing, not only stings but is dangerous, as so many heroes (super and otherwise) have found out.

So how does one navigate through such terrain — by sticking to principles or adjusting to the temporary topography?

After the financial meltdown, Secretary Henry “Hank” Paulson and the Congress told us their rescue plan was needed to save the economy. However, while implementing it, Hank admitted intervention was against his principles. Nevertheless, he and Congress held their nose and we the people went along.

Closer to home, the electorate voted for slots in Maryland. Just a few years ago many, including Democrats, were against slots. They claimed slots were a tax on the poor, would lead to problems with compulsive gambling and create a slew of slots addicts.

But because we are in the midst of a budget shortfall, slots were served up as a remedy. And even though many voters see slots’ deleterious aspects, the ends justified the means. Again, we close our eyes and pull the lever.

Likewise, as we look at the problems facing the Middle East, we will confront this same dilemma.

This past month I had the fortunate opportunity to hear Matthew Levitt, Senior Fellow and director of The Washington’s Institute Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He was truly knowledgeable and an expert in his field.

Interestingly, during the Q&A session, one audience member asked why the issue of anti-Israel sentiment in the Arab world typically gets framed in the context of politics and not a religious foundation? The question had the ring of truth. The room paused.

Mr. Levitt’s answer was brilliant in its pragmatic nuance. He replied, and I paraphrase, to inject religion into the equation is dangerous, for it will infuse the Arab world with a higher calling aimed at Israel’s destruction and rally the Arab streets.

Sounds pretty scary. On the other hand, isn’t it true that the Arab world’s sentiments toward Israel have a long history of Jew hatred, going back to the mufti’s support of Nazism? So while potentially volatile it is, and has always been, a very real factor.

For example, when the covenants of terrorist groups such as Hamas commit themselves to the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people, that’s anti-Semitism. When the Muslim world draws on the classical Christian notions of Jewish stereotypes and fills their children’s heads with perverse images of Jews, that’s religious-inspired hatred.

Is not confronting the issue just as dangerous?

President Bush’s desire to remake the Middle East by bringing democracy to it will be replaced with the realist approach of making that region work as best it can, given the circumstances.

With Iran getting closer to nuclear capabilities and the stakes increasing, it will put greater pressure on an Obama administration to be pragmatic. If we’re not at a global tipping point, we can certainly envision one on the horizon.

Put another way, the boundless flamboyant era of Captain America is over and the earthly tactics of Batman, the Dark Knight, begins.

Abe Novick writes monthly for the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES on the intersection of American culture and Judaism.

Depressing Void

Welcome to the New Year. Talk about a cleansing! Anything and everything, whether a 401K, stocks, funds you name it, they all got soaked by the giant wave that swept through and gave a whole new meaning to Tashlikh.

While we cast our sins into the water during Rosh Hashanah, a tsunami hit Wall Street taking with it icons of strength and stability. Meanwhile the ripple effects on Main Street still haven’t fully hit and what’s most disconcerting is wondering, how low is low? Or, as Betty Davis famously quipped, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

No one knows how far down the river our collective sins will have to go until they disappear. But when will we ever see the Dow at 14,000 again?

Of course, we’ve been through burst bubbles before. The difference now is the media sensation gets amplified and because this latest one keeps getting compared to The Great Depression, everywhere you turn, a more profound sense of doom accompanies it.

While the talking heads debated whether we are in a recession, the ticker running underneath was a whole lot less ambiguous. Most everyone was already using the “D” word. What’s worse, every time they’d make the analogy, they’d feed into the cycle of fear. Then they’d follow up, by saying the markets decline is all based on fear. If I said to you, “Don’t think of knives falling from the sky”, what are you going to think of? Exactly.

Granted, none of us under the age of 70 ever thought they’d see such a precipitous dive. That was something that happened back in The Great Depression. These days we have protections against that ever happening again. Right? Well…

As a boy I heard the stories and my generation thought we were immune.

My parents grew up in the Depression (mom’ll be 90 next month) and they always tried to instill in me some sense of its magnitude. They knew something that I never did. They wore the Depression on them like some Jews wear the chai or a mezuzah around their necks. They were scarred by its fearsome force. They lived to tell about it and would tell it to me many times.

Their stories were of saving everything they could and placing a value on whatever they got their hands on; string, candy, a nickel, you name it. To compare their lives with our own is comical. We have so much and if we want more, we charge it.

How this latest episode will turn out, no one knows, but I haven’t heard anyone saying it’s going to be a fast turnaround and recovery.

And when historians look back at this decade it will have, ironically, symbolically, ended where it began.

A few weeks ago I was in lower Manhattan on the site of the World Trade Center and where a gaping hole, from what literally was a meltdown, still rests.

When I lived in Manhattan and would look up at the towers, especially at night, I would see the lights on and get some comfort (sometimes even goosebumps) knowing that the work of capitalism was being conducted around the globe.

Staring into that pit, I had to wonder, why. Not why it happened, but why hardly anything has taken place to fill the void.

Now with that literal crash of the symbols of finance, this past month’s financial meltdown closes the last chapter of Bush’s Presidency.

It is time for a new era. It’s time for us to start building again and on strong, sturdy foundations.

It is time to bury the ephemeral nothingness, the void of the past several years. The void in ideas. The void in competence. The void that’s been like that hole, that abyss where time has stood still.

This desire for change is palpable and that is why Obama will be elected next week.