Jewish Stars: Madeline Kahn

So here's my announcement. Due to Tzvi and my having to take on double duty, and due to my insanely busy schedule nowadays, I'm going to have to cut back on the long, detailed, full-cartoon blog posts. I know, I know. Half of you are clicking the "x" button on this blog already. But bear with me. 

Instead, I will be alternating between my full-length, drawings-included articles, and shorter pieces I have decided to title Jewish Stars. Quite simply, this is where I talk a little bit about someone, be it an author, an artist, an actor, a scientist, who I think is awesome for one reason or another, who also happens to be Jewish. The person can be contemporary or historical. One thing I will guarantee is that it will not be someone every single reader knows about already. No Rambam, Golda Meir, Woody Allen, or Albert Einstein. Hey, they might be super famous. But if I think I've read tons about them in every book or website known to man, I won't be covering them here. So let's get started with one of my very favorite actresses (yes, I'm starting with an actress and not an author or artist. Atypical for me, but whatev). 

Madeline Kahn (1942-1999)

If you've ever seen a Mel Brooks movie, you've probably seen Madeline Kahn. Super (multi)talented and gorgeous to boot, Ms. Kahn managed to steal every scene she appeared in as Lili Von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles and Elizabeth in Young Frankenstein. 

The source of my personal admiration for Ms. Kahn is twofold. First, this was a woman who shattered two insulting stereotypes. The first, that Jews aren't good-looking or pretty, and the second, that women can't be funny. Please. Have you seen this woman act? (Heads up, some foul language/crude humor in this vid. Don't watch it with your kids.)

I'm sure most of you have seen Blazing Saddles and are therefore already familiar with that clip. But if you weren't, let me just let you know that this performance not only landed Ms. Kahn an Oscar nomination, but also hid one of her most incredible talents. You'd never know it from "I'm Tired," but she was an operatic singer. 

And that brings me to the second source of my admiration for Madeline Kahn: I grew up singing along with her. She once guest-starred on Sesame Street, where she sang an adorable number with my all-time favorite monster in the world, Grover. It was and remains one of my favorite Sesame Street songs ever. Let me tell you. The woman had pipes. 

So yeah, she was pretty, funny, super-talented, and Jewish. I'd recommend giving her movies a look. And just because it's hysterical, allow me to present one more example of Madeline Kahn being awesome, with fellow awesome Jewish comedienne Gilda Radner. 

My Top Five Madeline Kahn Performances (in no particular order):

1) Young Frankenstein (1974)

2) Blazing Saddles (1974)

3) What's Up, Doc? (1972)

4) Clue (1985)

5) The Muppet Movie (1979) (yes, it was a cameo. But it was an awesome cameo!)

and a bonus from my childhood:

6) A Bug's Life (1998)

* Let me know what you think of this column as an idea. If you don't like it as much as the cartoons, I'm sorry. Until we get another writer or my schedule frees up, I've got to space them out a bit. 

A Call to Arms

That awkward moment when it's post day and you have no post... but there is something else.

Time to make that announcement I hinted toward at the end of last month's post, and I'll keep it short and sweet. People, Aliza and I are having a hard time keeping up with the posting schedule as it stands now. After the departure of Daniel almost a year ago and the recent stepping down of Arbitribe co-founder Joanna, it's down to just the two of us. The bi-monthly rotation we're currently running on is extremely difficult to keep up with given the time demands of work and school, and it will not get any easier just because the semester ends in three weeks. I'm working and going to school in the summer and Aliza will be working full time. In the fall, she'll be starting her Master's at NYU (YAY!!) and I'll be finishing up my Bachelor's and preparing for/taking the GREs. The way things are now, we'll have to choose between keeping up with the regular schedule, and writing posts that are up to our usual par (music choices and cartoons take time and thought, you know). However, we do take pride in what we do and we would like to continue running this in a professional...ish manner.

So, general announcement: we're looking for some regular contributors. Two would help us get back to our original numbers, which would be preferable, but even getting one more would be awesome. To that end, we have devised a process to help us do that. We've sectioned every third week off as Guest Post Week, and anyone who is interested in writing something can send it in. If it is deemed relevant and appropriate, we will put it up on Guest Post Week.

In addition, we've created a sort of audition process for anyone who is interested in becoming a full-time contributor. The long and short of it is that you'll be featured on Guest Post Week several times and, given a positive response, consistently good product, and timeliness, you could be the newest member of Arbitribe, which will lead to happiness, appreciation, and maybe some actual perks once we get on that expansion we've been working toward for so long.

Seriously though, if you want an open forum to express ideas and engage in thoughtful discussion, get in touch with either one of us personally (if you know our contact info) or via our email, arbitribe@yahoo.com.

Write for us. It's fuuuuuuuuuuun :)

And, because I can, Song of the Day: Move Through Me - In Flames

A Crisis of Connection

Heaven help us, I have a theme.

Normally I have no idea of what I’m going to write until the week I’m going to write it, and even when there are exceptions it’s usually only a week or two in advance. However, I was introduced to a piece of literature over the weekend that has given me ammo for at least the next year of posting. The story goes as follows:

Last weekend I was made aware of an online journal that launched its maiden issue last fall called Klal Perspectives. There have thus far been three issues, the third of which came out a week ago, ranging from 76 to 150 pages apiece. The journal’s mission statement, as stated on its website and in its first issue, is to provide a forum for discussion by both rabbinic and non-rabbinic leaders to address the greatest problems deemed to be plaguing the modern Torah community. The twist is that the contributors are asked not only to discuss the problems but also to provide possible solutions.

The procedure is simple: the editorial staff of the magazine comes up with three or four questions on a specific topic and sends them to the contributors along with a brief introduction. The contributors then write articles answering the questions to the best of their ability and then the responses are published one after the other. The introduction and questions that were sent to the contributors precede the articles, and a forward written by the editor briefly outlining the issue and introducing its contributors precedes that. The whole thing is capped off by a cover page sporting the title, the names of the contributors and their articles, and the tagline, “A Forum for Discussion of Challenges Facing the Torah Community.”

The first issue, titled "Challenges Facing Modern Orthodoxy: A Symposium,” is pretty brilliant in that the questions asked to the contributors all boil down into the basic query, “What do you think are the major challenges facing the modern Torah community?” The editors don’t presume to know what the problems are, and that modesty is endearing. It is far too often that people assume that they know why the Jewish community as a whole is going through a crisis of faith, and usually their suggestions are based on their personal biases. Rabbis that blame everything on the legalization of gay marriage, the internet, and secular education, I’m looking at you. However, as much as I despise that kind of behavior, those guys are at least a step ahead of those that refuse to acknowledge that we as a community have a problem to begin with. On that note, I give major credit to managing editor Rabbi Dovid Goldman and Co. for going right out there and basing this entire endeavor on such a controversial thought. The idea of Jews actually confronting their demons is such a novel idea as to make the concept of this publication exciting, which, come to think of it, is a pretty sad commentary on the state of Jewish introspection. However, all things considered, I'm thrilled that this thing even exists.

The second issue came out sometime during the winter (they organize these by season, so I have no idea when they actually came out) and is titled “The 21^st-century Orthodox Jewish Family: The Role of Breadwinner.” Its overall theme is the changing role of women in the Orthodox Jewish family now that they want to work full-time jobs and are often required to due to financial problems, a situation totally unheard of as recently as the 1950s. That’s an extremely sensitive subject and I’m not going anywhere within 100 miles of it. I’m not even going to offer an opinion; you’ll just have to guess what I think.

With approximately 200 pages of rich, well thought out dialogue on interesting and oft ignored topics, I highly recommend you go look up issues #1 and #2 on the Klal Perspectives website, which I have linked to again for your convenience. I have not done so yet, but I plan to as soon as I have the time. However, first I want to tackle issue #3, the issue I discovered last week and the focus of the not-so-miniseries that this post serves as an introduction to. There are two reasons I’m skipping straight to #3. The first is pretty simple: it’s the issue that introduced me to the journal and I’m already halfway done reading it. Understanding the second reason takes an understanding of what those 150 pages are about. The title of issue #3 is a short and powerful “A Crisis of Connection?” and the issue explores the idea of whether we Jews are, as a global community, experiencing a crisis in the degree of our religious fulfillment and, if so, why that is and how to fix it. Anyone who knows me personally or reads this blog regularly knows that this is a subject very close to my heart and one that I’m very passionate about. Until as recently as 2 years ago, I lived in a crisis of connection, so it makes sense that of the three existing issues of Klal Perspectives, this would be the one I would first want to explore in detail.

I propose this: There are 20 “chapters” in the Spring 2012 Klal Perspectives issue if you include the foreword and the introduction, and I’m going to take Arbitribe through all of them; each time I post from now until I'm done, I’m going to opine on one of those chapters. Now, since that some articles are 15 pages and some are 5, I might not be able to work every single one into its own post, and I am leaving open the possibility that something could come up that I'll feel I’d rather post about in a given week, so I aim to have completed this series somewhere close to the end of the year. I think it would be a good running topic and it definitely could create some interesting conversations. Speaking of which, the way this is going to run means that it will be much more impactful and meaningful if there’s a back and forth generated. I see great potential for some amazing discussions in the comments, so if you have something constructive to say, say it. On that note, I’m off. In three weeks, I begin to tackle A Crisis of Connection by taking a look at the editor’s forward and introduction and some seriously loaded statements contained within. Till next time folks, GET EXCITED!!

Song of the Day: Money, It’s Pure Evil - Bigelf

20 Awesome Things About Shabbat

Ahh, Shabbat. My favorite day of the week. And so underappreciated sometimes. I don’t know about you, but I’m certain I’d be an insane wreck by now if not for my weekly respite from technology and work-related worries. And when I hear people complain about two more hours without a computer, or see a texting teenager stake their claim on a “half-shabbos” (don’t get me started), then all I want to do is counter with every great thing about keeping Shabbat.

So, I thought, why not?

While these are certainly not the only great things about Shabbat, they are pretty awesome. And anyway, who’s going to read a countdown list with more than 20 entries? This is the internet, after all.

1. A daylong rest from technology in such a machine-driven world is good for us. In some cases (after really crazy weeks in front of a computer, say) it can make us human again. At least, temporarily.

2. Shabbat gives us an excuse to visit or host friends and their friends, thus offering an opportunity to meet new people in a NON-awkward setting. Also, a Shabbat meal is a much better tool for keeping in touch than Facebook ever was.

3. When was the last time you sat down with your whole family and talked about your week? If you can remember at all, I’m betting it was Shabbat. It’s certainly the only time I can think of when the whole Mishpacha sits down together. It’s the closest I'll get to starring in a 1950’s board game commercial.

4. It not only gets us AWAY from our screens (see #1), but it gets us to do other things we push aside in favor of the almighty computer during the week. Things like reading a book, chatting with roommates and siblings, taking a walk and discovering your own neighborhood.

You know that’s happened to you.

5. I don’t care what you say, this rule holds fast. You DON’T GAIN WEIGHT ON SHABBAT. Shabbat is a time for dessert, wine, good food made with heavy cream or red meat (not together, of course, Kosher keepers!). Ask any girl, and they’ll tell you.

Shabbat makes you impervious to pounds.

6. This one’s courtesy of my sis, who is so right about this. On Shabbat, NO ONE FROM WORK CAN BOTHER YOU. No phone calls, no “send me that last report,” no “maybe I’ll just take care of this memo.” Stressed about typing up something due on Monday? Whoops! Too bad, you’ll just have to worry about it later and calm the heck down for now. Seriously. When you work, or you go to school, or commute all day, it’s a literal Godsend to have a day where not only can you NOT WORK, but you can’t even get phone calls or emails about work. According to many, you can’t even DISCUSS work. God, I love Shabbat.

7. SLEEP. SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP. Oh, Blessed unconsciousness, how I heart thee. 

SLEEP :-) I love it so much it compels me to use emoticons in a blog with hand-drawn cartoons.

8. When you can’t turn the lights on in your bedroom at the end of the day,  you are sometimes forced to stumble around in the dark. Yes, it’s annoying, but have you ever considered what it can do for your senses? It can make you more aware! Train you! Heighten every instinct and turn you into an unparalleled sensory MACHINE!

Did I mention some of these entries are less serious than others?

9. Totally serious now: it puts us back in touch with our spirituality. Personally, I sometimes mourn our disconnect with spirituality in our modern, ultra-tech, constant entertainment world. Don’t get me wrong, I like to watch a movie and listen to some stupid music (SOME stupid music), but at the end of the day, I like to crawl into my private cocoon of spirituality, and think about my relationship with God, and talk about things like my soul, and sing some repetitive Carlebach. And no time is better for getting reacquainted with our own sense of spirit than Friday night, when Lecha Dodi gets us to listen to the songs, sing along, and not just acknowledge our spiritual side, but even revel in it.

10. It exposes us to the cultures of other Jews and allows us to show our non-Jewish or non-observant friends a bit of our traditions. A friend of mine likes to invite her friends, Jew and non-Jew alike to her Shabbat meals, to show what it is we do and include those who haven’t seen it before. One of her non-Jewish friends likes it so much he comes back repeatedly for more. It’s nice. It’s interesting. Going to Shabbat meals is how I learn about the traditions of my Sephardic, Dutch, Israeli, Russian, Syrian friends.  If not for Shabbat, I would never know that one of my best friend’s family likes to make their guests stand on a chair at the end of the meal and bless everyone present. Seeing people’s personal traditions is super cool.

And I love learning this stuff, and sharing my own Hungarian Shabbat with them.

11. Shabbat gets longer in the summer, shorter in the winter. It makes us more aware than anything else of the changing of the seasons, and the changing of nature and the world. I’m sensing a pattern growing here, don’t you? Shabbat makes us AWARE.

12. Once a week, it totally kills the “Jews and money” stereotype. No business talk. No buying things. It’s a wonderful way to stick it to stereotypes. Now if only we could transfer than invalidity of the Jew-greed thing to the rest of the week, the world would be a different place. We might not be so despised on Wall Street. Comedians would suddenly find themselves short on material.

Yes, especially the Jewish ones.

13. It gives us an excuse to shower and in all other ways clean up. Or, if you prefer, it FORCES us to shower and in all other ways clean up. And if you agree with the latter, to you I say, thank GOD something is forcing you! I mean, really. Ew! Who knows? If not for Shabbat, some of us might be bigger slobs than we already are.

14. It allows us major food snobs to show off our cooking skills to a crowd eager for food. 

Or… it forces friends of us food snobs to sit there while we show off our food snobbery. And to you friends of mine I say, if you’re gonna eat it, you’re gonna have to hear its story first. (Evil food snob smile)

15. STEP AWAY FROM THE TV. You can get just as much drama around the Shabbat table. Sometimes even more drama.

And if you have as little stomach for fighting as I do, that drama will be “Real” enough to put you off the gross manufactured drama of reality shows for the rest of the week, thus saving you a couple hundred brain cells.

16. It not only gives us an excuse/ forces us to be clean once a week, it also gives us a reason to buy nice clothes, and maybe put more of an effort into our appearance in general. If you didn’t have a reason to wear nice shoes or a nice suit, you may not buy those things at all. And then you wouldn’t be compelled to wear them any other time.  And so you might only ever buy nice things to wear to weddings. Which might lower your self esteem the rest of the time. And YES I know I took this way out of the bounds of realism into the realm of the slippery slope, but WHO CARES!? I like my nice Shabbat clothes!

17.  Did I mention the food? I did? Okay, the WINE? The fact that we are encouraged to drink, maybe try some new wines, PLUS we’re given the gift of not having to go to work the day after? 

(I’m not encouraging drunkenness here, but if you’re gonna get plastered, I’m so glad not to have to sit next to you on the train the next morning.)

18.  If you go to Shul, it makes you join a community. It makes you have a SENSE of community. Which may sometimes be more of an irritant than a happy pill, but in our disconnected age this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

19. Without a cell phone, you can’t call ahead to say you’ll be stopping by. Erego, Shabbat makes life more like a sitcom by reintroducing us to the lost art of showing up unannounced. 

Now if only we could work on getting that laugh track…

20. It makes us, and everything we associate with this day, SPECIAL.

Are You on the List?

Administrative Note: Below is a post written by someone very close to my heart, my sister Yael. Aliza and I have a lot on our plates on a daily basis, not to mention posting twice a month, which is more work than it sounds like, so Yael graciously volunteered to guest post this week so that Aliza and I can use our vacation to to actually, you know, relax. Muchas gracias amica. Hope you enjoy -Tzvi

Note: I don’t have any solid or definitive sources for what I’m going to discuss. Most of this is based on my own opinions and the opinions of others and what we already know of how Judaism generally works. If anyone knows more or has any other ideas, by all means, please share.

I’ll get right to the point. A very good friend of mine was telling me the other day about how she was really starting to fall for this guy from college. He’s sweet, adorable, charming, they connect with each other in every possible way, they clicked instantly, and he’s everything she ever could’ve hoped to find in a man. But wait, there’s more!

He’s also not Jewish.

Crap.

There are certain aspects of Judaism that, for whatever reason, are considered more flexible than others and aren’t looked at as harshly in most communities; Shomer Negiah, Tzniut, etc. And then there are those that more or less draw the line in terms of whether or not a person is viewed as a religious Orthodox Jew, such as Shabbat and Kashrut. For the most part, these are the things that don’t require as much effort or inner turmoil or decision making. I don’t often see someone who was raised in a religious home tearing their hair out about whether or not he or she is going to use their phone this weekend. And from what I’ve seen, dating and especially marrying a non-Jew is included on that list. It’s a no-brainer. I do know a few people here and there who have gone out and done this, but at the same time they’ve also removed Judaism entirely from their lives in every other way as well. Unless you’re at a point where none of it matter to you anymore, you want nothing to do with it, and you don’t care to be associated with it, marrying someone “not of The Tribe” is usually out of the question no matter what you feel about that person.

And then my friend asked a question that I didn’t know how to answer and had never even occurred to me before: Do you think God would ever make your Bashert (your soulmate, so to speak) someone who isn’t Jewish?

Well, gee, I have no idea what God would or wouldn’t do. But is that even possible? Would that fit in at all with what the Torah says about this concept? The idea that it could even happen made me angry, because why would God do that to you? And we’re not talking about marrying someone right after they converted because generally those people at least had their foot out the door towards Judaism before said relationship. I’m talking straight-up not Jewish with no intention of ever changing that. Could this happen? And this is what started me on my quest for what the actual definition of a Bashert is. Here’s what Dictionary.com came up with: “a person’s soulmate, considered as predestined or ideal,” the literal translation of the Yiddish word being “destiny” or “fate.” I’ve always seen this idea as having two options: a) its referring to your soulmate, meaning the person who is perfect for you and compliments your personality in every way, or b) simply the person that God picked out for you to end up with. Because with that in mind it would seem then that your “soulmate” and the person that God picked out for you could potentially be entirely mutually exclusive.

In the words of some high authorities in Torah, your soulmate and your predestined spouse could be the same person, but they could also not.

It’s confusing, I know, but please just bear with me. I did a lot of questioning, teeth grinding, and producing of frustrated growls to get to the point where I could actually discuss this and I still have so much more to ask.

According to a certain medrash my Rabbi told me about (I’m sorry, I don’t know which one or where to find it), forty days before conception the name of a baby’s soulmate is called out in the heavens. This is the name of the person who could slip into your life and fit with you as naturally as breathing. HOWEVER, this does not necessarily mean that you will absolutely without a doubt end up with said person. It is still our job to find them and we still have free choice. All of the actions we take and the decisions we make and the paths we choose could either bring us towards or drive us away from that future, and it wouldn’t mean that we were never meant to find that person, just that we didn’t. But the source goes on to say that there are several other layers of Bashert. This matches up with the opinion of a different friend of mine who believes that a great factor in someone being your Bashert is about time and place. She says that for every stage of your life there is a different person who could match up with you perfectly, and if you or that person changes in some way then suddenly there is someone else who could fit better. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that idea somewhere before and to an extent I believe it. I’ve heard tens of stories about couples who break up for very good reasons and then somehow find themselves in each other’s lives again years later and, voila!, everything is going swimmingly now. And they always say about their first try, “It just wasn’t our time to be together.”

The medrash mentioned above says that there are indeed other people out there on different levels depending on your stage in life or your ever-shifting personality that, if you were to marry any of them, would still be considered Bashert. But there is still only one true soulmate that was literally created for you. And on top of all of that, it’s considered extremely rare to ever find that person, let alone end up with them, and the chances of it are depressingly infinitesimally small.

So, technically, you could marry your “Bashert” while your real soulmate is still floating around in the world somewhere without you. Probably the biggest struggle for me right now is coming to terms with that and not letting it affect or get in the way of any relationship or potential happiness that I could have in my future.

Ah, but what’s this? Don’t we learn all the time that everything happens for a reason and it’s all part of the Master Plan? Isn’t that how we comfort ourselves when we make mistakes, find ourselves lost in situations we wish we could escape from, deal with pain, deal with loss, and convince ourselves that no matter what this was MEANT TO BE? I know I have. Way more times than I am particularly proud of, but hey, it’s gotten me through some pretty tough times.

This sort of thinking allows for the belief that ANYONE we may choose to be with is our Bashert because it wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t meant to be, right? (But please, I beg of you, don’t make me start getting into the intricacies of free choice and how it coincides with this concept, I’m really only focusing on this one area and how it applies here). This seemingly outright contradiction has been infuriating me for days, but there is a Hebrew saying in the Gemara that finally eased my suffering a bit: “Ha’ba l’tahmay potchin lo, ha’ba l’taheir misayim lo,” meaning that one who comes towards sin will be opened to, and one who comes towards goodness will be accompanied. This refers to the metaphorical idea that for every action there is a door with angels guarding it. If it is a door of sin the angles will block it, but if you knock hard enough they will simply open the door for you and allow you to pass. And if it is a door of goodness then not only will the angels let you through, but they will also guide you onto that path and help you accomplish whatever it is.

In terms of what we’re talking about here, mainly marriage and relationships, there are people that exist outside of your “Bashert at Stage X of My Life” list that you should never ever be with in any scenario. The idea mentioned above applies here in the sense that if you begin to take that direction with someone not on that list, you are more likely to encounter obstacles and complications throughout your relationship, as opposed to when you take that direction with someone God intended for you and (normal relationship issues aside) things run fairly smoothly.

So here is where I will finally tie all of this back to what I originally started with. Considering how difficult it would be to build a relationship consisting of similar ideals with, live with, and raise a family with someone who isn’t Jewish if you are in fact still religious, I have to believe that God would never create the soulmate designed perfectly for you as someone it is pretty much impossible to ever be with. I honestly don’t know what kind of comfort this would be to my friend or anyone else who has fallen in love with someone they can never have under any sort of circumstances if they plan on maintaining their lifestyle. But at the very least, if it was me, I would be happy to know that this is simply a result of certain decisions and actions that I and this other person took that led us to meet each other, and that God is not in fact setting out to torture me.

At the end of the day, all we can do is hope to find someone incredible with whom we can grow and share a life in the best way possible, and pray that they’re on the list.

Yael