Posts Tagged Jewish History

Feast or Famine: Music in Jewish Life and History Part II

Posted by admin in Jewish Knowledge, JPS Books on May 12, 2010

Today’s guest blogger is Dr. Marsha Bryan Edelman, author of Discovering Jewish Music. This is the second installment of  Dr. Edelman’s two part series on music’s role in Jewish history. Click here to read part 1.

http://www.milkenarchive.org

When massive immigration from Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries brought millions of Jews to American shores, these “new” attitudes toward music came along.  And as the Jews prospered, so, too, did their music.  In American Reform congregations, synagogue choirs sang newly composed music on a regular basis. Orthodox synagogues continued (to this day) to reject the notion of accompanied rituals, but music flourished there, too, during what became known as a “Golden Age of Hazzanut” (cantorial chant).  Virtuoso cantors accompanied by choirs of men and boys inspired great devotion in the throngs who marveled in their spiritual labors in the synagogue. The new recording industry took full advantage of the popularity of cantorial music, turning gifted liturgical singers into overnight sensations every bit as popular as the actors whose names were emblazoned on the marquees of the Yiddish theaters.

The Jewish musical feasting available to early 20th century listeners never turned quite to auditory famine, but the menu of music available to connoisseurs underwent a substantial change as the new immigrants gradually assimilated American cultural styles and liturgical practices.  Still, the music we hear today bears the spiritual stamp of generations past who sought to infuse the richness of Jewish music into their lives.  Whether it is the melodies of Shlomo Carlebach chanted in today’s Modern Orthodox minyanim or the popularity of the guitar-accompanied niggunim that begin services in liberal synagogues, the spiritual values of Hassidic music continue to play a role across the denominational spectrum.  At the same time, composed music, by contemporary singer-songwriters, offer a rich menu of selections for liturgical offerings as well as concerts and recordings. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you can sample the vast variety of domestic and even international offerings on websites for every taste.

There are still moments of musical famine on the Jewish calendar.  In traditional communities, the introspective seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot are a period marked by a lull in public musical performances.  The three weeks leading to Tisha B’Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple, are also marked by an absence of music from daily life and communal celebration.  But these brief periods of abstinence are just an opportunity for us to regain our appetites for the smorgasbord of Jewish music that awaits us as we turn the page of the calendar.  Happy are we, in the 21st century, for whom there is no end to the delights of Jewish music.

For more information on Jewish music, check out the following sites:

Dr. Marsha Bryan Edelman is Professor Emerita of Music and Education at Gratz College.  A musician herself, active as a singer, conductor, arranger and producer, she has also served the Zamir Choral Foundation in a variety of musical and administrative capacities since 1971. Marsha has taught and lectured on a variety of topics relating to the nature and history of Jewish music for nearly 40 years, and published a long list of articles and program notes for concerts and recordings and recordings, including a highly regarded book, Discovering Jewish Music (Jewish Publication Society 2003; paper 2007).

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Feast or Famine: Music in Jewish Life and History Part I

Posted by admin in Jewish Knowledge, JPS Books on May 7, 2010

Today’s guest blogger is Dr. Marsha Bryan Edelman, author of Discovering Jewish Music. This is the first installment of  Dr. Edelman’s two part series on music’s role in Jewish history. Click here to read part 2.

There’s a popular synopsis of Jewish history that says “They tried to kill us. We prevailed.  Let’s eat!”  This tendency toward gorging is balanced (somewhat) by the six fast days on the Jewish calendar, all of which leaves us with a “feast or famine” approach to Jewish holidays – and eating.

This “all or nothing” mentality can also be applied to the history of Jewish music.  In the days of the Jerusalem Temple, music was an elaborate and essential component of Jewish rituals.  The Temple orchestra was comprised of at least 12 harps and lyres of various sizes and enhanced with trumpets, finger cymbals and the jingling of the bells sown onto the hem of the high priest’s garments.  No fewer than 12 Levites sang in chorus, chanting psalms to accompany the sacrifices.  As the 150th psalm itself testifies, the presence of a variety of instruments (used both in Temple rites and secular celebrations) were necessary for praising God, and the human voice, uniquely able to articulate specific praises, was the most highly prized of all.

All of that elaborate musical activity came to an end when the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE.  The rabbis marked the national mourning for their lost ritual center (and political autonomy) by imposing a ban on the public performance of music.  They obviously couldn’t monitor the informal singing of lullabies and work songs, but public use of instruments was limited to wedding celebrations and festivities surrounding the inauguration of a new synagogue or Torah scroll.  Even synagogue singing was limited to perfunctory chants by the sheliach tzibbur (representative of the community who led the prayers) and brief responses by the congregation.  Remarkably, that ban held for the better part of 1800 years! There were isolated examples of art music written for synagogue services and life cycle celebrations during the 16th – 18th centuries, but the overwhelming response to the Diaspora experience was a decided lack of formal musical accompaniment, despite the evolution and prominence of music all around us.

The Educational Program on Yiddish Culture

Two very different developments changed the course of Jewish music in Ashkenazic communities, and led to the proliferation of Jewish music that we hear in the US today.  The first was the re-insertion of “joy” into Eastern European Jewish life through the popular philosophy of the Hassidic movement.  The Ba’al Shem Tov (ca. 1700 – 1760) used the wordless melody, the nig’n, to express Jewish emotions in song.  Precisely because it was without text, the nig’n could be sung at any tempo, and could capture – or change – any mood.  Whether devoted to achieving dveykut (spiritual communion with God), dancing, or punctuating a rabbinic discourse with lively pounding on the rebbe’s tish (table), Hassidic songs captivated the masses, and enabled even the least educated Jew to express devotion to God and insert positive energy into Jewish life.

In Western Europe, the offer of citizenship put a formal end to the stateless wandering of the Jews.  The new Reform movement refocused Jewish prayer away from mourning for the loss of Jerusalem and upended the historic ban on synagogue music inspired by the destruction of the Temple.  Newly composed synagogue repertoire that modeled itself on the music of the church (complete with organ accompaniment) brought Jewish liturgical music into the Modern era.  Conservatory-trained musicians provided cantorial recitatives and choral works, and congregants added the singing of hymns to their role as active participants in musical worship.

Dr. Marsha Bryan Edelman is Professor Emerita of Music and Education at Gratz College.  A musician herself, active as a singer, conductor, arranger and producer, she has also served the Zamir Choral Foundation in a variety of musical and administrative capacities since 1971. Marsha has taught and lectured on a variety of topics relating to the nature and history of Jewish music for nearly 40 years, and published a long list of articles and program notes for concerts and recordings and recordings, including a highly regarded book, Discovering Jewish Music (Jewish Publication Society 2003; paper 2007).

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Lost, But Not Forgotten

Posted by admin in JPS Books on May 5, 2010

Biblical Archaeology Review

Last week, the New York Times reported that the ancient city of Aleppo, Syria had just laid out plans for a major historical restoration. Coincidentally, Aleppo is the setting of our latest book due out this week: Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex by Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider. The book tells the incredible story of the Aleppo Codex, the most authoritative and accurate traditional Masoretic texts of the Bible. Because of its importance, it became known as the Crown of Aleppo. It traveled through Jerusalem and Cairo before finding a home at the Great Synagogue of Aleppo, Syria, where it remained until the synagogue was burned down in 1947. The Crown was believed to be lost forever, but it was discovered that most of it survived when it was smuggled into Israel in 1958 and later brought to its current home at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

The Crown of Aleppo is not the only historical text that was thought to be lost. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of about 850 manuscripts, categorized as biblical, apocryphal, or sectarian, dating back to 250 B.C.E. through 68 C.E. They were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in Qumran, located on Dead Sea’s northwestern shores. Many scholars believe that the scrolls were written by a sect of Jews called the Essenes, who settled in the Judean Desert and disappeared after the Romans destroyed their settlements in 68 C.E. The Dead Sea Scrolls are now displayed in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum located in Jerusalem.

A couple years ago, Geraldine Brooks published the award-winning People of the Book, a fictional history of a real text, the Sarajevo Haggadah. The Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the oldest Sephardic Haggadahs, was written in Barcelona around 1350. After the Spanish Expulsion in 1492 it was brought to Sarajevo. The Haggadah reappeared in 1894, when was sold to the National Museum in Sarajevo. Notes written in the margins of the book have given historians clues about the book’s travels during the 300 years the book was missing.  During World War II, the Haggadah was hidden from the Nazis by the museum’s librarian who smuggled it out of Sarajevo and brought it to a Muslim cleric to hide. Then, in the 1990s, the Haggadah disappeared again during the Bosnian civil war, when the museum was broken into. It was rediscovered in 1995 and has been on permanent display in the museum since 2002 thanks to the help of the United Nations and the Jewish community of Bosnia.

These texts have been crucial in our knowledge of Jewish history. In many ways they are like the Jewish people. They have overcome war and destruction, yet they still stand strong today as a source of inspiration for us and for future generations.

For more information on the Crown of Aleppo: http://www.aleppocodex.org/

To read an article about author Dr. Hayim Tawil: http://spider.mc.yu.edu/news/articles/article.cfm?id=102020

-Jill Finkelstein

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Israel Literary Roundup

Posted by admin in Link Roundup on April 20, 2010

While I sat down to write an Israel-themed blog post, I couldn’t help but get distracted by all the great messages and resources circulating on Twitter from the past two days. There were so many gems that I figured it’s the perfect time for a literary roundup Israel style!

Yesterday marked Yom HaZikaron, Israel Memorial Day, in which we mourn the loss of the 22,684 who have fallen since Israel was founded in 1948. Yom HaZikaron begins at sundown the night before. In Israel, two sirens are blasted: one at 8:00pm on the preceding evening to mark the beginning of the observance and the other at 11:00am to mark the opening of the official ceremonies. During these sirens, Israelis stop everything, even driving, and stand in silence as a sign of respect.

Thanks to Jewlicious, you can watch a video filmed of Israelis in Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda market during yesterday’s siren blast.

Tamar Fox discuses the difference between how Americans and Israelis observe their respective Memorial Days in MyJewishLearning’s Mixed Multitude blog.

Jewish Ideas Daily’s article, “Remembering the Fallen, and Why They Fell,” explains how the theme of death and loss has “come to be reflected in poetic texts and liturgies” and “evolved in Israeli and Jewish consciousness.”

Jewish Treats reflects on the theme of Jews and War and looks at military references from the Bible.

As soon as Yom HaZikaron ended last night, we began celebrating Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. Today marks 62 years since Israel declared independence in 1948. The occasions were scheduled back to back to remind Jews what we’ve had to sacrifice to gain independence as we transition from sadness to joy.

I was excited when I read a tweet from AIPAC stating, “At its birth in 1948, #Israel had 806,000 people. On the eve of its 62nd Independence Day, Israel has a population of 7,587,000.” It’s impressive to see how far Israel has come over 62 challenging years.

Aish.com also shares an incredible video called Israel: Defying the Odds about Israel’s accomplishments.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrates two miracles in his address to the Diaspora Jews yesterday. The uplifting speech can be read at The Jerusalem Post.

Lastly, in his personal blog, Menachem Mendel features a variety of liturgical responses in celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut over the years.

The Jewish Publication Society wishes Israel a happy 62nd birthday and we hope you have a wonderful Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration!

-Jill Finkelstein

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Teaching the Holocaust

Posted by admin in Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge, JPS History on April 9, 2010

Prior to working for JPS, I taught Hebrew School throughout my 4 years in college. I switched grades a few times but stayed within the K-2nd age range. For me, one of the hardest topics to teach students that young was the Holocaust.

When I was younger, facts about the Holocaust were gradually exposed. I probably knew a little more than other kids because my parents told me when I was little that my grandmother was a survivor. She sailed to the US in 1940 from Wuppertal, Germany with her brothers and arrived just a couple weeks before her 6th birthday. I knew she had been adopted because her parents had to stay behind and never made it out. I can’t remember exactly what I learned at what age, but I remember certain books I read before I turned 10 such as A Picture Book of Anne Frank and Terrible Things (coincidently published by JPS), which both used age appropriate descriptions. While one book tells one recount of the Holocaust, the other teaches a lesson about standing up to discrimination. I took both approaches when teaching the Holocaust to my students. I revealed only as much as I thought was appropriate and turned the lesson into how we can deal with discrimination. I was always impressed by the advanced level of their responses. Some of my students knew a lot of specifics and would want to discuss them with the class, but I would have to cut them off and let them share their thoughts with me privately if I felt that the information was more than some of the other students to handle.

While we want to protect the innocence of our children, it’s not as easy as it used to be. Today, kids are exposed to a lot more information than I was as a kid now that the internet is so easily accessible.

In addition, more parents now want their children to be aware of their communities and global issues at a younger age. The situation begs the question: how do we teach our young students about the Holocaust and how much is too much? While this question has been asked so many times and schools have their own Holocaust curriculums, maybe the solution isn’t as rigid as it used to be. How can we as teachers and Jewish educators adapt to the changing trends?

-Jill Finkelstein

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There are many Holocaust Education Centers, museums, and teaching aids for educators, including this one: http://holocausteducationctr.org/ and the clearinghouse for all Holocaust organizations, the AHO: http://www.ahoinfo.org/
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Reviving the Classics

Posted by Alx in Jewish Books, Jewish Innovation, Jewish Knowledge, JPS Books on January 28, 2010

We’re going back to basics! As a part of our spring 2010 collection, we have re-launched five of JPS’s classic books! These classic books are for readers of all ages, and we hope that by bringing them back to the shelves, readers will be reminded of some timeless ideas that are essential to Judaism.

Lessons learned in these classic books carry as much weight as ever, containing information that, believe it or not, may be directly applicable to our lives today.

Here is a list of JPS works revived in 2010:

  1. Judaism as a Civilization by Mordecai Kaplan

This book introduced a new way of looking at Judaism, and is considered the origin of the Reconstructionist Movement. Kaplan felt that all Jews – traditional and liberal, religious and secular – could play a part in this “reconstruction.”

2. Book of Tradition by Abraham ibn Daud (author) and Gerson D. Cohen (translator)

This epic on Jewish history from ancient times to the 12th century eulogized Spanish Jewry and reminded readers of a once-thriving culture. No one before had ever attempted to write such a broad history of Jewish civilization, and this unique book is one of the first examples of Jewish historiography

3. Genesis: The Beginning of Desire by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, Ph.D.

This epic breathes new life into the stories of Adam and Even, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob and Essau, Rachel, and Joseph. Zornberg brings biblical, midrashic, and literary sources together, illuminating the tensions that grip human beings as they search for an encounter God

4. The Life of Gluckel of Hameln  by Beth-Zion Abrahams

Gluckel of Hameln’s memoir is widely viewed as one of the earliest major works written by a Jewish woman and has become a classic. This JPS book is the only English translation of Gluckel’s story from the original Yiddish and is widely considered the most accurate and complete translation available

5. Modern Poems on the Bible  by David Curzon

This is a collection of imaginative and engaging contemporary responses to the Bible. Guided by the classic rabbinic genre of midrash conceived 1,500 years ago, Curzon chooses poems from Jewish and non-Jewish writers alike and places them besides the biblical passages that were their inspiration.

After all, Albert Einstein once said: “Somebody who reads only newspapers and at best the books of contemporary authors’ looks to me like an extremely nearsighted person who scorns eyeglasses.” We’ve certainly learned a lesson or two from Albert, so perhaps we should take his advice!

-Emily

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Think You Know Everything About Judaism? Think Again!

Posted by Sarah in Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge, JPS Books on January 11, 2010

Mara W. Cohen Ioannides, author of the JPS book A Shout in the Sunshine, guest blogs for JPS about the many forgotten cultures within Judaism.

Jews often forget that we are a multi-cultural community. American Jews, I believe, are particularly guilty of this, which is quite amazing considering the quilt of cultures we wrap ourselves in. We view American Jewishness as Yiddishkeit, and forget about the other ethnic groups that make up the community of Jews, like Yemini, Sephardi, etc. Before you pooh-pooh this idea, list Jewish ethnic food. Did you list: matzah balls, bagels, pastrami, rye bread, mandel brot, challah, or honey cake? Then you are an Eastern European ethnic Jew. What ever happened to humus, lahana, or halvah?

I grew up at a time when Sephardic Jews were only mentioned in history books (and I lived an hour from Mikveh Israel in the historic district of Philadelphia) and the only books for children about American Jewish children were the All of a Kind Family series. I loved those books, mostly because I imagined my grandmothers and their sisters as those girls. However, as I grew up I really wondered about all those other Jews. I wanted to know what Jews all over the world were like and there weren’t really books about them.

When I became a mother of a daughter with a Greek father, I desperately wanted her to know all of her history. I could find nothing for children about Greek Jewry. This began my series of novels. We know that Jews lived throughout history in almost every part of the world, but we don’t really understand what their lives were like. Here’s my pick of books for young and old that should get you started on seeing another part of Jewish culture:

1. I Remember Rhodes by Rebecca Amato Levy is a wonderful book of the author’s reminiscences about her childhood in the pre-Holocaust Jewish quarter of Rhodes. It is filled with celebrations, sayings, and songs. You can read it in English or Ladino! This woman was a foundation of the Rhodalisi community in California and started me on my interest in Greek Jewry.

2. Zayda Was a Cowboy by June Levitt Nislick, who would have thought? No, I’m serious. One of my grandfathers was a factory worker and the other, a postal worker, both lived in Brooklyn. Who had Jewish grandfathers who were cowboys? Never underestimate a children’s book. They may be short, but the story is just as good.

3. The Book of Jewish Food: An odyssey from Samarkand to New York by Claudia Roden was another inspiration for me. Anyone who has read my book knows there is an incredible amount of food in it. Every Jewish holiday is about food, even the fast days. My rabbi says that every time she reads my book she gets hungry. If you want to try making the food in my novel, get this book! This cookbook is amazing! The stories about the recipes are just as yummy as the recipes themselves.

4. The Life of Glückel of Hameln is a classic in women’s and Jewish studies. I love reading this memoir begun in 1690 by Glückel, a widow and mother of 14. Yes, I know, it is about an Eastern European Jew, but how many memoirs by women of this period are there? And how often do you get to read about life in the early 18th century. This book is part of the canon and should be on everyone shelves, just like Sydney Taylor’s books.

5. Rashi’s Daughters: Rachel, the third in Maggie Anton’s series, is another powerful look at cultural diversity. In this finale, Rachel’s husband lives in both France and Spain and there are few books where the comparison between the golden ages of the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim are so dynamically paralleled. I was especially intrigued by the internal conflicts of husband and wife over the question of polygamy, which was practiced by the Sephardim and not the Ashkenazi.

Have I reached my five? There are so many good books out there. I could write for days about the books I have sitting on my shelves and those I wish I did. Whatever you do, don’t forget to get yourselves some excellent CDs of music. Sephardic music is much sought after by scholars of medieval Spanish. Did you know that the language still spoken which is closest to medieval Spanish is Ladino? No? All the more reason to take the opportunity to discover the hidden sides of Jewish culture!

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Jews and Christmas music – not such an unlikely mix!

Posted by Naomi in Jewish Knowledge, JPS Books, JPS History, Publishing on December 20, 2009

IrvingBerlin2It’s no secret – I love Christmas music.  I adore it!  Heck, I love it even more than some of my Christian friends do.  You can bet your buttons that when December rolls around, I’m tuning my radio to a 24/7 Christmas music radio station.   And of course, people are always asking me, “Naomi, why do you love Christmas music so much?  Why don’t you find it irritating like the rest of us do?  And… come on, seriously, you’re Jewish!”  True, true.  I suppose there’s something nostalgic about the music, the bells, the thought of chestnuts roasting on an open fire while the weather outside is frightful…

I think that the best answer is probably that there’s no accounting for taste.

That being said, you could argue (though it’s a stretch) that I love Christmas music because much of it was actually written by Jews.  This fun fact is no secret, either.  A recent article from InterFaithFamily.com points out that in this year’s American Society of Composers and Publisher’s 25 Most Popular Holiday Songs list, more than half were composed, co-written, or performed by Jews.  We all knew that Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas”, but did you ever think that “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” would be a member of the tribe?

Well, doesn’t it seem a bit strange that so much of this music has been written by Jews?  Perhaps it’s not so strange if you think about the phenomenon in its historical context – and this is what’s argued by David Lehman, author of A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs. In an October interview with Smithsonian magazine, Lehman explains how between WWI and the mid-1960s, in the wake of the hardships of life in Europe, Jewish songwriters “reinvented America itself as a projection of their ideals of what America could be,” essentially creating a religion of “American-ness”.  Perhaps this is what the holiday songs were all about: the portrayal of a joyful, nostalgic America, centered around hearth and home. They saw America as a place of comfort, and sought to reflect that feeling in their music.

So there you go, that brings it back to the nostalgia argument.  Now that we’ve cleared that up, I’d like to wish you all (in the wake of this recent brutal nor’easter), a wonderful, warm week – and if you’re celebrating it, a lovely, nostalgic Christmas.

Naomi

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The Super Cool, Mega-Awesome List of Jewish Comics

Posted by Sarah in Jewish Books, JPS Books, Publishing on December 16, 2009

Arie Kaplan, JPS author and comic guru, guest blogs for JPS with his recommendations for the best Jewish comics.

Okay. JPS asked me to compile a list of Jewish comics. But what makes a comic “Jewish”? Is it the fact that it was created by a Jewish writer and/or artist? Well, that doesn’t seem fair, does it? Because if you limit it to Jewish comics creators, you leave out so many talented non-Jewish comics creators, like Carl Barks or Alan Moore (Google them). Hmm. But what about a comic that features Jewish characters? Well…I dunno. Does that make the comic book itself somehow “Jewish”? That’s a little odd. Marvel’s X-Men titles feature characters of nearly every race, religion, and sexual orientation. Hmm…Eventually though, I have to make a choice here. So my choice is to NOT make a choice. (That sound you heard is me blowing your mind.) What I’ve done is, I’ve put together a list of either comics that are created by Jews or comics that feature Jewish content. That way, everyone’s happy. Also, I’ve stuck to trade paperbacks in my list, rather than the decidedly slimmer single-issue comics, because TPBs make better stocking stuffers (or, y’know, whatever the Hanukkah equivalent of a stocking stuffer is). Because I have limited space, I’ve picked a mere five books, but don’t think for a minute that these are the only “Jewish Comics” worth mentioning. (And yes, I know I’ve left out a ton of other contenders.) This should suffice as a good “recommended reading” list for the comic book fan on your holiday shopping list:

The Dark Phoenix Saga1. X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga, by Chris Claremont (writer) and John Byrne (penciler): I was a skinny, neurotic Jewish kid who got headaches all the time. So was she. Trouble was, I was real and she was fictional. But somehow we could make it work. Anyway, the “Dark Phoenix Saga” is the X-Men story arc that made me fall in love with Katherine “Kitty” Pryde. And before you laugh at me for lusting after a fictional character, ask yourself how many times you drooled over Wilma Flintstone. What? None of you? Well, uh…neither did I. Moving on…

2. The Sandman: The Wake, by Neil Gaiman (writer), Michael Zulli (artist), Jon J. Muth (artist), Charles Vess (artist): You’d be hard-pressed to find a better meditation on death, dying, and the mourning process than this final story arc in Gaiman’s acclaimed Sandman series. Everything comes full circle in “The Wake,” as the various supporting characters react to the title character’s demise. Perhaps my favorite chapter: “Sunday Mourning,” featuring the immortal Hob Gadling.

3. The New American Splendor Anthology, by Harvey Pekar (writer), Drew Friedman (artist), Frank Stack (artist), Gerry Shamray (artist), Robert Crumb (artist), Alan Moore (artist), and more: Pekar is the king of the autobiographical comics movement, and has been for well over thirty years. Many of the stories in this volume will show you why. In the story “Pa-ayper Reggs!!”, about Jewish rag peddlers in the 1920s, Pekar and artist Robert Crumb conjure up a New York of chocolate phosphates and horse-drawn wagons, a city with one foot firmly planted in the new world and one foot still languishing in the old. Good stuff.

4. The Essential Howard the Duck Volume 1, by Steve Gerber (writer), Gene Colan (artist), Frank Brunner (artist), Sal Buscema (artist), Val Mayerik (artist), and more: Oh sure, laugh. Laugh because the only version of Howard MAD About the Fiftiesthe Duck you’ve seen is that terrible 1986 movie. But really, the comic book series it’s based on is SO GOOD. It satirized everything; sex, religion, politics. And Howard was an interesting character; sarcastic, grumpy, always chomping on a cigar. He reminded me of my grandpa…and, I suspect, he probably reminded a lot of other Jewish kids of their grandpas. He really seemed like an anthropomorphic waterfowl version of a Borscht Belt comic. Was that intentional? Who knows. But we do know that this was one of the best-written comics of the ‘70s.

5. MAD About the Fifties, by Harvey Kurtzman (writer), Will Elder (artist), Jack Davis (artist), Wally Wood (artist), and more: Want to know what MAD looked like in the 1950s? When it was the sharpest, most dead-on humor comic (and later magazine) of the Eisenhower Era? This book is a heady sampler of the first eight years of MAD, including such classic stories as Kurtzman and Wood’s “Superduperman,” a parody of DC Comics’s Superman. In the late ‘50s, various celebrity contributors published work in MAD, among them Ernie Kovacs and Danny Kaye, and their work is included here as well. Also worthy of note: original MAD editor Kurtzman sprinkled his stories with a good dose of Yiddish, often to heighten the comedic effect. One can see evidence of this in the first issue of MAD, which opens on a story about two criminals. The title of the story? “Ganefs” (Yiddish for “thieves”).

Arie Kaplan, a comedian and author, is the writer behind the JPS title From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books – a 2008 National Jewish Book Award Finalist, a 2009 Sophie Brody Honor Book, and a 2009 National “Best Books 2009” Awards Finalist. He has also written numerous comic book scripts. Most recently, Kaplan wrote the short story “Man of Snow,” in which Superman battles a Snow Golem (appropriate, given the theme of “Jewish comics”). That story appears in the DC Comics anthology DC Holiday Special 2009, on sale now. Kaplan is currently writing the story and dialogue for the upcoming House M.D. videogame (based on the popular TV show) for Legacy Interactive. For more information, visit www.ariekaplan.com.

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Are the Jewish People a Mythical Group?

Posted by Sarah in Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge, Publishing on December 2, 2009

Are the Jewish People real? Or did someone invent them?

These may seem like crazy questions. Certainly there are those out there who consider themselves Jews. And, there are people who know those who practice Judaism. So, where’s the debate?

Look no further than Shlomo Sand’s book, The Invention of the Jewish People.  A controversial bestseller in Israel for the past year, Sand’s book is hitting the U.S. with its first English printing.  In it, Sand questions historical beliefs most would consider fact. According to David Goldberg from The invention of the jewish peopleJewish Community Online,

Legends about the Patriarchs, the Exodus and King David are what Sand calls “mythistories”, a word coined by the Greek writer George Sefiris to describe those embellishments with which every people seeks to glorify its origins. For the Romans it was Romulus; for the French, Charlemagne; for the Prussians, the medieval Teutonic knights.

Even with this challenge of Jewish history, Goldberg says that Sand’s book isn’t as radical as the cover implies. While I find Sand’s topic intriguing, it’s a specific argument that interests me most. In the end, Sand’s books contends that most Jews are descendants from converts, and that while large groups chose to follow Judaism, some of those once considered Jewish turned to something else.

Even if this is the case, my question is, does that make the Jewish people an invention?

Goldberg seems to be thinking along similar lines:

No one today, unless a simpleton, believes that all Jews are descended in an unbroken chain from Abraham to the present.

So, if most acknowledge the existence of converts, what’s the problem? Are they any less Jewish than those with Jewish mothers?

Don’t get me wrong, Sand’s ideas are certainly interesting, and if true, they continue to shed light to one of the oldest religions today. Still, I can’t help but wonder what point he is trying to make.

-Sarah

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