Talkin' Hava Nagilah Blues

Bruce Springsteen's New Single For President

2012-01-18T20:28:00.000-08:00

Bruce Springsteen's new single is out and can be heard here. It is entitled "We Take Care of Our Own," and after a few listens I don't think I hear any irony in it at all.

It picks right up on Springsteen's trope from the run-up to the U.S.A.'s last presidential election. Below is an example from October 4, 2008 in Philadelphia. It's a long quote, but beautiful and worth reading if you are interested in a quintessential American artist who has not given up on taking -- as my friend David Bilotti has said --"the American moment and set[ting] it to an epic song." Springsteen says:

I've spent 35 years writing about America, its people, and the meaning of the American Promise. That’s the Promise that was handed down to us, right here in this city from our founding fathers, with one instruction: Do your best to make these things real. Opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all of our citizens, the American idea, as a positive influence, around the world for a more just and peaceful existence. These are the things that give our lives hope, shape, and meaning. They are the ties that bind us together and give us faith in our contract with one another.

I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no healthcare, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities the distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful.

[. . .]

Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, it’s been looted, and it’s been left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care, it needs saving, and it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs a citizenry with strong arms, hearts, and minds. . . . But most importantly, it needs you. And me. It needs us to rebuild our house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. Because that is where our future lies. We will rise or we will fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I know that I want that dream my house back, I want my America back, and I want my country back.

Ronald Reagan's people overlooked all irony during the election year of "Born in the U.S.A.," calling upon Springsteen as an example of how

America’s future rests in a thousand dreams inside our hearts. It rests in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire: New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen.

Springsteen was not prone to public positions on policy and politics back in 1984 like he is today, but he shared his distaste for Reagan's use of his song in various ways on stage and off, including shredding "Born in the U.S.A." as an unmistakeable counter to Reagan's interpretation every night.

One line repeated at the end of "We Take Care of Our Own is "Where's the promise from sea to shining sea?" In fact, the entire song comes forth as an excellent question.

While we are sure that this election season will be as twisted and nasty -- more twisted, more nasty -- than any other, Springsteen will be on tour at the same time. This gives us something to look forward to and also provides some help in framing what the national dialogue might be about in the months ahead.

As he is wont to do, Springsteen has thrown down the gauntlet for anyone running for the highest office in the land. An artist who has thrived for four decades on interpreting American archetypes -- flags, cars, promises and promised lands, and a sea-to-shining-sea are just a few -- is peeling back the layers obscuring these archetypes just as Reagan tried to smooth his voice over Springsteen's.

Simple as a kid on a playground sticking a finger in your chest and in a way that you never forget, Springsteen isn't interested in the commentary. He just wants the facts. "Hey," he says, "what are you really made of?"

As the song spirals to its end, the answer to this question is "We Take Care of Our Own." That's the place where the commentary begins.

Will Football Die?

2012-01-10T20:38:00.000-08:00

Now that the football season that matters most is over -- an unsatisfying ending because of a flat rematch between LSU and Alabama, but also highlighted by many wonderful games in the bowl season -- it's time to return to a topic looming bigger and darker for football all the time: The unequivocal evidence mounting that the sport is leading to debilitating forms of brain damage for many of the people who play it.

It's easy to make a joke about the direct connection between football and bum brains. Ask anyone who doesn't get football how brainless it is. The irony here is that more than ever, thanks to the media, technology, Max Weber's Protestant Work Ethic, etc., etc., the game is more cerebral than ever (on this see Michael Weinreb concerning Alabama's Nick Saban as the prototypical scientist coach of his era) even as the sheer size and speed of today's players force it into a realm of contact the human body cannot really withstand.

Jonah Lehrer's piece on Grantland is not the first and will be far from the last to share this story. "If the sport of football ever dies," he writes, "it will die from the outside in. The only question now is whether the death has begun."

Read the full article here.

Back to the Basics of Love: Big Bird and Waylon Jennings in Reagan's America

2011-12-25T21:08:00.000-08:00

We watched Follow That Bird this evening -- a 1985 Seasame Street feature length adventure which proved too harrowing for its intended audience in our apartment, but kept a few of us riveted until the end.

Follow That Bird features a cavalcade of its era's favorite and most affordable comedy stars in cameos, including John Candy, Chevy Chase (looking particularly sly), Sandra Bernhard, Joe Flaherty, Dave Thomas, and Laraine Newman.

The Street did not pull any punches about what was happening in the Heartland at the height of the Reagan Era. Big Bird got tangled in some sort of nest swapping scheme, resulting in being transplated from the singing, multicultural neighborhood of clever, happy monsters and charming salt-of-the-earth neighbors to a suburban cage with the Dodo family.

Those Dodo Reagan Democrats might have meant well by taking under their collective wings a very tall city kid, but they were so blank and insensitive and just plain stupid -- their lack of short-term memory, a suitably Reaganesque and most marked mental fault -- that Bid Bird had to risk it all in order to get back to the City.

The Wizard of Oz references flashing, Big Bird does make some friends on the way home, but the plot driver is his kidnapping by the bumbling and evil (F)unfair-owning Sleaze Brothers, looking very ContraGate congressional.

The message of the film was old school P.C. clear: That the beautiful mess of a city animated and motivated by the diversity of its citizens was the only place where any self-respecting liberal hero would want to live. Yes, there were nice people on the farm on which Big Bird landed and hid like a a runaway slave. After all, this was the was the moment of Farm Aid and Footloose, too. But just hang tight until you make it back to the bridges and tunnels if you know what's good for you.

The musical highlight of the film captured the first moments of Big Bird's quest for freedom and was delivered by none other than the great Waylon Jennings. Waylon was the dirty outlaw of country music long after Johnny Cash had cleaned up, Willie Nelson had become a pop star, and Kris Kristofferson had become a movie star. He drives Big Bird in a turkey truck and teaches some existential wisdom -- "that there ain't no road too long..."

Anyone with a career as long and varied as Waylon Jennings' would be bound to have some deadspots, and 1977's Ol' Waylon may not be Blonde on Blonde, but nonetheless, what a record. The hit must have been

"Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)."

For me, the album enters the realm of classics with "If You See Me Getting Smaller:"

An ode with Willie Nelson called upon as witness -- a trick Cash and Kristofferson played as well -- you can't beat these lyrics with any by any other road warrior, all time:

Willie we've been constant companions in all the light and shade
We have spent a million dollars to find out what we made
We have made the maidens marvel at the things we do and say
Down down and out brother up up and away

If you see me gettin' smaller I'm leavin' don't be grieving
Just got to get away from here
If you see me gettin' smaller don't worry
I'm in hurry I've got the right to disappear

God bless old Philadelphia they were standing in the rain
Out in front of the Main Point, a wet and lonely train
Who knows who they came to see a mad man full of beer
A four piece band and a charter bus my border-line career

I guess Waylon must have had the right price for this gig along with the rest of the cast of Follow That Bird, but that a "mad man full of beer" could have carried our Great American Yellow Bird out of his sad Reaganite stupor must have been a stroke of genius from someone somewhere. God bless old Philadelphia, indeed.

The Art of Fielding Swallowed Me Alive

2011-12-21T20:13:00.000-08:00

The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach's much heralded first novel, has swallowed me alive. I read it the way that reading is supposed to be, the way that great novels are supposed to be read. I missed sleep and meals to read it, missed a stop on the train while reading, nearly walked into a pole with my nose in the book after leaving that same train, and then finished the book with great longing for it already blooming as I hurtled through the last fifty pages in a long and messy good-bye, tempted to start again immediately when I was done.

Now I have rested this big hardcover book on my desk to be looked at and remembered for a week, maybe several weeks, as if this will keep the spector of the gang of characters inhabiting its pages lingering nearby, chatting through some extension of a scene from within as I struggle to keep them fed and vivid before accepting their need to return to the water, that place where they all live, fading away from immediate view. They will all become ancestors like that. Then I will place this book on a shelf where it will carry on in quiet conversation with the rest of the books that have preceded it there.

Fortunately, I know this kind of reading and this kind of book from way back. There were years that reading such books for massive chunks of hours and listening to and playing music in various states of being and locales for equal chunks of time were the core elements of my full-time job in construction of self -- supplemented, of course, by a job dishwashing or waiting tables which provided free food, a handy and easily adaptable swirl of colorful friends, and a bit of money with which to stay afloat.

Forgive me, but these books of those days were written by John Irving and Tom Robbins alongside the Roths and the Morrisons and the Bellows and the Doctorows. Guilty pleasures, but it's true. They rocked me. Yeah, they rocked me. This was an age of paperbacks for a few bucks from used book stores in pursuit of an unending spiral of a reading list that grew and changed -- book to book, conversation to conversation, like filling the contours of a whole life grain by grain of sand (or word by word).

I have a theory that all great books have an even greater book -- or at least a book greatly admired -- at their core. This one probably has Moby Dick as its massive looming ghost, though one could make a case for others in parts as well. Most definitely, the 19th century American masters stalk throughout, and this is good. Moby Dick fits for me with its whale swallowing men, culture, and imagination whole. And this takes me to thoughts of skinny, knock-kneed Jonah swallowed by a whale.

I love what Paul Simon says about Jonah and quote it often -- that he was swallowed by a whale. But I say, says Simon, there's no truth to that tale. I know Jonah, he was swallowed by a song.

That's what songs and books are for.

Christopher Hitchens Dead: Memory, Blessing, Kick in Head

2011-12-16T06:23:00.000-08:00

Much more could be said, here are a few words to remember Christopher Hitchens, who has died, may his memory by a blessing and a kick in the head:

He also professed to have no regrets for a lifetime of heavy smoking and drinking. “Writing is what’s important to me, and anything that helps me do that — or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation — is worth it to me,” he told Charlie Rose in a television interview in 2010, adding that it was “impossible for me to imagine having my life without going to those parties, without having those late nights, without that second bottle.”

Quote excerpted from the NY Times obituary here.

The LABA Guide to Noah's Ark

2011-12-14T12:55:00.000-08:00

This month, as part of a year dedicated to exploring the theme of Blueprint at the nexus of art, culture making, and ancient Jewish text, LABA: The National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture at the 14th Street Y offers THE LABA GUIDE TO NOAH'S ARK -- featuring heaven, hell, and all variety of places sacred and profane betwixt and between.

Visit http://www.labajournal.com/journal/ for more.

For my part, it's a health warning, with Phil Ochs, Noah and the Yayhoos on my mind: Namely, can spending too long in a mythological place, be it Noah's ark or the late 1960's, turn you to the bottle? More at http://www.labajournal.com/music-noah/.

The Alarm, U2, and Why Dave Marsh Does Not Write Fiction

2011-12-13T06:41:00.000-08:00

I spent part of last evening revisiting The Alarm and thinking how '85-'86's Strength sounds like a combination of Bruce Springsteen and the Replacements. The opening three tunes -- "Strength," "Knife Edge" and "Spirit of '76" are killers -- they're just too long.

The Alarm was clearly trying to harvest a pop epic breakthrough and got a bit stuck. And yet, I always much preferred the Alarm to U2, whom I never really much cared for, and mostly don't care for now, either.

Then I received this email from the wonderfully contrarian Dave Marsh, whose rockrap listserv is an essential source of critique of all rock and roll pretention. He shares this note from Sean O Nuallian:

Got banned again from Wikipedia for putting the following attested true information;

Remarkably, Mullen is the only ethnically Irish member of the band; the name “Hewson” arrived in Ireland courtesy of one of Cromwell’s generals, and both Clayton and the Evans brothers are British. Clayton’s father was an RAF pilot; the manager Paul McGuinness was born on an RAF base, where his father worked . Rather famously, Bono failed Gaelic in his final High School exam, and was expelled from university for lying about this.

U2 gained much of their success by suppressing the competition in Ireland which comprised far more accomplished and sensitive artists and, in doing so, have ensured that their main legacy is the destruction of the Irish music industry – and Irish musical culture in general. In particular, their “label” Mother Records simply signed and warehoused many much better Irish bands than U2. Mother Records applied for voluntary strike-off on July 11 2011 http://www.cro.ie, having publicly claimed to “cease operations ” in 2000. Given that U2′s distribution “service” Record Services Ltd. traded for at least 6 years after dissolution http://www.cro.ie, that seems unlikely. RSL destroyed many independent bands.

Thoughts?

And then (12-14-11) comes this addendum from Marsh's RRC Extra No. 23

HITS, RUNS, AND ERRORS… Dave Marsh writes: Because of an editing omission, the comment we circulated two days ago about Wikipedia censorship made it appear as if it were me that was censored. It was not.

The comments were written by Dr. Sean O’Nuallain, an Irish native presently working at Stanford. Sean has waged a long and bitter battle to tell the truth about U2’s adverse affect on the Irish music scene and industry. I deeply regret even accidentally stealing his thunder. What he wrote can be read here: http://davemarsh.us/?p=951 If you read the entire thread, almost all of it written by Sean, you’ll get an education in both the reality of U2 and the way that Wikipedia manages information.

For more along that line, check out “Wikipedia Questions Path to More Money” http://web.archive.org/web/20080324155655/http:/physorg.com/news125243266.html
This article reveals the lurid truth about the role of Elevation Partners, the venture capital vulture in which Bono is a principal. Elevation owners are responsible for at least $800,000 in Wikipedia investment (a/k/a “donations”). What wonder is it that Wikipedia won’t countenance criticism of Elevation’s most public figurehead? (Thanks to RRC reader Evelyn Theodose for the tip on this article.)

Yes, there is a link to the AP article cited above on the Elevation Wikipedia page.

The Epic Tale of the Kardiac Kids

2011-12-11T10:13:00.001-08:00

We have learned that Don Cockroft, one of the last of the straight-toe kickers in the NFL, has crafted the epic tale of the Kardiac Kids, the 1980 Cleveland Browns whose wild season of last-second victories led by Brian Sipe, Ozzie Newsome, the Pruitts and crew ended in heartbreak on the fluttering flight of a frozen pigskin intercepted by the Oakland Raiders at the open end of long-dead Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

How a team from thirty years ago that did not even make it past the first round of the playoffs can still mark a peak moment in the history of the city of Cleveland over the past half century suggests something dreadful about my old home town. But there it is: 672 pages at http://thekardiackids.com/.

LABA Open Studios at the 14th Street Y

2011-12-01T08:20:00.001-08:00

This week, the LABA Fellows are in the 14th Street Y Theater, experimenting and rehearsing exciting new pieces in development.

Zvi Sahar at the LABA Open Studios at the 14th Street Y.

The picture features the innovative video technology/shadow puppet work being developed by LABA artist Zvi Sahar. Zvi uses live video feed projections to integrate miniature puppetry, live visual art installations, and actors into a unique theater piece.

The Open Studios gave Zvi a chance to experiment with the help of our talented theater technical staff. Look for the premiere of his new piece at our Blueprint Festival May 17-19, 2012.

Another piece rehearsing in the theater this week is Hanna and the Moonlit Dress, a new children’s musical coming to the 14^th Street Y in January.

The show is based on the beloved Israeli children’s book ” Hanna’s Shabbat Dress.” Join Hanna and her friends, including Edna the cow, Zuzzi the dog, the Coalman and the Moon, in an interactive musical theater experience. Hanna helps a stranger, and in the process accidentally dirties her white dress, newly sewn by her mother for Shabbat. Her distress is relieved, however, when she discovers the magic of a good deed. Children will help create the world of the play by crafting paper masks, costumes, and set pieces with the actors.

For more information on the LABA artists, visit http://www.labajournal.com/.

Here's to Dan Bern's Thanksgiving Day Parade

2011-11-23T20:17:00.001-08:00

Watch it. Wait for it. Here it comes.

There are moments of kitsch, but only the kind you would say yourself in mildly nostalgic reflection with a good friend. The message, pace, and slowly building urgency of a major chord march to a whole gang of glory are as beautiful as a rock ballad can be. Here's to Dan Bern's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Dan Bern - Thanksgiving Day Parade

Everybody was ecstatic
'Bout the light show on the farm
And everyone got crazy
And nobody got harmed
And the five televisions
Huge upon the stage
Had come to pay their union dues
And make a living wage
And the bathroom was the clubhouse
Where the colors all got made
And plans were cast in feathers
For the Thanksgiving Day Parade

And the DJ spins his records
From here out to the sun
And he flings them through a big hole
In the ozone one by one
And somewhere beyond Mercury
The wax begins to melt
And we touched a perfect stranger
And we loved the way it felt
And we all hung together
In our crew cuts and our braids
Floating down Broadway
Above the Thanksgiving Day Parade

And you and I were discussing Natalie
While you poised to thrust above her
And I told you how I admire her
And will always need to love her
And I told you how I lost
My best friend Mr. Neill
And we slowly started dancing
And began slowly to heal
And then we all held hands
And no one was afraid
On our way to sell our sculptures
At the Thanksgiving Day Parade

And Michelangelo finally came down
After four years on the ceiling
He said he'd lost his funding
And the paint had started peeling
And he told us that his patron
His Holiness, the Pope
Was demanding productivity
With which our friend just couldn't cope
And he rode off on his skateboard
With his brushes and his blade
Muttering something 'bout some food
And the Thanksgiving Day Parade

And we who were born in one millennium
And will die in the next
Are slightly underappreciated
And slightly oversexed
And as the seconds and the minutes
Start to vanish one by one
I'm watching more cartoons
As I get my toenails done
And we went downtown to deliver
Turkeys to people with AIDS
And then we headed uptown
To the Thanksgiving Day Parade

And the music keeps on grinding
And the electrophonic crunch
And my father's hair is thinning
And my mom ate some for lunch
And you, you were my babysitter
And you let me break my tooth
And we sit here tied together
In a bar in the back booth
And the band is in an uproar
Only the drum machine's been paid
And we'll have to bring our own tunes
To the Thanksgiving Day Parade

Australians are the coolest
People in the world
Let's all go down under
With strings of colored pearls
And lay them at the feet
Of the heirs of English crime
And listen to old Men At Work
And have a real good time
And we dug until we hit the rocks
Then we threw away the spade
And built a platform to get a better view
Of the Thanksgiving Day Parade

And I love whoever's next to me
I love them so, so much
They let me lean against them
Like a beautiful crutch
And everyone should come up
On the stage and grab the mike
And tell us one by one
Who they are and what they like
And the babies are the only ones
To have lately gotten laid
And I'm feeling young and eager
For the Thanksgiving Day Parade

And you explained to me that without your fans
You'd be back out on the street
With nothing but chitlins on your plate
And splinters in your feet
And if you die, you're gone you said
And your friends are left behind
And you'll be a statistic
And we'll be deaf and blind
And darkness is a virtue
And molasses is not afraid
To slow down the countdown
To the Thanksgiving Day Parade

And somewhere in the distance
An orchestra shows its face
With Natalie on the oboe
Ty on double bass
John plays the viola
Slik the tenor sax
James he blows harmonica
In vanilla skin-tight slacks
Hugo oozes alto sax
Ivory the trombone
Masuda squawks the trumpet
Andre xylophone
Ron he shreds the violin
In a green Italian suit
Mike talks on the telephone
On a tape with an endless loop
Geoff he blows the clarinet
With an old-time rockin' feel
Charlie dings the triangle
Dave the glockenspiel
Chris puffs on the tuba
H a big bass drum
Alfonso throbs the cello
Like he would a woman, with his thumb
And high up on the podium
In tails with his baton poised
Banksy leads the orchestra
In a glorious, awful noise
And on a float of dripping oil paint
The orchestra, it played
Kissing the whole universe
In the Thanksgiving Day Parade

And life is like a fairy tale
Every step feels like a dream
That keeps on getting nearer
And more and more extreme
And we just got switched with Venus
And we're closer to the sun
And I got no problem with it
Nor should anyone
And the cops just blew on in here
And we're in some kind of raid
I just hope they will release us
For the Thanksgiving Day Parade

Stone Arabia: A (or The) Great Rock and Roll Novel

2011-11-21T19:54:00.001-08:00

Dave Bry strikes again. Enjoy his reflection on Dana Spiotta's Stone Arabia.

Stone Arabia is "a" -- if not "the" since we agree that's impossible -- great rock and roll novel that sucked my summer into the feverish meditations of Denise, the narrator, and Nick the rock and roll obessive who vanishes into the ultimate garage band fantasy. It's a story of saturation of memory, music, and siblings as a brother and sister play through both the pain of their life choices and the intractability of their shared fate as family.

Well chosen, in Dave's post in The Awl, to place the Kinks -- perhaps rock and roll's ultimate sibling rivalry -- singing "Rock and Roll Fantasy" in a hotel room in the middle of someone else's day in a frame amidst the text of the review.

I will take the liberty of adding a spiffy looking early 80's incarnation of the Kinks singing "Destroyer" since this is the song which pushed me into rock and roll for good way back when.

Bruce Springsteen Spotted Solo on 57th Street

2011-11-17T10:56:00.001-08:00

Thanks to Dave Bry, ever eyes and ears for musical glory, for this clip of Bruce Springsteen playing "Incident of 57th Street" solo recently in Pittsburgh, PA. Compare with performance with a clip of the same song with the whole band from way-back-when.

Rumor has it that the violinist, Suki Lahav, is the reason the Boss never has played live in the Holy Land.

There it is: The one, the two.

On Joe Paterno and Leadership: Kill the Myth

2011-11-09T09:19:00.000-08:00

I am a big football fan, not onlybecause I enjoy watching and understanding the game, but because at some of themost formative moments of my life, I lived the game. I played on tremendousteams throughout high school. We were state runners-up my senior year, losingto hated Columbus Academy in the old Horseshoe at Ohio State Stadium in thefinal game of a team lead by veterans that had only lost one regular seasoncontest during three years as starters – stolen by the evil refs, of course. Iplayed that game with a dislocated elbow in a giant cushioned cast.

For quite a few years after graduationI enjoyed scanning the papers for the names of college players I had come upagainst myself in high school. This extended my youth even as I wandered intolandscapes far more complicated then the clearly marked fields and obvious assignmentsof the fast-pulling guard I had been at seventeen.

One of my teammates, O.J. McDuffie,went on to play professionally for the Miami Dolphins for ten years. Thisextended my football youth even deeper into adulthood at a time when Americansports were otherwise far from my mind. And yet, especially when visiting myhometown, I followed the career of O.J., the friend I had thrown my body aroundfor all those many years before. (Indeed, it's a little known but essentialcrossroads of football history that before I was converted from quarterback toguard after my sophomore year, I had thrown O.J. his first pass as a Hawk inpractice. He outran my best toss by about twenty yards.)

But before the pros, as announced ata press conference in the library of our high school after a year of visits onour campus by the head coaches of Notre Dame and Ohio State and Michigan and onand on and on, O.J. became a Penn State Nittany Lion, where he was both anAll-American and generous to us has-beens with complimentary tickets to gamesand war stories.

At the time of his decision, some ofus were a little disappointed. Though our team was a tight knit bunch used tolong bus rides together across the state to small towns hoping to eat us aliveand even longer days of sacrifice and practice in heat, rain, and snow, O.J. didnot share his decision until the public announcement.

Some were surprised by his choice.It felt like a rather staid move for the exciting next stage in the arc of whatwe knew would be a stellar career. Penn State wore then as now those boringblue and white unis and its offense lacked flair. It prided itself on atypically Midwestern working-class defense that ground down opponents over the exertionof a hard knocks game. Still, other factors led O.J. to Happy Valley. For onething, he knew that his mother would be able to drive to most of his games. Aprevious star from our school had also played there. But above all else, Isuspect, like so many other winners, O.J. wanted to play for the great Coach JoePaterno.

Anyone involved with collegefootball inside or out knows the Paterno myth: rising up from immigrant Brooklynto an interest in both football and literature at Brown; arriving at Penn Statein the Truman years and head coaching there from 1966 until today. He becomesthe winningest coach in Division I college football history and invests largeamounts of time and money in the intellectual life of the campus, too. Hemodels leadership of moral character and well-rounded achievement for "hisboys," exemplars that the phrase "student-athlete" actuallymeans something balanced and real in a realm where most universities criminallydrain the talent of large numbers of players left to sputter and fail in otherareas of college life and the life beyond it.

Today Joe Paterno has announced thathe will retire at the end of the season after forty-five years as head footballcoach. In the words of CNN, "the resignation comes after a child sex abusescandal in which one of Paterno’s former top assistants, Jerry Sandusky, hasbeen charged with seven counts of 'involuntary deviant sexual intercourse.'Sandusky is accused of forcibly sodomizing young boys. One of those casesallegedly occurred in the shower of the Penn State locker room. A graduateassistant reported that incident to Paterno, who alerted the school's athleticdirector but did not talk to criminal authorities. Paterno has not been chargedin the case, but he faced widespread calls to resign for not fulfilling hismoral responsibility."

With all of the abhorrence I feel for the cover-up andhypocrisy it entails, all of the despair and sympathy I feel for those childrenand their families, and all of the love and commitment I have for what I knowsports and education and camaraderie can do for young people when done right,my leadership learning is prosaic and simple.

As leaders, we must kill any myth of stature or remnant ofego or desire for personal accomplishment when any wisp or shadow of abuse ofthese gifts enters the spaces we manage. We serve, but when we are good at ourservice thanks to powerful vision and practice, the institutions and people inhabitingthem can somehow come to serve us. In many small ways, such imbalance harms ourwork and pollutes our mandate. In a case such as this one, the result ofselfish leadership is a contagion that spreads to cripple and kill not only theinstitution which seemingly only deigns to serve its leaders rather than itscharges, but also, so tragically, steals the souls of the people it is meant toserve.

Occupying and Judaism

2011-10-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

A group of leaders have offered a call to Occupy Judaism as part of the global Occupy Wall Street movement. Like all elements of OWS, self-defined Jewish concerns about the sustainability of the global fiscal and political infrastructure still seek cohesive expression. But even now the questions that these voices raise invite vital questions.

Reflection on the meaning of traditional Jewish concepts in the bright light of contemporary concerns provides useful perspective for how to understand the world deeper and better. As has been done for millennia, parsing a key term of conflict or curiosity using its classical Hebrew meaning and context sparks imagination for solving the problems we face today.

In this case, midrash on the term “occupy” shapes a generative, pluralistic Jewish approach to social critique and action that may serve Jewish causes and be useful to the OWS moment as a whole, too.

There are several classical Hebrew terms which might be applied to “occupation.”
One of them is already loaded from its attempted use in defining the conflict over land and autonomy facing Israelis and Palestinians. In the Israeli-Palestinian landscape, the typical translation of “occupy” is kiboosh, which implies violent control of the collective will of the occupied. Such language may not be fully useful in the work of OWS, and perhaps not in the Middle East as well.
In considering the flow of Occupy Wall Street thus far, a better term might be range of meanings offered by the Hebrew root s-kh-n, broadly meaning “to dwell.”

The Hebrew root s-kh-n is the source for the term mishkan (the traveling Tabernacle in the desert which served as a precursor to the Temple), shekhina (a word for God's most visceral presence), and shakhen and shakhoona, meaning neighbor or neighborhood, respectively. Consideration of the multiple meanings derived from the root s-kh-n suggests principals that likely make good social, economic, and cultural sense for shaping some of the core values OWS and its Jewish off-shoot.

First and foremost, mishkan, or Tabernacle, implies that communities need a nexus and a praxis for gathering to do their holy work. The public spaces of OWS have been a geographical nexus animated by meaning-making: the force of music, words, formal gatherings, informal connection and conversation, religious ceremonies, and more attempt to define communal space ritually. People engaging dynamic space for rituals of dialogue and expression feel less alienated, trapped, and angry – even when the issues they face are massive. So goes religion when practiced well. Like the mishkan in ancient Israel, where any member of the community could have an offering made on its behalf, OWS space offers a public square for manufacturing and sharing meaning. This is something every community needs and should aspire to.
Secondly, s-kh-n is the root of shekhina. While this concept has changed its theological meaning over time, shekhina can be understood as the emanation or presence of God closest to mundane human experience. Those who have urged faith-based work in OWS understand the need for an element of divine prescence in public space. If a mishkan or Tabernacle builds a nexus for meaning, it is shekhina that occupys this space with the possibility of transcendence. Every American politician says some version of “God Bless the United States or America” at the close of her or his words on any public stage. Cynicism aside, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be blessed amongst our peers, with wanting a sense of the holy in the places where we live and work. This is the role of shekhina.
Finally, the root s-kh-n is the grammatical form from which the words shakhen and shakhoona, meaning neighbor or neighborhood are derived. Preached on bumperstickers or in union halls and or on the big board at fancy D.C. hotels where planning and plotting to capture states red or blue unfolds, “all politics are local” is an essential democractic principal. This phrase means many things, but in context of the concerns emrging from OWS, we can say that politics are and should be about how we all live in our neighborhoods with our neighbors. Shakhen and shakhoona mean postive interconnectedness and dependency in a delicate ecosystem.

If local or transnational businesses, just like individuals embedded in a vast web of other people and things, addressed our local and global ecosystem more responsibly and fairly – knowing that all the world is our neighborhood in the 21st century – not only would our world be less warped by fiscal, environmental, and cultural disregard for sustainability and fairness, but our local experiences would be more secure, engaged, capitalized, and connected. When a business or person conceives of his or her or itself in isolation, there is no room for mishkan or shekinah.

There is nothing simple about the issues addressed by OWS, but close reading of a single ancient concept of how people, place, and the divine are intertwined in a single word shares hints of the possibilities for generative work together. This work carries the chance for vocation and avocation combined – a true occupation of self with meaning that shapes long-term partnership with the lives and aspirations of others.

Pangs of the Messiah at the 14th Street Y

2011-10-19T06:48:00.000-07:00

The 14th Street Y is delighted to host Untitled Theater Company No. 61's presentation of PANGS OF THE MESSIAH by Motti Lerner. The year is 2014, and Israel is on the verge of signing a peace accord; in the West Bank settlements that Israel may soon abandon, no one is celebrating. Lerner's tense drama focuses on the Head of the Council of Settlements and his family as they struggle to retain the life they have built in anticipation of the coming of the Messiah. The play provides a rare window into the lives and psyches of the settlers from an insider's perspective. It is a family drama with broad political implications.Click here for more.Important work at an important time.Read more: http://offoffbroadway.broadwayworld.com/article/Untitled-Theater-Company-No-61-Presents-PANGS-OF-THE-MESSIAH-1027-1120-20111018#ixzz1bEdss3cu

LABA Blueprint #1 - The Tower of Babel

2011-10-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

This year LABA: The National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture at the 14th Street Y takes on the theme of BLUEPRINT.We begin the journey with the biblical story of The Tower of Babel.Click here to enjoy the first installment of the journal. Meet the stellar 2011-2012 LABA Fellows, whose work you will find in the LABA Journal over the course of the year and in the annual LABA Festival in May.This month Ruby Namdar writes about the ancient men and women's heroic, yet ultimately futile, attempt to make a name for themselves. I write about Patti Smith and endless digital towers of music. Editor and co-artistic director Elissa Strauss writes about our incessant need to turn space into place -- and the tchotchkes on her desk.

Augustana's "Fire" is a Very Great Song

2011-10-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

I first discovered Augustana's "Fire" on the soundtrack of the ever-beloved and much late lamented "Friday Night Lights." More on why "Friday Night Lights" -- captured for me on Netflixs, I admit, in doses far greater at one time than any healthly man would probably want to carry -- was the greatest gift granted by television since the first few seasons of "The West Wing" some other time. I'm not sure how "Fire," which does some to reference Springsteen's "Fire" and "I'm on Fire" in a certain way and edges into Van Morrison's "Linden Arden Stole the Highlights" etc., etc. from "Veedon Fleece" happens as it does. But damned if it's not one of those songs that a person can listen to 10 or 20 times in a row without being sure if any listening will ever be enough. Here's to you fellas. That's a great, great song.

2011-10-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

The 14th Street Y is pleased to partner with our friend David Winitsky on the Jewish Plays Project. Read about the project here or visit www.jewishplaysproject.org. As David shared with a group of theater artists at a kick-off gathering recently “We want you to be fully rounded, full-blooded artists,” Winitsky announced, “but when you make Jewish art, we want this to be the place where you do it.” This vision certainly suits LABA, which continues to grow as a hub for this kind of creative work.

Too Much to Dream and Drunken Angel

2011-10-04T08:18:00.000-07:00

I have the pleasure of reviewing Peter Bebergal's new book Too Much to Dream for the Forward alongside Alan Kaufman's Drunken Angel in the weeks ahead. I'll save more thoughts for then, but in the meantime, note Too Much to Dream (haven't read Drunken Angel yet...) at the nexus of mysticism, music, art, and addiction as a marvelous and inspiring read this time or any time of year...

Ritual and Public Space and Art in Odd Places

2011-10-04T06:41:00.000-07:00

I am delighted to participate in a panel on Ritual and Public Space moderated by Gabriel Cwilich with Bindi Cole, May Joseph and Setha Low at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery (144 W 14th St, 2nd Floor) at 6 pm tonight as part of this year's Art in Odd Places.

Green Kids' Song Contest: Why I Go Green

2011-09-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

The OPEN green HOUSE at the 14th Street Y was filled with local businesses, green products, healthy food andmany of our community taking it all in. NY1 agreed with us and stopped by to film some of the happenings. Check out the video here. We also launched our KIDS SONG CONTEST with a submission deadline October 31st. Nathan Tysen (professional musician and all around nice guy) has created a melody, verse and chorus, and we have invited kids from all over NYC to write additional verses on what they do to be green everyday. The winners will star in a professionally produced video, along with winning some other great green prizes. Is your kid the next eco idol? Click here to see Nathan and a few of our talented 14th Street Y kids singing "That's Why I Go Green". While we're proud of the work we've done, we're still continuing our journey towards and greener building and a greener world. Do you have ideas? Would you like to join us? Please email us at Greenteam@14StreetY.org.

NY1 Features the 14th Street Y Going Green

2011-09-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

The 14th Street Y is a Jewish Community Center in the heart of the East Village. We're a place where big ideas find expression and exploration in a thriving local laboratory. NY1 recently featured the Y's efforts to bring greening and sustainability to the heart of our work. See NY1's feature here.

How about that R.E.M.?

2011-09-21T19:41:00.000-07:00

Such a great band - melancholy grace and the ability to rip it up completely, too. Intelligence in rock and roll the way that certain moments of Pete Townshend and Patti Smith suggested. Soundscapes like a ragged and prickly Beach Boys, but with the squinting eyes you needed to see many things for what they were in the Reagan years and later. Good music for drinking, thinking, jogging, driving, and taking stock. Melodic short stories and much humble wisdom so familiar but sharper and cleaner and telling-it-like-it-is better than you could say without them. A wonderful mix of cagey, passionate friends playing in your hometown. Thank you, R.E.M. You were a great, great band.

No Martyr Is Among Ye Now...Now...

2011-09-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

DYLAN AT PLAY is now available on Amazon, etc. See Page 23 for "No Martyr is Among Ye Now: Bob Dylan and Religion" by Yours Truly, along with other wonderful, fresh, off-beat Dylanology tended by colleagues Nina Goss and Nick Smart. More details here.

Be the Next Eco-Idol at the 14th Street Y!

2011-09-12T19:42:00.000-07:00

As part of the 14th Street Y's ongoing commitment to the environment we’re hosting a citywide contest to find the next...Eco-Idol. Families and kids of all ages have the chance to participate and collaborate in a brand new music video featuring singer/songwriter Nathan Tysen. And it’s all about going green... From September 18th until October 9th kids can submit a self-made video on line featuring their great self singing TWO original lyrics that they created (Parents can help...) about what they do as a family, at school, or in their community to be GREEN. Visit us our website anytime or our OpenGREENHouse on September 18 to find our more.

Remembering 9-11 at the 14th Street Y

2011-09-11T08:42:00.000-07:00

My colleague Camille Diamond, Director of Community Engagement and Communications, has shared a powerful and humbling essay on her experience at the 14th Street Y ten years ago. You can read it here.

It’s a blessing to be amongst people in an institution whose creativity creates a space for experiencing life fully even as we remember all that was lost on 9-11.

OpenGREENHouse at the 14th Street Y

2011-09-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

The 14th Street Y is a vibrant community laboratory for taking on big issues in local ways that matter. Help us celebrate and explore repairing the world through best practices in sustainable food, energy, art, performance, recycling, and more on Sunday September 18 and all year long.

Visit here to find our more.

Bob Dylan on Salvation and Covenant in Dylan at Play

2011-08-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

I am proud to have contributed a chapter to the new book Dylan at Play. Published by Cambridge Scholars Press, Dylan at Play offers a range of fresh approaches to Dylan's work from an eclectic group of scholars. My chapter looks at Dylan's vision of covenant and salvation through the lens of good buddies Saint Augustine, Max Weber, Blind Willie McTell and a variety of Jewish sages of Late Antiquity.

Dylan at Play is available for purchase from the publisher here and at Amazon and all the rest.

Here is a sneak peak:

"Walking," in the words of "Ain't Talkin'," "through streets that are dead," Bob Dylan has been probing themes of covenant and salvation for five decades. His work embodies a prophetic voice anticipated more than a century ago by German sociologist Max Weber. Weber taught that the covenantal systems of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam function within the tension of two competing energies. On one side of his scale of religion rests charismatic or prophetic sensibilities. At the opposite end lies rationality, an urge for systematizing and regulating religious charisma. According to Weber, the most enduring societies manage to balance the
tension inherent between spirit and structure. But when the flow between charisma and rationality slows or ceases, religious structures erode, and
oppression ranging from everyday meaninglessness to authoritarianism and systemic religious violence emerges. Yet Weber also suggested the possibility of religious figures and movements that might emerge to salvage the "soul" trapped in fossilized covenants:

No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the
end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or
there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals… (Weber 124)

The cluster of songs explored here show how Bob Dylan navigates and reanimates static inherited covenants while interpreting both collective and personal religious, political, and romantic history to construct new ones. In a world of "Ain't Talkin'” – where there "ain't no altars on this long and lonesome road" – Dylan models Weber's "great rebirth of old ideas and ideals" with prophetic art that refreshes and reimagines ancient covenants in a modern creative idiom.

Jews with Force. Jews with Appetite. Jews without Shame.

2011-08-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

When we first moved to New York City at the end of 1999, one of my first acts in the New Old Country was to start reading the New York Times regularly -- on the subway, at the table with the morning coffee, and, of course, on weekends as part of ritual immersion in the Sunday edition.

This little fantasy of cozy city living died quickly. The smell and smudging of the newsprint on my fingers and the thick piles of paper in a corner of a small apartment turned me off. The Internet, even in dail-up days, opened up a new reading vista. But most important, I didn't like being a witness to so much even-keeled, clever, intelligent, settled opinion all at once. The headlines looked like wrong, bad medicine at first glance. Who needed to be fed that poison in tidy spoonfuls? Why read it at all?

Now I can peck away at the web and scavenge opinion and tone however my discretion and taste require. If I make it through an entire 750 word op-ed or news item without interrupting myself with something easier or elsewhere you could call me riveted. I still scan the NYT headlines each day -- along with Haaretz and Slate. I read whatever Paul Krugman shares because I assume he is always right and never followed and this offers an edge of exasperated underdoggedness to fuel other battles over the course of the day.

I pluck and pull from Arts and Culture or Business or Obituaries, and though I know many people do -- religiously -- read Roger Cohen, I don't recall ever having read one of his pieces until today.

Weary from too much espresso, I scanned the Times on-line and hit upon
"Jews in a Whisper."

I am in Israel right now for work and family reasons. It's good to be here. I have many, many friends and associates in Israel -- people of incredible talent and generosity who are some of my closest, most trusted peers. I am fluent in Hebrew. I have served in the Israeli Army. Many of my most cherished memories -- not to mention my own family -- took root here.

I arrived just as the tent cities protesting the exorbitant cost of living for average Israelis began sprouting up. I had read of their emergence with excitement and pride and was moved to have seen them in some form in all of the cities I have visited or worked in thus far on my trip -- from Or Akiva and Zichron Yaakov to Jerusalem, Herziliya, and Tel Aviv.

So today, immersed as I am in the messy day-to-day of a Jewish state deeply misguided by its mostly mediocre and dangerous leaders, watching missiles over head in the south and listening to terrorist warnings in Jerusalem and paying $7 for a half gallon of milk, I found Mr. Cohen citing Philip Roth.

Having called upon Mr. Roth many times in my own work, I am sympathetic to the idea of appealing to his voice to amplify a longing or a critique of Jewish purpose and practice.

“Jews with force, I’m talking about. Jews with appetite. Jews without shame,” quotes Mr. Cohen of Mr. Roth, citing a scene concerning what Roth himself longs for as a Jew when living in the UK.

"I miss them, too," says Mr. Cohen, concluding his piece about the State of the Jews today.

I am not an apologist, I protest, even as I protest too much. But I will say it anyway: While I share Mr. Cohen's distress with the State of the Jews (a primary part of my day job, and also my academic, creative, and family life), my concern is concentrated mostly on those who hold formal power in the Jewish realm, particularly in Israel. A severe lack of strength lies in the realm of leadership and the corrupted, comprised, corroded, and convoluted systems upon which it depends.

In the places where real people live and strive, I see strong Jews every day. They are in those tents in Israel, many of them loudly and correctly explaining that their causes and the causes of peace with all of their neighbors are tangled together as thickly as the bands of an ancient olive tree. They volunteer, they break ranks with the status quo, they teach, they disappear into religion, they try to make the best out of the status quo, they walk away, they get spit out, they cut me off in traffic, they wait.

It's hard for people engaged in the science of opinion to express what an artist can share over the many pages of a book or the acts of a play or the verses of a song. There's nothing new in that fact, especially when it comes to expressing generative thought on religion.

Beginning in 1923, Sigmund Freud corresponded with Romain Rolland, a French novelist challenging that Freud's writings on religion had missed the point entirely. Rolland claimed that a proper theory of religiosity must describe the essential "oceanic feeling" of emotional and spiritual connectedness within which a person of religious temperament experiences life. Writing with admiration if not full recognition for Rolland's challenge in Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud says: "I cannot discover this oceanic feeling in myself. It is not easy to deal scientifically with feelings."

Philip Roth has helped me construct huge swaths of my own religious landscape, but even in his brilliance as a Jewish commentator, as a Jewish communal leader, he has essentially opted out. Asked about Jewish identity once by a reporter for The Guardian on December 14, 2005, he said: "It's not a question that interests me. I know exactly what it means to be Jewish, and it's really not interesting."

But it can be very interesting. The work still to be done -- and that is being done - is as deep and as wide as the ocean.

OpenGREENHouse

2011-08-19T00:25:00.000-07:00

Near a beautiful natural spring in the north of Israel, my kids and I spent some time collecting plastic bags and cups that other vistors had left behind.

Only feet on the ground and single steps at a time with attention offer a path to sustainability.

The 14th Street Y hopes to share this path with the community and neighborhood at our OpenGREENHOuse on September 18.

A Green Theatre Grows at the 14th Street Y

2011-07-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

The 14th Street Y's Green Theater continues to grow sustainably. Next year, we are building a green roof on top, too. There goes the neighborhood.

More on our progress here.

Reimagining Our Communal Infrastructures: The Gardens Where Innovation Should Grow

2011-07-20T03:36:00.000-07:00

Despite its challenges, Jewish communal life remains an ecosystem of tremendous size and equity. I agree with my colleagues that the innovation ecosystem must strive for better business models and that the funding streams within this system should flow more generously. Yet, of all the efforts that might be undertaken to support a loosely affiliated network of innovative, culture changing organizations without whom Jewish communal culture lacks relevance, color, and depth, perhaps the most critical is converting the vast terrain of the Jewish infrastructure into a garden where they can grow. New Jewish Culture should be the force transforming the essence of the infrastructure we have already built.

Towards a Jewish Cultural Policy

2011-07-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

An Op-Ed by Stephen Hazan Arnoff and Steven M. Cohen · July 17, 2011

See the entire post on jta.org here.

NEW YORK (JTA) -- JDub Records, the innovative nonprofit Jewish music endeavor that discovered Matisyahu and numerous other artists, released 35 albums, and brought 150,000 participants to concerts and other events, announced last week that it would be closing after nine years of successful operation. The principal cause: inability to secure sufficient ongoing philanthropic support.

The impending closure of one of the most promising start-ups in the "Jewish innovative ecosystem" highlights a critical gap in the Jewish communal landscape -- the absence of what may be called a “Jewish cultural policy” in North America.

We have policies -- or at least policy discourse -- in many domains. They range as wide as Jewish education, outreach, combating anti-Semitism, Israel advocacy, poverty, Jewish peoplehood and much more.

Just a century ago, communal leaders addressed such critical issues as the family, employment, health, English language acquisition and citizenship. As needs changed, so did the Jewish communal policy discourse. But however extensive is the current communal agenda, our planfulness has not yet extended to the realm of Jewish culture, signifying a lack of Jewish cultural policy on local, national and continental levels.

In the past decade, a cluster of loosely connected enterprises have been supported by family foundations, UJA-Federation of New York, the Foundation for Jewish Culture and others. These efforts have produced an array of impressive Jewish cultural practices, mostly grass roots, modular and low cost. They include anchors of local cultural engagement like Moishe House, as well as projects creating content and disseminating Jewish cultural innovation such as Storahtelling, Hazon and, quite prominently until now, JDub Records.

To these endeavors must be added many thousands of writers, poets, fine artists, dancers, actors, directors, filmmakers, musicians, dancers and other culture makers, as well as the venues they present their work -- from bookstores, museums and galleries, clubs and film festivals to the rich virtual landscape of YouTube and beyond. These, and so much more, constitute the critical elements in North America’s “Jewish cultural ecology."

But to be a Jewish artist or cultural innovator in the Jewish community today often means serving small pockets of interest on the fringe or to be drafted occasionally into preformed communal templates -- fundraisers, traditional celebrations or outreach programs -- where art is instrumental rather than generative, dogmatic rather than dynamic.

Sadly, with the economy in a continual state of flux, the arts often are the first programmatic cut made by organizations. The JDub news is no isolated instance.

There is a compelling case for significant, sustained and strategic investment in creative people, infrastructure and values. The benefits of a rich culture have been amply established for society as a whole. Richard Florida’s "The Rise of the Creative Class" demonstrates the value of a thriving cultural life for economic vitality. Florida's three T’s of "Talent, Tolerance and Technology" suggest lessons that Jewish communal leaders can apply to the Jewishly engaged creative class of thinkers, producers, organizers, artists, performers, promoters and patrons.

The edgy, innovative environments that artists construct can function as powerful forces driving the wider society. The Jewish world desperately needs a lively margin for new ideas to influence and stimulate what many -- perhaps young adults in particular -- broadly see as a stultified and uninspiring Jewish community.

What do artists need and want? They seek peers in a creative community of work; inspiration in the form of dialogue, study and engagement to enrich both the product and process of their work; deadlines and structure within which this work can be accomplished; space for work to be created and presented; and a public forum for the wider community to experience, consume and relate to the work.

Notwithstanding the reputations for effectiveness of North American Jewish artists and the projects and institutions with which their work is affiliated, the organized Jewish community lacks a systematic and articulated cultural policy to advocate for and sustain the creative potential embodied by this work.

A Jewish cultural policy would ask three basic sets of questions:

1. What is the nature, extent, quality, value and impact of the Jewish cultural life? In short, why is Jewish culture important?

2. What is the Jewish cultural life we would want to have?

3. How do we move from the current reality to the desired ideal with effective strategies, resources and implementation?

Jewish communities should act decisively to place a creative class of artists and culture makers in core institutions, offering space for artists to gather, study, create, explore and present their work within a Jewish communal context and calendar. At the same time, artists, thinkers and culture makers should dialogue with institutional leaders and funders in mini think tanks and incubators, tackling core issues of how to create a vibrant Jewish community.

A society without a vibrant and respected creative class lacks the imagination and inspiration to innovate and grow. The last decade has offered indications of a Jewish renaissance, as new forms of Jewish cultural work have emerged in conjunction with simultaneous advances in Jewish learning, new digital media, social justice and Jewish spiritual communities.

A Jewish cultural policy on the local, regional and continental levels that smartly and strategically fosters Jewish cultural endeavors will ensure the recent gains in Jewish cultural life, with benefits on many levels -- cultural, spiritual, educational, political and much more. And a real commitment to Jewish culture can preclude disheartening and wasteful reversal such as the winding down of JDub.

Stephen Hazan Arnoff is executive director of the 14th Street Y in New York City, where he founded and directs LABA: The National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture. Steven M. Cohen is a research professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at NYU Wagner.)

See the entire post on jta.org here.

On Reenchanting the Jewish Communal Infrastructure

2011-07-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

I like what Ariel Beery, Nina Bruder, Sarah Kass, and others are saying about JDub's wind-down as a call to action. The Jewish communal infrastructure - like all social structures - continually faces the threat of stasis. JDub's crisis embodies this challenge.

Max Weber warned us that this would happen. More than a century ago the German sociologist explained that the covenantal, salvation religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – systems that have defined the societies of much of the world and all of the West for more than 1500 years – exist within the tension of two competing energies.

On one side of Weber's scale of religion rests charisma, or, perhaps "innovation" in contemporary terms. Charisma manifests itself through religious sensibilities igniting prophecy, spreading magic, and untethering inspiration. At the scale's opposite end perches rationality, an urge for the lasting structures that societies generate to regulate, systematize, and mediate charismatic energy. Properly functioning religious systems and the societies based upon them facilitate movement on the scale between the opposite poles of charisma and rationalization.

According to Weber, ideal religious systems are inherently in flux. Charisma is temporary, its results unpredictable. Rational religious structures, though they seek stability, thrive by remaining open to a dynamic relationship amidst the spirals of the spirit.

When charisma and rationality become static and unbalanced for an extended period of time, religious structures produce insidious forms of entropy and oppression ranging from boredom and lack of meaning in the experience of everyday life to societies trapped in authoritarian violence.

While Weber anticipates the vacuum of communal stasis, he also suggests the possibility of openings for religious figures and movements that might eventually emerge to salvage sensibilities of magic and depth from fossilized covenants:

No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals… (Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1904)

In days ahead on www.jta.org, Steven M. Cohen and I will share an opinion piece on why - without a coherent Jewish cultural policy to develop, implement, and sustain innovation - our infrasture faces stasis. The good news is that organizations like JDub have shown us how much talent and innovation is available to address our imbalance if we can find means and courage to sustain them.

Proud to Host JDub Finale at 14th Street Y

2011-07-14T06:44:00.000-07:00

The Y is proud to host the final official JDub event this Sunday at 6pm on our roof. Check back here in the coming days for thoughts on what JDub's wind-down means for Jewish cultural innovation and change.

The Critic, the Kid, and the Rock and Roll Capital of the World

2011-07-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

Growing up in Cleveland in the eternity before a driver's license on a low budget meant living music vicariously through the writing of The Plain Dealer's Jane Scott.

After my first show - the Kinks' Give the People What They Want tour in 1982 - I cut out her review from the morning paper and pinned it to the bulletin board above my desk. Then I started cutting out the reviews of shows I hadn't attended - all of them and every single morning for a while - so that I could understand and remember better the shows I had seen and imagine those that I had missed.

Cleveland called itself the Rock and Roll Capital of the World then. For a local there were some decent reasons for this: Alan Freed. The glory days of WMMS. Understanding Bruce Springsteen before any other market outside of the Jersey Shore and Philadelphia. Supporting the Michael Stanley Band, a long-time local group of heroes who almost but never quite cracked the big time. There was not all that much else civic light to celebrate in Cleveland during MSB's prime.

Jane Scott, who died today at the age of 92, was a rock critic in Cleveland for forty years. I knew the cadence and quips of her style as well as any writer's work during a time when only she and the radio offered a map to the places I thought I wanted to be.

Where Joe DiMaggio Went: On Bankruptcy and Sports

2011-06-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles Dodgers filed for bankruptcy protection in a Delaware court this morning.

Pressures in the sports marketplace, poor management, and economic tumult everywhere made the Dodgers weak. Then, like a rotting tree waiting for almost any reason to fall, the club was toppled by the storm of owners Frank and Jamie McCourt’s ongoing divorce proceedings and the hard ball the league has been playing in not really helping the Dodgers clean up the mess.

The Dodgers are not my team. I was only a passive fan around the time of my most rabid love of baseball as a kid. These were the seasons of 1977 and 1978, when, as a Clevelander engaged with hapless teams everywhere I turned, I still had enough pride to hate the Yankees on behalf of the truly awful Cleveland Indians.

It’s hard to claim an arch rival when your team can barely find their way to the clubhouse door and onto the field. I imagine those lean year teams like Spinal Tap wandering through the gothic tunnels of that Lake Erie stink-house Municipal Stadium, bats and balls in hand, everyone banging on the walls in excitement to get the show started, slowly losing their grip, their “Hello, Cleveland!” just a whimper in the end.

The Tribe was pathetic like that, but part of being a fan has always been the need to maintain healthy repulsion for someone else’s beloved. This was the role of the Yankees (along with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Michigan Wolverines) when and where I grew up.

The Yankees and the Dodgers had a titanic and glamorous rivalry back then. Furthermore, since the Steves Garvey and Yeager shared a name with me and the Dodgers pulled along a caravan of colorful stars like Ron Cey, Davey Lopes, and Dusty Baker and they were playing the Yankees for all the marbles, it was easy to transfuse some Dodger Blue into my anemic Cleveland blood.

Today, the Dodgers take a number in a line of sports scandal and failure that snakes down the block as far as the eye can see. For all of the obvious reasons, sports and scandal go together today grandly as they always have. Doping and fixing and violence and money and abusing exultant expectations invites athletes, fans, owners, pundits, politicians, and all variety of hangers-on to go wrong.

It’s no revelation to say it’s getting harder and harder to maintain the firewall of conscious ignorance separating our pleasure in the competition and loyalty of sports from our disdain for its corruption.

While it’s silly to complain that sports empires so embedded in the entertainment economy would not answer first and foremost to profit, the past year has still been tough. At the local level – or at least from my perch far away from the local level in one of the capitals of the Cleveland Diaspora in New York City – there was LeBron’s Decision and the Ohio State Buckeyes’ recent football implosion. Then there’s the NFL lockout and a strike impending for the NBA, too.

For those who just want a little healthy hate, a little nostalgia and grandiosity with their beer, a few games extending into overtime and frantic minutes of heroic play by a team they love, well, there are plenty of let-downs to be had.

It’s easy to quote Paul Simon’s question “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” about any number of jolts to the basic infrastructure of American nostalgia, fantasy, and fun. That includes baseball, of course, and it always did. We’re grown-ups now. We understand how it all works.

14th Street Y Welcomes New Senior Program Director

2011-06-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

I am delighted to announce that Shayna Kreisler has joined the 14th Street Y as Senior Program Director. In this capacity, she will work with all core programs at the 14th Street Y to continue to shape an innovative arc of programming spanning from early childhood through school age children to teens and adults.

The Y has more than doubled in size in the past three years. With a newly established board taking the lead, we are eager to continue expanding our vision of a cultural laboratory in exciting new ways. Shayna will play a key role in that work.

Ode to the Departed: They Finally Got Whitey

2011-06-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

They finally got James (Whitey) Bulger. The legendary Boston crime boss had disappeared nearly two decades ago after a tip that the F.B.I. - which for years had utilized him as an informant - was about to bring him in for good.

If you have spent any time in Boston, you know about Whitey, one of a long line of American outlaws who has skirted myth in life. Think of Frank and Jesse James, Joey Gallo, or Bonnie and Clyde.

You would not want to see all of the blood in their shoot-outs, or the junkies hitting their smack, or the broken lives caught up in their rackets; but at the same time, kids still play "Looking for Whitey" in Southie and dress up and shoot like Jesse James eveywhere, because something about outlaws captures the imaginations of people young and old.

Artists fall for outlaws just the same, but even harder. Warren Zevon swooned for Frank and Jesse James, Dylan worte an epic ode to Joey, and we all remember Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. It's also because of a fusion of outlaws and art that, even if you have not spent any time in Boston, you know at least a little bit about James (Whitey) Bulger.

As the basis for Martin Scorcese's film The Departed, Bulger was loosely portrayed by Jack Nicholson. Nicholson seems barely able to play even his trademark "Jack Nicholson" part at this stage of his career, but in this film of wicked lines and faces and stunning scenes - "Don't move until you're numb" - Whitey gets an homage comprised of some of the best pop culture stuff that any good guy or bad guy could ask for.

From the opening images of Boston's 1970's racial chaos wrapped in the Rolling Stone's "Gimme Shelter" to the Dropkick Murphy's "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" to the immaculate "Baby Blue" by the sadly departed Badfinger, The Departed offers one of the best soundtracks ever made. Then there are Leonardo Dicaprio, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, and Matt Damon playing some churning combination of minions, heroes, and rats circling Whitey's world. We meet Vera Farmiga for the first time in The Departed, too. She is the tragic lover who carries the seed of someone in the group as the only survivor after the confusing shakedown at the end of the film.

I happened to listen to part of the soundtrack of The Departed very early this morning in Central Park before learning that Whitey had finally run out of time. Apparently he had been hiding out in Santa Monica with his lady companion, whose weak spots for plastic surgery, dental hygiene, and dogs made it impossible for them to keep themselves concealed any longer.

Now, as he will begin to spend the rest of his life "sitting like Buddha in a ten foot cell," someone who I must assume was a very smart, pretty lucky, but also twisted and violent man gets to live at a very high place in the pantheon of American myth, supported by some of its finest purveyors. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Clarence Clemons: Good Luck, Good Bye

2011-06-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

At the 14th Street Y's symposium on Bob Dylan and the Band in December 2010, Matt Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces said that he draws a direct line between Otis Redding and Steve Cropper plotting "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" in a Memphis hotel room and Barack Obama and David Axelrad plotting a presidency in Chicago. Tonight let's add Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons, the Big Man of Blessed Memory, to this list.

Part of the allure of rock and roll bands has always been the community that the band represents as it rolls across the country, town to town, coming to your town soon.

Much of this is a branding schtick, of course, because in the end it's only rock and roll and rock and roll is only show business. The Boss and the Big Man must have known this to last in the public eye together as long as they did.

But still, for most of the past forty years, as Springsteen played the part of the hard-fighting, openhearted contender for something glorious and fleeting, Clemons played the part of his best friend and sidekick -- the one who could clear the floor with an explosion of melody at the moment when the odds had grown the most daunting and the danger most fierce.

This is the sound of triumph in "Rosalita", but it's also the howl of the only person who still remembers your name or knows where you are in "Bobby Jean."

It is also how Bruce Springsteen, like Sly Stone but for so much longer, dared to present America in the 1970s and beyond through the faces of a band that actually looked like America: people of color, ethnic, rough around the edges, and always ready to bust the chops of self-righteousness with a great sense of humor.

Kissing the Boss on the lips or embracing him in a giant bear hug at a peak moment in almost every show, Clemons was, in Springsteen's words, "King of the World, Master of the Universe, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall refineries in a single bound; it's a bird, it's a plane, it's the Big Man."

Part of the reason that Bruce Springsteen has meant so much to America for so long is that the passion and truth of his band at work was as diverse, playful, successful, and natural as we wish our communities could be. The Big Man was an anchor for this community, and we mourn his passing.

(For Springsteen's shaggy dog tale of the mythic first meeting of he, Miami Steve, and Clarence, click here. Thanks to David Biliotti for that...)

Let the Education Revolution Begin

2011-06-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Sir Ken Robinson captures the moment of educational revolution at hand. Listen and see...

Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan

2011-05-24T08:52:00.000-07:00

Dylan has played with the resonance of 70 for a long time now. The phrase “I was so much older then, I’m younger then that now” from “My Back Pages” is quotable for so many reasons, but it must be leaping across the web this birthday week. He was not even twenty-five years old when he wrote that. But in the case of 70 — Bob Dylan as a voice of wisdom and variety turning 70 years old on May 24, 2011 — it really fits.

Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/138052/#ixzz1NHmLgkXz

LABA Journal #4

2011-04-22T09:43:00.001-07:00

Kingship in ancient Israel was just like the music business.

Joshua Foer's Memory Palace

2011-03-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

...with all the clamor of the information age, we don’t seem to be able to remember much at all — not how our sacred traditions were generated and passed down, not how great literature was learned and reimagined, not how, for millennia, an individual’s memory could determine his destiny. Indeed, we still seem unable to remember what we are doing in front of the fridge with the door open.

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/136210/#ixzz1Gs0RS000

LABA Journal EROS #3: We're Getting the band back together

2011-02-24T08:51:00.000-08:00

You could call Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish Paul and John, respectively. You could call them the Band, who have captured my imagination recently more than most. But bands never really break-up. They can’t. We hold them in the place where the music got made and the details of their demands and departure gird the music even after it has gotten very old.

A Sustainable Future

2011-02-03T13:21:00.000-08:00

A Rare Glimpse of Dylan at the 14th Street Y

2010-12-27T19:12:00.000-08:00

“We really care about the arts. And we do care about spirituality,” says Arnoff. “And we do care about identity. And so a great artist has a way of asking questions that maybe some of us are shyer to ask or don't have the ability to ask. And so, to be able to put a great artist like Bob Dylan front and center in this way is actually very inspiring for all of our programs.”

LABA Journal: Eros #2 -- Woman on Top

2010-12-21T15:37:00.000-08:00

Lilith has spent millennia as an archetype of female strength and sexuality. Her story has been passed along through generations by religious scholars, poets, painters, mystics, psychologists, and, in recent times, feminists. While opinion of her has wavered through the ages, never once has anyone denied her power. Now for the first time ever, Lilith speaks for herself.

On the Culture Front: Another Review of What Kind of Love Is This

2010-12-13T04:56:00.000-08:00

On the music front, trumpeter Steven Bernstein put together a lovely tribute to Bob Dylan last Sunday, focusing on his days with The Band. the core band included Medeski, Martin, and Wood's John Medeski and Dylan's former guitarist Larry Campbell who opened the show with "This Wheel's on Fire," an apt description of the powerful seven-piece band that backed guest singers throughout the night.

A Review of What Kind of Love Is This

2010-12-13T04:50:00.000-08:00

The show was spectacular. I'm also thrilled to see proceeds support the renovation of the theatre at the 14th Street Y. Yeah!

Highlights from What Kind of Love Is This

2010-12-06T20:55:00.001-08:00

Images and video from What Kind of Love Is This: A Celebration of Bob Dylan and the Band hosted by the 14th Street Y.

Greil Marcus on Dylan and the Band at the 14th Street Y

2010-12-04T15:07:00.000-08:00

Tickets still on sale for the symposium and all-star concert celebrating Bob Dylan and the Band at the 14th Street Y. Visit www.14StreetY.org/Dylan for more information.

Enjoy this clip of special symposium guest Greil Marcus walking the photography show by William G. Scheele on display through January 2011.

http://forward.com/articles/133643/

Understanding the Myth and Music of Bob Dylan

2010-11-22T12:56:00.001-08:00

Choose almost any critical approach — biographical, political, religious, literary, musical, philosophical or historical — and chances are it already has been used to try to explain Bob Dylan and his work. Hundreds of books, thousands of articles and an ever-expanding universe of listservs, websites, magazines, academic courses and conferences sing Dylan’s loyal chorus of commentary. A few months away from turning 70 (May 2011), and primed to enter his sixth decade on the public stage, Dylan continues to wave his baton in every direction, urging the chorus onward — even though we know he’s not much for choruses...

Reading the Boss: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Springsteen

2010-11-21T08:32:00.001-08:00

LABA Journal/Eros Issue One

2010-11-17T10:08:00.001-08:00

The “Song of Songs” is a covenantal love song. It's a song for grown-ups, not to be confused with pop. It contains commitment, conflation, threat, desperation, poetry, and it's completely out of line: a covenantal love song of the biblical kind, and Dylanesque...

Reading the Boss: A Free Writers' Panel on Bruce Springstreen

2010-11-16T07:50:00.000-08:00

Editor Irwin Streight and contributors read from their a new book, which gathers scholarly opinions about Springsteen's "explorations of gender, place, religion, philosophy and other literary texts." Those from New Jersey will be happy to know the book draws a comparison between the Boss and the Bard.

The 14th Street Y
Sunday November 21 / 4 PM
FREE

Tickets on Sale for Bob Dylan and the Band: What Kind of Love Is This

2010-11-10T20:19:00.000-08:00

Bob Dylan and the Band: What Kind of Love is This? celebrates of one of rock and roll’s most powerful and bewitching collaborations. The event includes a gallery exhibition, symposium, and all-star concert.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS TO THE SYMPOSIUM AND CONCERT

Schedule of Events:

Gallery Exhibit Opening Night
Bob Dylan and The Band, Woodstock to California 1973-1975
Friday, December 3, 7-10pm

The 14th Street Y will hosts a reception featuring photos by William G. Scheele, Equipment/Stage Manager for The Band and Bob Dylan from 1969 to 1976. The photographs were taken from Mr. Scheele's unique place on stage alongside the musicians.

Prints of photographs will be available for sale. Meet the photographer, and enjoy light refreshments. The exhibition will remain on display at the LABA Gallery at the 14th Street Y until January 29, 2011

Symposium

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

Sunday, December 5, 12-6:30pm

Enter a one-of-a-kind exploration of Bob Dylan and the Band's work, featuring scholars, critics, writers, and artists including:

Greil Marcus: Author of the definitive book on Bob Dylan and The Band, Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes.

Christopher Ricks: Renowned critic and scholar of English literature and poetry, and author of Dylan’s Visions of Sin.

John Niven: Novelist whose book Music from Big Pink vividly imagines the world of Bob Dylan and The Band.

Dana Spiotta: Author of mesmerizing portraits of the 60’s underground, including Eat the Document.

Matt Friedberger: Co-founder of the visionary rock band The Fiery Furnaces.

D.A. Pennebaker: Pioneering film documentarian, whose credits include Don’t Look Back, the first film on Bob Dylan.

Stephen Hazan Arnoff: Executive Director of the 14th Street Y writes and teaches widely on music, art and religion.

Wesley Stace (John Wesley Harding): Singer-songwriter and award winning author of Misfortune.

William G. Scheele: Museum curator and former Equipment/Stage Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band.

All-Star Concert
Le Poisson Rouge
Sunday, December 5
Doors at 7:30, Show at 8:30 PM

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

All-Star Tribute featuring: Steven Bernstein (Sex Mob, Levon Helm Band), John Medeski (Medeski, Martin and Wood), Rob Burger (Laurie Anderson, Marianne Faithful, Iron & Wine), Tony Scherr (Bill Frisell, Norah Jones, Sex Mob), Kenny Wollesen (Norah Jones, John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Sex Mob), and special guests Jolie Holland, Laura Cantrell, Nicole Atkins, John Wesley Harding, and Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces.

Proceeds from Bob Dylan and The Band: What Kind of Love Is This? support the renovation of the LABA Theatre at the 14th Street Y - an anchor for music, dance, performance art, theater, and fine arts in the heart of the East Village for decades.

Read the Boss at the 14th Street Y / Sun / Nov 21 / 4 PM

2010-11-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

I'm delighted to join contributors to the new book READING THE BOSS at the 14th Street Y. Join us on Sunday November 21 at 4 pm.

Understanding Bob Dylan: A Talk at Bishop's University (2008)

2010-10-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

My Jewish Learning: Articles by Stephen Hazan Arnoff

2010-10-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

LABA Theatre Featured in NY Times

2010-10-20T12:43:00.000-07:00

Binding Wins Three Awards

2010-09-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

Big congratulations to LABA artists-in-residence Jesse Zaritt (dancer/choreographer), Manju Shandler (costumes/mask/puppet design), and David Tirosh (lighting and video design), and Faculty Member Basmat Hazan Arnoff (director) for being honored in three “best of” categories by the New York Independent Theater Awards for Binding, developed at the 14th Street Y, 2008-10.

Bruce Springsteen and the Bible

2010-09-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

I am proud to have contributed the chapter "A Covenant Reversed: Bruce Springsteen and the Promised Land" to Reading the Boss: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Bruce Springsteen (Lexington Books).

Desperados Under the Eaves and the PaRDeS

2010-05-20T07:38:00.000-07:00

Over the last seven months I was puzzled by these words, this tune and especially what this artist Warren Zevon means to the PaRDeS and me – until the story of Ben Zoma explained it

Springsteen, Dylan, Zevon and Paradise: LABALights #4

2010-04-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

Zevon, Springsteen and Dylan all try to enter paradise, playing with the idea of perfection and a release from the mundane. They all have the same utopian mission, the resolution of purpose, but arrive at different places when they ultimately, as we all do, fail. Zevon finds cynicism, Springsteen, hope, and Dylan, resignation.

You're My Witness: LABALIGHTS #5

2010-04-18T05:33:00.000-07:00

I once owned an LP of a radio interview with Bob Dylan from the mid-’80s. He was asked if there was another trade he would ply if he had not wound up a singer. He was mumbling in the answer, but his sounds ended in a final clear phrase:
“Or maybe I should just be on a boat.”

Goodbye Alex Chilton; Dead at 59

2010-03-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

"Not a thing to do, but talk to you...:" Mourning the death of a true rock and roll hero. Big Star on my trusty old Walkman, walking in probably a hundred different places, helped me through many hard times. May Alex Chilton's music and memory be a blessing...

LABAlights Monthly Publication #3

2010-03-14T05:28:00.002-07:00

Bearing down on self and garden both, true grounding like Ezekiel’s is the wise cure for the static waves of sheer arrogance pretend prophets radiate. Real prophets gulp grandeur to their guts, always tempered by humility and an incredible tolerance for doubt and pain. And if humility is somehow missing as one finds the Garden

The Ethnopoetics of Jewish Study

2010-03-14T05:28:00.001-07:00

When it comes to learning and teaching, "secular" and "religious" don't mean much to me anymore. Great texts and great teaching transcend these labels and create a space – even if temporary – where anyone should be able to enter, explore, and thrive.

LABAlights Monthly Publication #2

2010-01-19T19:07:00.000-08:00

I am very pleased to share the second addition of LABAlights -- the monthly web publication of the 20 artist fellows of LABA: The National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture at the 14th Street Y.

Jewish Community Centre for London Celebrates NYC

2010-01-11T19:30:00.000-08:00

The 14th Street Y: East Village Oasis

2009-12-24T11:02:00.001-08:00

Introducing LABALights: LABALights #1

2009-12-20T06:14:00.000-08:00

Enjoy a sneak peek (launching officially tomorrow AM) of new
website created by the 20 LABA Fellows of the National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture at the 14th Street Y. We are documenting free-spirited creative exploration of our community-wide theme PARDES (the Garden, or Orchard) through the lens of art of all media and ancient text all year.

New Look for the 14th Street Y

2009-12-15T20:39:00.001-08:00

Storahtelling and Y Partnership

2009-12-13T19:46:00.001-08:00

In the Blogs

2009-06-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

An Updated Look for the 14th Street Y

14th Street Y Gets New Look

The Gardener Is Gone

On Creating a Jewish Art Policy: At the Conney Conference on Jewish Art

2009-06-04T21:20:00.001-07:00

In the Press

2009-05-20T19:37:00.001-07:00

LABALMA Clip

LABALMA Powerpoint

The LABALMA Body Project

Transforming the Y

I Sing the Body Eclectic

For Dancers, Work Is Body and Soul

A New Look for the 14th Street Y

14th Street Y Unveils Redesign

There's No Place Like Home

The Leon Charney Report

LABA and the Ripple Effect

Hazan Arnoff is 14th Street Y Director

Stephen Hazan Arnoff

2008-10-26T20:05:00.001-07:00

Contact Information

2008-10-26T18:10:00.001-07:00

Contact Stephen Hazan Arnoff at talkinhava@gmail.com.

Essays, Articles, and Reviews

2008-10-26T12:03:00.000-07:00

Jewish Text and Tradition
Trees and Their New Year in Rabbinic Judaism
Trees were viewed in both economic and symbolic terms by the Rabbis of Talmudic times.

Feminine Aspects of the Omer
In mystical terms, the Omer is a period of time leading to the unification of the male and female aspects of the Divine.

The Concealed Face of God
A theological explanation for why God is not mentioned in the Book of Esther.

Seder Nashim: The Mishnaic Tractate on Women
Seder Nashim's primary concern is the protection of society's "exceptional" members.

Seder Toharot: The Mishnaic Tractate on Ritual Purities
The Mishnah's laws regarding purity and impurity may seem obscure in modernity, but the concepts give us a glimpse into a world where manifestations of death within life are not sanitized away.

Methods of Midrash
How Midrash gleans deep meaning from the Torah's text.

A Recipe for Telling the Passover Story
Creating a meaningful Passover seder requires as much preparation outside of the kitchen as inside of it.

Art, Culture, and Community
Artneuland: Israeli Art Without Borders
An interview with two founders of the Israeli artists' collective Artneuland.

A Jewish Artists Service Corps: Creating and Sustaining Community
Creating a Jewish Artists Service Corps would transform Jewish communities around the world. Winner of the New Voices.

Jewish Expression and the Arts
A brief description of the Makor Artists-in-Residence program, 2002-05.

South of the Border: Talking Peoplehood with Yossi Abramowitz
An interview with entrepreneur, journalist, and teacher Yossi Abramowitz.

Consumers and Producers: Rethinking the Jewish Cultural Renaissance
Reflections on building upon the energy and knowledge of contemporary Jewish innovation.

Listen to the New Josephs
A call for fusing dreams and planning and veteran and new leadership in the Jewish world.

On Bob Dylan
In Memoriam: Welcome to Bob Dylan' Modern Times
Exploring Bob Dylan's use of ancient memory and epic-telling technique. Presented at the University of Minnesota’s international symposium on Bob Dylan, March 2007. Translated into Italian for Parole Nel Vento, an anthology of twelve classic articles on Bob Dylan edited by Alessandro Carrera.

Religious Life Outside of the Law
Bob Dylan's conceptions of religion and law (Hebrew).

He’s Not There (2007): Talkin’ Bob Dylan Symposium Blues
Reporting from the altars of an international symposium on Bob Dylan.

Hey Judes: Dylan and the Beatles Transformed
A review of Todd Haynes' film I'm Not There.

Jesus, Bob: To Live Outside the Law You Must Be Honest
On Bob Dylan's "Jesus Years"

Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet
On Seth Rogovoy's Book

On Philip Roth
Live By No Man's Code: The Religious Forms of Philip Roth's "Everyman"
Understanding Philip Roth’s religious vision. Winner of the Rockower Jewish Press Award for Jewish Arts and Culture, 2005.

Temporary Like Zuckerman: Philip Roth’s Exit Ghost
A review of Philip Roth's novel Exit Ghost.

Philip Roth's Righteous Indignation
A Review of Philip Roth’s novel Indignation.

On Leonard Cohen
What in the World Are We Longing For?
Leonard Cohen as a Jewish visionary.

Consumers and Producers: Rethinking the Jewish Cultural Renaissance
Empowering Jews to be both consumers and producers of meaningful culture.

Book Reviews
Doctorow Takes on the Creationists
A review essay of Doctorow's essays on the cultural map created by great American writers.

The One That Got Away
A review of Peter Schafer’s Jesus in the Talmud.

We Need the Eggs
A review of Paul Buhle’s Jews and American Popular Culture.

Back to the Future A Review of Zachary Braiterman's The Shape of Revelation: Aesthetics and Modern Jewish Thought

Rock Stars as American Prophets
Greil Marcus says it's musicians, authors, and filmmakers who are perpetuating the idea of Americans as “chosen people.”

14th Street Y of the Educational Alliance

2008-10-26T06:55:00.000-07:00

LABA: The National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture at the 14th Street Y

2008-10-26T06:53:00.001-07:00

Scholar-in-Residence Topics

2008-10-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

Sample Topics for Scholar-in-Residence Programs

Lectures, Interactive Study, and Group Engagement
in Jewish Culture, Text, and Community

Marginal Prophets

How and why seminal contemporary artists use traditional text and vision

to create essential work

Bob Dylan: Rock and Roll Prophet
Explore the religious vision of rock’s greatest poet. Understand Dylan’s use of biblical storiesand parables, his struggle with Jewish religious practice, his ability to integrate religious thought and sensibility into his music, and his long-time cultural role as a post modern prophet.

Leonard Cohen and the Biblical Landscape
Over the course of a fifty year career, Leonard Cohen has been perhaps the most prolific and famous Jewish paytan (liturgical poet) of the 20^th – and now 21^st – century. Explore Cohen’s understanding of the “biblical landscape” upon which all of his work has emerged – repentant, erotic, spiritual, humble, and real.

Bruce Springsteen and the Promised Land:

A Covenant in Reverse
The concept and key narratives of the biblical Promised Land provide Bruce Springsteen a rich creative opportunity for channeling personal worries and passions into a national, mythic experience of an American covenant grown too narrow to contain the quite reasonable dreams and expectations of a critical mass of its citizens. Encounter Bruce Springsteen’s canon as commentary on the story of Promised Land from 1973 to the present.

Beit Midrash
Tracing traditional texts themes and texts through the contemporary cultural landscape

Exodus: They're Leaving Home, Bye Bye
Before cutting through the Red Sea, wandering in the desert, receiving the Torah, and entering the Land of Israel, the Israelites faced their longest and strangest night.Reflect on how the night of departure from Egypt sets the stage for both Exile and Redemption through the lens of contemporary art, literature, and music about the pain and freedom of leaving home.

Jonah: The Tale of a Boy Who Would Be King
Stephen Hazan Arnoff performs and teaches excerpts from the music and video cycle The Tale of a Boy Who Would Be King, a rock and roll interpretation of The Book of Jonah, one of the most beautiful and strange texts in the Bible.

Little Red Riding Hood, Isaac, and the Carpenter’s Apprentice
How do the motifs and characters of folk music and fairy tales emerge in the world of rabbinic texts? From Mount Moriah to 2nd century Eretz Yisrael to grandma’s house to an empty hollow in Bristol, Tennessee, unravel how sacred stories and myths as well as their heroes and heroines travel from one great culture and language to another.

Jewish Text and Values
Study and conversation on core themes of Jewish life through a core classical Jewish text

Currency Values, Jewish Values
Bavli Ta'anit 23a-b: Abba Hilkiah the grandson of Honi the Circle-Drawer is called to the Rabbis in a time of drought and teaches a lesson about the differences between "workers in the field" accomplishing critical tasks and management as well as how each act within a community requires intense focus on its ethical implications.

Hevruta: The World of the Sages
Bavli Bava Metziah 84a: The Story of Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish is one of the rabbinic world's most famous hevrutot – a fascinating view into the joys and dangers of intimacy and friendship in the academy, the unmatched power embedded in Jewish study, the roles of honor and shame amongst colleagues, and how the rabbinic realm imagined the beit midrash as capable of containing the entire world.

All in the Family
Midrash Tanchuma, Parshat Naso 1: The Sisters Two identical sisters. One is accused of adultery by her husband. Though one sister sacrifices herself in order to save her sister from her fate, it is unclear that even their love for each other can save either of them.

Understanding Israel at 60+
A collection of texts around the theme of Israel's Independence Day revolves around a series of letters written by Yeshayahu Leibowitz on the difference between nationhood and holiness. Additional texts include excerpts from the poetry of Yehudah HaLevi, contemporary Israeli literature and music, the Rambam, and HaTikvah.

Biography

2008-10-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Stephen Hazan Arnoff graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA from Brandeis University (1994) and received his MA in Midrash as a Wexner Graduate Fellow from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (2002) where he is currently pursuing a doctorate. He co-founded the Artist Workshop Experiment (AWE), a year-long program for artists in New York and Jerusalem (2000-2002) supported by the Samuel Bronfman Foundation. His projects in “New Jewish Culture” include The Tale of a Boy Who Would Be King, a rock opera and curriculum inspired by the Book of Jonah and funded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Israel’s 2^nd Television and Radio Authority, the Immerman Family Foundation, and the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland. He was the Founding Director of Artists Networks and Programming at the Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92^nd Street Y (2002-2005) – overseeing the Theater, Gallery, and Artists-in-Residence programs – and has served on the faculty of Brandeis-Bardin Institute (2001-2005), Pardes (Summer 2005-7), JTS (2004-Present), and Face to Face/Faith to Faith of the Auburn Theological Seminary (2001) in addition to presenting as an invited speaker at conferences including Limmud (UK and US), the GA of the United Jewish Communities, the World Council of Jewish Communal Service Quadrennial, Lishmah (New York), and Highway 61 Revisited: The International Bob Dylan Symposium (University of Minnesota). Hazan Arnoff was Managing Editor of Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture (www.zeek.net) from 2005-07, a print and Internet publication with 100,000 monthly readers on-line. He writes on art, religion, culture, and education for a wide variety of academic and popular publications with work published in Hebrew, English, and Italian, and has been awarded the Rockower Jewish Press Award for Jewish Arts & Criticism (American Jewish Press Association, 2006) and the New Voices Prize (Jewish Family and Life!, 2005). Stephen recently completed two years as a Jerusalem Fellow at the Mandel Leadership Institute in Jerusalem, Israel and is now Executive Director of the 14^th Street Y of The Educational Alliance. He is married to writer and theater director Basmat Hazan. They have three daughters and a son and live in New York City.