April 30, 2010 | 8:59 am

Dual Loyalties, Then and Now

Posted by Bob Goldfarb

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The Forward’s Gal Beckerman reported this week on new concerns about “dual loyalties” among American Jews, and talked about it in a podcast with colleagues (listen here).  “So totally aligned have the United States and Israeli governments been for most of the past 20 years,” he writes, “that American Jews have not been forced to seriously consider that these two identities could be in conflict.”  In other words, he feels the charge of dual loyalties becomes an issue to the extent that the foreign policy of the United States differs from Israel’s.

That’s a peculiarly myopic view of an accusation that has dogged the Jewish people (and others) for centuries.  The charge of dual loyalty has historically been existential: that Jews are by nature inclined to put their own interests ahead of allegiance to their country.  It is seen as a devotion that transcends momentary policy debates.  When Jonathan Pollard was accused of espionage in 1985, fears of the dual-loyalty charge had nothing to do with disagreements about foreign relations.  Jews were afraid that they would be seen, like Pollard, as willing on principle to breach the security of the United States for the sake of Israel.

In the 1930s, before the State of Israel existed, fears of the dual-loyalty charge centered on the fate of Europe’s Jews.  The American Jewish community was fearful that it would be denounced for placing the welfare of fellow Jews above the best interests of the United States.  When war broke out in 1939 the U.S. was officially neutral, and Jews were afraid to advocate entering the war for the same reason.  It was not a question of loyalty to another country, but rather to one’s own people.

German Jews had the same trepidation.  After World War I conspiracy theories circulated, saying the Jews had disloyally “stabbed Germany in the back.”  It is no coincidence that the representative body of liberal Jews in Germany, founded in 1893, was called the Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens, the Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, pointedly stressing that its members were Germans first.  Even three generations before, as David Myers has written, the “anti-Jewish agitators of the illiberal, post-Napoleonic era…continually raised the specter of Jewish clannishness and disloyalty.”

And it’s not just Jews who stand accused.  When John F. Kennedy was campaigning for the Presidency in 1960, he spoke out in West Virginia against recent, widespread allegations of his “divided loyalty” as a Catholic.  He declared he believed in an America where “no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope.”  In 1928, when the Democratic Party nominated another Catholic, Alfred E. Smith, as its presidential candidate, Smith was similarly accused of being “totally subservient to the Vatican,” again not because of any particular stance but as a matter of identity.

It’s understandable that 21st-century American Jews would want to believe that the question of dual loyalties comes down whether they agree or disagree with Israel’s policies rather than their identity as Jews.  After all, that’s how many Jewish Americans experience it: they think of themselves as citizens of the United States who are entitled to different opinions about Israel.  Some take special pride in holding Israel to American values rather than working to maintain America’s support for Israel.

But as Jews in Europe and Latin America know especially well, Jews still are widely seen as a distinct people who not entirely integrated into the countries where they live.  The Germans never believed that Jews were “German citizens of the Jewish faith”; they saw Jews as an alien people with their own agenda.  There have been similar sentiments in the United States for a long time, leading to the long-held prejudice that Jews are not entirely loyal to America first.  It’s possible that those feelings have suddenly dissipated.  It is also possible that that’s wishful thinking.

Bob Goldfarb is the president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity.  His Twitter feed of news about Jewish culture can be found at http://twitter.com/bobgoldfarb.

April 25, 2010 | 5:36 am

Remembering Alan Rich, 1924-2010

Posted by Bob Goldfarb

Classical music has lost one of its most astute and beloved chroniclers.  Alan Rich, former critic at the L.A. Weekly and the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, died Friday.  For over sixty years he covered and commented on concert life, from the Koussevitzky era at the Boston Symphony to the Dudamel era at the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  He was respected and loved by legions of friends and colleagues.

I first spoke with Alan in 1972 when I interviewed him for Harvard’s undergraduate radio station, WHRB, of which he was an alumnus.  He continued with radio after college, when he moved to Berkeley and broadcast over KPFA.  Once, while reminiscing about those days, he asked me if I had ever heard of Philip K. Dick, the author of many now-classic science-fiction novels.  I was dumbfounded when Alan told me, “He was my roommate.”  Another friend of his from those days was KPFA’s film critic, the then-unknown Pauline Kael.

In 1984 I became Alan’s colleague at KUSC Radio, where his audio essays were a regular fixture.  He also produced award-winning programs about the music of Kurt Weill and other twentieth-century music.  Alan had come to Los Angeles to be part of New West Magazine after many years as the tastemaking music critic of its parent publication, New York.  After the magazine’s demise he stayed in L.A. and became the music critic for Newsweek.  His writing was always both plain-spoken and authoritative, a combination as rare then as it is now.

Later, when I worked at the former KFAC-AM-FM, I invited Alan to be a commentator on the station.  In those pre-Internet days he would sometimes drive to the studio after a concert to write and record a review for broadcast the next morning.  I’ll never forget watching him at work.  He would sit down at a typewriter, insert a blank piece of paper, and proceed to type his complete 500-word script from beginning to end.  He knew exactly what he wanted to say and how to say it.

Critics sometimes become bored with the routine of concertgoing.  Alan never did.  In his last years he was as eager to encounter a new work, hear a new soloist, or see a new opera production as he was when he went to Boston’s Symphony Hall as a student.  He also never lost his unshakeable integrity.  Besides speaking his mind about musical matters without fear or favor, Alan didn’t hesitate to puncture pomposity or pretension when he encountered them.

His artistic judgment was of course highly sophisticated.  I sat with him at a performance at the Bing Auditorium of a new Pierre Boulez work, watching as he took in the highly complex music with rapt fascination and spontaneous delight.  Yet he certainly was no snob.  The film “Billy Elliot” moved him to tears, and he loved classic Hollywood films too.  One day, over a sushi lunch, Alan shared with me his latest enthusiasm: the audio-book version of a Harry Potter novel.  He was charmed by the story and dazzled by the British actor who impersonated all the many characters.

A few years ago I saw Alan, at the premiere in San Francisco of the John Adams opera “Dr. Atomic,” for what turned out to be the last time.  I’m not sure why, but as we took our leave I was moved to tell him how much I had always liked and admired him.  I am grateful to have been granted that chance.  Most of all, I’m fortunate to have known Alan Rich, a gifted, dedicated, endearing, singular human being.  May his memory be a blessing.

Bob Goldfarb is the president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity in Los Angeles and Jerusalem, and a former executive at radio stations KUSC and KFAC.

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April 23, 2010 | 7:54 am

Arguing with Critics

Posted by Bob Goldfarb

Are critics necessary?  The blogosphere has been abuzz with that question over the past month, ever since New York Times film critic A. O. Scott gave the question a high profile in print.  He was moved to write about it after his television show, “At the Movies,” was unexpectedly canceled.

At the core is the question whether there’s anything truly special about professional critics.  They can be prized for qualifications and skills that make their opinions more reliable, or disparaged as members of a privileged class who exert unfair influence because of their positions. 

It’s true that media outlets, whatever their journalistic values, have sometimes appointed people with no apparent qualifications to write about arts and culture.  One major-city daily newspaper chose as film critic a staff member who had no training in film or previous experience writing about cinema.  The New York Times famously chose a drama critic because he was thought a stylish writer, though he had no special knowledge of the theater.  That kind of decision can confirm readers’ worst fears about the abuses of editorial power.

Yet some criticism is read for its insight and originality decades or even centuries after it was written.  Samuel Johnson’s literary essays, music reviews by George Bernard Shaw and Virgil Thomson, the art criticism of Clement Greenberg, and the film writing of James Agee and Pauline Kael are only the most obvious examples. 

Besides their close knowledge and penetrating observations, each of those writers spoke with a singular voice that compels attention even today.  Andrew O’Hehir, writing this week in Slate, remarks that “film criticism is a kind of performance, an adjunct form of entertainment.”  A.O. Scott, thinking about the original hosts of “At the Movies,” realized “I don’t go back into the archive of Siskel and Ebert’s reviews to find out how they voted, or for consumer advice, but rather to hear the two of them argue.”

That, more than the democratization of opinion or the obsolescence of old media, may be the most important thing.  Singular personalities with well-founded ideas will always attract attention, whether pontificating from on high or scrapping on a blog.  “The future of criticism is the same as it ever was,” mused A. O. Scott.  “Miserable, and full of possibility.” 

Bob Goldfarb is president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity in Los Angeles and Jerusalem.  He also comments regularly on eJewishPhilanthropy.com.

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April 20, 2010 | 1:36 am

Gaza Photo Exhibition in Seattle

Posted by Bob Goldfarb

Last week I wrote about the unexpected, abrupt “removal” of an exhibition at the University of Washington that included war photographs from Gaza.  Now it’s reported that “Global to Local: Narratives of War, Resilience and Peace” will open tomorrow after all.  Larry Johnson, who is identified as the politics reporter of the Seattle PostGlobe, has been covering this story and his latest report is online here .

Johnson concludes that “there was nothing sinister about the removal of the artwork.”  The Odegaard Undergraduate Library’s stated reason for the removal was that “all of the art should be displayed at once, and, apparently, there was one section of the exhibit that had not been posted yet.”  On the other hand, Johnson quotes the curator, Amineh Ayyad, as saying “I am unhappy about the unnecessary ongoing requests to change content of the exhibit and to omit educational contextual information…there will be fewer photos than were on display the past two weeks and other altered content.”

The curator’s stated agenda is “to spread knowledge about the devastating effects of war on health, especially mental health, and peacebuilding through health.”  Whether its main message is about war in general or Gaza in particular should be apparent once the exhibition is open to the public.  Ayyad has previously exhibited photographs in Seattle under the title “Peace in Palestine.”

Curiously, neither the Seattle Times nor the Web-only Seattle Post-Intelligencer appears to be covering this story.

Bob Goldfarb is the president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity in Los Angeles and Jerusalem.  He is also a book critic for Jewish Book World and a regular contributor to eJewishPhilanthropy.com.

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April 18, 2010 | 9:37 am

Heresy and Intolerance

Posted by Bob Goldfarb

Fewer than 500 women in The Netherlands, out of a population of 16.5 million, wear a burqa, a garment worn by some Muslim women as a sign of modesty.  Yet, according to an Associated Press report , “There is broad support in the Dutch parliament to ban face-obscuring clothing except if required by law for safety or health reasons.”

Meanwhile, in Belgium, AP reports that the parliament’s Interior Affairs committee unanimously backed a similar proposed ban March 31, and the initiative is expected become law in July.  It would apply to all public places, including streets, even though the vast majority of Muslim women there don’t wear one.

Why all the fuss?  According to a Belgian legislator, ““The point is public security, the need to show one’s face in public. Not religious freedom.”  But no one has proposed banning ski masks.  Foreign-looking clothing is threatening to many Europeans because it’s a reminder of the encroachment of something “foreign.”  It’s a powerful symbol, representing a fear so widespread that that the populist Freedom Party in The Netherlands may end up with 25 seats in the 150-member House of Representatives.

Americans are afraid that “foreigners” will take away their jobs, but Europeans see a threat to “European values” from Islam.  Unlike the United States, Europe’s history is replete with wars over religion: the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots vs. Queen Elizabeth, the Catholic church against the Huguenots in France, and the Thirty Years’ War, to say nothing of the Crusades.  It also has a lethal history of ethnic strife down to the present, including the Serbian slaughter of Bosnians and the Russian campaign against the Chechens.  It is probably no coincidence that the victims in those last two cases are Muslims.

The European response to the Nazi experience has been to treat ethnic strife as a relic of the past that is incompatible with a liberal democratic future.  Xenophobia has nevertheless resurfaced, this time in a different guise: as the tension between democracy and theocracy.  French president Sarkozy claims he wants to ban burqas because “the veils compromise women’s dignity.”  But when France banned not only Muslim head scarves but also Jewish kippot and Christian crosses from the schools, it was because of an across-the-board intolerance of public expressions of religiosity.  That is an irrational prejudice cloaked in the pretense of being impartial.

For the past two hundred years the torchbearers of the Enlightenment have had faith that history is on their side, that it would be only a matter of time until rationality replaced what they saw as superstition.  The decline of religion among Western Europeans, however, is an exception in the world.  Elsewhere religion continues to thrive and to play a meaningful and even a defining role in people’s lives, a phenomenon Europeans find threatening because it is heretical.  No wonder their response is to resort to coercion, as they have done so many times in the past.

Bob Goldfarb is the president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity in Los Angeles and Jerusalem.  He is also a book critic for Jewish Book World and a regular contributor to eJewishPhilanthropy.com.

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April 16, 2010 | 5:05 am

Art and Politics in Seattle

Posted by Bob Goldfarb

The University of Washington, in Seattle, has reportedly just taken down an art exhibition planned in conjunction with a conference on “War and Global Health.”  The exhibition, “Global to Local: Narratives of War, Resilience and Peace,” was curated by a UW graduate, a Palestinian-American artist and public health worker named Amineh Ayyad.  According to a press release, it was to include “photos about the Gaza war and blockade by award-winning Palestinian photojournalists; encaustic paintings from local refugee children of different countries and Jewish & Palestinian artists; a photo-essay about medical relief and peace building efforts in Palestine; and a sculpture created by an Iraqi-American artist.”

Ayyad was quoted as saying, “I wanted to curate an art exhibit as a way to display qualitative and quantitative data about war, siege and displacement and their impact on health.  I believe this is an effective method to communicate such information to the university community, especially to the thousands of undergraduate students who visit the library daily.”  That kind of statement is bound to raise red flags.

No matter how often it happens, the collision of art and politics always seems to surprise people, as if art existed on a separate plane detached from the imperfections of reality, like pure mathematics.  Art also draws it power from its resonance with lived human experience, however, and that includes politics.  There are aesthetic standards for judging a work of art – the composition, the choice of materials, the technical skill of its execution, and so forth.  But a viewer’s response will also be conditioned by his or her own experience and sympathies, which is why art can be controversial.

When art arouses passion these days, especially if politics are involved, the controversy is usually over competing narratives rather than the work itself.  In a case like the closed exhibition at the University of Washington, one side will inevitably claim censorship and assert the right to be heard.  But museums are not havens for free expression.  Even if they are publicly funded, their job is to decide what to exhibit and what not to exhibit.

Another battle cry is “balance,” as if every issue has two equally valid sides.  The reality is that “fairness” is a function of public opinion.  Most of the world considers slavery to be unconscionable, so there is no expectation of balance when slavery is treated in art or anywhere else.  A discussion seems out of balance when it moves too far away from the prevailing consensus.

That’s the underlying issue when Israeli/Palestinian issues come up.  If public opinion in Seattle is generally sympathetic with the Palestinian cause, the idea of presenting “photos about the Gaza war and blockade by award-winning Palestinian photojournalists” will seem reasonable.  If the consensus is that Israel is often unfairly demonized, this exhibition will appear to be another example of that demonization.  In other words, what’s at mostly stake is neither aesthetics nor “balance” nor “censorship,” but rather the legitimacy of the artistic statement in the eyes of the community.

University officials have the responsibility for deciding whether an exhibition is appropriate, and the State of Washington and its voters ultimately can decide whether those officials are doing a good job.  Arguments about fairness or censorship – or anti-Semitism, or the proper uses of public funding, or the rights of artists – are a way of exerting power in that decision-making process; they’re not about principle.  The outcome will tell us less about the role of art than about the realities of politics.

Bob Goldfarb is the president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity in Los Angeles and Jerusalem.  He is also a book critic for Jewish Book World and a regular contributor to eJewishPhilanthropy.com.

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April 14, 2010 | 4:47 pm

Remembering, in Israel and in America

Posted by Bob Goldfarb

This past Monday morning, a few minutes before ten o’clock, I was chatting with a group of people while walking down King David Street in Jerusalem.  At exactly 10:00 a.m. we gradually became aware of the mournful, insistent sound of a siren rising in the distance.  Like the people around us, we stopped talking and stood in place.  Traffic came to a halt.  Drivers and passengers opened the doors of their cars and stood at attention behind the open doors.  For two full minutes no one spoke or moved, until the siren dropped in pitch and faded away.

This happens every year on Yom Hazikaron laShoah v’laGvurah, what we call Holocaust Memorial Day.  Its full Hebrew name means “Memorial Day for the Shoah and for Heroism,” recognizing the resistance to Nazi terror as well as the unimaginable losses that terror inflicted.  What is remarkable for visitors, particularly those from independent-minded and ironically inclined America, is the near-unanimous participation in this ritual of silence and respect.  It is unexpected precisely because of the lack of irony and detachment, and the intense feeling in this very public observance.

When Yom HaShoah begins at nightfall, all restaurants and places of entertainment must close.  Cable television channels that carry comedy or sports programs are replaced by a fixed, somber memorial image.  The overall effect is to create a private, solemn atmosphere more pervasive than on Kol Nidre night.  During the following day, when most people go about their business as usual, the ritual attention at the sound of the siren is an intentional act to join in a public expression of loss and sorrow.  It becomes more powerful because it is so widely shared.

America has a Memorial Day, of course, and originally it too was observed with a specific public ritual.  It was then called Decoration Day, the occasion when the families of Civil War dead placed flowers on their graves.  With the passage of time it became a generic day in honor of fallen soldiers.  Now it’s the unofficial start of the summer season, a day for barbecues.

American culture has in many ways replaced the specific with the generic and substituted the metaphorical for the real.  When the United States is at war, as it now is on two fronts, few Americans feel any difference from peacetime.  War is an off-stage event, and daily death tolls from bombings are statistics, not a felt reality.  The Holocaust, too, is for most Americans an abstraction: a metaphor for evil, a lesson to be learned.  In Israel, where so many survivors found a home, it is a cold fact, an agonizing experience felt by people who live here amongst us.

Next Sunday night Israel’s other memorial day begins, the one that honors the soldiers who died in the many wars since 1948.  It calls on no distant memory: practically every Jew in Israel knows a family that has been bereaved or has directly suffered the loss of a loved one through war.  And the pain of those losses routinely is widely shared.  When two soldiers were killed in Gaza three weeks ago, thousands attended their funerals.

In America, where no battles have been fought on its own soil within living memory, there’s a growing belief that evil is an obsolete concept and war is anachronistic.  Israelis, on the other hand, don’t have the luxury of viewing these concepts in philosophical terms.  Military force is widely felt to be the nation’s bulwark against disaster.  This gap in the two countries’ understanding of the abstraction and reality of war is widespread, yet little acknowledged.  And it is a major reason for the widening chasm between Israelis and American Jews.

I have lived in Israel for only a year and a half, but I know parents whose children died defending this country.  Next Monday morning, when the sirens wail again, I won’t be thinking about abstractions.  I’ll be thinking about them.

Bob Goldfarb is the president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity in Los Angeles and Jerusalem.  He also writes for eJewishPhilanthropy.com.

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