anti-Semitism – Dave's Gone By

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #187: Tony Time 2024

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #187 (6/15/2024): Tony Awards 2024

airs June 15, 2024 on Dave’s Gone By.

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for June 16—Tony Night—2024.

Oh, my friends, the time has come as it does every year (except the year of the pandemic) to celebrate and honor excellence in the Broadway theater. The Tonys are named for Antoinette “Tony” Perry, an actress and early female stage director who founded the American Theater Wing, which brought shows to our servicemen in World War II. In 1947, Tony Perry and producer Brock Pemberton cooked up the idea of giving out prizes at the end of the season. Here we are, 77 events later, and the Tonys are a ritual, a commercial for Broadway, and an excuse to complain when musical numbers all sound the same or a performer we love gets egregiously overlooked.

For me, the Tonys are also a time to remember, with pride, just how crucial Jewish people were in creating Broadway, and how they are still—even in this age of trannies and Sudanis and Kardashian fannies—a theatrical force to be reckoned with. For example, “Mary Jane” may be the most goyische name for a character ever, but Mary Jane the Tony-nominated play is by Amy Herzog. She’s half-Jewish on her mother’s side and comes from a long line of Marxist, far-left socialist, and other politically wrongheaded but super-Jewish beliefs.

Speaking of 50/50 Jewesses, Paula Vogel is back on the Tony roster with Mother Play, about a mama who smokes and drinks gin. Okay, not Jewish, but we don’t want her to be. Plus, last decade, Vogel wrote Indecent, that lovely play about Yiddish theater and lesbians, two subjects I can’t think about without reaching for a box of tissues, albeit for different reasons.

Now, another nominated playwright, David Adjmi, is American-Syrian. (worried pause) Syrian-Jewish! (happy dance) Adjmi’s play Stereophonic, about a rock band in crisis, looks to be the one to beat for the Tony statuette. The competition is Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, by schvartze-shickseh playwright Jocelyn Bioh—hey, Jews can’t hog every nomination—and also a new play by Joshua Harmon, who wrote a comedy years ago called “Bad Jews!”

Well, Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic is a three-hour Jewfest, a heartfelt exploration of why Jews never feel safe anywhere for very long. If you can believe it, the play was written two years before the latest cataclysm and before every putz walking a college campus turned into a billboard for Hamas. One of the show’s characters is a progressive Jewish chick who rails against Israel because she doesn’t understand that without Israel, Holocaust II is just a sequel waiting to happen. For making that case alone, Joshua Harmon deserves an award—not from the Tonys but from the B’nai B’rith.

But before we get too serious, let’s find some other Yids in the Tony tally. Songwriter Shaina Taub, the shayna maidel who wrote the musical Suffs, has said that the Jewish idea of tikkun olam, repairing the world, is a vital part of her ideology. Half-Jewish Liev Schreiber just played Anne Frank’s father in a TV miniseries,and Michael Stuhlbarg, raised as a Reform Jew, was the Rabbinically cursed Larry Gopnik in the Coen Brothers’ film, A Serious Man.

Now, this does bring us to actress Quincy Tyler Bernstine. She’s black. And I have no idea if… (mouths) Bernstine? However, both her parents were lawyers, and she went to Brown University, so even if Bernstine is not a Bernstein, she’s fine. The same goes for special Tony winner Abe Jacob, a legendary sound designer who’s probably Jewish, but I can’t prove it, and Alex Edelman, whose one-man show, Just for Us, brings us back to—you got it—anti-Semitism as an American pastime. Edelman, raised Orthodox, talks about assimilating and wanting to be like everyone else but still feeling unsure how he fits in. He also recounts attending a meeting of Neo-Nazis just to study their mindset. Actually, I could have saved him a trip; just go to your nearest university student government and watch them vote on divestment.

But Mazel Tov to Alex Edelman, Featured Actress nominee Shoshana Bean, Featured Actor Steven Skybell (whose last big role was a Yiddish Tevye!), and let’s not forget half-Jewish Daniel Radcliffe! Yes, Harry Potter’s magic wand is circumcised.

Not surprisingly, we see many landslayt in the Best Musical Revival category—remember when all musicals were Jewish even when they weren’t Jewish? (sighs) Anyhoo, there’s Cabaret, Gutenberg! The Musical!, Merrily We Roll Along, and The Who’s Tommy—all with some Jewish connection. Cabaret covers the rise of Nazi Germany and its effect on Jews and Gentiles alike. Well, not alike: Jews suffered worse. But the score was co-written by John Kander—Jewish, and still alive at 97!—and Fred Ebb—no longer alive but Jewish when he was!

Gutenberg! The Musical! was written by two shaygitzes, but the name “Gutenberg” sounds Jewish, and, hey, he printed the Bible, so he gets a pass. Pete Townshend, who wrote the music for Tommy, has always looked Jewish, so thumbs up for that. And how can we leave out the melech malchei hamlachim, Stephen Sondheim, whose Merrily We Roll Along finally became a Broadway smash? That musical shows how youthful idealism corrodes into cynicism, disappointment, and schadenfreude. What could be more Jewish?

And so, chaverim, we await Broadway’s big night: the teary-eyed speeches, black actresses thanking the Lord, gay directors thanking their husbands, viewers at home thanking God that Jo Koy isn’t hosting. My hope for the Tonys is that anyone wearing a Gaza pin on their dress accidentally sits on it, and that we are spared acceptance speeches that sneak in brainless homilies on ceasefire and two-state solutions and other subjects pampered Broadway snowflakes know less than nothing about. Stick to art, stick to entertainment! I just wish they’d stop sticking it to consumers by charging $200 for orchestra seats. (Go figure how all these socialists don’t mind a little free-market capitalism when it comes to their paychecks.)

But I can get only so angry at the theater, which has given me so much nachas over the years. May creativity and beauty always be replenished, and may Broadway, that Fabulous Invalid, which has survived world wars, assassinations, Covid, and even TikTok, forever go on with the show.

This has beena Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Curtain up!

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=83401

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #148 (8/6/2017): Roger Waters

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #148 (8/6/17): Roger Waters

(aired Aug. 5, 2017 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C60YhWtS73Y)

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Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 6, 2017.

Today, my friends, I go swimming in foul waters. Brackish waters. Roger Waters! The former head of Pink Floyd is now a solo artist with delusions of relevance.

Waters has long been critical of Israel’s position vis-à-vis the Palestinians. According to Mr. Stink Floyd, Israel is always the bad guy: occupying land, denying Palis of their rights, existing. And Waters has made no attempt to hide his contempt for the only democracy—and sometimes the only civilized society—in the Middle East.

Who can forget the 2010 Waters concert, where his animated set design included B-1 bombers dropping mogen davids? Or, worse, the 2013 concerts, where, instead of launching beachballs and t-shirts into the crowd, he sent an inflatable pig with a Jewish star on it hovering over bewildered baby boomers, who just wanted him to shut up and play “The Wall.” And that’s the problem in a nutshell—or a nutcase. People still want to hear his old music, so that gives Waters a huge platform for his babble.

I’ll even grant that he thinks he means well. To Roger Waters, Israel is a torture state, an oppressive regime that doesn’t let a bunch of poor, bedraggled Arabs blow themselves up in peace. He’s not against Israel, he says; he doesn’t hate Jews; he’s merely a rabid anti-fascist. Except for someone who supposedly has nothing against Hebes, Waters takes every opportunity to savage our homeland. He equates Benjamin Netanyahu’s acceptance of Jewish settlements on Jewish land with South Africa’s apartheid and feels both should be countered the same way. As such, Waters has become the poster boy for BDS. You know BDS: Bondage, Domination, and Stupidity. Or more officially: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions against Israel. In other words, hurt Israel financially, and the Jews will just slink off into the Red Sea and let the Palestinians take over land that they’ll just turn back into desert.

At least BDS isn’t the usual Moslem protest. Instead of flying planes into office walls, they just want to build a commerce wall around Israel. As part of his responsibilities being the BDS butt boy, Roger Waters has called on other musicians to avoid Eretz Yisroel and cancel any concerts they have planned there. In response, Thom Yorke and Radiohead, bless their hearts, went to Tel Aviv and played their longest concert in eleven years. Now granted, even they equivocated: “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government,” Yorke said in a statement. “We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America.”

Well, okay, I’ll accept Radiohead’s defensive half over Pink Floyd’s ass whole. And lest we think Roger Waters is anything other than a Goebbels with a guitar, look no further than his interview with the blatantly anti-Israel CounterPunch magazine. Waters complained about the “extraordinarily powerful” Jewish lobby in America, which he says makes it hard for other musicians to back him in his fulminating foolishness. Waters also bitched about Israel’s “right-wing rabbinate” supposedly causing, quote “the ethnic cleansing and systematic racist apartheid Israeli regime.” Ethnic cleansing. Right. Because Arabs are systematically murdered by the Israeli government for no other reason than the towels on their heads. Sure. That they start riots, kill soldiers, and blow themselves to pieces in cafes has nothing to do with Israel’s distrust of their breed.

I’m not saying Israel is perfect, or that the Prime Minister is right about everything. After all, a couple of weeks ago I, myself, blasted Netanyahu for reneging on a plan to make a small bit of the Wailing Wall co-ed. But I also understand what Israel is up against: ongoing hostility from the very neighbors who should take in the miserable Palestinians but won’t. For 80 years, little Israel has made the best of a situation that the Arabs have consistently made worse.

And Roger Waters? He won’t play Milk and Honey City? Let’s take a look at the schedule for his 2002 world tour, shall we? We shall. Let’s see, he started in South Africa in February. Well, there’s a country with a glorious history of justice. Oh, and then he moved on to Chile—no problems there. Argentina, which at the time was run by that bastion of morality, Carlos Menem. Let’s see…Brazil (where I’m sure Waters felt at home with the other Nazis), Venezuela (ditto), Mexico (because drugs and rock and roll do mix), Japan—because hegemonic nationalism was never an issue there. Oh, and then it was off to Beirut. Uh huh. And Moscow and Warsaw and Munich and Frankfurt and Stuttgart and Oberhausen and Vienna. Because when have Germany and Austria ever had a race problem?

A million times I have said that Israel is a Jewish state, and it is also a teeny-weeny state, so if the Palestinians don’t like living there, they should gas up their camels and move to any other Arab country that would have them. Which is, of course, none. Which is the real tragedy that putzes like Roger Waters, Susan Sarandon, Amy Goodman, and Javier Bardem never acknowledge. There is no occupation. There is a miniscule Jewish country that every Arab wants to level, and when the Jews fight back, or get strategic with blockades, the lefties wring their hankies and blame the good guys.

If I sound especially grim and intolerant, understand that I am writing this only a couple of days after three Israelis were stabbed to death by Palestinians in the West Bank, and a day after Arabs attacked the Israeli embassy in Jordan. Why the violence? The Palis were pissed off because Israel put in metal detectors by the Temple Mount. That started a riot, and three Arabs were shot by Israeli police. Yes, using deadly force against rioters is unfortunate, but over metal detectors? Something designed to keep everybody safe no matter what the religion? When I go in an airport, I’ve gotta take off my coat, my shoes, my belt, my watch. It’s a pain in the ass, but do I riot? No. And let’s not forget the reason we all have to get naked at JFK in the first place: the Arabs!

So Roger Troubled Waters, feel free to stay away from Israel. Plenty of bands who have actually made good music over the past forty years will take your place. And if you want to be the change you hope to see in the world, howsabout looking in the mirror? You were in Pink Floyd where the lead songwriter turned into an insane recluse, and the guy who replaced him can’t get along with you. You’ve been married four times—and divorced four times. And you’re an atheist, so even God has washed his hands of you.

You are the Pooper at the Gates of Dumb. You are the Atom Heartless Motherfucker. You’re the Dark Side of the Moron. The Final Cunt. A More-Than-Momentary Lapse of Reason. All in all, you’re just another Prick in the Wailing Wall, and I wish you weren’t here.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York.

https://davelefkowitzwriting.wordpress.com/2021/03/05/non-fiction-essay-humorous-rabbi-sol-solomons-rabbinical-reflection-148-8-6-17-roger-waters/

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #63 (4/14/2013): Jew in a Box

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #63 (4/14/2013): Jew in a Box

Aired April 14, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/r95LRvs7oUk

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 14th, 2013.

What’s even creepier than a jack-in-the-box? A Jew-in-a-box. What’s creepier than a Jew-in-a-box? A Jew in a box in a museum in Germany. No, they’re not doing a revival of “Man in the Glass Booth” – though they should, because I hear Gilbert Gottfried is available. No, instead, the Jewish Museum in Berlin – I know, Berlin is a Jewish Museum, or is that mausoleum? – anyhow, the Jewish Museum of Berlin has an exhibit about Jews called “The Whole Truth.” And they’ve got funny yarmulkes and displays about Kosher cooking and circumcisions – hopefully not the same display.

But the exhibit garnering the most attention and controversy – to the point that the New York Times featured it last week – was of a live Jewish man sitting in a glass box. This young man sits on a little cushion, takes questions, and is just observed by visitors to the museum. Responses to this bit of performance art ranged from whimsical appreciation to scoffs about bad taste. One woman said her ancestors spent enough time in German boxcars, she didn’t need to see a living Jew in a terrarium.

I am mostly on the side of the museum in this. I’m for anything that rubs the Germans’ faces in Forties. But the exhibit also asks a legitimate question: after the Holocaust and the near-annihilation of every Jew in the region, how does the country respond to a new crop of Yiddlach living and working in their midst?

You might ask: Rabbi, aren’t you shocked by the idea of displaying a middle-class Jew in a Lucite case, or, as one might call it, Peasant Under Glass? The answer is no. Every other city has a Holocaust museum now. Pretty soon they’ll have drive-in McDachaus. So to make an impact, you need to do something startling and transgressive. Let’s not forget, the Shoah began in earnest on Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass. So putting a Jew behind glass has a little bit of the “nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah, you can’t get me” about it.

More importantly, though, isolating the Jewish person this way makes a statement about how people of any culture view outsiders. Pass by a bum sleeping on the streets of New York; how do you look at him? Kind of like a tarantula in a zoo exhibit. It’s ugly, unsettling, fascinating from a distance, but you wouldn’t want to find it in your bathroom. Go look at the crowds in San Francisco’s Chinatown. If you’re Chinese, they’re kin; if you’re not Chinese, it’s like watching ants. Well, slant ants. And how do WASPs look at Somalian workers in Colorado? The same way Jews look at shiksehs in Loehmann’s. Aliens among us.

Put another way, we’re all living under someone else’s glass box. Say you’re a stranger knocking on my container, and you say, “Hi. Tell me about yourself.” We might start talking and sharing experiences until – gasp, great revelation – you’re just like me, and I’m just like you – well, maybe not exactly like you because I have a foot fungus thing that my dermatologist is checking into, but other than that . . .

I do think the Jewish Museum in Berlin missed an opportunity with “The Whole Truth” if they’re trying to display an average Jew. For sociological purposes, why not put the Hebrew in his natural habitat? Don’t plunk him in a sterile cube, show him in a delicatessen asking for more coleslaw. Show him at an Orioles game deciding whether to go to the bathroom at the bottom of the sixth or wait till the seventh-inning stretch.

Show him at a Young Israel mixer deciding whether the girl with the diet Coke is worth dancing with or should he take a run at the skinnier chick who’ll probably shoot him down but just might be on the rebound and therefore needy. These are the true quandaries facing Jews in the modern age.

Should the museum ever ask me, I would be happy to participate in their exhibit, even in the glass box. Just give me a plate of herring, a Dr. Brown’s cream and a five-ounce nasal spray, and let the young Berliners come. If they ask me, “What is it like being a Jew in today’s Germany?” I would just say, “Wouldn’t your great grandparents like to know.”

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28989

Dave’s Gone By #344 (2/26/2011): RANSOM NOTES

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Here is the 344th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Feb. 26, 2011. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Host: Dave Lefkowitz

Guest: Stan Ransom

Featuring: Dave chats with folk musician and musicologist Stan Ransom. Also: Inside Broadway (Driving Miss Daisy, Molly Sweeney), Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection on Charlie Sheen; sponsors, friends & letters. Plus: Saturday Segue birthday tributes to Fats Domino and Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan – “Sooner & Later.”

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN
00:09:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Johnny Cash & Fats Domino
00:40:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (Molly Sweeney (00:41:00) & Driving Miss Daisy (00:50:00)).
00:58:30 GUEST: Stan Ransom
01:47:30 DAVE – Sponsors
01:56:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later
02:27:30 Weather
02:31:00 Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection (Charlie Sheen)
02:43:00 Friends & Letters
02:55:00 DAVE GOES OUT

Feb. 26, 2011 Playlist: “I’m Ready” (00:09:30), “The Fat Man” (00:13:30), “Valley of Tears” (00:20:30), “I’m in Love Again” (00:30:00), “Whole Lotta Lovin'” (00:34:00) (Fats Domino); “Hey Porter” (00:11:30), “I Hung My Head” (00:16:30), “Ring of Fire” (00:22:00), “Daddy Sang Bass” (00:32:00) & “Hurt” (00:35:30) (Johnny Cash), “My Long Island Home” (00:55:30), “Wainscott Dumpling” (01:03:30), “Where are the Stones” (01:05:30), “Carolan’s Concerto” (01:43:30), “I Love Long Island” (00:01:00) & “The Coast of Peru” (02:59:00) (Stan Ransom), “Pretty Peggy-O” (01:58:00), “Little Maggie” (02:01:00), “Abandoned Love” (02:04:30), “Tell Me That it Isn’t True” (02:08:30), “Born in Time” (02:11:00), “It Hurts Me Too” (02:14:30) & “Blind Willie McTell” (02:18:00; Bob Dylan), “Desperado” (02:36:00) (Johnny Cash), “I Want to Walk You Home” (02:39:00) (Fats Domino), “Scott Walker Loves You” (02:46:00) (Art Paul Schlosser).

Vanessa Redgrave & James Earl Jones in Driving Miss Daisy

Molly Sweeney at Irish Repertory Theater

(pictured: Stan Ransom as “The Connecticut Peddler,” Stan Ransom, Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones in Driving Miss Daisy on Broadway, Jonathan Hogan, Geraldine Hughes & Ciaran O’Reilly in Molly Sweeney at Irish Rep, Fats Domino, Johnny Cash, Charlie Sheen.)

Dave’s Gone By #183 (8/6/2006): MELZAPOPPIN’

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Here is the 183rd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on NY’s WGBB-AM, Aug. 6, 2006. Info: davesgoneby.com.

host: Dave Lefkowitz
guest: Rabbi Sol Solomon

Featuring: Dave Goes Off about the heat and the minimum wage. Plus: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s thoughts on Mel Gibson, and a farewell to Freddy Fender.

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN
00:11:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN – The Heat
00:20:00 DAVE GOES OFF – Minimum Wage
00:30:00 SKIT – Melzapoppin’ – w/ Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:50:00 DAVE REMEMBERS – Freddy Fender
00:58:00 DAVE GOES OUT

August 6, 2006 Playlist: “99.9F” (Suzanne Vega), “The Alcohol Talking” (Matthew Sweet).