Afterwords, Short Takes, Reflections & Corrections (No. 3)

Thanks to http://donasdays.blogspot.com
/2012/01/mirror-mirror-what-do-i-see.html

It’s time to catch up on some prior blog posts in addition to updating readers regarding some interesting developments arising from last week’s post, What’s (Not) Missing From the “J” (No. 5).

As readers may remember from last week, my post was an expansion of my letter to the editor of the “J,” the local Jewish community newspaper, pointing out the absurdity of siting a museum of Polish-Jewish history in a country that has failed to come to terms with its ugly history of antiSemitism.

I was curious to see if my letter would provoke a reply either on behalf of Mr. Taube or the local Polish consul. From a PR standpoint, they, perhaps wisely, have chosen to remain silent, presumably hoping that dissident views would just go disappear amidst the hoopla surrounding the dedication of the new building.

But if that is the play, it’s a mistake on more than one front.

A new film has just come out that is based on the Jadwabne Massacre, in which the Polish inhabitants of a small Polish village massacred some 1600 of its Jewish inhabitants in 1941. Poland has long sought to hide Polish involvement in the massacre to the point of blaming it on the Germans and attacking the scholarship of Jan Gross, who has written about the massacre at length in addition to his more recent account of the infamous Kielce Pogrom and post-World War II Polish antiSemitism generally (see last week’s post for details). Thus the release of a film based on the Jadwabne Massacre, in which a Polish filmmaker, no less, was among the producers, could not have come at a better time. The Times of Israel has run a story about the new film: Poles release first film admitting responsibility for infamous anti-Jewish massacre. The film has apparently achieved a wide release and generated considerable controversy and discussion in Poland, including some death threats directed against the director. Why am I not surprised? But a very good step, nonetheless, and one that I think is worth a dozen museums of Polish-Jewish history.

With respect to last week’s blog post itself, I am hopeful to be in a position to report some positive developments in the upcoming months. Suffice it to say that it has not fallen on deaf ears, certainly not entirely.

I should also note that Polish amnesia to its history of antiSemitism is far from unique. Other European countries are similarly obtuse when it comes to their complicity in the Holocaust, and often, like Poland, hide behind a victimhood theme, most notably Austria and Hungary. Others, like Spain and Croatia, did such a good job of eliminating their Jewish populations that the existence of Jewish life in their countries is at best a curiosity. I write about this in Visiting “Judenrein” Lands, another of my more popular blog pieces, chronicling my experiences last year in Croatia, and, to an extent, in Spain in the late 1990s. But while Poland is not alone, the Polish experience is also singular if only due to the sheer size of the vanished Jewish community, its importance and the opportunity, finally, of forcing some recognition here in hopes of achieving both true repentence and, possibly, reconciliation. I have a memory of a Hebrew aphorism which, if I remember it correctly, strikes me as entirely applicable here – “There can be no redemption without a reckoning.”

Switching to a much happier subject, one of the more popular blog posts that I have posted was Jewish A Cappella Music – An Introduction. Since the time of posting, I realize that I omitted a very popular Jewish a cappella group, the Maccabeats. The group’s webpage is http://www.maccabeats.com/ and one of their pieces, Candlelight, went viral on YouTube in late 2010. It’s a beautiful take off on Taio Cruz’s Dynamite. I don’t particularly care for the video side as the production values are, frankly, somewhat juvenile. But the music is great and the group is worth following. Their 2012 Chanukah music video, Shine, strikes me as far superior (even if it didn’t go nearly as viral).

I also discovered a tremendous resource for learning all about Jewish a cappella music. I refer to The Kolcast, the one and only podcast featuring Jewish a cappella music. It is hosted by Mike Boxer, a member of Six13, the premier professional Jewish a cappella group. Mike is also a noted music producer in the Jewish a cappella field for other groups, among them one of my other favorites, Tizmoret. Readers interested in getting a flavor of this genre will be delighted to find out that Mike plays full-length recordings not only of Six13, but of many of the other leading Jewish a cappella groups, including many that are mentioned in my blog piece. For the price of “free” you simply can’t go wrong. Mike is an excellent DJ and the half-hour segments include information about the groups featured on the podcast. The Kolcast is also available on Itunes (again free) and past programs are available (from inception in January 2010), giving readers interested in learning about Jewish a cappella music a tremendous opportunity to get exposed to dozens of full-length recordings from the best in the field. If you don’t wind up a fan after this, I would be surprised.

And that brings us now to Shavuot. It’s that time of year again. First day Shavuot begins at sundown on Tuesday, May 14. First day is (naturally), Wednesday, May 15 and second day is on Thursday, May 16. The Mission Minyan, with which I affiliate, is doing an all night Tikkun Leyl Shavuot starting at 11:30 p.m. on May 14. The tikkun will take place at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, at the corner of Dolores and 16th Street and will conclude with sunrise Shacharit services at 5:00 a.m. the morning of May 15.  Intrepid souls who attend on the second day can hear me do the magnificant medieval Aramaic tone poem, Ytziv Pitgam, which is embedded into the Haftorah in some traditional synagogues, with a reading of the Book of Ruth following services, itself followed by a picnic in Dolores Park.

One of the pleasures of being part of a community that is so replete with first class scholars and educators is that the lecture line-up is always stellar and I have greatly enjoyed the tikkun in past years. Sadly, this Baby Boomer’s age is such that I don’t expect to handle the all night aspect all that easily and the more the merrier, especially to help make sure we have our 5:00 a.m. minyan, which I am told goes very quickly. (And, of course, like all well-run Jewish programs, there will be food.) So I hope to see you there and in any event, chag sameach.