Jewish RENAISSANCE

A FRESH PERSPECTIVE ON JEWISH CULTURE

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TEARING UP THE RULES

VIENNA’S CULTURE REVOLUTION

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YOUR SAY… Reader’s rants, raves 4 and views on the April issue of JR. WHAT’S NEW We announce the 6 winner of JR’s new arts award; Mike Witcombe asks: is there life after Roth?

FEATURE Amos Oz on Israel at 10 70, the future of peace, and Trump’s controversial embassy move.

FEATURE An art installation in 12 French Alsace is breathing new life into an old synagogue.

NATALIA BRAND NATALIA PASSPORT Vienna: The writers, 14 artists, musicians and thinkers who shaped modernism. Plus: we speak to the contemporary arts activists working in Vienna today.

MUSIC Composer Na’ama Zisser tells Danielle Goldstein about her

30 CONTENTS opera, Mamzer Bastard.

ART A new show explores the 1938 32 exhibition that brought the art the Nazis had banned to London.

FILM Masha Shpolberg meets 14 34 the director of a 1968 film, which followed a group of Polish exiles as they found haven on a boat in Copenhagen. 32 THEATRE Holy Sh!t comes to the 36 (renamed) Kiln Theatre in Kilburn; Judi Herman speaks to Jamie Lloyd, the director behind a season of Harold Pinter’s one-act plays.

BOOKS Shoshi Ish-Horowicz 40 speaks to AM Homes; Liz Cashdan meets the poet Aviva Dautch; David Herman remembers Clive Sinclair and David Brauner reviews Sinclair’s last book. Plus: Nina Caplan on Romans, Jews and wine.

30 SEPHARDI RENAISSANCE 47 Henrietta Foster explores a photography show at the Jewish Museum of Greece; a taste of Morocco in Venezuela; Eileen Khalastchi on life in Baghdad.

WHAT’S HAPPENING Our three- 55 month guide to art, books, film, music, theatre and other cultural events in the UK, Europe and Israel.

FAMILY Asterix is Jewish! And four 65 other things you (probably) didn’t

; ©ROB GREIG; ©ROH 2018: IMAGE BY AKA; ©THE BERNARD SIMON ESTATE, WIENER LIBRARY COLLECTIONS; © COLLECTIONS; WIENER LIBRARY AKA; ©THE BERNARD SIMON ESTATE, BY OF MAK ; ©ROB GREIG; ©ROH 2018: IMAGE COURTESY ©JÜDISCHES MUSEUM WIEN; ©IMAGNO/PICTUREDESK.COM; know about the comic book hero.

MEET THE READER Our series in 36 47 66 which we meet you, the reader. This

: ON THE COVER issue: Yael Brauer in Brighton.

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 3 YOUR SAY… JR Jewish Thanks to our supporters EDITOR Rebecca Taylor RENAISSANCE PRESIDENT David Dangoor SPONSORS •Prof Joan Freeman A FRESH PERSPECTIVE ON JEWISH CULTURE CEO Janet Levin SPONSORED BY DANGOOR EDUCATION APRIL 2018 £7.25 •David Dangoor •Jonathan Glass ART DIRECTOR Becky Redman •The Mirisch & •Chris Godbold LISTINGS EDITOR Danielle Goldstein Lebenheim Charitable •Stephen Goldman POETRY EDITOR Liz Cashdan Foundation •Icky Kurgan ARTS EDITOR Judi Herman MUSIC EDITOR Danielle Goldstein •David & Annie Lass FILM EDITOR Jason Solomons PATRONS •Bernard & Sylvia OUTLOUD EDITOR Judi Herman •The Shoresh Marder OPERATIONS MANAGER Caroline Porter HAVEN IN THE FENS Foundation •Prof Simon ADMIN ASSISTANT Lorraine Sheridan SUB EDITORS Agi Erdos, Judi Herman, CAMBRIDGE •Dee and Leslie Majaro MBE Stephen Herman, Patti Langton, Bergman •Stephen Moss CBE Diane Lukeman, Judith Mirzoeff ILLUSTRATIONS Thomas Fournier FREDERIC RAPHAEL, •Stanley Cohen OBE •Lesley Paiba ELAINE FEINSTEIN, PHILOSOPHERS, PHOTOGRAPHY Rob Greig, Daniel Shaked SCIENTISTS, •Anthony Coren •Harry Perovetz ACTIVISTS & WEBMASTER Anne Cotgreave STUDENT LEADERS •Walter Goldsmith •Rosalind Preston SOCIAL MEDIA EDITORS Danielle Goldstein, •Lionel Gordon OBE Caroline Porter •Ian Lancaster •Sarah Rose MARKETING CONSULTANT Ricky Coussins •Hilary & James Leek •David L Rubin EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Monica Bohm-Duchen, David Conway, Raphael THE GOLEM IN ICELAND MY INVISIBLE CULTURE JEWISH PIRATES •Brian Linden •Anne Sebba Gee, Judi Herman, Shoshi Ish-Horowicz, Liz Ison, Ancient myths retold Roxana Jebreel’s Sephardi manifesto Revenge on the high seas •Colette Littman •Naomi & Victor Bea Lewkowicz, Michael Mail, Irene Newton, Judith Mirzoeff •Judy Weleminsky Stone EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Reactions to our April issue •Marlene Sutton Geraldine Auerbach MBE CAMBRIDGE: HAVEN IN FRIENDS •Karen Trew Alex Brummer City Editor, Daily Mail •Gretha Arwas •Terry Turk Monica Bohm-Duchen Art historian Max Dunbar CEO, Jewish Museum Manchester THE FENS •Janice & Charles •Lady Watson David Glasser Chair, Ben Uri Art Gallery Bloom (Betty P Skolnick) Judy Ironside MBE Founder & President of UK Jewish Film LETTERS Cambridge connections •Susan Cresswell •Bencie Woll, FBA Jennifer Jankel Chair, Jewish Music Institute I was born in Cambridge in 1932. My parents •Julian Dawes & •And thanks to our Clive Lawton OBE Senior Consultant, Limmud were active members of the Cambridge Ann Rau Dawes anonymous donors Maureen Lipman Writer and actor Jewish Residents Committee. Two refugee Claudia Rubinstein Director Jewish Book Week Raymond Simonson CEO, JW3 girls stayed with us at different times – Nitza Spiro Director, Spiro Ark maybe Greta Burkill had heard about our Wedding dress mystery Lena Stanley-Clamp Director, European spare bedroom! My aunt, Flora Association for Jewish Culture The Master of Emmanuel certainly had Diamond, was BOARD OF TRUSTEES Janet Levin, Ian Lancaster (Chair), strong views, and although Frederic Raphael married at Bayswater Martin Motz, Judy Weleminsky, Brian Harris, heard that he did not admit Jews, I’m not Synagogue in June Lady Collins, Diane Lukeman (Volunteer sure he was antisemitic: I applied there and 1923 to Philip Jacobs. Coordinator) was accepted (as were three members of After Flora died in HON LEGAL ADVISOR Richard Rampton QC the family before me – nepotism trumping 1972, my mother The publisher, editor and members of the antisemitism, perhaps?). Anne rescued her committees of Jewish Renaissance wish to make it clear that the views in the articles are A pity that Rosalind Franklin (Newnham beautiful wedding those of individual authors and should not be College 1938-41) was not included in the dress (left), which had taken to reflect their own opinions. The rights of copyright holders are recognised. Copyright list of distinguished people connected been made by the holders we failed to locate should contact us at with Cambridge. And many people at the Jewish dressmaker Aida Woolf, and the address below. Printed in Wales by Pensord. Thompson’s Lane Synagogue were scholars donated it to the V&A Museum. It was Published by Renaissance Publishing of Jewish subjects, including Rabbi Dr David displayed in an exhibition in Bethnal a company limited by guarantee Margules, who served the congregation Green but later the delicate decoration Registered Charity Number 1152871. during World War II. His life story, including deteriorated. Now the dress has been CONTACT INFORMATION 353-359 Finchley Rd, spells where he was interned at Dachau repaired and is on display in the V&A London NW3 6ET and the Isle of Man, was written up by his Fashion Gallery (in Case No 9) for at least +44 20 7794 5254 daughter Nina in He Came to Cambridge. a year. In a 2015 V&A book, Edwina Ehrman WEBSITE Hillel House was one of only two describes the dress as made of “silver lace www.jewishrenaissance.org.uk EMAIL boarding houses for Jewish boys at English …with appliqué pink silk flowers”. I would [email protected] schools and was a feature of life at the city’s like to know how much my aunt’s dress [email protected] [email protected] Perse School. Derek Taylor has written its would have cost. The curators have no [email protected] history. Thank you for bringing back so information. If anyone can help, please SOCIAL many memories. JOHN HARRIS contact: [email protected]. Twitter: @JewishRen BRYAN DIAMOND www.facebook.com/JewishRenaissance © Copyright Jewish Renaissance The Jews of Silicon Fen? ISSN 1476 1769 The Cambridge articles were fascinating Please send your letters to: but I would have liked to have known about [email protected] or by post to: Jewish involvement in the area’s ‘Silicon Editor, Renaissance Publishing, Office 2, Fen’ and biotech cluster. NIGEL GRIZZARD 353-359 Finchley Rd, London NW3 6ET

4 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 OUR To show the To celebrate To nurture 1 vitality of 2 the diversity of 3 understanding AIMS contemporary Jewish experience between Jewish FROM JR’S and traditional in the UK and and other PRESIDENT Jewish culture. around the world. cultures. FROM THE EDITOR

ven I – no football fan – whooped watching Harry Kane net England’s Esecond goal during the crucial England versus Tunisia World Cup game. It got me thinking, in this season of sport, how such activities throw up unlikely scenarios. The world is lurching towards authoritarianism and intolerance, but was delighted to be among over 2,500 people Russia, one of the countries driving all of this, is hosting an who attended celebrations for Israel’s 70th event celebrating passion and co-operation. Fans from 32 Ibirthday in May at the Royal Albert Hall and I countries have mingled together peacefully in Red Square. had the honour of receiving the guest of honour, Also remarkable was the choice of Jerusalem as the start the Prince of Wales (above). for one of the world’s biggest cycling races, the Giro d’Italia, in The evening was a showcase of the diversity of May. The man behind the event was Sylvan Adams, an Israeli- culture that can be found in contemporary Israel, Canadian philanthropist and son of a Romanian Holocaust ranging from the Ethiopian singer Gili Yalo to the survivor. The pelaton included teams from Saudi Arabia jazz and hip hop sounds of Balkan Beat Box, to and Bahrain: neither have diplomatic ties with Israel, and

A-wa, the trio of sisters who sing catchy Yemenite funding for the race included building the only velodrome LETTERS and Arabic songs. I first heard of A-wa when they in the Middle East. Adams hopes to hold region-wide were featured as JR’s cover stars back in 2016. Their championships there in the future. chart-topping Habib Galbi nearly took the roof off. Cynics argue that both Russia and Israel are using their The recognition of Sephardi culture respective sporting events to promote themselves – and the continues in JR’s July issue, where we visit an Giro never crossed Jerusalem’s Green Line. This is all true but exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Greece it doesn’t negate the fact that partnerships between countries (p48), which features the photos of Nissim Levis. unthinkable elsewhere can take place in the sporting arena. Nissim lived in the town of Ioannina until he This issue focuses on a place that was also at the epicentre was deported by the Nazis, along with the rest of of ferment: Vienna in the early 20th century. One hundred the town’s Jewish population, in 1944. There is years ago, artists, writers, musicians and thinkers – many also a timely report from Venezuela of them Jewish – were creating a radical new culture, which (p50) about Estrella Benmaman, reached its zenith in the birth of the modernist movement – who turns her Caracas home into before being halted with the rise of Nazism. a Moroccan restaurant once a Sport and culture are not perfect but they allow us a month, serving up dishes passed temporary haven where camaraderie and beauty conquer down from her family. divisiveness and cruelty – and perhaps give us the keys to I hope you enjoy creating a better world. Wishing you a wonderful summer, reading these pieces from wherever you are spending your summer,

REBECCA TAYLOR, EDITOR [email protected] SOCIAL: @JewishRen; www.facebook.com/JewishRenaissance CONTRIBUTORS

MIKE WITCOMBE GILES MASHA ADRIAN WHITTLE DIANE V What is the MACDONOGH SHPOLBERG Adrian travels SILVERTHORNE future for Giles is a Masha is a PhD all over the The café is an Jewish fiction historian and candidate in world and integral part now that Philip author of 15 comparative reports back on of Vienna’s Roth has gone? “Bright!” is books. His book on post-war literature and film & media architecture and design for his cultural life. Diane explores the answer Mike Witcombe Germany, After the Reich, studies at Yale University. blog, adrianyekkes.blogspot. this revered institution on p14. gives in his exploration of the was a bestseller. His recent USA. Her research focuses on com, which is also the basis Her edited volume Music, Art authors who are generating work, On Germany, is a study Russian and Polish cinema. for the JR design series, and Performance from Liszt excitement on the American of Angela Merkel’s Germany. On p34 she speaks to the The Modernists. On p22 he to Riot Grrrl (Bloomsbury) is literary scene (p8). Mike is a On p24 he uncovers the filmmaker Marian Marzynski explores the revolutionary out later in 2018. She will give lecturer in English at Bath story of his great-great- about his 1968 documentary designs of the Austrian a paper at the Freud Museum Spa University, where grandfather, who was the that features a group of Polish architects and artists whose in September as part of the he teaches 20th-century owner of the grand Zwieback refugees living on a boat work heralded the birth exhibition Leaving Today: The literature and theory. store in fin-de-siècle Vienna. in Copenhagen. of modernism. Freuds in Exile 1938.

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 5 SWIMMING WHAT’S NEW ALONG TOGETHER Kolin in the Czech Republic will hold a special swimming event to remember its Jewish community, reports Judi Herman

he town of Kolin in Bohemia Tin the Czech Republic is the venue for a special swimming event this summer. On 26 August, a charity swim will take place in the River Elbe, where it runs through the town, in honour of Hana Greenfield, one of the town’s few Holocaust survivors. Hana learnt to swim in the river in Kolin as a child and would have swum alongside her Jewish and non-Jewish friends. When the Nazis invaded her homeland, she was deported to Terezin, and then on to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. After she was liberated from the concentration camp, she moved to England and then Israel, becoming an author, Jonathan Farey of the Magnard publisher and educator. She died Ensemble with children from in 2014. South Malling Primary School Now a swim in memory of at a CAVATINA session in 2017 Hana will see Jews and non-Jews swimming together in the river at

WHAT’S NEW WHAT’S Kolin for the first time in over 80 CAVATINA WINS JR’S years. The idea for the event came from Hana’s daughter, Meira NEW ARTS AWARD Partem, and Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue member Jane An award set up by JR and the volunteer organisation WIZO has been won Drapkin – a ‘wild swimming’ by a pioneering music charity, reports Rebecca Taylor enthusiast who has swum the English Channel. AVATINA Chamber Music Trust is carefully chosen pieces, asking questions Hana herself helped to keep the winner of a new award set up by and discussing the music, but many the memory of Kolin’s Jews alive, C JR and the Women’s International of the ensembles who play to them are instituting an annual essay prize Zionist Organisation (WIZO). The award, young musicians who benefit from the for its schools. Kolin’s mayor which was established in January, is aimed opportunity to perform.” and schools now work alongside at acknowledging an arts programme or “All of us at CAVATINA are thrilled to NPLS members to preserve teacher that has created opportunities have won the Commitment to Growth the memory of the Jewish for young people to be creative, enables through Music & the Arts category in community. The 320-year-old learning, and in some cases, overcomes WIZO’s 2018 Commitment Awards, so Baroque synagogue, restored vulnerability. The award was presented kindly sponsored by Jewish Renaissance. in the 1990s, is now a thriving to Tom Hancox, the CEO of CAVATINA It offers us a real cachet, not just to be concert hall and exhibition space, at WIZO’s 2018 Commitment Awards associated with WIZO – so well known for and is occasionally also still used ceremony on 2 July in London. its excellent and far-reaching charitable as a synagogue. Dotted around The aim of CAVATINA is to introduce work – but with Jewish Renaissance, which the town’s cobbled streets is a chamber music to young people. The is widely recognised for its high-quality trail of Stolpersteine plaques organisation was founded in 1998 by coverage of the arts,” said Hancox. (brass plates with the name Simon and Pamela Majaro and it works The prize is a special tour of Israel and life dates of victims of Nazi with musicians to offer free concerts for in December, where Hancox will see in extermination) commemorating young people all over the country, as well action some of the WIZO projects related to Koliners who perished in the as taking ensembles into dozens of schools CAVATINA’s area of work. Holocaust. Kolin also boasts a every year. The music charity also offers The Commitment Awards were set renowned brass band, which will young people a subsidised ticket scheme up by the UK arm of WIZO to recognise play during the swimming event. for chamber concerts. the vision of those who use their skills to Join the swim by searching The judges said: “CAVATINA ensures address the needs of others. The categories Hana Greenfield Memorial Swim that children have the opportunity of were expanded this year as part of activities Tickets on Eventbrite. n hearing music they would otherwise to mark WIZO’s centenary. n not have been exposed to. Not only See: Eventbrite.com or contact jane_ do the children benefit from hearing wizouk.org, cavatina.net [email protected]

6 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 MARVELLOUS TOURS IN GREAT COMPANY TOURS 2018-19

PURIM IN MOROCCO 17-24 MARCH 2019 ETHIOPIA Incomparable Rafi Elmaleh leads us WITH SYBIL SHERIDAN through the Jewish heritage of 21 FEB – 7 MARCH 2019 fabulous Fez and Meknes, Roman South Ethiopia: The mystical walled city of Volubilis and elegant Rabat, Havar, much natural beauty, beautiful people to a Purim party in Casablanca and extraordinary art + Addis Ababa. and on to magical Marrakesh. BERLIN 4-17 NOVEMBER 2019 22-26 AUGUST 2018 North Ethiopia: Axum, Simien Mountains, THESSALONIKI TO ATHENS See the Jewish, and other, major sites Lalibela, Lake Tana and Jewish communities of 16-24 MAY 2019 of this cultural capital with a wonderful Gondar and Addis Ababa. Repeating our highly rated 2015 and 2016 trips with guide, meetings with members of the local

the wonderful Rania to Thessaloniki, the stunning communities, and in excellent company. Q&A with Sybil Sheridan 5 Sept 2018, 6pm in WHAT’S NEW tomb at Vergina, Ioannina, Meteora, Volos, Athens. Contact [email protected]. Edgware. Email: [email protected]

SEE INFORMATION ON ALL TOURS AT WWW.JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK/TOURS

STUNNING PRAGUE JOYOUS MUSIC UNFORGETTABLE WEEKEND FRI 23 - SUN 25 NOVEMBER 2018

JOIN WORLD-CLASS CANTORS AT: • a special Shabbat service • a choral & cantorial gala concert • their Shabbat meals

BE GUIDED BY EXPERT AHARON IVO HRIBEK • through Jewish Prague • around the historic castle • on a day-trip to Terezin

Details at: www.jewishheritagetours.co.uk, or contact Marcel on 07712 290520

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 7 WHAT’S NEW LIFE AFTER ROTH? With the death of Philip Roth in May, America lost one of its literary greats. But, says Mike Witcombe, it’s time to embrace a new generation of novelists whose outlook offers a refreshingly diverse picture of Jewish American life

he recent death of American Jewish writer Philip Roth was a huge loss T to literature. As a long-time reader, scholar, and admirer of his works, his passing also deeply personally saddened me. It’s been some consolation that the last few months have seen a large number of obituaries and articles on his work, most of which celebrate the tremendous scale of his achievement. The New York Times, for example, called him “the preeminent novelist of our times”; others called him “one of the greats of post-war American literature” and “the most prolific writer of his age”. It’s a big billing, but one that Roth earned over the course of a long and remarkable career, which led to him becoming the Jewish American writer par excellence.

WHAT’S NEW WHAT’S Roth followed in the footsteps of Jewish writers who gained fame in the years immediately following World War II – most notably Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow. The still-dominant reputation of the ‘big three’, especially Bellow and Roth, may give the impression that Jewish American literature is slightly stodgy, set in its ways. The disenchanted intellectuals who haunt Bellow’s fiction still command an audience, but they’re showing their age. There’s also less appetite for Malamud’s tales of Jewish suffering and crisis – though Snoop Dogg, who starred in a 2005 film adaptation of Malamud’s novel The Tenants, might disagree. It’s an obvious but important point that all of the “big three” writers are men. There has been a lot of great academic work in recent years to challenge this idea that men must dominate the Jewish literary canon. Brilliant women such as Grace Paley, Cynthia Ozick and Adrienne Rich were often overlooked in their day by academics and critics, and the whole field had the feel of a boy’s club. This was underlined by the content of some of the books being canonised; the journalist Vivian Gornick once argued that “if in Bellow misogyny was like seeping bile, in Roth it was lava pouring forth from a volcano”, and she isn’t alone in her opinion. People like me who research these writers for a living are used to being on the defensive – mentioning Roth around academics can produce eye- rolls as readily as enthusiasm.

8 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 When Roth retired in 2012, he Chuck Palmer – a novelist who is celebrated memoirs of writers, often women, still commanded a large readership. for his confessional work. “I know I’m who have left the faith. Nonetheless, people were starting to look at not supposed to like [Roth] because he’s a Whilst these novelists are causing a the field of Jewish American literature with misogynist,” says Hannah as she praises stir (as are some brilliant playwrights and a new eye. Bellow had died seven years the novel, before adding, “Never let politics poets), some of the most exciting writing of before, preceded by Malamud back in 1986. dictate what you read or who you fuck.” the new generation can be found in graphic The old guard were disappearing, and the Jill Soloway also takes on the Roth baton novels. One of my current favourites is search was already on for who would take and his obsession with Jewish identity in Sarah Glidden, whose work blurs the line their place. Transparent, her televisual exploration of between autobiography and journalism. The journalist David Sax was one of gender and Jewish family life. The plot line Her book How to Understand Israel in 60 the first to bring the idea of a post-Roth of season 4 gives the issue an irrevocably Days or Less examines American-Israeli generation into popular discussion. His contemporary tint with its focus on one relations, and how individual Americans 2009 article, ‘Rise of the New Yiddishists’, character’s journey to identify as gender trying to make sense of the country can explored a new generation of “outwardly, non-binary. have conflicting emotions. proudly, Neil Diamond–ly Jewish” writers Nicole Krauss is another example of In the book, Glidden accepts an who seemed to suffer far fewer hang-ups the new generation’s ambition. Her novels opportunity to go on a Birthright trip, a than their predecessors. Rather than range widely over time, and include a great programme offering young diaspora Jews wallowing in their neuroses, there was many different narrators and characters. a tour of Israel designed to reaffirm their something celebratory – and maybe even Meanwhile Elisa Albert takes the Rothian sense of Jewish identity. The title is a nod fun – about a lot of these writers. Sax model of self-interrogation in fascinating to how her attitudes towards the country raised a potent and timely question about new directions, exploring motherhood and have become more complex through her what this new generation of writers might terminal illness in her novels After Birth experiences, as well as a gentle dig at the be bringing to the table. (2015) and The Book of Dahlia idea of Birthright tours. Glidden has a Sax suggests Jewishness is “I know I’m (2008) respectively. Fearlessly distinctive art style strongly influenced suddenly ‘cool’: whether or ambitious and taking by Hergé’s Tintin books. Her calm not this is true, it’s certainly not supposed pleasure in scandalising her watercolours suggest that the book is quite

manifesting itself in new to like [Roth] readers, Albert dubs herself a simple read – yet it is one of the most WHAT’S NEW and unusual ways. because he’s a “a lobotomized Philip Roth complex works on the subject. But it seems only fitting writing chick lit”. However, Another brilliant graphic novelist is that it’s now women who are misogynist…” an academic article on her Anya Ulinich, whose book Lena Finkle’s leading the way. Take Girls, work has already called her Magic Barrel is probably better compared the TV show written by Lena Dunham “Roth’s literary heir”, and a glance at her to Girls than to any other work of literature. (who has a Jewish mother). It takes Roth’s powerful (and often hilarious) writing shows It’s a heavily autobiographical novel about ideas in a fascinating new direction and this to be no exaggeration. a Russian Jewish woman who divorces her turns the male-led, sexual adventures Those of a more historical bent may husband and tries her hand at Internet of Portnoy’s Complaint on their head. In find Dara Horn’s work more to their taste dating. Ulinich’s book looks and reads like Girls, female sexual desire is put front – her novel How This Night is Different a sketchbook diary or ‘zine’ that’s been and centre as the show follows the main (2009) tracks the experience of a Jewish photocopied and sent out to friends. This protagonist, Hannah, as she dabbles in the soldier in the American Civil War, exposing gives Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel a sense New York dating scene. Roth’s own books unexpected Jewish themes in a pivotal of intimacy that matches the topics it even make an appearance in the show. In moment in American history. Ayelet discusses, which range from sexual assault one episode, Hannah, who is a teacher, Waldman’s Love and Treasure (2014) to the difficulties of raising young children assigns her eighth-graders Goodbye expands outwards from the chaos of the within a failing marriage. Columbus. In series 6, in one of many end of World War II to encompass a swathe These books are changing the way that Rothian plot allusions, Hannah is given a of 20th-century Jewish history. There has people think about the whole field of Jewish copy of Roth’s 1967 novel, When She Was also been a rise in fiction and memoirs American literature. It’s not just that a lot Good, as she is about to be seduced by focused on Jewish religious identity – Pearl of these writers are women, but that the Abraham and Allegra Goodman have both position of women in Jewish culture is a key Left: Philip Roth, walking in the woods in Newark, written brilliant novels exploring the lives topic in many of these works. In a departure New Jersey; Below: Hannah (Lena Dunham) with a of Chasidic communities in America, from previous decades, women are no

BOB PETERSON/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY BOB PETERSON/THE LIFE IMAGES copy of Roth’s When She Was Good, in Girls and every year seems to bring forth more longer a specialist topic but central to the conversation. It’s been a slow process – but it’s been gratifying to watch it unfold. Roth may have left us, but his books aren’t going away any time soon. They still sell in large numbers, and can be found on a huge number of university course lists. Film adaptations of his work are still coming out almost every year. But with his legacy seeming assured, I like to think that Roth would approve of how these younger female writers are changing the conversation, given how much he changed conversations himself back in the day. His loss is a great blow to literature, but the field is blossoming with new ideas. n

Mike Witcombe is a lecturer in English at Bath Spa University.

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 9 “W E ARE TWO UNHAPPY FAMILIES” The latest work from Israeli novelist Amos Oz was published as Israel marked its 70th anniversary – and just after US President Donald Trump moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem. In an interview with Sarah Judith Hofmann, he talks about how peace can still be achieved

he son of Jewish migrants is “a question of life and death for the State Mussolini, Franco, the Japanese militarists. from Eastern Europe, of Israel”. The author, whose 40 books have I was born in a tiny little enclave of terrified author Amos Oz was born in been translated into 45 languages, and who Jewish refugees, less than half a million of Jerusalem on 4 May 1939, at was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in them, with no clear perspective of a future, a time when the horrors of 2017, talks about the reasons why he feels hopes yes, but no clear perspective. So, yes, the Holocaust were starting his country now stands at a crossroad. I think that this very rough, cruel, bloody to unfold. This was also almost exactly world of today is less bloody, cruel and Tnine years before the state of Israel was SARAH JUDITH HOFMANN: Israel is hopeless than the world of the early 1940s. proclaimed on land formerly known as celebrating its 70th anniversary. How do Palestine. While Oz grew up as a “militant you feel about that? Will you raise your SJH: You were born in Jerusalem before Zionist”, after the Six Day War in 1967 he glass? the state of Israel was born. What was it became an early advocate of a two-state AMOS OZ: Yes, I will raise my glass like to live in this Jewish enclave during solution as the means to end the Israeli- because if I compare the kind of world into such a difficult time? Palestinian conflict. which I was born to the world of today, AO: Throughout my childhood, a heavy Oz’s latest work, Dear Zealots: Letters it’s not that today’s world strikes me as cloud of pain and disappointment and from a Divided Land, continues to argue paradise or as heaven, but I was born into insecurity hovered over my home, my that the granting of Palestinian statehood the world of Nazi Germany – Hitler, Stalin, little street, my neighbourhood, Jewish

10 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 INTERVIEW AMOS OZ

Jerusalem, Jewish Israel. My parents never was as physically divided as Berlin, with the we are not family. We are two unhappy shared with me their disappointed love of iron wall and minefields and wires and no families. We have to divide the house into Europe. But I could sense that pain and the man’s lands and concrete walls. two smaller next-door apartments. There longing. I could even guess that they were Standing on the rooftop of our building is no point in even fantasizing that after trying to artificially create a little enclave I could see East Jerusalem, I could see 100 years of bloodshed and anger and of Europe in the middle of the heat and Mount Scopus, I could see the Arab conflict Jews and Arabs will jump into a arid atmosphere of Jerusalem. So it was a neighbourhoods. But I could see the moon honeymoon bed and start making love not strange world for a little boy, full of secrets, too, and the chances that I could ever go war. full of family censorship. to those places or the chances that I would ever set foot on the moon looked about the SJH: In your new book, Dear Zealots: SJH: You were nine years old when same — unrealistic. Letters from a Divided Land, you write David Ben-Gurion declared Israel’s that the Jewish people are indeed a Independence. How do you remember SJH: How do you see Jerusalem now? nation and not just a religion. How would 14 May, 1948? AO: I have mixed feelings about Jerusalem. you define a Jewish state? AO: 14 May was a Friday. Jerusalem had It is fascinating, it is beautiful, it is tragic AO: Before I define it I have to make a very already been under Arab siege for two or and it is extremely attractive to all kinds strict distinction. It’s “the state of the Jews” three months. And the only road which of fanatics or redeemers, and not the “Jewish state”. connected Jerusalem to the other Jewish world reformers, self- “There should be A state cannot be Jewish parts of the country was practically appointed prophets or just like a car cannot be controlled by Arabs. From time to time, messiahs. I find this an embassy of Jewish. A state is a vehicle, convoys would supply [us], would break fascinating, but I don’t all the countries an instrument. It can into the city. But we experienced starvation think I would like to live in in the world in be a good instrument, a and lack of water – because the water the middle of this. I need bad instrument, a rotten pumps were blown up by Iraqi troops and my distance. East Jerusalem” instrument, a stinking Jerusalem had no water – and fear. I don’t know what instrument. A state of the will happen in Jerusalem but I know what Jews is a different idea. It means, the Jews, SJH: In A Tale of Love and Darkness should happen. Every country in the world the same as any other group in the world, [Oz’s 2002 autobiographical novel] you should follow the example of President have their right to be a majority and not a describe how before 1948 you could still Trump and move the embassy in Israel minority in one small patch of this planet. go to Arab neighbourhoods. How did this to Jerusalem. But simultaneously there This is the state of the Jewish people and at change? should be an embassy of all [the] countries the same time it’s a state for all its non- AO: A few months before 14 May, there was in the world in East Jerusalem as the capital Jewish citizens. That’s how it should be — a kind of iron curtain dividing Jerusalem of the state of Palestine. not how it is, far from it. into Jewish and Arab Jerusalem. Some Arab inhabitants in the Jewish neighbourhoods SJH: Why have you long been a strong SJH: As a little boy, you were a militant migrated to the east and the south of the supporter of the two-state solution? Zionist. Why? city. Jewish people from the east and the AO: I have been advocating this idea for AO: I thought that the cause of the Zionist south migrated to the north and the west 50 years. It is very simple. We are speaking Jews was 100 per cent right and anyone for personal safety. After the war of 1948 – about a very small house — about the size of who resents or objects to or interrupts this Israel’s War of Independence – Jerusalem Denmark. It’s the one and only homeland cause is an antisemite, a racist, a monster. of the Jews, it’s also the one and only It took me some time to realise that the Left: Amos Oz at his home in Tel Aviv; below: picking homeland of the Palestinian Arabs. fulfilment of the dreams of the Jews had a olives with Palestinian women in the West Bank village We cannot become one happy family cost. And to a large extent the Palestinian of Aqraba south of Nablus because we are not one, we are not happy, Arabs had to pay this cost. I didn’t realise this as a child. I do realise it now.

SJH: Where do you see Israel 70 years from now? Or where would you wish it to be? AO: This is the land of the prophets, there is too much competition in the prophecy business here (laughing). I don’t dare to tell you where it will be seven months from now. I tell you what I want. This will be the shortest answer in the whole interview: peace. n

©Deutsche Welle. This interview was originally published on dw.com. Sarah Judith Hofmann is a freelance journalist based in Tel Aviv. Dear Zealots: Letters from a Divided Land by Amos Oz, Chatto UZI VARON; MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/GETTY VARON; UZI

© and Windus, 2018, £10.99.

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 11 FILLING

THE VOID NEW LIFE FOR AN ALSACE SYNAGOGUE

This summer, a dilapidated synagogue in north-eastern France is the site for a striking art installation. Daniel Newman uncovers the story behind the building and the plans for its future

eichshoffen synagogue in the shape of a crucifix. town’s Jewish community felt: sure of its seems confused. Built in This confusion continues inside. The own identity but less certain of its place in 1852, it is a proud and unforgiving, long wooden pews and raised wider French society. prominent monument. It bimah at the front resemble the layout of a Now, with broken tiles, peeling plaster, has its own gate and large church. Meanwhile, honeycomb geometric gaping ceiling holes and bullet holes still grounds, and it is situated patterns, inspired by a seventh-century peppering its external walls, it is a void of on Rue de la Synagogue, at the centre Andalusian mosque, decorate the walls the community it was built for. It will only Rof the town of Reichshoffen in French and stained glass windows. The decorative be a matter of time before it will not be safe Alsace. It makes the statement that it is ironwork was custom made by the nearby to enter the site. This is the case for many an established part of this north-eastern De Dietrich company. The firm is now a Jewish heritage sites in Alsace. The region French community. global brand but it was De Dietrich who once boasted 200 synagogues – the densest On the other hand it wants to be fabricated the cattle wagons later used to concentration in all of Europe. private. Set back from the road, obscured deport France’s Jews. But now Yoav Rossano, an energetic behind a wall and overgrown plants, it But maybe the appearance of the Israeli-Italian is addressing the fate of could be mistaken for a Christian chapel. synagogue is not as random as it first looks. these buildings. Rossano is a curator On the roof there used to be a weather vane Perhaps it is a natural extension of how the and artist who specialises in art projects

12 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 around historic sites and is best known for the Alsatian countryside. In 1601 a census today many of the remaining communities transforming the White Stork synagogue in showed that, of 150 families living in have strong Sephardi identities. Wroclaw, Poland from dilapidated ruin to Reichshoffen, five were Jewish. Ascher Reichshoffen had 36 Jewish residents in its former glory. Levy, a 17th-century scholar regarded as 1939 and all had fled the town by the time He came across the Reichshoffen the village’s rabbi, recorded that in 1648, at the Germans entered it. The last family was synagogue after moving to Strasbourg a few the end of the Thirty Years War, there were saved by the village nobility, who took them years ago. The history page on the town’s only 15 Jews left in the town. in chauffeur-driven cars to the railway website makes no mention of the building, But in 1770, on condition of station – less than three hours before the the 500-year-old Jewish community who discretion, a synagogue was established Germans drove into town. Despite this once lived there, or the fate which befell in a building at 4 Rue des Juifs, the street respite, most of the community were later them under Nazi control. Some locals where the community was based. After captured by the Gestapo in other parts of who have lived a stone’s throw from the emancipation, in 1791, Jews were freely France and sent to Auschwitz. Only 15 Jews synagogue for over 40 years either have able to build synagogues for the first returned to Reichshoffen after the war. no idea why it is there or don’t know of its time. Reichshoffen’s synagogue of 1852 The last minyan (number needed to hold a existence. One resident living on the same (designed by Albert Haas) was the first service) at the synagogue was in 1967. street as the synagogue said, “I’ve never example of the Orientalist Raymond Lévy and his had the time or inclination to find out what style of architecture, which wife, who live in nearby it’s like inside.” later became fashionable “These ruins are Niederbronn-les-bains, “The first step to overcome this throughout Europe. As well as much part welcome the art project as a ignorance is to promote awareness of the as the Christian and Islamic of local history glimmer of hope. They and region’s past,” says Rossano. For the last motifs, the synagogue boasts Lévy’s sister represent the two years he has been working with Ben what are thought to be the as castles and last members of the area’s Jack Nash, a British artist also based in only existing public prayers monasteries” Jewish community. Lévy Strasbourg. Nash says he was eerily drawn for the French Republic, can trace his ancestors back to the synagogue’s quiet presence from written on wooden plaques in French and to 1785, and his grandfather fought for the his first visit. After researching the site Hebrew on either side of the ark. Germans in World War I. In World War II, and interviewing the local community, he By the mid-19th century there were an three out of his grandfather’s four children developed a project, Les Résidus du Vide estimated 255 Jews living in the town out of lost their lives fighting in the French (Leftover from the Void), which aims to a population of 3,700; across Alsace, Jews Resistance. Only Lévy’s father survived. breathe new life into the building. numbered 30,000 out of a total population Now in his 60s, Lévy, a former He has created a large-scale art of 1,200,000. scrap metal merchant, is a historian, installation that uses sculpture, light and Historically Jews had not been allowed photographer, linguist and self-confessed movement to transform the interior of to participate in agriculture or wine compulsive teller of jokes. He talks of the the building into “a place for reflection, cultivation so they worked as cattle traders, synagogue with the same fondness he talks question and connection”. In particular, moneylenders and peddlers – and spoke about his grandchildren and is passionate the art interacts with the site’s striking the original form of Yiddish, Yiddish about its importance. “Asking why I live stained glass windows, stone carvings Taitsh, also known as Jewish German. here is like asking why a tree grows where and other original features. “The art was From 1870, the area came under it does! This is where I grew up and my created to relate to the synagogue’s features German control and Jews from the east of ancestors grew up and where I will end my and personality. It reverses the traditional the Rhine bolstered these communities. days,” says Lévy, who organises synagogue role of art exhibitions by making the art Alsace returned to France in 1918, but tours and visits schools to teach children the backdrop for the exhibition space. It in May 1940 the region was taken by about the region’s Jewish community. He is is important that the work is not seen as Germany again when the Nazis occupied also the founder of an organisation called a mausoleum for the past, rather that it France. Of the region’s 200,000 strong ASHERN, which promotes Jewish culture in connects with contemporary issues and Jewish population about 14,000 had the area. His jovial appearance masks the uncertainties.” already been evacuated to south-west responsibility he feels to keep the memory “The communities who cared for France; after the invasion thousands more alive: “As one of the last Jews who remain Reichshoffen and similar sites are long fled south. Most of those remaining (about in the region, if I don’t take care of the gone. Current communities don’t have 3,000) were deported to Vichy France. building then no one else will.” that connection so they go unloved. But Alsace was also the location for France’s Finally, that responsibility is being plastering over the cracks only for them only purpose-built concentration camp, shared: Reichshoffen’s mayor has to reappear is futile. The fate of these sites Natzweiler-Struthof. announced he will back a 250,000 does not lie in the hands of some handout Ten per cent of the Jewish population euro project to save the building. “The from the EU or a trust foundation. It has to of Alsace and nearby Lorraine perished in synagogue is the final witness to a Jewish come from the living communities. These the Holocaust, compared to 22 per cent in presence that has been here for 500 future Mayan ruins are as much part of the rest of the country. Historians believe years. In the space of a generation that local history and identity as castles and that knowing what was happening across presence could disappear from our monasteries,” says Rossano. the border in Germany made the Jews memory,” says Lévy. n In the thousand years prior to the of the region better prepared to face the Reichshoffen construction, French Jews forthcoming occupation. Les Résidus du Vide runs until 30 September. were forbidden from building synagogues. After the war, newcomers from Algeria See What’s Happening, p63 and benjacknash.com. In 14th-century France, Jews were expelled revived the Alsace communities. By 1970, For details of Raymond Lévy’s tours and ASHERN from large towns and many migrated to the region had around 50,000 Jews and contact [email protected]

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 13 PASSPORT

HOW MODERNISM WAS BORN OVER A COFFEE AND VIENNA STRUDEL As Vienna marks 100 years of the flowering of modernism in the city, Diane Silverthorne takes us on a stroll through its turn-of-the-century cafés, where radical ideas were brewing…

t is the summer of 1902 and the place to another, between different religious rendered them increasingly vulnerable to is Vienna, ‘City of Dreams’. Imagine, and ethnic persuasions and from art to antisemitic rhetoric and frequent attacks Ifor a moment, that you are sitting at life have contributed to the fact and the from the city’s right-wing. Uncertainties your usual table in the Café Imperial on mythology of Vienna’s extraordinary about their seemingly secure position in the Kärntner Ring. Across the room you fin-de-siècle period as the crucible for society engendered a sense of unease, see the composer Gustav Mahler, in deep an unprecedented flowering of radical which found its way into Gustav Klimt’s conversation with a tall bearded figure. new forms in all the arts, fuelled by coffee famous ‘society portraits’, as well as the You might have been surprised to learn and the heated atmosphere of an Empire more disturbing expressionist portraiture that the result of this meeting, some nine seemingly in its heyday. of Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka. months later, was a groundbreaking new The coffeehouse as a space of social production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. interaction at the heart of the city, but THE BIRTH OF THE SECESSION Mahler had been talking to Alfred outside its formal institutions, was The Secession members’ early plans were Roller, one of the founding artists of the also granted the epithet ‘not of this likewise formulated in cafés, leading to the Vienna Secession art movement. Like ground’, a phrase often used to refer to group’s spectacular set-pieces, such as the many Jewish-born public figures, Mahler Vienna’s Jewish middle classes, however building of their exhibition pavilion, the had been forced to convert to Catholicism well assimilated. Such an aspersion Secession House, and a series of celebratory in order to secure office – in his case, as was encouraged by an atmosphere of modern art exhibitions. Many young director of the Court Opera in 1897. He institutionalised antisemitism, particularly artists were familiars of the Café Sperl, and Roller had met at the composer’s during the mayoralty of Christian Socialist (Gumpfendorfer Strasse) and met there

favourite café, his ‘home from home’. Karl Lueger from 1897. Lueger’s populist to voice their discontent with Vienna’s BILDARCHIVAUSTRIA.AT The Vienna café, described by the writer politics were often regarded as a model for Künstlerhaus, the city’s only official Stefan Zweig as “a sort of democratic club”, Hitler’s Nazism. exhibiting body. Drawings and sketches encouraged easier crossings between The new, socially mobile ‘aristocracy’ – for the new building were passed around social and political boundaries than were who often commissioned avant-garde art the café tables, with the artists united by possible in the more rigid and formally – achieved a status based, in the words of their ardent wish to create a specifically observed spheres of Vienna’s public life. art historian Gemma Blackshaw, “not on a Austrian art for and of its time, freed from

Such intersections, from one social circle matter of birth but of taste”. Ironically this restrictions. Klimt’s coterie launched their © ALEXANDER SPATARI/GETTY;

14 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 art periodical, Ver Sacrum (Holy Spring) in and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. What Freud took his weekly stroll along the January 1898, and in November of that year drove Waerndorfer and others like him was Ringstrasse to the Café Landtmann, which the Secession House opened its doors for their passionate belief in the importance opened in 1873. Freud’s circle of fellow the first time. Their exhibitions, running of a modern cultural identity for Austria psychoanalysts also met at the historic three times a year, were the talk of Vienna through art, and a coherent vision for the Wednesday evening gatherings at his home and drew crowds in their thousands. integration of art with life. in Berggasse – meetings that were recorded The visionary Secession House, the and disseminated through journalistic defining manifestation of Austrian art CAFÉS IN LITERATURE articles. It is not too difficult to imagine nouveau (or Jugendstil), and other new Vienna’s cafés also feature in literary works that these same articles were widely read spaces of art and performance, such as of the period, notably in the writings of by the habitués of Vienna’s cafés. the avant-garde café and cabaret venue the Jewish writer Arthur Schnitzler (see Cabaret Fledermaus, owed their existence p26). His extraordinary novella Lieutenant STATEMENTS OF MODERNITY to the patronage and artistic passions Gustl (Leutnant Gustl), first published Coffeehouses were also designed as of Vienna’s Jewish families. Margaret in 1901, takes the form of a stream of statements of the new. Adolf Loos was Stonborough-Wittgenstein, sister of the consciousness that predates Virginia Woolf responsible for the Café Museum, situated philosopher Ludwig and pianist Paul and other modernist writers by several across the road from the Secession House. Wittgenstein, approached her father Karl years. The social spaces of various cafés Its austere design and unornamented to fund the building. The along the Ringstrasse feature ceiling earned it the nickname of ‘Café acknowledgement of this gift as a paradigm for the tensions Nihilismus’. In 1912, Hoffmann designed is marked on the walls of the “Stefan Zweig in Viennese society. In his the interior of the Graben Café, using stone Secession House today. regarded Dream Story (Traumnovelle, panelling and a distinctive wooden-frame Fritz Waerndorfer, a the café as a 1925), the central character chair. Unlike the Parisian café, which founding member of the Fridolin meets up with an opened onto the street more directly, Wiener Werkstätte (see democratic old friend in a dilapidated thereby providing an indeterminate space p22) is often described as club” coffeehouse following an illicit between leisure, entertainment and “the son of a wealthy Jewish encounter with a prostitute. the glittering spectacle of Haussmann’s industrialist”, an epithet which does little He persuades his friend to reveal the key to boulevards, the Vienna café tended to look to explain his diverse interests and those a secret society practising occult and erotic inwards, its windows heavily curtained of other individuals who contributed to the fantasies. with red velvet. formation of Vienna’s modernism. From Satirist Karl Kraus’s first pamphlet, The reputation of Vienna still relies on VIENNA a cultured family immersed in extensive The Demolished Literature (Die demolirte the fin-de-siècle period – no less so than in textile manufacturing enterprises, Literatur) paradoxically celebrated the 2018. Various exhibitions are marking the Waerndorfer was sent to London to study. demise of the Café Griensteidl as a critique 100-year anniversary of 1918: the deaths of Infused with British excellence in textile of the writing style of the Jung Wien group cultural figures including architect Otto design and the applied arts he assisted of writers. Kraus’s personal table could be Wagner, Klimt and Schiele; the flowering of architect Josef Hoffmann with a Secession found in the Café Central. As Kokoschka Vienna’s modernism, and the demise of the exhibition devoted to the applied arts, (see p18) later recorded on a unique vinyl Austro-Hungarian empire. featuring the work of Margaret McDonald disc of his memories of Vienna in the early While we quite rightly applaud such an 1900s, “I got to know some really great extraordinary era, this view should also be Top:Theodore Herzl (seated centre of table) with people who became good friends of mine tempered with realism. Many coffeehouses members of the Zion Organisation, the Luber Café, – Karl Kraus, a figure both famous and closed in the interwar period: a symbol of Vienna, 1896; Bottom: Coffeehouse, Vienna, 1915 feared, Adolf Loos (the architect) whose sudden and shocking endings. In 1938, the lectures drew thousands of people, and year of the Anschluss, 10,000 children from composer Arnold Schoenberg, attacked, across Europe arrived in Britain on the vilified and misunderstood, just like Kindertransport, an event that was myself.” Thus was expressionism born in recently marked at a photographic music, painting and architecture, driven exhibition of survivors’ portraits in by a savage critique of Viennese society Vienna and at London’s Austrian Cultural and a spirit of inner compulsion accounted Forum. The House of Austrian History (not for in Schoenberg’s declaration that “art is yet open) has marked the 1938 anniversary born of ‘I must’, not of ‘I can’.” with a programme of events, engaging No account of the literary coffeehouse “critically and intensively” with its location would be complete without in the Heldenplatz. reference to the writer Peter It has also been recently Altenberg, an elusive figure “Coffeehouses announced that a wall of who has often been reduced were designed names for Vienna’s Holocaust to passing references in victims is to be erected in the accounts of ‘Vienna 1900’. as statements centre of the capital. This will The neurasthenic Altenberg of the new” join Rachel Whiteread’s led a rather strange memorial to the Holocaust, existence, living between a hotel room and Nameless Library, which was unveiled in the Café Central, where he received his 2000, and was modelled on an apartment post and wrote poetry and small stories in the Judenplatz area in commemoration (Kleinkunst), as well as occasional musical of these events. n entertainments. These were performed at the Cabaret Fledermaus, which had been Dr Diane V Silverthorne’s edited volume Music, designed by Hoffmann and his Wiener Art and Performance from Liszt to Riot Grrrl is Werstätte collaborators. published by Bloomsbury and is out later in 2018. Other interconnecting circles Excerpts from this article also appeared in the flourished along similar lines. Sigmund Oxford Lieder Festival programme 2017.

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 15 PASSPORT

the mouthpiece for the radical Archduke Rudolf. The Archduke’s articles, directed The women who against his father Franz Joseph, were published under a pseudonym and the young Berta acted as intermediary between powered Vienna’s salons paper and palace, all carried out in top secret. It was in her salon that a circle of painters, architects and designers VIENNA Viennese salons were hothouses of radicalism. Michael Haas congregated. In 1897, led by Gustav Klimt, explores the lives of the women who were their driving force the Secessionist movement was founded, with Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Josef he Jewish salon established itself as The aristocracy patronised artists and Maria Olbrich and Carl Moll. a Viennese institution at the time composers, but they rarely patronised Berta worked as a spy during World T of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, innovation and they had little interest in War I and, through her family connections, when Felix Mendelssohn’s aunt, Fanny von reading. The Neue Freie Presse, Austria- tried to pave the way towards a separate Arnheim, and her daughter, Henriette von Hungary’s paper of record, in an attack peace between Austria and France. But Pereira-Arnstein, held cultural gatherings on the antisemitic newspaper Vaterland, she carelessly told Count Harry Kessler that included everyone from Vienna’s wrote, “without Jews, there would be no and the conductor Oskar Fried of her bohemians to the Tsar of Russia. Though readers of any journals or papers, even plans. As known friends of Berta, they had such salons were also part of the cultural those which are Christian and pan- been sent to spy on behalf of the German landscape in Paris and Berlin, it was in German”. Thus the Jewish salon became government, who sensed that Austria was Vienna in the dying days of the Empire that first and foremost a literary institution, up to mischief. they had their greatest resonance. with painters and musicians brought along Despite ruthless parodies of Berta by The salonnières – the (mostly female) as mixers: poets read their verses, actors Karl Kraus, she was more than a social organisers of the salons – included Berta recited soliloquies, a virtuoso would play butterfly. She spotted Klimt’s talent Zuckerkandl, Adele Bloch-Bauer, Eugenie while wine was poured. long before he became the instantly Schwarzwald and Josephine and Franziska By the turn of the century, Franziska recognisable artist we know today and she von Wertheimstein. Their gatherings, von Wertheimstein had taken over the was one of Vienna’s most influential arts alongside more conventional salons held salon of her mother Josephine. The writers. It remains a paradox that the only by the Todesco, Ephrussi or Wittgenstein Wertheimstein villa drew writers, artists member of the Zuckerkandl family painted families, arguably provided the engine and musicians from around the world, by Klimt was not Berta but her sister-in- rooms of fin-de-siècle modernism. but also from the surrounding suburb law Amalie. But with Klimt’s death in 1918, Even the best connected and most of Döbling. One of these was the young Amalie’s portrait remained incomplete and privileged Jewish families were excluded composer Franz Schreker, whose first opera – an unfortunate convert to Judaism – she from the courts of the aristocracy and the Flammen was set to a text by his fellow was murdered by the Nazis in 1942. still tiny but emerging middle class. Until salon-regular, the poet Dora Leen, also It was at a Zuckerkandl dinner that their emancipation with the December known as Dora Pollak. With the death of Gustav Mahler met his future wife: the Constitution of 1867, Jews were not even Franziska in 1907, the centre of intellectual event had been organised on behalf of allowed to have titles unless they converted gravity shifted up the hill to the villa of the Berta’s young friend Alma, daughter of to Christianity. It was only natural that newly-wedded couple Berta Szeps and her the painter Emil Schindler. The salon also wealthy and well-educated Jewish families husband Emil Zuckerkandl. influenced Maurice Ravel, who stayed as a would establish their own criteria for social Berta’s father Moritz owned and inclusion – criteria that had less to do with edited Neues Wiener Tagblatt, Vienna’s Clockwise: Salon Todesco; Berta Zuckerkandl; Eugenie wealth and position and more to do with leading progressive newspaper, which, Schwarzwald; Salon Arnstein; portrait of Franziska or intellect, creativity and talent. until his spectacular suicide, became Josephine Wertheimstein

16 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 ©JÜDISCHES MUSEUM WIEN (3); ©IMAGNO/PICTUREDESK.COM (2) female education and co-education and female education andco-education strangers whosofa-surfedfordays. intellectuals, freeloadersand, often, total housewithartists, Schwarzwald keptopen slightly regimented‘at home’ gatherings, tells usthatwhileBertaheldformal and Holmes’ excellentSchwarzwaldbiography summa cumlaude.Deborah in Austria.Shegraduated unable togetanydegree at atimewhenwomenwere order toobtainadoctorate university inSwitzerland woman whowentto ambitious andinquisitive seceded. they ostensiblycouldhave academies fromwhich tojointhe even bothered HerLoos. circlehadn’t andAdolf Schoenberg Oskar Kokoschka, Arnold onto thenextgeneration: Wagner, Schwarzwaldmoved Arthur SchnitzlerandOtto entertained Klimt,Mahler, different. WhileBerta The twocouldhardlyhave more been hostess namedEugenieSchwarzwald. was filledbyaslightlyyoungerJewish establishment. Theprogressivevacuum her circlehadmutatedintothecity’s Vienna’s defiantoutsiders in1897, by1920 escapingtoAlgiers. before age of76,shewalkedbynighttoMarseilles 1938, BertafledtoParis, fromwhere,atthe the apocalypse. Parisian viewofViennadancingthrough gratitude, hededicatedLaValse toher–a her residenceonVienna’s Ringstrasse. In guest ofBerta’s atthePalais Auspitz, Lieben

She became an early proponent of of anearlyproponent She became Schwarzwald wasan If Bertahadinitiallyentertained Following theannexationofAustriain “The salons salons “The modernism” fin-de-siècle of rooms are theengine Europe came to visit including Brecht with came tovisitincludingBrechtwith Europe a summerresidence. Guestsfromallover hotel onanAlpinelakethatshe turnedinto shepurchaseda ofhyperinflation, period underprivileged urbanchildren and,inthe for kitchens, offeredsummerschools was aregularattendee.Shealso ran soup novelJosefinepornographic Mutzenbacher, Latin, Greek,philosophyandliterature. in science,mathsandtheartsrather than of agirls’ ‘grammar Itspecialised school’. ofwhatonemighthaveopposite expected (a‘RealGymnasium’)school wasthevery music, andKokoschka, whotaughtart.Her andEgonWellesz,Schoenberg whotaught alongside architecture atherschool, by Bauhaus20yearslater. alsotaught Loos reflected ideas onarchitecturewouldbe (andherhome) –hisradical the school Freud andElsePappenheim. designed Loos Helene Weigel, andpsychoanalystsAnna Bertolt Brecht’s futurewife, theactress city’s brightestyoungwomen,including someofthe thatproduced ran aschool author of Bambi and the author ofBambiandthe education –Felix Salten, sex not squeamishabout in otherways. Shewas from traditional tonality. ideastodepart Schoenberg’s whodrewon of composers –thegroup Second School’ formed theseedof‘Vienna’s Alban BergandWellesz here thatAntonWebern, in1903anditwas opened classeswere composition colleges. Schoenberg’s could starttheirownfree sothey empty classrooms andLoos Schoenberg both Vienna’s andoffered schools of was runninganumber Schwarzwald At onepoint Schwarzwald was radical Schwarzwald wasradical lost undertheNazis. Seeexilarte.at centre,exil arte which recovers ofmusic the legacy Banned bytheNazis(YUP).Heisco-founder of author ofForbidden Music,theJewish Composers jmw.at/en. Seelistingsp63.MichaelHaasisthe until 14OctoberattheJewish MuseumVienna. The Placetobe:Salons–Spacesof Emancipation, just longenoughtoseeHitlerdefeated. inexile1942.OnlyBertalived penniless murdered bytheNazis. Schwarzwalddied to AmalieZuckerkandl,Dora Leenwas cultural lossesweregreat.Inaddition Followingcomposing”. World War II,the artistic disciplineaspainting,writingor said, “facilitatingothersisasmuchan pupil andmusicjournalistPaul Stefan of creativeradicals. AstheSchoenberg thetrade fairforageneration had become influencedBerg’smusic. whose poetry salon thatAlbanBerg,metPeter Altenberg, Hofmannsthal. Itwasprobablyalsoather Jakob Wassermann and Hugo von onthepianofor Schoenberg. performed who reducedorchestral scorestobe Rudolf adoption ofthepenniless Serkin, with maternalfeelingswasherveritable Performance concerts.Her closestbrush ofPrivate Society venue forSchoenberg’s or thevisualarts.Her soiréesoffereda was justastransformative asliterature recognised musicasanartformthat years ofKaiserWilhelm).Schwarzwald 70 yearsofKaiserFranz Joseph and40 jubilee celebration of1918(marking uses hersalontoorganisethepan-German Schwarzwald asdifferenttoDiotima, who However, Holmes’ biography presents in hisnovelManwithoutQualities. Musil’s forRobert model character Diotima the artistKätheKollwitz. Weigel, SinclairLewis,ThomasMannand The salonsofVienna’s Jewish hostesses WelleszShe introduced tohislibrettists, the Schwarzwald isassumedtobe JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 17

n VIENNA PASSPORT

Portrait of Franz Hauer by Oskar Kokoschka, 1914, held at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design; Bottom: Oskar Kokoschka

a whole new epoch of critical thinking, where Jewish culture was no longer incompatible with the arts, sciences and social milieus of secular society. This historical turn was nowhere more fruitful than in Vienna around 1900. Freud’s visual aesthetics were steeped in the Romantic Classicism that was typical of his time, place, and social group. His favourite artist was Michelangelo, about whose Moses he wrote a famous essay, The Moses of Michelangelo (see p26) in 1914. Freud’s best friend was the distinguished archaeologist Emanuel Löwy, who was also born of Jewish immigrant parents in the Leopoldstadt section of Vienna. Löwy excavated at Pompeii, and enquired into the origins of Greco-Roman art. Steeped as he was in the classics, Freud had little tolerance for modern art. When the French Surrealist André Breton interrupted his honeymoon with Simone Rachel Kahn so that they could visit the revered psychoanalyst in Vienna, Freud was cordial, but dismissive: he basically sent Breton (himself trained as a VIENNA physician) packing. In a letter to the writer Stefan Zweig, Freud stated that despite his grudging admiration of Salvador Dali’s slick painting technique, “I was inclined to look upon the surrealists, who have apparently chosen me as their patron saint, as absolute cranks.” It may come as a shock that Freud disliked modernist art. This is because his writings have been almost universally called upon by historians and art critics to resonate with the work of avant-garde Did Freud influence expressionist painters – in particular the Austrian artists Richard Gerstl, Egon modern art? Not as Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka. The raw, visceral way these men put paint down on canvas, particularly in their most much as we think… enquiring portraits and self-portraits, is said to parallel the penetrating gaze of Freud into the human psyche. Late 20th- While Sigmund Freud was delving into the human psyche on the century art historians seemed to agree that couch, the artist Oskar Kokoschka was exposing the inner lives of Kokoschka in particular, stripped away the his subjects through his expressionist paintings. But Mary Bergstein bourgeois surface appearances of portrait sitters to reveal the pain and inner conflict finds other dark forces in Kokoschka’s work as she examines his of what Freud would unabashedly have portrait of Franz Hauer referred to as their souls (‘Seelen’). But it is important for us in the 21st century to igmund Freud cast a luminous modern insecurity of residing outside a remember that such thinking was and is spell on the modern imagination. historical tradition. Together with people historically retrospective. S The inventor of psychoanalysis such as Franz Kafka, the cultural theorist Kokoschka himself wrote in his was proudly connected to his Jewish Aby Warburg and sociologist Émile memoir, My Life: “Expressionism was origins, although not observant. His self- Durkheim, Freud was part of that wider a contemporary and rival of Freud’s description as a “godless Jew” (a concept phenomenon we might call the Jewish development of psychoanalysis…a sign of used to denote his acculturated status) modernism of (pre-Holocaust) Europe. the times,” rather than a mere artistic style. indicated the possibility of scientific Indeed, the relative secularisation and He went on to claim that his own work and philosophical adventure, but these assimilation of Europe’s Jews towards the had been greatly influenced by Freud’s paradoxical words also referred to the beginning of the 20th century signalled writings. But this was much later in the

18 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 20th century, as Kokoschka’s autobiography Hauer’s hands with as much expression as Miriam Hospital in Providence, uses the was first published in 1971. By designating his face. Kokoschka portrait to help train medical Freud’s influence on his expressionist Contemporary painter Dennis residents in the arts of morphological and paintings, Kokoschka was retrospectively Congdon reminisces about looking at psychological observation, interpretation, intellectualising his own work using the Kokoschka as a young person: “I was and compassion. the same strategy as had the critics in struck by Hauer’s hands as he ‘looked like Schiffman states that art “…helps with the intervening decades. But paintings he’d worked’ which was an assessment I the process of remembering, developing are cultural markers as valid as written heard from my farming family often and hope, and understanding sorrow…It treatises, and they hit us with a more direct regularly. Respect came with hands that allows caregivers to fully see and not just (if less explicable) impact. Freud would worked. But, more, I saw immediately that look, to consider multiple diagnostic and probably not have appreciated Kokoschka’s F.H. had a book in his hands-that-worked, therapeutic options, to understand context drawings and paintings, although the and this meant everything because if and embrace ambiguity and realise that two were immersed in more or less the ‘those’ hands could hold we are all human same cultural system and they can be a book there was hope and flawed as we historically paired, even if not in terms for me.” “Kokoschka’s sitters make diagnostic and of genuine influence. As the Kokoschka It is significant were often painted therapeutic decisions.” authority Claude Cernuschi has pointed that Kokoschka in a nervous style Dr Schiffman and out, Jewishness was a quality shared by undertook the Hauer his medical residents Freud and Kokoschka. Kokoschka, who portrait on his own emphasising decay” have come to the was not a Jew, had many Jewish portrait initiative, rather following conclusion sitters and identified closely with the than as a commission; and if there is about Kokoschka’s painting: “…The colours ‘outsider’ status of Jews in the social life any way he served as a psychoanalyst are mostly bluish hues with red and skin of the Austrian Empire. He stated in his in this portrait it was through the dyad tone highlights. The subject seems at peace autobiography, “Most of my sitters were of patient and doctor, and their mutual if not sad, but he is gaunt – emaciated. His Jews. They felt less secure than the rest transference, or love. The painter and eyes are sunken, there is temporal muscle of the Viennese establishment, and were his subject were friends, and Hauer had wasting, there is interosseous muscle consequently more open to the tensions collected Kokoschka’s works from his wasting of the hands, and his clothes are VIENNA and pressures that accompanied the decay earliest production. Hauer was trained ill fitting. They hang from him and his of the old order in Austria.” It may be no as a butcher and operated Vienna’s most collar is loose. He does seem chronically ill, coincidence that the negative reception of upscale tavern, the Griechenbeisl. He was perhaps suffering from tuberculosis or, as Kokoschka’s portraits was frequently voiced also an avid collector of contemporary we later learned, cancer. We wonder if he is in the language of antisemitism. When his paintings and in tune with the aware of his diagnosis.” portrait of Lotte Franzos was exhibited in expressionist avant-garde. In a letter When Oskar Kokoschka painted Hauer, Vienna in 1911 one critic exclaimed, “What dated 1913 Kokoschka called Hauer an “art few Europeans could have imagined the a foul smell emanates from the picture of enthusiast of the most original style”. mayhem of World War I, which broke Frau Dr Franzos!” As Maureen C O’Brien, curator of out around the same time. Despite the Not all of Kokoschka’s portrait sitters painting and sculpture at RISD, recently appearance of old age, Hauer was only 47 were Jewish, although many were painted reminded me, the Hauer portrait is years old, and Kokoschka an ambitious 28. in a similarly nervous, unsettled style, infused with sweetness and attachment Freud was older, with two sons who would which emphasised the possibility of from the painter to his subject. Despite the go to the trenches fighting for the last gasp sudden migration, as well as sickness and aggressive brushstrokes, this ‘psychological of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. decay, so often associated with European portrait’ communicates intense human In 1915, some months after the Jewry. Let me take a case in point, sympathy. We can surmise from Hauer’s outbreak of war, Freud wrote The Kokoschka’s Portrait of Franz Hauer (1914) gaunt frame, worker’s hands, and tired Disillusionment of the War and Our in my home Museum of Art at the Rhode facial features that he was ill at the time Attitude towards Death. He delivered the Island School of Design. the portrait was made; indeed, he suffered latter as a lecture to his Jewish brethren Seated before rows of modernist from pulmonary illness, perhaps lung at the Viennese chapter of B’nai B’rith, windows in what may be a domestic cancer, and died of appendicitis shortly quoting Shakespeare: “Everyone owes setting, Hauer is depicted in large, wet, after the portrait was finished. nature a death.” Freud may have intuited decisive strokes of paint, applied rapidly Freud, as a medical doctor, might that the Austrian Empire itself was soon to with either brush, knife, or the have been surprised to learn expire. Does Kokoschka’s portrait of Hauer artist’s own fingers. His large that Kokoschka’s portrait reveal a foreboding of Hauer’s imminent eyes and slight, somewhat DON’T of Hauer is used to train death? This we cannot know, but in a 1953 melancholy smile respond MISS! medical students in the 21st letter to Heinrich Schwarz, the curator who to the painter’s attention. century. Dr Fred J Schiffman, obtained the painting for RISD, Kokoschka The presence of the artist Oskar Kokoschka’s Sigal Professor of said of Hauer: “Peace to his ashes, he was has distracted Hauer from portrait of Franz Humanistic one of the last great and genuine Viennese leafing through a book or Hauer will be Medicine at the with culture at a time when the nobility periodical on his lap, the shown at an Brown University and bourgeoisie had begun to barter away pages of which are edged with exhibition on Medical School Austrian culture, instead of wanting to Kokoschka at a bold, red calligraphic line. Kunstmeile Krems and Associate renew it.” n The phenomenon of ‘speaking Betriebs, Franz- Physician- hands’ has been a feature of Zeller-Platz 3, in-Chief Mary Bergstein is the author of Mirrors of European portraiture from 3500 Krems an der at the Memory: Freud, Photography, and the History the time of Leonardo’s Mona Donau, Krems from of Art (2010) and In Looking Back One Learns Lisa and it is significant that 25 May, 2019 until to See: Marcel Proust and Photography (2014),

GEORGIANNA SAYLES ALDRICH FUND AND MUSEUM WORKS OF ART FUND MUSEUM OF ART, RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL FUND MUSEUM OF ART, OF ART ALDRICH FUND AND MUSEUM WORKS SAYLES GEORGIANNA RESERVED - RIGHTS LICENSE: FREE ACCESS FOTOTHEK ©SLUB/DEUTSCHE OF DESIGN, PROVIDENCE; Kokoschka has rendered 16 February, 2020. among other books.

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 19 PASSPORT

Move over, Vienna?

VIENNA Fin-de-siècle Vienna continues to grip our imaginations, but David Herman argues that recently the cultural compass has shifted east

omething interesting happened in as Viennese culture was in fact culture have been radical in the way they thought cultural history in the 1970s and promoted and nourished or even created about ideas, the self and human relations, S early 1980s. Fin-de-siècle Vienna by the Jews of Vienna.” Not only were but politically they were liberal, even became all the rage. In 1971 the Royal the main figures Jewish, so was their conservative; the two thinkers who most Academy showed an exhibition on the audience. Jews were the real public, wrote influenced Margaret Thatcher – Karl Vienna Secession. A handful of books Zweig, “they filled seats at the theatre and Popper and Friedrich Hayek – came then appeared in America: Wittgenstein’s in concert halls, they bought books and from Vienna. Vienna (1973), edited by Allan Janik and pictures, championed and encouraged new However, in the past 30 years younger Stephen Toulmin, Frederic Morton’s A trends everywhere.” scholars have begun to question Schorske’s Nervous Splendor: Vienna, 1888/1889 Most of the great cultural figures account of Vienna. Some of their essays (1979) and, above all, Carl Schorske’s Fin- became refugees. Zweig, Freud and were published in Rethinking Vienna de-Siècle Vienna (1980). Schorske’s book Wittgenstein fled to Britain, the young 1900 (2001), a collection which focused was so influential that The New Yorker Karl Popper spent the war in New Zealand, on whether Schorske should have made recently published a piece on the era called the writer Robert Musil died in exile more comparisons with other centres of The Schorske Century. in Switzerland, the composers Erich modernism which might have led him to These books achieved two things. Korngold and Schoenberg went to LA. explore very different forces. Firstly, they said something extraordinarily Vienna became one of the great centres A number of other books published exciting had happened in Vienna at the of modernism but cultural around the same time also turn of the century. In Carl Schorske’s innovation went hand in “Writers who argued that Vienna was words, “Vienna in the fin de siècle, with its hand with antisemitism and not the only great place of acutely felt tremors of social and political political extremism. speak to these cultural ferment during disintegration, proved one of the most Many of these Jewish new times are this period. There was Franz fertile breeding grounds of our century’s thinkers became what the Kafka’s Prague, also the ahistorical culture.” The shock of the historian Perry Anderson not from the birthplace of Rainer Maria new was everywhere: in architecture, called “White émigrés”. Ringstrasse” Rilke, Anton Dvo ák and psychoanalysis, the art of Gustav Klimt and Borrowing the terms Red Bed ich Smetana. Tom Oskar Kokoschka, the philosophy of Ludwig and White émigrés from Keve’s seminal book, Wittgenstein and logical positivism, the the Red and White armies Triad: The Physicists, the music of Arnold Schoenberg. during the Russian Civil Analysts, the Kabbalists There was something else. Most of War, he wrote that the (2000), showed how many the key figures in this cultural revolution Whites’ experience of of the great 20th-century were Jews. As the Viennese-born writer instability immunised Stefan Zweig wrote, “Nine-tenths of what them against communism Top: the Ringstrasse, Vienna; the world of the 19th century celebrated and revolution. They may central Vienna, 1970s; Stefan Zweig

20 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 ©WWW.HANDLUGGAGEONLY.CO.UK; WIKI COMMONS; COURTESY OF IMDB for decades. towns andcities,manyofthem neglected otherfascinating to takeitsplacebeside century Jewish cultureandViennahas cultural historiansarerewriting20th- Iron Curtainformorethan40years.Now the behind explore thatofeasternEurope, Vienna duringtheColdWar thanitwasto It waseasiertoexplorethecultureof emerged from“thedeepfreezeofhistory”. War. Writers suddenly fromeasternEurope was partlytodowiththeendofCold British readerstodiscoverRoth.He saidit was onceaskedwhyithadtakensolongfor Bloodlands”. has called“The from whatthehistorianTimothy Snyder times arenotfromtheRingstrasse but tothesenew and thewriterswhospeak antisemitism, authoritarianismandterror, have seenthereturnofEurope’s demons, a timeofrelativesecurity. Thelast30years were publishedinthe1970sandearly‘80s, fin-de-siècleVienna about wave ofbooks concentration campsandinexile. stations.” Allthesewriters endedupin two inatrain between himself as“born Manger, inCzernowitz, described born Itzik for theirlives.TheYiddishpoet, fleeing of theriseextremism,people Zweig. fallingapart, ofaEurope Theyspeak generation thanArthurSchnitzlerand more totoday’s and displacementspeak migration andexile.Theirstoriesofloss the themesoftheirwork:Holocaust, Bruno Schulz,Paul CelanandRothin Jewish writerssuchasAharon Appelfeld, Interest hasgrownineasternEuropean such asBrody, Czernowitz andOdessa. Romania, toaclusterofsmallJewish towns Prague, andthenfurthereasttoPoland and and great Habsburgcentres,Budapest have movedtheirgazefirsttotheother towns–notVienna. He border wroteabout “is dominatedbysociety’s waifsandstrays”. the periphery. Hisfiction,writesonecritic, Hungarian empire,saw everythingfrom the easternmostreachesofAustro- inBrody,who wasborn EastGalicia,in from thecentre,Vienna.Roth, as inVienna.” Zweig’s viewiscentripetal, the urgetowardscultureaspassionate citywas “In hardlyanyotherEuropean to19th-centuryVienna: with aeulogy memoir, TheWorld ofYesterday, begins Jewish writer, Joseph Roth.Zweig’s empire withthatofhisfriend,another to contrast Zweig’s viewoftheAustrian the HabsburgEmpire.Itisinteresting of exciting figuresfromtheperiphery Neumann andEdwardTeller. Paul Bernays, Melanie Klein,John von nearly allofthemwereJewish, including andhow physicists camefromBudapest, psychoanalysts, mathematiciansand the Guardian amongotherpublications. David HermanwritesfortheNew Statesmanand

Roth’s translator, MichaelHoffman, nocoincidence thatthe It isperhaps In recentyears,criticsandhistorians Secondly, newworkhasexplored n I Louise vonMotesiczky, embroiderer ground werepainters suchasMarie- among manywhowerebreaking new but from historiesofthisperiod, educator EugenieSchwarzwald. all three wastheJewishSupporting Kokoschka tohisJewish clients. alsointroduced (p15).Loos Schoenberg offered theJewish Arnold composer thearchitectAdolfLoos the support the WienerWerkstätte (p22);and architect Josef Hoffmann toestablish Fritz Waerndorfer andthegentile theJewishbetween textileindustrialist gentilesandJews:between suchas dominant Christianpopulace. onthe questions oftheir‘dependency’ of Austrianculture.Theysubverted mark theirauthorityasproducers and shopstochallengeprejudice andthedesignoftheirhomes portraits and itsantisemiticattitudes,usedtheir confrontation withChristiansociety Jewish patrons,motivated bydaily scruffy clothesanddirtysurroundings. in theirpsychologicalexposure, Kokoschka’s sittersarediscomforting white clothesandpalebackgrounds; and eyesstandingoutagainsttheir his sittersstriking–theirdarkhair critical consciousness.Klimtmakes Klimt aimedatpromotinganew Kokoschka. BothKokoschka and of the(non-Jewish) artist Oskar Conrat wereamongthepatrons Tietze andhiswifeEricaTietze- Schwarzwald, thearthistorianHans the financialadvisorHermann of Gustav Klimt;criticKarlKraus, couple wereprominentpatrons the LedererfamilyandGallia couple, TheBloch-Bauer bourgeois. andnotionsoftherespectable beauty patronage challengedprinciplesof the cultureofdebateitself.Their art,buttosupport towards modern andprogressivestance position demonstrate notonlytheirsocial to artists topainttheirportraits defined Jews’ senseofbelonging. shaping anewcultural language–that contributing toexhibitionsand indesigning, and theirco-production which artists,architectsandpatrons– whotoworkwith– they madeabout I wouldarguethatitwasthechoices claiming Viennaastheirhomeland. art thatJews tofeelworthyof began and inlearningtoappreciateViennese intense collaboration between Jews andnon-Jews, saysElanaShapira The new cultureemerged thatburstfrom Viennaattheturnof the20thcentury Crossing thedivide was author StefanZweig writesthatit n TheWorld ofYesterday (1943), Jewish womenareoftenabsent There wasoftenmutualsupport Jewish patronscommissioned in the process of acculturation ofacculturation in theprocess Jewish came Viennesemodernism the creativeimpulseidentifiedas image ofthesubject. techniques todissolvethefamiliar of ImpressionistandPointillist particular, usedanadaptation Gerstl sitters as‘strangers withinus’. In acculturation bydepictingtheir Jewish also challengedtheaimsofJewish andartistSchoenberg the composer and Expressionist artistRichardGerstl painter EgonSchiele.TheJewish ofKokoschkaand portraits andthe critically influencedthedrawings rhetoric againstwomenandJews, and Character (1903),withitshate Meanwhile, OttoWeininger’s Sex as sexualviolenceandhomosexuality. Torch), whichhandledsubjectssuch in Kraus’s magazineDie Fackel (The explored intheanarchisticarticles asasourceofenrichment. perceived Jew’, theimagewas ‘wandering the antisemiticnotionofcursed of thetravelling Jew. Incontrast to and relevanttoday, wastheimage Jewishof amodern visuallanguage, frontiers…” Integral tothecreation a way thattheycanmovefreelyacross educating theminsuch concern about cannot giveacountryoftheirown, future ofone’s children,towhomone the problem, [includes]concernabout Jewish style.Freud Jewish wrote:“The also consideringdevelopingamodern Herzl,Ghetto, byTheodor whowas provoked byseeingtheplay TheNew the dream,‘My son,theMypos’, was Freud’sinner experience. analysisof reorganisation ofthefragments ofthe in favour offindingmeaningsinthe the rationality ofouterexperience discriminates againsthimbyrejecting defends himselfagainstthelogicthat Jew. ofadiaspora strategy TheJew asthesurvival understood has been The InterpretationofDreams (1900) in Freud’s groundbreakingbook introduced psychoanalytic method established bySigmundFreud. The exploration inartfollowedapath Wieselthier andarchitectEllaBriggs. Emilie Bach,ceramicist Vally JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 21 With the Anschluss in March 1938, With theAnschlussinMarch1938, werealsobeing Sexual taboos Kokoschka’s psychological jewishrenaissance.org.uk infullat: Read thisarticle by BöhlauinOctober. Modernism, published Culture andViennese of DesignDialogue:Jews, Dr ElanaShapira iseditor to abrutalend. n

VIENNA PASSPORT VIENNA

In the steps of Vienna’s modernists Vienna was transformed by the radical visions of its early 20th-century architects and designers. Adrian Whittle takes us on a tour of the capital’s cultural pioneers and landmark buildings

t the beginning of the 20th century, fund artistic projects. Also during this time in society. As Professor of Architecture Vienna saw a burst of artistic many Jews converted to Christianity, or at the Academy of Fine Arts, his students A innovation whose influence were completely secular, whilst for others, included Hoffmann, Olbrich and others still reverberates today. This included art and culture became a kind of religion. who would make major contributions challenges to the established architectural The Vienna Secession group was to the city’s landscape. He was also style in which much of the city was built, established in 1897 as a reaction to the responsible for a range of iconic art but which did not represent a growing conservative style of the established artists’ nouveau buildings including the Postal modern metropolis. Several of the organisation, Vienna Künstlerhaus. The Savings Bank, the Steinhof Church, architects involved in this new movement founding members included Gustav Klimt, the Karlsplatz Station and the Majolica were Jewish, as were many of those who Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann House. In the early part of his career he commissioned homes and commercial and the designer Koloman Moser. They had designed the Rumbach synagogue in premises in the new styles. were influenced by the Arts and Crafts Budapest, which was built in the Moorish The Jewish embracing of modernity movement, and in particular by Charles style and was completed in 1872. may have been an attempt to achieve Rennie McIntosh, but the style they The Eighth Secession Exhibition took greater acceptance in a time of both developed we now know as art nouveau. place in November 1900 and Hoffmann opportunity and extreme antisemitism. The architect Otto Wagner became declared a desire to broaden its scope to The arts presented fewer barriers to the a leading light in the group. In 1896 he include applied arts. By 1903, Hoffmann participation of Jews than did other areas had published his ideas on the role of and Moser had managed to persuade the of Viennese life – and even antisemites had architects, advocating the use of new Jewish textile manufacturer and financier little objection to using Jewish patrons to materials and new forms to reflect changes Fritz Waerndorfer and his artist wife, Lilly,

22 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 Left, clockwise: Koloman Moser salon with lightly coloured walls, Jewish architect of the period. He sign, Vienna, 1904; the Secession windows without frames or graduated from the Technical University Building designed by Joseph Maria ledges and white furnishings. of Vienna and by 1913 was drawing up Olbrich, 1897; The Loos House, designed by Adolf Loos, 1906-1911; Hoffmann’s ‘total design’ plans for town houses. Working with Nussdorfer weir and lock, Otto approach included the two other Jewish architects, Oskar Wlach Wagner, 1899. Right top: Portrait interior furnishings produced and Oskar Strnad, he designed a house of Otto Wagner, 1896 by Gottlieb by Werkstätte artists. But at 3 Wilbrandtgasse for Dr Emil and Theodor Kempf von Hartenkampf; Hoffmann seems to have had Agnes Scholl. The building exemplifies Joseph Hoffman, 1903; Design by Josef Hoffman, Vienna, 1929 little love for the Jews: he voted Frank’s ideas on architecture, with a for the unification of Austria simple facade, devoid of ornamentation and Germany and accepted a but given character by the asymmetrical to provide financial backing for commission to design a club arrangement of portholes on the middle such a project and the Wiener for Wehrmacht officers during floor and windows at the upper level. Werkstätte was established at a World War II. Frank was the driving force behind the new building on Neustiftgasse. By 1907, the Secessionist Werkbundsiedlung estate in Vienna’s 13th Workshops were set up style receded in favour of a district, which he devised as a reaction for metalwork, gold and less decorative approach, led to the modernist monolithic housing silver work, bookbinding, by a number of architects estates built elsewhere during the period. leatherwork and carpentry, including Adolf Loos. His project included single and multi- together with architectural offices and an Loos was not Jewish but many of his family houses, with gardens and in a leafy exhibition gallery. Hoffmann and Moser clients and associates were, including environment. Like Hoffmann, Frank was defined the principles of the Werkstätte the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, an accomplished interior designer, setting as “...intimate contact between public, composer Arnold Schoenberg and the up the Haus and Garten company in 1925. designer and craftsmen...to produce good writers Peter Altenberg and Karl Kraus He left Austria for Stockholm in 1933, simple domestic requisites. We start from – and two of his three marriages were to becoming a Swedish citizen in 1939. the purpose in hand and our strength has Jewish women. Another Jewish architect, Arthur to lie in good proportions and materials He quickly broke his early association Gruenberger, designed two of the well handled. We will seek to decorate with the Secession, advocating a new houses on the Werkbundsiedlung but without any compulsion to do so”. approach with smooth surfaces stripped estate. He was also responsible for the The Werkstätte would go on to produce of ornamentation. He believed that Eitelbergergasse synagogue in the city’s VIENNA thousands of items including furniture, modern design could act as a vehicle 13th district. Completed in 1926, it was textiles, glass and metal objects. In 1905 for Jewish emancipation and described a rare example of a modernist religious a fashion department was Secessionist interior building. Photographs show an imposing added, producing men’s and “Modern furnishings as “nothing rectangular form relieved with substantial women’s clothes and from but disguised caftans” – a glazing and discrete references to a more 1907 until the beginning of design reference to Orthodox Jews, Levantine style with arches on each flank World War I the graphic design could act as who, he thought, symbolised of the entrance. Gruenberger left for the department produced almost a vehicle for opposition to modernity. United States in 1935 and went on to work 1,000 postcards, including In his 1913 essay, as a Hollywood set designer. several for Rosh Hashanah. equal rights Ornament and Crime, he His synagogue was one of 93 destroyed Hoffmann and Moser for Jews” argued that cultural progress on Kristallnacht in November 1938, leaving were prolific artists in their is dependent on the deletion only the Stadttempel standing in the city’s own right. Moser produced some of the of ornament from everyday objects. This centre – it survived the attacks only due to most significant graphic work of the 20th did not, however, prevent him from being surrounded by non-Jewish owned century including the much copied cover designing sumptuous interiors of stone, properties. Today, the Stadttempel, of the first edition of the Secessionist marble and wood and arguing that there which was built in 1826, is the magazine, Ver Sacrum, the mosaics and is a distinction between organic and main synagogue for Vienna’s stained glass windows in Wagner’s Steinhof superfluous decoration. Jewish community. Church and countless posters, stamps, Loos is perhaps best known for the World War I interrupted glass, textiles and ceramics. This was all ‘Loos House’, originally designed as a Vienna’s golden years and in in addition to his large body of work as a store for the Jewish tailoring company 1918 a worldwide flu epidemic painter and furniture designer. Goldman and Salatsch. The building drew claimed the lives of several of its Hoffmann was similarly talented. criticism from many quarters, including leading artists, including Gustav Born in what is now the Czech Republic, Emperor Franz Joseph I, due to the absence Klimt. By the German annexation he studied under and then worked for of decoration on the façade, leading to it of Austria in 1938, many of Vienna’s Wagner. He designed the spaces for being called ‘the house without eyebrows’. artists and architects, such as Frank, several of the Secession exhibitions before The interior is less austere and includes had fled the country, establishing quarrelling with its members and leaving mahogany walls, mirrored panelling, brass successful careers elsewhere. in 1905. His association with the Werkstätte wall lamps and a marble panelled stairway. Others were less fortunate. Frank’s was to last until the organisation closed in The building was damaged during client Agnes Scholl was murdered 1932. Several of his chairs are displayed in World War II and has twice undergone in Auschwitz alongside other Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts. restoration. Since 1989 it has been the Viennese cultural figures and Much of his architecture from this main branch of the Raiffeissenbank. patrons of the arts. n period appears to predict the modernist Nearby the Loos Haus are other Loos styles of the 1920s and 1930s, for example buildings, including the Knize menswear Adrian Whittle is an architecture and the Sanatorium Purkersdorf, which was store (1913), the American Bar on travel writer, who writes The Modernists commissioned by Jewish musicologist Karnterstrasse (1908), and the series for JR. See adrianyekkes. Viktor Zuckerkandl. Built in 1904, this Cafe Museum (1899). blogspot.co.uk. Otto Wagner is weekend rest home with baths and Josef Frank was perhaps at Wien Museum, Vienna, until ADRIAN WHITTLE; WOLFGANG THALER; ©WIEN MUSEUM; COURTESY OF MAK (THE VIENNA DESIGN MUSEUM) THALER; ©WIEN MUSEUM; COURTESY ADRIAN WHITTLE; WOLFGANG

© physical therapy is devoid of decoration, Vienna’s most accomplished 7 October. www.wienmuseum.at

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 23 PASSPORT

Zwieback store – and its vanished VIENNA customers – tell story of a golden age In a remarkable project, genealogist Georg Gaugusch is creating a compendium of Vienna’s fin-de-siècle Jewish middle classes. Giles MacDonogh goes in search of his own family’s colourful history

eorg Gaugusch is a remarkable clear that the previous owners had been equivalent of London’s Oxford Street). man. For a start, the author of a Jews, but before the Third Reich so had Officially the business started in 1877, but Gsoon-to-be-completed, 5,000- a large percentage of the customers. His it took until 1895 to reach that site having page, three-volume work on the history index also went some way to compiling started out in the more downmarket of Vienna’s leading Jewish families, is not a list of the well-off Jews who had used Mariahilferstrasse. The Zwiebacks were the slightest bit Jewish himself. Nor is he a the shop between 1880 and up to 1942 or typical of the Empire’s Jews in that they trained historian, but a ‘hobby’ genealogist 43 – when the Nazis eliminated the last had seized the opportunities for settling who studied biochemical engineering. remaining members of the community. in Vienna that came only after the 1848 Even more curious is the fact that during I must have met Gaugusch about 20 revolution, and once again after Austria’s the day he is actually the owner of a tailor’s years ago, long before the first volume defeat in the Austro-Prussian War in shop, and not just any old tailor’s shop. It of Wer einmal War (Who was Once Who) 1866. They travelled up from the town of is the Viennese equivalent of Huntsman or appeared in 2011. Soon after our first Bonyhád south of Lake Balaton in Hungary Poole, or one of the other leading bespoke meeting I ran into him in the municipal in 1867, where it is presumed that they tailors in London’s Savile Row. And that archives located in Vienna’s old, converted intermarried chiefly with the Zirners. This shop: Jungmann & Neffe, behind the Opera gasometers. I had ordered up my great- tradition was perpetuated in Vienna: two House between the Hotel Sacher and the great-grandfather’s will. I looked at the of Ludwig’s daughters married Zirners. Albertina Museum, is the reason why thick document in its beautiful, but for One was Gisela, who married my great- Gaugusch became interested in the story of me largely indecipherable Kanzleischrift grandfather Marton Zirner, jeweller to Vienna’s leading Jews, and why he decided (old German copperplate), in despair. At the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, the Shah to write the book in the first place. that moment Gaugusch appeared over my of Persia and, until his death in 1918, In the beginning, Jungmann & shoulder: “Aha!” he said, “Sehr bestritten!” president of the Jewish community; the Neffe was a ladies’ outfitter. It also has a (very contested). He sat down beside me other was Ella, who married Alexander, substantial archive. Aristocratic customers and with evident delight explained what and who ran the Zwieback business after who had used the shop for generations happened to my family fortune after it Ludwig’s death in 1906. Both Zwieback and wanted to refer to its records for previous passed to my great-grandmother and her Zirner were official ‘purveyors to the court’, orders but sometimes a customer’s name two sisters. as was Jungmann & Neffe. was missing from the register. So Gaugusch My great-great-grandfather Ludwig The turn of the 20th century was a decided to compile a customer index Zwieback was the owner of Modehaus golden age for Vienna’s Jews. The Emperor and collate the information on who was Zwieback, one of Vienna’s best department Francis Joseph was a good deal more connected to whom. It had always been stores, in Vienna’s Kärntnerstrasse (the tolerant than most of his fellow rulers,

24 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 ©BILDARCHIVAUSTRIA.AT commissioned the painter Adalbert commissioned the painterAdalbert the Secondenjoyed hugesuccessshe the scoreofhisFirst Symphony. When Schmidt’s mistress,andthededicateeof Alexander Zirnerinstead.She became gentilemusiciansandshemarried poor Ella butherfatherLudwig wasnotkeenon Franz Schmidt.Schmidtwantedtomarry conservatoire whereshemetthecomposer firstprizeatthe talented pianistwhotook My great-great-auntEllawasalsoa orAlexandervonZemlinsky.Schoenberg suchasArnold the successofcomposers but itfailedtoimpede pre-World War IVienna, felt towardstheJews in considerable resentment art nouveauattraction. Café Sluka:Vienna’s latest asthe restoredandreopened recently been aslate1922.The latterhave tearooms store in1906,returningtoaddthe Vienna, rebuilttheZwieback department inthe VolksgartenEmpress Elisabeth in Stadtpark, andthemonumentof inMerano,the pumproom theJugendstil architect Friedrich Ohmann, designerof family commissionedanyKlimts,butthe also hugepatronsofthearts. were Jews andJewish businessmenwere such asStefanZweig andArthurSchnitzler, Germany. Many of Vienna’s leading writers, in general, unthinkableacrosstheborder TherewasatleastoneJewishin politics. in business,medicine,thelaw andeven intheartsand sciences, top positions quota) inmanyprofessions,Jews attained and despitethe‘numerusclausus’ (Jewish

There was undeniably There wasundeniably I amsorrytosay thatnoonefrommy “Intermarriage “Intermarriage commonplace” and gentileswas Jewsbetween in Marchthatyear, mostVienneseJews crashed into thecity When theGermans themselves assuch. Nuremberg Laws hadceasedtothink of elite. Manyofthosedefinedas Jews bythe the incidenceofintermarriage amongthe ‘Jew-free’ (Judenrein) wascomplicated by ofmakingVienna Anschluss theprocess of thenobilitytoaJewish wife.Afterthe dowry wassufficienttoattract members plenty ofexampleswhereatempting did thesame,andGaugusch’s gives book acquired therelativelylowlynobletitle merchant, IsaakLöwHofmann. Hofmann grandson ofanennobledJewish tobacco Hugo vonHofmannsthal wasthegreat- Austria’s greatestpre-war literary figure gentiles wasactuallycommonplace. his deathinFebruary 1939. venerated himasthenewBrucknerbefore seem tohave leakedouttotheNazis who Jewish not son,andhislittle secretdoes today.actor inAustriaandGermany grandson, AugustZirner, isawell-known Ludwig’s ownsonandSchmidt’sthe USA. aprofessionalmusician inexile became who trained underhisnatural fatherand with themesfromthepiece. Seligmann todecorate hermusicroom Success had its nemesis in 1938. Success haditsnemesisin1938. JewsIntermarriage between and Schmidt neveracknowledgedhis Schmidtason– Ludwig Ella bore – his children.ManyJews pass onhisnobilityto which meanthecould DerRosenkavalier,opera for RichardStrauss’s Hofmannsthal’s libretto of ‘Edler’,likeFaninal in in the book, itisthesecondtolast.”in thebook, consolation: “Zwieback isnotthelastfamily Zwieback. Gauguschofferedsomewordsof understandably theletterZ–forZirnerand upby2020.Mywrapped chiefinterestis ‘Sches’ aswell.He tohave hoped itall withsomany monster letterinGerman in January hetoldmewasstillonS:a intoseeGaugusch to R.WhenIpopped covers namesAtoK,thesecondisfromM of thefamiliesanalysed,sovolumeone order underalphabetical so far:appearing volumes ofWer einmalWar have appeared when theworkisfinallycompleted.Two recognition, butmaybe thatwillcome foramplefamily funds. it notbeen thementheywerehad tobe had theliberty Hofmannsthal andZweig wouldnothave dint ofhardworkandcloseconnections. that thefirstgeneration hadamassedby Viennese Jews werebasedonthemoney out, thecultural achievementsofthe butashecogentlypoints to astereotype, ‘rich’ Jews. Shethoughtthat hewasplaying thought itwas‘antisemitic’ towriteabout then hesaidtherewasonewoman,who a singlecriticalreaction,” hetoldme,and happywithit?“Ihave nothad everybody Was thereactionto thebook. him about most famousproprietor. Zwieback andgreat-great-auntElla,its dedicatedto Modehaus a wholeroom owned departmentstoresinthecity, with thedozen orsoJewish-exhibition about year, theJewish Museum Viennaputonan of Jews époque’. inthatAustrian‘belle Last mostly, foundnothing. myancestorsbut, glean informationabout toseeifIcould intobookshops I popped the Jews seemedtohave expunged. been quarter ofacenturyago,almostalltrace of world. WhenIstartedgoingtoViennaa drama actedoutinthatnowvanished for providinguswiththecastlist grateful tohim we oldViennesecanbe big onfactandshortanecdote,but Vienna’s leadingJewish families.Itis of births,marriagesanddeaths restricting itselflargelytothedetails haddoneinsixyears. than Germany Eichmann hadridViennaofmoreJews ReinhardHeydrichthat boss couldboast Adolf Eichmann.Withinsixmonthshis job ofremovingthemwasentrustedto therefornighonacentury.had been The many of themaboutGermany. MacDonogh isahistorianand authorof15books, can beresearched at:www.genteam.at. Giles Gaugusch, Amalthea.€128.Thebook’s index Bourgeoisie inVienna1800-1938)byGeorg Wiens 1800–1938(WhowasOnce Who:Jewish Wer Einmal War: DasjüdischeGrossbürgertum store, 1913;EllaZwieback, 1923 Women choosing material,Zwieback department So far there has been no public nopublic So fartherehasbeen toGauguschIasked When Ispoke Now therole saidabout moreisbeing Gaugusch’s isaworkof‘science’, book JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 25

n VIENNA PASSPORT VIENNA A new language for a new world Vienna’s fin-de-siècle writers drew on ancient sources and psychology rather than political agitation or Zionism to redefine their Jewish identity. Their writing was innovative and often shocking, says Abigail Gillman

Atelier des Lumières, the innovative experimental media made possible many The Jung Wien on a visit to Vienna’s amusement park, new digital art centre in Paris, has new types of aesthetic sensation and the Prater (left to right): Hugo von Hofmannsthal, paintings by Gustav Klimt and other perception. For Jewish artists and thinkers, Arthur Schnitzler (standing), Richard Beer-Hofmann, L’ Felix Salten (sitting) and friends, around 1894 Viennese artists projected onto walls, floors the radical innovations that we associate and ceilings, creating an ever-changing with modernism and postmodernism immersion in art. With the use of 120 video had an additional goal: it enabled them to the Jewish religious traditions of their cameras and musical accompaniment, the to invent new forms in which to express grandparents. They obtained degrees in exhibit is designed to foster a “voyage of the their Jewish identity, and to respond to the professions such as law and medicine, heart”, as the centre’s website announces. crises facing their generation: nationalism, yet departed from set paths to pursue I imagine that the visitors to the antisemitism and war. groundbreaking literary, intellectual and Vienna Secession exhibition held in the We can see this in the work of four theatrical endeavours. Austrian capital in 1902 felt similarly cultural innovators of the period: Hugo Although at the forefront of the avant- transported when they first viewed Klimt’s von Hofmannsthal, Arthur Schnitzler, garde, they adhered to the humanistic, monumental Beethoven Frieze: a mural Richard Beer-Hofmann, and Sigmund liberal values of the Enlightenment. seven feet tall and 112 feet long. The frieze, Freud. All four were of Jewish ancestry; They rejected political and ideological which interpreted the composer’s Ninth only Hofmannsthal was raised a Christian. responses such as Zionism and socialism. Symphony, was part of an immensely Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler and Beer- Deterministic narratives of identity would popular exhibit commemorating the 75th Hofmann had met as part of the Jung Wien not define their Jewish identity and one anniversary of Beethoven’s death. literary circle in the late 19th century. For anecdote explains why. In Klimt’s lifetime (as in our own), the most part, the group lacked access In his autobiography, Youth in Vienna

26 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 IMAGNO/GETTY IMAGES dialogues about sex. It was made into La sex.ItwasmadeintoLa dialogues about known asLaRonde) wascomprisedoften 1897 play DerReigen(RingDance, also lay baretheunconsciousmind.Schnitzler’s doppelgänger, alsodevisednewformsto Schnitzler, whomFreud called his a performance. Strauss. Freud andhiscolleaguesattended byRichard withmusiccomposed an opera, Elektra likeadybbuk.Theplay alsobecame Agamemnon’s murder, whichpossesses impact oftraumatic memory, in thiscase, fascination withantiquity. Itdepictsthe andthenew psychology of modern on Sophocles’ play, representsablending or narrowlyre” (trans. ScottHorton). more thansimplythislife’s/ Slenderflame by acommonexistence/Andmypartis alongside myown/Allareinterconnected from myeyelids(…)/Manyfatesweave quiteforgotten/I cannotbanish peoples wearinessof is true…),hewrote,“The ‘MancheFreilich’of thepoem (Some,it of themselves.Inthefamousclosinglines characters oftenencounterpastversions and impressionisticlanguage.His scenarios style thatcombinessymbolic written inaninimitable,melancholy verse dramas ofthe1890s.Theywere and hisearly poetry memory pervades easy tomiss. the Jewish character oftheirworkcanbe andJewishEuropean culture.Itisalsowhy Jews madeenduringcontributions to Austrian integrationist, German-speaking understanding howtheseassimilated, and rewroteancientbiblicalstories. reimaginedJewishexpectations; origins; Jewish characters thatdisregardedreaders’ as Freud wrotein1930.Theyinvented in“clear ordescribed stereotyped, words,” one’sshaped character, butcouldnotbe memory: somethingthatdefinitively way thatFreud unconscious described JewishnessThey wroteabout muchinthe anindirectapproach. theytook hoped, sword”, asoneofSchnitzler’s friendshad asa than fightingbackby“usingthepen something essential,yetelusive.Rather and othersredefinedtheirJewishness as discourses ofidentity, Schnitzler, Freud suffered.’”insults thus, aJew cannotdemandsatisfactionfor is dishonouring...onecannotinsultaJew, subject. Interaction (Verkehr) withJews dirty frompure.He isanethicallylowly (ehrlos) bybirth…hecannotdistinguish veins Jewish flows,iswithouthonour blood of aJewish mother, inwhose everyperson Jewish studentsfromdueling:“’Every son Waidhofer Principleof1896,whichforbade theracist formulationofThe reproduces witnessed attheUniversity ofVienna.He anti-Jewish brawls he andprovocations (1918), ArthurSchnitzlerdescribes

The dramatist and writer Arthur The dramatist andwriterArthur Elektra (1904),aone-acttragedy based Hofmannsthal’s fascinationwith This premiseisessentialfor In ordertodefysuchracialised Freud sought to unearth the Egyptian Freud soughtto unearththeEgyptian Freud wrote,had distortedthetruth. biblical character ofMoses. Scripture, Monotheism furtherdeconstructedthe throughart. a reimaginingmadepossible Moses asanexemplarofself-restraint – read Michelangelo’s representationof reaction totheIsraelites’ idolatry, Freud shattered thetabletsoflaw inangry thatMoses reports Whereas Exodus ancient heroinacompletelynewway. viewers ofthestatuetounderstand Moses ofMichelangelo,hewantedthe Michelangelo’s sculptureofMoses, The ofJews.typecasting Inhis1914essay on relationships Ihave observed…” and to represent,withoutbias,people are abletogetalong—Iwantedrather and Jews don’t getalong, northatthey proving anything,neitherthatChristians words, “Ifinallyhadnointentionof solutions, whatwashistask?Inown orsocial mission toprovidepolitical Herzl. Viennese intellectual,Theodore written bySchnitzler’s friendandfellow for example,theplay TheNew Ghetto orsolutionstoantisemitism, unlike, heroes observed thattheworkslackedidentifiable Schnitzler’s Jewish readers.Theyrightly amedicalDreyfus.”becoming célèbre, stating,“Ihave nointentionof resists turninghisprivatetrialintoacause athis clinic.Yetantisemitic episode he embroiledinan whobecomes is adoctor Dr Johann Schnitzler. ProfessorBernhardi on anincidentaffectingSchnitzler’s father, antisemitism. is nottheanswerto to a“historicfatherland” insists thatmassmigration novel, Heinrich Bermann, Zionist character inthe Meanwhile, theanti- justice willnothelpJews. that thestruggleofsocial whowarns Ehrenberg, pro-Zionist character namedSalomon a varietyofJewish includinga types, statements. political with plotandcharacter became experiments dilemmas.Inboth, political and social, solutions toarange ofpersonal, antisemitic insultsandstrugglingtofind portrayals ofVienneseJews parrying Professor Bernhardi(1912)offeredrealistic 1908),andhistragicomic drama the Open, first novelDerWeg insFreie (TheRoadinto examined Jewish themes.Hislong-awaited it “Jewish pornography”. David Hare’s Criticscalled TheBlueRoom. Signoret –anditwasrecentlyadaptedin andSimone Philipe Ophüls withGerard Ronde, a1950French filmdirectedbyMax Freud’s Moses and controversialbook Freud similarlyresiststheusual So ifSchnitzlerdidnotseeitashis novelandplay But both frustrated The play ProfessorBernhardiisbased In DerWeg insFreie, hedepicted Only twoofSchnitzler’s worksexplicitly “These writers writers “These expectations” disregarded characters that invented Jewish cultural, experiential and psychological. cultural, experiential scholarly, or even religious; it was aesthetic, –thatwasnothistorical,or Schoenberg as Franz Kafka,SY Agnonand Arnold shared byotherJewish such modernists approachtoJewishmodernist tradition – of theJew, a thesewritersdeveloped decries theburdensofdivineelection. David initiallyrefusesthekingship, and traumatic bindingofhisfather, Isaac; suffers frominheritedmemoryofthe his Jaakob (likeHofmannsthal’s Elektra) reveal ananti-nationalisticagenda.Thus, The scenesBeer-Hofmann didcomplete Russian-Hebrew Habimahtheatretroupe. of essays, Vom Judentum (OnJudaism), Kochba publishedaninfluentialvolume 1913, thePrague ZionistorganizationBar orientalism.In a trendtowardsEuropean turntobiblical art—waspartof modernist Joseph andshamesthe proudlydisrobes fleeing andleaving hiscoat,this behind versus Habsburgdecline.Ratherthan exuberance andmodernist experience, versus ballet isanallegoryofinnocence boy, andthedecadentwifeofPotiphar. The biblical Joseph, anoble,orientalshepherd- the depicts theconfrontationbetween by Diaghilev’s companytheBalletsRusses, ballet Josephslegende (1914),performed His period. myth-making inthemodern Hofmannsthal referredtotheneedfor American magazineTheDial in1922, one oftheViennaLetterswrittenfor to revitalisetheirbiblicalheritage.In Jewish readersofthetime. version ofMoses thatmighthave shocked origins ofMoses, contributingtoacomplex University ofChicagoPress, 2018. ofGerman Jewish Bible Translation,and AHistory Modernism, Penn StateUniversity Press, 2008, University, andistheauthorofVienneseJewish German, andComparative Literature atBoston Abigail GillmanisAssociateProfessor ofHebrew, Vienna’s Burgtheaterin 1919,andby Jaakobs Traum, –in waseverperformed von König David. OnlythePrologue, calledDie Historie scale biblicaltrilogy these writers,plannedtowriteafull- comfortable withhisJewishness ofall of fertility, creativityandtemporality. the orientalendowedJews withanaura Orient andJudaism. Thisemphasison The Jew asOrientaland TheSpiritofthe including essays titledTheJewish Secret, In the face of relentless stereotyping In thefaceofrelentlessstereotyping Other artists and thinkers also sought Other artistsandthinkersalsosought Beer-Hofmann, perhaps the most Beer-Hofmann, themost perhaps The balletJosephslegende –andthe JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 27 Helena. Helena. Diewar opera Äegyptische titular heroineofhispost- Wilde’s play) aswellthe Strauss andbasedonOscar by Salome (alsocomposed the heroineofopera orientalised Joseph recalls queen intosubmission. Hofmannsthal’s the the

n VIENNA PASSPORT “In Vienna it’s impossible not to be aware of your Jewish identity” One hundred years ago Vienna’s artists, writers, musicians and thinkers were forging a new culture. Rebecca Taylor meets today’s cultural activists who are pushing the city’s artistic legacy into the future

ANDREW M MEZVINSKY TIMNA BRAUER BEN FODOR VIENNA Artist and curator Musician Artist “I grew up in New York. I arrived in “My father is the artist Arik Brauer, I came to Vienna as a refugee escaping Vienna in 2009, following an offer to whose family came from Lithuania and communist Hungary in 1981. My career be an assistant to the artist Franz West. settled in Vienna around the turn of the started in Traiskirchen refugee camp The city is a cultural hub – where else do 20th century. During World War II, my near Vienna. My grandfather was a Jewish art students have Walter Benjamin and grandfather was deported and murdered mineworker, a communist and a labour Emmanuel Kant on their reading lists? by the Nazis. Like many Jewish families leader in my hometown Dorog. He tried My art deals with multi-layered after the war we didn’t speak about what to start a revolution in Holland, where he ideas of history. I created a video for had happened. But this past permeates lived for a few years. During World War II, the Jewish Museum Vienna that focuses my music, not consciously, but in my he was protected from persecution by his on the stones used to build one of the focus on building bridges between miner comrades. In 2010, I learned from synagogues. It was destroyed in the 15th- different musical styles.For many years my father that the Hungarian Nazis had century and the stones were used to build I worked with Palestinian and Israeli murdered one of his sisters. a Jesuit university. In another installation choirs, mixing up Jewish, Christian and And in that year I created a for the museum the video screen was Muslim liturgy. My latest album, Chants photographic cycle on the Holocaust, saturated in yellow – the colour was based for Peace, features Gregorian monks ‘My Judaica’, which was shown at the on my research into the warp, colour and chanting alongside Yiddish singers. Kunsthalle in Budapest. I photographed a fabric of the stars that were worn by Jews After leaving school I joined the Israeli peephole in the door of a gas chamber at in Vienna during World War II. army and I visit Israel often. I was living Mauthausen concentration camp. It’s shot I live in the old Jewish working-class in Paris and got a call from an Austrian TV from the inside out; so you see the wall section known as the ‘matzah insel’. It company asking me to represent Austria with barbed wire through the hole – the has a large Orthodox community, mostly in the 1986 Eurovision song contest. That last thing the victims would have seen. from Russia and Israel. The men often brought me back to Vienna. The image is on my Instagram account. get around on scooters. I call them ‘flying The Jewish community is around I live and work in the old Jewish area rabbis’ because you see this flash of peyes 8,000 strong, and very active. There is of Vienna’s second district but I’m not (sidelocks) as they whizz by. a focus on a younger cultural life that is involved in the religious community. It it is not hard to see the parallel not just about the ghetto and klezmer. I follow the activities of the theatre with the plight of the Jews 80 years ago I celebrate Shabbat and Jewish company Nestroyhof Hamakom, which and the xenophobia toward immigrants holidays with my family. I recently did belongs to the Jewish art collector in Austria today. a concert in Graz and ended up getting Benjamin Kaufmann, and see films at I go to synagogue a few times a year the 1,000 strong non-Jewish crowd Jewish Film Week. and sometimes visit friends’ homes to singing along to Lecha Dodi and VISITORS SHOULD GO TO: Rachel Whiteread’s celebrate Shabbat and the festivals. There celebrating Shabbat! Holocaust Memorial at the Judenplatz, the is an active and diverse cultural life here. VISITORS SHOULD GO TO: In the summer the Jewish cemetery in Seegasse (the ninth VISITORS SHOULD GO TO: Cafe Korb – a city creates a replica of Tel Aviv beach on district), and the kosher bakery, Ohel staple for the Viennese art community. the Danube – even the beach loungers are Moshe, in Lilienbrunngasse. benfodor.com; andrewmezvinsky.com; cafekorb.at the same! brauer-meiri.com on Instagram @benfodor

28 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 ©DANIEL SHAKED; ©BEN FODOR; ©TERESA ZÖTL have “We film what isnotdealtwithinAustria.” facades. Today, Jewish memorystillvoices thiscityofbeautiful hidden behind and AlfredAdlerwererevealingthings ‘other’. SigmundFreud, Arthur Schnitzler healreadywas he couldvoiceitbecause century. Then,ifaJew hadanewidea, cultural pioneersoftheearly20th disturb thatpicture. you werethefirstvictimsofHitler, Jews theworldthat you aretryingtopersuade formanyAustrians.If are theblindspot administration oftheHolocaust. ButJews on theroleofVienna’s Jews inthe Eichmann’sMy book, Jews, focuses obviously I’mnotaTyrolean farmer! with anamelikeDoron Rabinovici– aware ofyourJewish identity–especially itselfasantisemitic. continues toexpose and government) hasantisemiticroots and antisemitism.TheFreedom Party (in Offensive), racism agroupthatopposes Demokratische Offensive (Democratic for thespeaker been Since 1999I’ve during his1986campaignforpresidency]. complicitinNazias being warcrimes Waldeheim [Waldeheim wasexposed totheelectionofKurtactive inopposition in groupssuchasPeace Now andwas a youthleader. involved LaterIbecame such asHashomerHatzairandbecame youthmovements involved insocialist father’s work.WhenIwasyoung ofmy Vienna whenIwasthreebecause inTel“I wasborn Aviv andmovedto Author DORON RABINOVICI VISITORS SHOULDGOTO: Israeli vegetarian food. rabinovici.at Israeli vegetarianfood. cauliflower dishesandotherdelicious (Schulerstraße 4,1010Wein) forits Helene Maimann supermarkets…” Vienna, kosher the Jewish Museum weeks, atheatre, festivals, cultural I feelastrongconnectionwiththe In Viennait’s nottobe impossible Miznon, VISITORS SHOULDGOTO: Austria.”post-war inexileor in children whowereborn ‘second generation’ –theJewish Austrian the about camps. Iamwritingabook to visitAuschwitzandotherconcentration projects, includingtripsforyoungpeople Future Fund; weco-financedozensof Austria. IamonBoardoftheAustrian work ontheHolocaust inthewholeof Chanukah, arecelebrated inpublic. institutions. Somefestivals,suchas clubsandanetworkofsocial sport schools, Vienna, koshersupermarkets, weeks, atheatre,theJewish Museum Vienna. We have filmfestivals,cultural not Fade Away) examinesthisissue. Sterne verlöschennicht(TheStarswill Holocaust. My 2005documentary, Die the where childrendonothearabout Jewish History, andnopublicschool without anInstituteofJudaism and Today thereisnouniversityinAustria started toexploretheirJewish heritage. generation ofscholarsandartistswho tothe Ibelong had recentlyhappened. People wantedtoquicklyforgetwhat a poor, isolated,conservativecountry. (that existedfrom1918-34).Thiswas Habsburg EmpireandtheFirst Republic had floatedsointensivelythroughthe desert withouttheJewish that energy After World War II,Vienna wasacultural Vienna. Iwouldnotliveanywhereelse. the lakes,languageandI’mfondof youth organisation. clubsandaleft-wing and sporting was paramount. IattendedJewish youth assimilated family, whereJewish culture war brokeout.Iwasbroughtupinan eastern Austro-Hungarian Empireafter I, whenaround150,000Jews fledthe during thefirstmonthsof World War “My grandparents arrivedinVienna Historian, writer, filmmaker HELENE MAIMANN Film Festival 2018ison FaceBook. Jewish Vienna.” ikg-wien.at;Vienna Jewish this year, showingmyfilms on Iwillbe Vienna Jewish Film Festival – inOctober Culture whichisheldeveryJune, andthe There isalsoveryactivememory There isavibrant Jewish lifein I aminlovewiththemountains, TheFestival ofJewish rhetoric in Europe inrecentyears. rhetoric inEurope government ortheriseofanti-Zionistic the extremerightwinginAustrian particularly inrelationtotheentryof constantlyworkedon, that needstobe historical reflection.Thisissomething values and the promotionofdemocratic regarding perspective a criticalpolitical Jewish being understanding about and my friendsandcolleaguesthereisan culture andhistoricalreflection.Among are stimulatingdebateonpolitics, Elfriede Jelinek Menasse, andRobert Isolde Charim,andauthorssuchas critics suchasJulya Rabinowichand generation ofjournalistsandcultural Madame D’Ora (Dora Kallmus).Anew and Frederick Kieslerandphotographer architectsJosefArnold Schoenberg, Frank Sigmund Freud, Berta Zuckerkandl, history, withinnovative exhibitionson contributions ofJews tothecity’s cultural now thereisincreasedrecognitionofthe my colleagueswereaware ofthis.But wereJewish.architect AdolfLoos Few of that manypatronsofKokoschka andthe During myearlyresearchIfoundout night dinnersandJewish holidays. family, butkeeptraditions suchasFriday marriage andwork.We areasecular ofmy I remainedinViennabecause researching theartistOskarKokoschka. over 20yearsagowithascholarshipfor in Savyon inIsrael. IarrivedinAustria inNewI wasborn York, andgrewup Cultural anddesignhistorian ELANA SHAPIRA February 2019. SeeOctoberissueofJRfor details. the Royal Academy from ofArts 4 November to3 A show onGustavKlimtandEgon Schielerunsat other modernists.Seewienermoderne2018.info. Wagner, Gustav Mahler, ArnoldShoenberg and exhibitions tomarkthecreative outputofOtto This year, Viennaishostingalarge numberof VISITORS SHOULDGOTO: Museum Viennaon8-9Nov. freud-museum.at Freud andtheÉmigré,atSigmundFreud Elana Shapiraisco-organisingasymposium, hofmobiliendepot.at;onb.ac.at. modernism. address theJewish contributionto Collection andtheLiterature Museum FurnitureExhibitions attheImperial ‘palais’ apartments oftheRingstrasse. JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 29

Admirethegrand VIENNA MUSIC MUSIC

Don’t let the mamzers grind you down It took Na’ama Zisser three years to compose her Jewish opera Mamzer Bastard. Now that she’s finished, Danielle Goldstein finds out just what the process entailed

magine you’re in New York in the 1970s. You see, Yoel is a Chasidic Jew and his a last-minute person, I work really well Jimmy Carter is either in office or about marriage has been arranged for him, but under pressure, but I’ve found out that in Ito be, bands like the Bee Gees and Elton the night before he is filled with doubt. opera [time] is so necessary. It’s 400 pages John are vying for top spot in the charts, Only an encounter with a stranger can of music – that’s a lot!” and one very apprehensive groom named enlighten Yoel on his true feelings and set It must be a weight off the shoulders Yoel is dreading his impending wedding. him on a new path – one of self-discovery. to have finally released it to the world. “It’s not necessarily just about the Mamzer Bastard, which ran for “It’s hard to say until I’ve done the wedding,” clarifies Na’ama Zisser, the three nights at the Hackney Empire in dissertation and the thesis. I’m probably composer of the unique Jewish opera, June, formed the culmination of Zisser’s not going to take in that it’s the end of the Mamzer Bastard, which charts Yoel’s doctoral residency at Guildhall School of residency until it happens, until I actually story. “Throughout his life Yoel has felt Music and Drama. For the past three years get my PhD.” like a misfit, but he doesn’t know why. I she has been researching and writing While Zisser’s ‘mamzer’ (Hebrew for think the wedding is the climax of these the opera, readying it for the stage. “I’ve ‘bastard’) isn’t based on anyone in her emotions – the point where he thinks: never worked on a piece for so long,” she own life, this remains a story close to ‘Should I or shouldn’t I?’” says of the lengthy process. “I’m kind of her heart. “There are two sides to this,

30 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 I guess,” the 29-year-old explains. “I’ve tradition. I’m not practising in the regular Take her 2013 Ghosts! project, an never attempted to get married, but the sense, but I feel very deeply connected to immersive show that offers a sneak entire world of the opera is based on [my Jewishness], it’s part of me.” peak into someone else’s personal space personal experience: the feel of it, some Although Zisser grew up in a musical through dance and opera. Or Black Sand, of the music, some of the visuals. Both my family – “mostly Chasidic or Israeli folk a horror opera set in a seemingly perfect sister Rachel – who wrote the libretto with music” – it wasn’t until her compulsory 1950s American town, about a boy who her partner Samantha [Newton] – and I military service at age 17 that a pathway to suffers night terrors after the death of have put in a lot of things that we know a career in music was paved. She enrolled his parents. And more recently Empty from real life, but not in a literal sense. in the military’s musical programme, Orchestra (Kara-Oke), a piece written for “Some of the opera was inspired playing piano and writing arrangements the LSO Chamber Ensemble in 2015 that by a family story. My dad was born to for the Israel Air Force Orchestra. “We features live karaoke. Holocaust survivors, but it was only when toured around and outside Israel, playing With such an innovative body of work, my grandfather passed away that he to national or international diplomats. it was inevitable that Zisser would go on found out my grandfather had had a wife I was in Auschwitz two or three times in to greater things. She of course became and three other children that he lost in six months performing in international Doctoral Composer-in-Residence at the war. And when my dad passed away ceremonies. We also travelled out to Guildhall; the second person (after Philip two years ago, during his shiva, my aunt the desert to different Israeli bases and Venables) to receive the coveted role, told us a story about a mamzer that gave played to people who hadn’t been home which is held in association with the Royal us the inspiration to go down this route. for a month or two. For them to be able to Opera House and allows the freedom to “We felt especially connected to the listen to music was a really big thing.” research, develop and stage an opera. But idea of secrets and the trauma of war in Once out of the military, the young what was it that inspired her to base her families, because my grandfather lost his composer studied at the Jerusalem PhD on traditional musical styles? “The entire family in the war and remarried Academy of Music and Dance, where important thing to say is at the outset years later without revealing his past. The Zisser wasn’t sure where to focus her of this opera was the idea of exploring a idea of making an opera about a ‘mamzer’ musical attention. “My teacher suggested connection between cantorial music and

or a ‘bastard’ seemed like a direction we trying out composition and I did for two operatic singing,” she points out. MUSIC should go in.” years, but it wasn’t exactly the direction “I listened to lots of cantorial music Zisser was born in Bnei Brak – a I was after. I wanted something a bit and went deep into its harmonic and place east of Tel Aviv that is, according broader, so I auditioned for Guildhall modal worlds. I spent a lot of time in to the composer, “one and other places, got some archives and talking to cantors; getting of the most religious offers and moved. I went to know their sound and deciding which cities in Israel” – so “I feel very deeply straight into the third year I liked, because in the opera we have six the ultra-Orthodox connected to in London and it was quite existing pieces by various composers. I world is one that she life-changing.” was trying to create something that would knows well. In fact, her my Jewishness. While at Guildhall, feel homogeneous, so it wouldn’t feel great-grandfather was It’s part of me” Zisser was put forward for like one contemporary opera bit and a one of the founders of an opera project. “I’ve no cantorial music bit. I really tried to have Bnei Brak and the main street is named idea why,” she laughs, “I’d never done one influencing the other. In that sense, after him. But despite this involvement, anything like that before, but someone the language of the opera is very different Zisser still had a somewhat liberal thought it’d be a good idea.” As well as to many things I’ve done in the past.” youth. “Obviously that [being Orthodox] opening a door to the world of opera, Following the Mamzer Bastard affected our upbringing in the way we this also marked her first collaboration premiere in Hackney, Zisser says she’s were allowed to dress, but I grew up in a with her sister’s partner Samantha. thinking about taking it to other venues, very cultural family,” she says. “We saw “We did a little project, like 15 minutes,” but nothing is set in stone yet. “We’re movies, travelled and both of my parents she explains, “and it went really well. really hoping to be able to bring the opera were avid readers. So it didn’t feel like So we extended it to a 45-minute piece to Israel one day,” she reveals. “Not easy, we missed out on things, but at the same for the Tête à Tête and Grimeborn but fingers crossed.” And as for future time we were living an Orthodox life.” opera festivals.” work? Well, a break may be in order first. Nowadays Zisser does not consider After her initial success, Zisser “I have some other projects coming up in herself religious. “All of my brothers was commissioned to do more. She’s winter, but I might try to take some time and sisters live abroad. We all went in worked with major ensembles, such off after getting my PhD and just try to very different, interesting as the London Sinfonietta, Jerusalem process everything.” directions and I think that’s Symphony Orchestra and Israel Until then, Zisser is hoping to leave 100 per cent an outcome Camerata. Her work has been her mark with Mamzer Bastard. “I of our upbringing, but performed throughout the UK, in hope that every person took something several of us aren’t venues including the South Bank different from it,” she says. “The story religious any more, so Centre, Barbican, National Portrait is based on a very familiar human maybe that’s an outcome Gallery and Sadler’s Wells. Mamzer experience, but with a backdrop that is as well. It’s give and Bastard is the first piece she’s relatively unknown. People from varied take and I have lots written drawing on backgrounds can connect to it, but at the of respect for traditional music, same time have some exposure to a world as previous they know nothing about.” n pieces drew Right: Na’ama Zisser with her influence from To keep up to date with future performances of loyal muse, contemporary Mamzer Bastard and Na’ama Zisser’s ongoing ROH 2018: IMAGE BY AKA; ©MARIANA KAZARNOVSKY BY ROH 2018: IMAGE

© Florian the dog styles. projects, visit www.naamazisser.com.

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 31 ART

denigrated by Nazi-supporting composer Karl Blessinger, for example, while book Culture wars burnings targeted supposedly un-German works. In the visual arts, the work of some As the Nazis purged galleries of art they considered un-German, non-Jewish modern artists, such as Emil Nolde, a member of the Nazi party, were a group of activists fought back with an exhibition in London tolerated for a time. By 1937, however, showcasing the work of those artists who had been banned. most manifestations of modernism were targeted by the regime. Around 16,000

ART Dr Barbara Warnock reports on a new exhibition at the Wiener works, including pieces by Pablo Picasso, Library exploring that defiant 1938 show Ludwig Kirchner and even Nolde, were removed from German galleries and n July 1938 an exhibition called nation was ‘entartet’ – degenerate. museums, and many artists were dismissed Twentieth Century German Art opened By 1937, the idea of degeneracy was from their positions. Adolf Ziegler, an artist Iat the New Burlington Galleries in a major driver of Nazi cultural policy, favoured by Hitler, oversaw the seizure of London. It was held as a response to the and the artistic endeavours of German the artworks from German museums. In suppression of culture taking place in Jews and those influenced by modern July 1937, he organised an exhibition of Nazi Germany and as opposition to the or foreign trends were condemned by these works in Munich, the Degenerate Art concept of ‘degenerate’ art, which sought Hitler and other influential Nazis. In show. At the same time, a second show, the to ban and vilify art that was considered 1937, a Day of German Art was held in Great German Art Exhibition, was staged ‘un-German’. Over 1,000 people attended Munich. Addressing the event Hitler in the city to promote art of which the the opening and the exhibition proved so talked of leading an “unrelenting war National Socialist regime approved. popular that its run was extended three of purification” to remove degenerate In London, gallery owner Noel Norton times. It remains the largest exhibition influences from German culture. These began to think about staging an exhibition ever held in Britain on modern German notions were applied across the cultural to showcase modern German art in a art. Now, London’s Wiener Library is sphere – Gustav Mahler’s music was positive light. In Zürich, art dealer Irmgard exploring the story of that show with its new exhibition: London 1938 – Defending ‘Degenerate’ German Art, featuring two of the artworks displayed in the original exhibition, alongside material from the Library’s archives. Shortly after it came to power in Germany in 1933, the Nazi Party began to control the production of culture. In September of that year, a law was passed which established Chambers of Culture under the direction of Minister for Public Enlightenment Joseph Goebbels. This move was part of an attempt to ‘co-ordinate’ German public life, and it also reflected a desire to use culture in support of Nazi ideas. Prominent individuals within the regime, including former Nazi Party leader Alfred Rosenberg, also promoted the idea that any art that did not reflect Nazi ideals of racial purity or the glory of the German

32 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 ©THE BERNARD SIMON ESTATE, WIENER LIBRARY COLLECTIONS Rosenberg to Hitler shines light on another toHitlershineslightonanother Rosenberg culture. Afascinatingletterfrom Alfred that promotedtheideaof‘pure’ German Culture,apro-NaziGerman organisation fromtheMilitantLeagueof documents illuminate Nazi cultural policy, including that andbooks There arealsodocuments Artshow.exhibition andtheGreatGerman Munich aswellcataloguesfromthat visiting theDegenerate Artexhibition in exhibition featuresphotographs ofHitler and itsbackground.The 1938 Londonexhibition and testimoniesonthe photographs, documents drawn togetheroriginal and theHolocaust –has of materialontheNazi era the world’s oldestarchive Third Reich. forcedintoexile fromthe or hadbeen museums, works confiscatedfromGerman degenerate inGermany, hadseentheir labelled of theexhibitedartistshadbeen Art haddeterredsomelenders.Allbutone implicationsofthe titleBanned political Twentieth Art–themore CenturyGerman the exhibition,whichwasnowcalled works fromover90collectionsfor organisers gatheredmorethan300 recruited totheproject. art,wasalso German inmodern expert art historianHerbert Read,aleading London withthetitleBannedArt.British coalesced intheorganisationofashow Westheim inParis. Thesevariousplans émigréartcriticPaullines, aswasGerman Paul Lohse,werethinkingalongsimilar Burchard andherhusband,theartist

exhibition inMunich, 1937 Kunstexhibition (1938);Hitler visitingtheEntartete London show, theTwentieth GermanArt Century Kunst exhibition;flyer (Degenerate forthe Art) Liebermann (1847-1935); CatalogueoftheEntartete Clockwise: MaxSlevogt, DerPanther, 1931;Max The Wiener Library – The WienerLibrary – In justovereightmonths,the “Around 16,000 from galleries” were removed pieces byPicasso, works, including antisemitism and the support he enjoyed heenjoyed antisemitism and thesupport Nolde’s oftheNazi membership party, his ArtMuseum. loan fromGelsenkirchen Emil Nolde painting,Young Academic,on in March1943attheageof85. Germany, andcommittedsuicideinBerlin But Marthadidnotfindsafepassage outof purchased theworkandstillownsittoday. eventually in Berlin.TheRoyalSociety Martha, whofacedgrowingoppression most likelyinordertoraise money tohelp of theshowfoundabuyerforthisportrait, Einstein, paintedin1925.Theorganisers 1938 show, ofAlbert includingaportrait lent someofherhusband’s workstothe (whodiedin1935).Martha Liebermann Kirchner sunkintoadeepdepression. and withdrawn inSwitzerland,and1938 He andhiswifegrewincreasinglyisolated degenerate andremovedfromgalleries. in Germany, wherehisart waslabelled troubled bythetreatmentofhiswork in thenewshow. Kirchner wasdeeply ofwhichisondisplay 1919), areproduction exhibition, includingStafelalpRoad(1918- his worksfeaturedintheoriginalLondon of in Switzerlandfrom1918.Anumber Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, whowasbased painter seenintheworksof German be theoutbreakofwar. before Europe Thiscan across and widerculturesociety Nazi affectedindividuals,families policies exhibition, whichillustrate theways that the artistsanddonorstoLondon1938 of art. ofNaziaspect ofworks thelooting policy: The exhibition also features a 1918 The exhibitionalsofeaturesa1918 Of particularinterestarethestoriesof impressionist Max impressionist Max wife oftheGerman of MarthaLiebermann, in theexhibitionisthat show inLondonopened. the a fewweeksbefore Davos on15June 1938,just He committedsuicidein Another story told Another storytold am-Wannsee inBerlin. Wasensteinerwith DrLucy ofLiebermannVilla co-curator ofDefending‘Degenerate’ GermanArt Outreach ManagerattheWienerLibrary. Sheis Dr Barbara Warnock istheEducation and 2019;liebermann-villa.de. October toJanuary Nolde gegenHitlerrunsatVillaLiebermann from London 1938:mitKandinsky, Liebermannund devotedgallery tothelifeofMaxLiebermann. with Liebermann-Villa am Wannsee inBerlin,a on p62.Ithasbeenorganised incollaboration wienerlibrary.co.uk. SeeWhat’s Happening until14September; runsattheWienerLibrary Art London 1938–Defending‘Degenerate’ German organisers werepleasedtoreceive. Nazi badpress thatthe regimewasperhaps and Emigrants”. Condemnationbythe in London–halfofthem,course,Jews Bolshevik Art–Degenerate ArtExhibition “Progressin reported, in Germany inthepress.Oneheadline on itappeared against theexhibitionandangryreports move in”. InGermany, out Hitler spoke “staircases andgalleries weredifficultto to getin.Onceinside,visitorsfound kept waitingintherain” astheyqueued on7JulyStar reported were 1938,“women enthusiasm fortheshowthatDaily exhibition waspartofthis.Suchthe refugees. TheNew BurlingtonGalleries’ in Britainwasinvigorated bytheworkof Nazis’ wasthattheartsscene cultural policy Art exhibition. painting totheTwentieth CenturyGerman profession. In1938heloanedtheNolde worked insteadasabutcher–hisfather’s to practise asalawyer inBritainandso in London.Nelkenstock was notable andresettled forcedoutofGermany been wife inthe1920s.By1936familyhad had builtupasmallartcollectionwithhis Nelkenstock, Jewish aGerman lawyer, who owner of the Nolde Ernst paintinghad been bannedinGermany.his workbeing The from Heinrich Himmlerdidnotprevent One unintended consequence of the One unintendedconsequenceofthe JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 33 n

ART FILM FILM Boat people: the film that tells the story of the 1968 exiles In 1968, up to 20,000 Jews left Poland following an antisemitic purge by the communist regime. Masha Shpolberg speaks to filmmaker Marian Marzynski, who documented the life of one group of Jewish refugees living on a boat in Copenhagen

or his whole life, boats have held compelled Marzynski and roughly two- Poland’s loyalty to the USSR, and free up a special meaning for Marian thirds of Poland’s Jewish population to positions within the Communist Party to F Marzynski. The Polish filmmaker’s flee the country. The campaign was the be filled by his own supporters. Although prize-winning first film, Return of a Ship result of a complex set of interlocking Gomułka, whose wife was Jewish, resisted (1963), focused on a trans-Atlantic vessel forces. The first of these was the Soviet at first, he was soon overpowered. that brought Polish Americans back to Union’s decision to reaffirm its support of The campaign struck its first blow on 8 their homeland during the period of the Arab States by cutting all diplomatic March 1968: a student demonstration at the liberalisation that followed Stalin’s death. ties with Israel following the Six Day War. University of Warsaw demanding greater It went on to win the Grand Prize at the Virulent anti-Zionist discourse filled the freedom of expression and civil rights was Krakow Film Festival in 1964 – the year that pages of most Soviet bloc newspapers. Due violently suppressed, with many of the famed documentary filmmaker Richard to domestic turmoil in Poland, the words students beaten and arrested. The media Leacock was head of the jury. Marzynski’s spilled over into action. insisted that students of Jewish origin had second film, Skibet (the Danish word for In 1967, Poland’s leader Władysław spearheaded the demonstration: Zionists ship), was made in 1970 and documented Gomułka was locked in a power struggle working to undermine the Polish state. In the filmmaker’s own time living on a boat with Minister of the Interior Mieczysław the year and a half that followed, dozens of in the port of Copenhagen along with Moczar, who was known for his openly anti-Zionist demonstrations were staged 500 other Polish Jewish refugees. “It was antisemitic views. At the same time, by the government in cities across Poland, a ready metaphor,” Marzynski tells me students and the Polish intelligentsia were many of them featuring banners inscribed when I meet him for an interview at his beginning to express profound discontent with the slogan: “Zionists – to Zion!” home in Brookline, just outside Boston, with the communist régime. Moczar Jews were purged from the Party ranks, Massachusetts. “A boat on anchor – a boat saw in these political developments a fired from their jobs, and called in by the to nowhere.” rare opportunity: cleansing the country country’s Security Service for interrogation. 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of of Jews would simultaneously suppress For most, the public humiliation, economic the 1968 ‘anti-Zionist’ campaign that the intellectuals’ rebellion, demonstrate strain and constant harassment proved to

34 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 be too much: by 1970, between Marian Marzynski at home in Brookline, 13,000 and 20,000 Jews had Massachusets; left: the boat that housed emigrated to Denmark, Sweden, the refugees from Marzynski’s film, Skibet Canada and the United States. Ironically, given that they stood Warsaw ghetto. I was hidden for accused of Zionism, only one-third three years by my family’s Polish went to Israel. Marzynski was one friends and two Catholic priests. of those who left for Denmark. My mother survived by posing as In recent months, a number a religious woman and working of Polish museums and cultural as a maid in a Polish family. institutions have organised events My father jumped off one of commemorating what has become the last transports heading to known in Poland as the ‘March Auschwitz by making a hole in the tramcar, emigration’. Many have held screenings instead of telling a story that was prepared but was shot in the woods afterwards and of Marzynski’s film. A radio reporter and and scripted, they were filming direct didn’t survive. celebrated television show host in Poland encounters. When I returned to Poland, I In the post-war period, the communist before his departure, he began filming decided to use my experience in radio and government was very effective in three weeks after his arrival in Denmark. television to make films. promoting a secular, culturally uniform Shot in black and white with the support In Poland, there was also a different society. Before 1968 antisemitism was of Danish television, Skibet features reason to focus on everyday reality – illegal. Someone could be put in jail for a mixture of interviews and cinéma because reality was forbidden. The Party calling me a dirty Jew. vérité depictions of everyday life on the had a ready-made narrative about happy boat, which had been converted from a life under socialism and any glimpse of MS: Was it a difficult decision for you to provocative nightclub into housing for the ordinary life threatened to undermine that leave Poland? refugees. A second part, entitled Hatikvah, narrative. MM: No. I left because I did not want my was shot in colour for French television child to live in a lie, to live a double life several months later and features an MS: Skibet combines autobiographical saying one thing at home and another extended interview with young people who narration, interviews, and vérité footage– outside. But I didn’t want to hear about had formed a Jewish folk music ensemble something no one was doing at the time. Polish antisemitism. Whatever you think FILM on board. Recognising the ways in which Why did you do it that way? about Poland, those people who saved and the two pieces spoke to one another, MM: I’m not a typical filmmaker: I was hid and kept us alive during the war, they Marzynski combined them into a single originally a reporter, and I discovered were not antisemites. film under the title Skibet/Hatikvah. The stories. Superficiality was my greatest It was complicated. Many Polish film remains the only document of fear, so I tried to go beneath the surface, people, when they saw that we were given the refugees’ state of mind at to be one with the people I was this opportunity to leave the country, the time. filming. I am a filmmaker, but I thought we were lucky because they Marzynski would not stay “I brought am also a witness. would have liked to leave, too. Of course, long in Denmark: within a my culture they didn’t realize that none of us would few years of his arrival, he was with me in MS: Were people on the boat have left if not for those demonstrations offered a job teaching film wary of speaking about their organised by the Party. We were not scared production at the prestigious a suitcase” experience? of the words spoken by the First Party Rhode Island School of Design in MM: They were open Secretary, who was known for saying the United States. From there, he went on because I was one of them. They had stupidities, but of the people who kicked to work for the Public Broadcasting Service their reservations, of course. They were out my stepfather from his job; who kicked (PBS), producing documentaries on historic shocked, they were blocked... I caught so many others out of work. and scientific topics, as well as films that them in a moment which is a dream for spoke to his own experience as a child a documentary filmmaker – the moment MS: Why did you go to Denmark? survivor of the Holocaust and a Polish Jew when a person is questioning their destiny, MM: I couldn’t go to Israel because we in exile. In his 1996 film Shtetl, he travelled is not aware of that destiny, is not able yet never felt religiously connected. Denmark to the village of Bransk, Poland, examining to describe the past even and is caught had declared that they would take the the reasons that drove some Poles to protect in-between. Polish Jewish refugees. their Jewish neighbours and others to collaborate with the Nazis. In Never Forget MS: In the film, it’s striking how MS: Do you still feel that Poland is your to Lie (2013), he collected the testimonies of assimilated the Polish Jewish community country? other child survivors who, like himself, had was in the post-war period. Your MM: Absolutely. Culture is portable. I say been rescued by righteous Gentiles. interviewees insist that they felt “100 per that when I came to America at the age cent Polish” and this is what made 1968 of 32, I brought my culture with me in a MASHA SHPOLBERG: How did you begin so painful. suitcase and I enriched it tremendously making films? MM: That was the mechanism of our through the new culture I have been MARIAN MARZYNSKI: I started by survival. Secular Jews had a much higher acquiring. I also travel to Poland regularly being a radio reporter – I was fascinated chance of survival in World War II because and teach both there and in the US. n by the sound of people speaking on the they were the ones who had friends and streets. Then I went to television and contacts on the Christian side. Those most Many of Marzynski’s films, including Skibet/ worked on talk shows that also focused likely to help Jews came from two opposing Hatikvah, can be viewed online free of charge on: on the ordinary man. In the early 1960s, I parts of society: they were either secular, vimeo.com/marianmarzynski. Masha Shpolberg travelled to Paris and discovered cinéma left-wing intellectuals or devout Catholics is a PhD candidate in comparative literature and vérité [documentary filmmaking showing who felt that they had no choice but to do film & media studies at Yale University. Masha’s people in everday situations]. They were the right thing. As a five-year old in 1942, pieces have appeared in Senses of Cinema, Tablet shooting with the first mobile cameras, and I was smuggled with my mother out of the Magazine and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 35 THEATRE Kilburn’s Tricycle Theatre is relaunching as the Kiln Theatre. Its new season kicks off with Holy Sh!t, a provocative new play by Alexis Zegerman. Judi Herman speaks to the writer about the play’s thorny question (and Mumsnet favourite): what does it take to get your child into “the best school in the borough”?

eople were asking me about schools when my first child “P was in utero. I thought, I don’t even know if this child is going to come out a sentient human being!” Alexis Zegerman laughs ruefully. As the mother of two pre-school age children, she’ll find these questions keep on coming, but the issue they raise – how to get your child into a good school – is something that dominates the lives of parents across the country. It is also the premise for Holy Sh!t, Zegerman’s new play which opens the season at Kilburn’s refurbished Kiln Theatre (formerly the Tricycle Theatre) in September.

THEATRE “What I didn’t reckon on was the enormous preoccupation with the furthering of your child’s well-being, their intellectual capacity and how they are going to get on in society.” She is still laughing. “The other reason I thought it was great idea for a play is that everyone has an opinion. There is not one person, “Once you’re a parent with or without children, who doesn’t have an opinion on the education system.” Zegerman says she lays her cards on everything changes. the table in the opening scene. Jewish forty-somethings Simone and Sam reveal that they’re going to church regularly, “to Lots of your morals can get our daughter into the best school in the borough.” That school is Church of England. When their friends, Juliet and go out the window” Nick, ask: “What about a Jewish school?” the reply is, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous”. “Once you become a parent everything changes. Lots of your morals can go out the window as long as you are furthering your child’s wellbeing. One person’s parental choice is not necessarily another’s,” says Zegerman, who admits the play is unashamedly middle-class. “But exploring these issues is fertile ground: it’s about education, but race is also at the heart of it. I’m talking about the Jewish race but Juliet and Nick are a mixed-race couple. He’s black and she is what you’d call white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. So it brings up issues of race, religion and identity. “The inciting incident is the Jewish couple starting to go to church to get their daughter into the school. But the fallout from it is really a drama about what it

36 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 ©MARK DOUET very strict with what you are doing with the very strictwith what youaredoingwiththe directors, writers andactors.Itmakesyou curves. It’s helpful workingwithgreat been truth. Thatwasoneofmybiggest learning thorough withcharacter andsostrictabout likeLeighwhoisso working withpeople the onehasn’t honedtheother. Particularly However,drama school. thereisnoway started writingintandemwithactingafter training! I formative? “Itwasthebest novel, Disobedience. the forthcomingfilmofNaomi Alderman’s She’ll on screen againthisautumnin be FilmBritish Independent Awards in2008. award Actressatthe forBestSupporting awayGo-Lucky –forwhich shetook an Hawkins’ leadcharacter Poppy, inHappy- friendtoSally thebest cast herasZoe, National Theatre.Following that,Leigh to theatre,Two ThousandYears, atthe part inMikeLeigh’s long awaited return and mostnotablywonrave reviewsforher immigrant Jews inthebirthofcinema Nicholas Wright’s play theroleof about inTravellingShe hasappeared Light, also hasastringofplauditsforacting. with amuch-laudedwritingcareer, she the Young VicandtheBush.Not content at at theSohoTheatre,andproductions her shortplay Noise, whichwentontorun Westminster prizefornewplaywriting for premiered thefollowingyear. Theatre, whereherplay Lucky Seven writer inresidenceattheHampstead Writers’ Programme. In2007, shebecame writing plays attheRoyalCourtYoung andDrama ofSpeech School andbegan in ourechochambers.” of view. Otherwisewe’re allsitting to empathisewithallthosepoints you’re awriteryouhave able tobe you’re black,Jewish orwhite.If explore thatquestion;whether the play sitsinthemomentto Britain standsforanymoreand the zeitgeist.“Idon’t knowwhat of war!” laughing again.“A differenttype ways thisplay is,” shesays darkly, theatre ofwar?“Well, insome her nextplay setinthe couldbe He’s awarcorrespondent.” So the Guardian’s soulmatewebsite. randomly, notonJDate, buton are Anglo-American.We met New Yorker somytwokids family. “My husbandisaJewish dangerous territory!’” I thought‘Gosh, we’re inreally Trumphappened, happened. three yearsagoandthenBrexit idea ofthisplay happened Britishtoday.means tobe The

Working withLeighmusthave been Her writingcreditsincludethe Zegerman isagraduate oftheCentral The play feelsverymuchof herown Iaskherabout kindness and friendship; and for the sort kindness andfriendship; andforthesort very similarreasons: theemphasison equally, schools loved both probablyfor play waswhatstartedaloveoftheatre.I “Playing nativity school. Maryintheschool thataChurchofEngland years andbefore Jewish] fora few HasmoneanPrepSchool as gettingharder.” you did,tosurviveintheworldthatsee than you wantyourchildrentodobetter get. Shehadatypicalimmigrant mentality: andI,gottheeducationshedidn’tschool), brother (whowenttoHaberdashers’ boys’ She wantedtomakesuremyyounger hard –shewasaverycleveraccountant. andworkedincredibly grammar school, attheageof15,didn’tleft school getinto with aworking-classbackground.She “My schools. motherwasasingleparent Which bringsuptheissueoffee-paying Haberdashers’ Aske’s forGirls. School prestigious privateschool, Stanmore andwenttothe Tricycle.” play thatclosedtheold The InvisibleHand,the Sam herhusband,wasin Daniel Lapaine,playing It’s rather magicalthat Jewish secrets. actress,oneofthe best-kept Bennett playing Simoneisamarvellous was inalltheauditions.Dorothea Myer- in theatre.We theplay workshopped andI writer you’re verymuchpartoftheprocess once shehashandedoverthescript?“As a Ihavehope achievedthatwithHoly Sh!t.” characters. You have truthful.Ireally tobe Before Haberdashers’ shewentto[the Alexis grewupin How hands-onissheallowedtobe “The Jewish “The into theschool” their daughter church toget couple goto uk. Sheisalsoabroadcaster forBBC radio. blogs andpodcasts are atjewishrenaissance.org. correspondent, andJROutloudpodcasteditor. Her is JR’s Editor. Arts Sheisalsothemagazine’s blog Kiln Theatre. Seekilntheatre.com. JudiHerman Holy Sh!trunsfrom 5Septemberto6Octoberat have?’ It’s auniversal subject. thatwe the sameproblemwithschools ‘I canhearthatyou’re British.Do youhave girl. Themothercameuptomeandsaid, daughter wasplaying withanotherlittle I wasinCentral Park, New York, andmy It engulfstheentirecountry–andbeyond. in Mumsnet intothatrightschool?’ speak) attending churchtogetD1(‘daughter one’ discussions onMumsnet suchas:‘Are you were the firstthingsthatpopped-up “However, whenIwasresearchingit, it genericnorthLondon,” shelaughs. play isactuallysetinthearea.“Let’s call Kilburn homeIwonderifZegerman’s the Kiln’s artisticdirector, whodirects think forIndhu[IndhuRubasingham, feels anaptchoicefortherelaunch.“I asfunnyandfrank asitstitleand to be posters,” shesays. Holy Sh!tpromises know whatwe’re goingtodowiththetube a completemarketingnightmare!Idon’t placed exclamationmark.“It’s goingtobe play’s title,withitsstrategically provocative JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 37 Sh!t, opensattheKilnTheatre actor AlexisZegerman, whoseplay, Holy Far left:Schoolforscandal:writerand an end, we giggle over her new an end,wegiggleoverhernew been.” at themomentthanIhave ever Jewish withbeing more atpeace us.Yetforced upon Ifeellikeam Jewish –thediscussionsarebeing Britishand strange timetobe the onesthathave choirs.It’s a My favourite synagoguesare synagogue islisteningtosinging. inchurchor being most about synagogue. ButthethingIlove mitzvah atStanmoreUnited though mybrotherwasbar wasn’t particularlyashul-goer, always knewthatIwasJewish. I thrust downmythroat,butI Jewishat Habssobeing wasnever quite alargeJewish community Jewish was “There upbringing? ‘davening’ andpraying,” shesays. of disciplinethatcamewithboth As the interview comes to As theinterviewcomesto Did shehave atraditionally is about hertheatre’sis about passionate Rubasingham audiences aswell.” and theneedtoattract new audience thetheatrehas chimes withtheveryloyal really wellthematically;it itsits the production] Knowing how Knowing how n

THEATRE THEATRE Addicted to Pinter A season of Harold Pinter’s one-act plays will be performed together for the first time this autumn, to mark the 10th anniversary of the playwright’s death. Judi Herman speaks to Jamie Lloyd, the director behind the project, about working on – and with – one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century

t’s 10 years since Harold Pinter died at JH: The pauses had become a joke. the age of 78. This summer, director JL: They’re there to be explored. When IJamie Lloyd and a line-up of theatre I spoke to him about it he always said luminaries will stage a season of Pinter’s ‘Test them out. If they’re useful, great. If one-act plays to celebrate the iconoclastic not, cut them.’ There’s a story about him playwright with audiences old and new. saying to an actor, ‘You’re playing two This ambitious project features all 20 of dots, whereas I had written three dots …’ the playwright’s short plays performed it sounds like he was very exacting but together for the first time. really he was saying, ‘There’s something about that thought change. It just needs a JUDI HERMAN: You worked with Pinter little bit more time than you’re giving it’. early in your career? It’s a very practical note to an actor, rather JAMIE LLOYD: Yes I did. The first main than a literary academic one. house production that I directed was The Caretaker at The Sheffield Crucible. JH: Pinter explores power games between It launched my directing career. It was classes and generations, and between a great privilege to work with him on it. men and women. The second production I directed was the JL: He recognises that so much of our double bill, The Lover and The Collection interaction with each other contains some at The Comedy Theatre, which is now The kind of battle for supremacy. Family life for

THEATRE Harold Pinter Theatre. We worked very many people can be very difficult. A living closely on that. He came to rehearsals and room can become a battlefield. The joy of we talked a lot about it. I went to his study working on these plays is that no single and we picked the plays apart. I found line is reliable. There’s always another him to be incredibly generous and also meaning that’s veiled with this very willing to talk about his plays. There’s topspin of wit and dexterity. That’s a rumour that he didn’t want to say what what makes it such an addictive the meaning was behind any specific line thing to work on, because you’ve or what any of his plays meant but I found got to find what’s underneath. him to be very open about that. It is very English. We’re always I talked to him about The Collection, concealing our feelings. his play about secrets and lies – about whether something happened or didn’t JH: He also had a passion for happen in a hotel room in Leeds. As an human rights. Would he audience, as actors and director, you’re be out on the streets and searching for clues to solve that puzzle. He writing about it today? didn’t want actors to ask him as if he was JL: He was always a the oracle. He wanted the actors to do that passionate voice for what work themselves. he believed in and that was controversial. He’s totally JH: How wise to let go! After all about justice – the people Shakespeare is not here to consult. who are repressed by JL: It was a bit like having Shakespeare in someone abusing their the room! That was the only downside of power. working with Harold. When he came into the room, actors were terrified and you JH: His political plays knew that the run-through would be a particularly lend disaster because they wouldn’t be able to themselves to his type act through their fear. of scabrous humour. JL: That’s interesting. JH: In these plays the atmosphere builds For example, in very fast through repetition. One for the Road, JL: Rhythm is the key. He’s one of the few you’ve got Nicholas, playwrights I encourage actors to follow the interrogator. The exactly in his punctuation and stage more you read it the direction. Perhaps, because he was a rep more you realise actor he understood what actors need. he’s perhaps the

38 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 before, let alone seen a Pinter play. WHY WE LOVE That makes for PINTER a more dynamic evening. I love Actors, directors and others involved it when you see in Pinter at the Pinter were invited by people of different the producers of the season to give backgrounds their thoughts on Harold Pinter chatting to each other about DANNY DYER the play in the What Harold does is to get two people interval. in a room talking. It’s so simple, the idea What I love of people talking to each other is so rare about the season in this virtual world. is that you see the breadth of CELIA IMRIE Bringing Pinter to the people: (left) director Jamie his work. All of the plays are very different. He asked me to be in The Hothouse with Lloyd; (above) Harold Pinter, who died 10 years ago The plays that Tamsin Greig is doing – him. This was about 24 years ago. It was Landscape and A Kind of Alaska – are irresistible, being in a Pinter play with most tortured person on stage in terms of lyrical, atmospheric and beautiful plays. Harold Pinter playing the lead. People his need for approval, for love. Powerful The poetry taps into the sense of life being know him as a writer but as an actor he people are frequently the most insecure. like a dream, that the past feels strange was explosive. In these overtly political plays Harold to us and at the same time there can be doesn’t set them in an exotic country far moments where it’s crystal clear. It has a JANE HORROCKS away. Nicholas uses a cricket metaphor; he dreamlike quality to it. Some nights it’s I love that the characters are grounded feels very, very English. It’s almost a Noel raucous, almost like a rock ‘n roll gig with in real worlds but there’s a strangeness Cowardesque humour that runs through loud gales of laughter; and the next night it within that’s intriguing. MARTIN ROSENBAUM MARTIN some of these plays. I think Harold’s saying, will be completely silent, really tense. ‘Don’t assume that the abuse of power PATRICK MARBER

happens thousands of miles JH: What made you group Harold had been to see my first play, THEATRE away. It happens right on our some plays with others? Dealer’s Choice, and he wrote me the

MARC BRENNER; © “Harold, a

© doorstep’. JL: Some were by accident, loveliest note I’d ever received from working-class some were practical. Night someone in my profession, saying that JH: How did you decide Hackney boy, School, an early play is he liked it. I acted in a production of The which of the plays to paired with Moonlight, Caretaker at school and then I worked direct and which is like you” one of his later plays, so it’s with him at the Comedy Theatre (now to hand over to interesting to see how the the Harold Pinter Theatre) in 2000 other directors? playwright evolved. Those explosively when I directed The Caretaker. From JL: I would love to have powerful political plays, One for the Road then on, he’d send me sketches, we’d directed them all! The way and Mountain Language, and The New correspond and he became part of the schedule works, there World Order and Ashes to Ashes, feel like my life. To me he was a god but on the are always two rehearsal they speak to the world that we’re living in opening night of The Caretaker he was rooms at any one time right now. I’m going to pepper that evening just like any other writer, full of anxiety. and two different casts with some of his most explicit poetry, Directing Pinter you don’t want to give rehearsing an evening of such as one of his great poems, American the audience too much, there needs at least two plays. Football. It’s a way of saying that Pinter’s to be a level of obscurity. Harold was plays are as relevant as ever. There’s an always very big on diction, if there was JH: There are plenty urgency in the writing that I hope will be a single word you couldn’t hear, he was of cheap tickets too, inspiring to a younger audience to say, ‘You on it. He began writing before ‘youth to attract a young can write, you can speak. Use your voice to culture’ was invented, the young men in audience. stand up for what you believe in’. his plays aspired to speak like adults – a JL: Theatre has to be for The Lover and The Collection are sensibility which isn’t found in today’s everybody and ticket playing in rep on one evening. They ‘public celebrity’ language. pricing is a big part of are two feminist plays. In the battle for that. There are over supremacy [in his plays], frequently the TRACY-ANN OBERMAN 25,000 tickets at £15 women are most powerful and that’s Pinter creates such atmosphere with and they are reserved certainly the case in this pairing. These are so few words, and wrote fantastic for under 30s, those real comedic masterpieces. female roles. The characters really sing. in the industry and the The whole season presents many facets unemployed. It’s saying: of Harold and his writing. Celebration TAMSIN GREIG Harold, a working-class [his last play from 2000] is paired with I’ve never performed in a Pinter play Hackney boy, is like you – like Party Time [from 1991], both are very before. I studied Pinter at school and someone living in Hackney funny satires of the super-rich and big university and I’ve always been intrigued today. He understands what business. Party Time feels a bit like Made by the sense of fear that sits on the edge makes us tick in such a brilliant, in Chelsea and Celebration like The Only of life experience. The way Pinter uses profound way that we need to offer Way is Essex – all of human life is there humour to keep that monster at bay that up to a large number of people in one evening! n creates a ripe theatrical landscape. n so they get something from it. I love that there are older people sat Pinter at the Pinter runs from 6 September – These interviews and others on Harold next to younger people, kids who 23 February 2019 at The Harold Pinter Theatre. Pinter can be seen on pinteratthepinter. have never been to the theatre pinteratthepinter.com com and Youtube later in the summer.

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 39 BOOKS

BOOKS Shock and awe AM Homes’ new collection of short stories takes on Holocaust history, her own family background and the world of internet chat rooms in typically edgy fashion. But she tells Shoshi Ish-Horowicz that her aim is to challenge, not offend

he world we live in is wild undertook lightly. “I always think about ever written about that’s not super visible right now!” says AM Homes, what my mother might say. The idea of and on the table for discussion in our “T discussing the timeliness of her even playing at going into these accents society. The idea of inhabiting the lives of latest book, a short story collection entitled could be offensive, and I worried about others has always been at the core of what Days of Awe. That this wildness is reflected that, but I also thought it’s also a way of I’ve done as a writer.” in her stories will come as no surprise to embodying one’s own history, of bringing Days of Awe possibly goes further than readers of previous works. From The End back the voices and sounds that one any of Homes’ earlier works in blurring of Alice (narrated mostly by a middle-aged remembers from childhood. I remember the lines between the author’s real life paedophile) to the outrageous exploits people talking in Yiddish, with that and those of her creations. The main of the super-rich in May We Be Forgiven, intonation in their voices, and I don’t story describes the two characters as they which won the Bailey’s Prize in 2013, she hear that anywhere these days – even arrive at the conference: “He is the War is an author who has always seemed to in New York. I don’t even hear the classic Correspondent, she is the Trangressive delight in shaking her readers out of their New York accents any more. Novelist.” Between navigating comfort zone. So part of what I’m playing relationships with her female The title story of the new collection with is that relationship of “Judaism is lover back home and the sexy, at first feels like familiar, provocative, language and voice to history. not a world married War Correspondent, Homes’ territory: it begins with the main And there’s always that other I sit in, but Transgressive Novelist is characters taking an evening off from a aspect: if you speak in a attacked on a panel for conference about genocide – a “Genocide(s) different voice, does it allow it is a world being a woman who writes summit” – to flirt with each other and their you to say things that you I think in” intentionally shocking books collective past. They start talking dirty otherwise wouldn’t be able to?” and, more specifically, for in a combination of Yiddish and heavily But Homes rejects the idea that her appropriating the Holocaust experience in accented English learned from their works are shocking: “Most importantly, her award-winning novel. grandparents. as a writer, I’m trying to understand the “It’s not at all autobiographical, Homes acknowledges that playing with experiences and lives of others and there’s but I also liked playing with that a language in this way might be considered nothing about that that’s aggressive or little bit,” admits Homes. “People are inappropriate and is not something she forced or shocking. There’s nothing I’ve always assuming that things are very

40 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 ©MARION ETTLINGER experience is recalled in disturbing isrecalledindisturbing experience during theHolocaust. Thegrandmother’s school her parentsinaCatholicboarding woman whosegrandmother wasleftby thethird-generation traumaabout ofa Why IsItAlways onHer Mind?, shewrites of thecollection,WhoseStoryIs It,and brought tohermemoir. Inthe second story commitment toresearchthatHomes and situationsofherfictionliesthesame internet chatroom. inan which isentirelymadeupofposts collection, TheNational CageBirdShow, piecesinher of themoreexperimental and Squalor. Salinger’s storyinspiredone a JDSalingerstory, For Esme–withLove an answertodouble-checkthedetailsof University –notleastwhensheinterrupts teaches increativewritingatPrinceton the rigourshemustbringtoclasses John Cheever. comparisons withBretEastonEllisand and heraward-winning fictionhasledto intheAmerican literary tradition position has alreadyearnedheranestablished Stein feelsveryfitting;Homes’ writing child too.” alittlebitofher might be Stein,then I like Gertrude much that lineisalittletoo am myfather’s child,and if am myfather’s childand I I ammymother’s child, I am mymother’s childand histories. Sheconcludes:“I through forensicresearchintotheirfamily family bycross-checkingtheirstoriesand herbirth statement asshelearnsabout attempt toaddunderstandingthis The Mistress’s Daughter isabook-long from theJewish ServiceAgency.” Social from, mymotherwouldtellmethatIwas was youngandusedtoaskwhereIcame I biological parents.Shewrites:“When acquaintedwithher as shebecomes traces theauthor’sand thebook journey mother wantstomakecontactwithher learning, attheageof32,thatherbirth artist.” matches. Iwasthiscrazy weirdlittlecon- and drugsstuff.Ilied,stole,played with wild, Iwaswild.Not justtheobvioussex was 18…anyway inwhichyoucouldbe that Icouldbarelybreathebythetime the ageofeight,andIsmokedsomuch in 2013shesaid:“Ismokedcigarettesfrom with Jewish parents.Inaninterview liberal adopted andgrewupinWashington DC Memoir, publishedin2007. Homes, 56,was autobiography, TheMistress’s Daughter: A did thathappen?”’ read itandsay, “Oh! Ididn’t know!When and it’s not!People whoknowmewellhave let thisoneseemveryautobiographical – autobiographical soIthoughtI’mgoingto

Beneath the audacious characters Beneath theaudaciouscharacters toherIgot asenseof While speaking with The association withHomes The memoirbegins In factshehaswrittenan “I remember “I remember in New York ” anymore –even don’t hearthat in Yiddish,I talking people published a story or sold a movie, it was published astoryorsoldmovie,itwas thing.Itwasn’twas thebest thekidwho arabbi. Toone whobecame methat student andmyansweralways is:the who wasyourmostsuccessful[writing] humour itcanpresent:“People askme, a worldIsitinbutitisthinkin.” relationship.It’srelationship orasocial not herroleasawriter:“It’sbeyond notapublic sees herJudaism assomethingthatgoes or community.”particular experience She conversations always limitedtoone tobe in thelargersenseIdon’t. Idon’t wantthe ideasI feelpartofit,but whom Italkabout friends whoIhave Passover withandto part ofit,andintherelationshipswith “Inmyinternallife,Ifeel community? see herselfasapartoftheJewish American some kindofspiritualorcommunallife” orneedfor “the notionoffaithorthebelief considering she saidthathadbeen May We her2012book about BeForgiven, gradually movingtowards.Inaninterview fiction todate.Itissomethingshehasbeen this themostexplicitlyJewish ofHome’s theme oftheHolocaust combinetomake autobiographical detailsandtherepeated to Yom Kippur),theplayful useof of Jewish holidays fromRoshHashanah theperiod traditionally usedtodescribe as herexploration ofherfamily’s past. incrafting thestory were justasimportant and currentpsychoanalyticalpractices her investigationsintovarietiesofroses Homesextends tootherareastoo: says that the Holocaust.Themeticulousresearch Catholic familiessotheywouldsurvive dead parents,whosentthemtolivewith their feelingsofangertowardslong- with cousinsinFrance. Theydescribed story relatestoconversationsHomes had evokedandthe suffered ispowerfully of thepricklyvines.” Theabandonment rosebushes, pinnedbythespindlyarms where theyfoundher–entangledinthe That’sthat theroseswentonblooming. the onlythingthatkepthersanewas nuns heldtheirhandsoverhermouth… detail: “As shescreamedforthem,the She also revels in the incongruous She alsorevelsintheincongruous The title,Days ofAwe (thephrase identity. Howshe fardoes and nuancedroleinher religion plays acomplex it.”incredibly happyabout truthisthatI’m before…the hadn’t everriskedexploring there isaJewish themethat I [May Webook BeForgiven] for several years.“Inthis learning technologist atLSE. the Limmudbook club andisa Shoshi Ish-Horowicz co-hosts Homes, 2018,Viking,£12.99. Days ofAwe: StoriesbyAM something!” arabbi. That’sbecame the youngmanwho It is clear that her It isclearthather n

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 41 debut almost30years ago American lifesinceherstartling She’s chronicler of beenawry the books AM Homes: > America. anxieties of21st-century for humourandwonder amidst the Homes’ latestcollectionsearches convicted paedophile. of thebook’s central character, a controversy forherhumanisation fame andcriticalacclaim,aswell as Homes’ third novel brought her psychotherapist andhernew patient. the complicateddynamicsbetween a A psychological thrillerdealingwith Doll. that containsthecultclassic,AReal collection story An extraordinary short boy.15-year-old and sexualitythrough theeyes ofa novel dealingwiththeissuesoffamily Homes’ debutwasacoming-of-age lawn sprinklersandswingers’ parties. Westchester beyond about astory to move thisportrayal ofsuburban and Richard Nixon. Allcommingle mitzvah inaSouthAfricanvillage– murder, incineration, kidnap,abar and rapidly progresses toencompass The novel beginswithacarcrash becomes addictedtohelpingothers. of Richard Novak, adivorcé, who nature ofgoodnessinthecharacter This funny novel examines the pregnant. unusual methodsofbecoming teacher andamotherwhoispursuing characters includeaformerfirstlady, a collectionwhose story A secondshort to‘make thingsgoodagain’.try unfold onceabored marriedcouple The novel centres ontheevents that THE ENDOFALICE//1996 // IN ACOUNTRY OFMOTHERS // THE SAFETY OFOBJECTS JACK //1989 DAYS OFAWE //2018 // MAY WEBEFORGIVEN YOUR LIFE//2006 THIS BOOKWILLSAVE KNOW //2002 THINGS YOU SHOULD // MUSIC FORTORCHING NICK PRITCHARD 1993 1990 2012 1999

BOOKS BOOKS There’s no place like home Aviva Dautch’s poems about clearing her childhood home after the death of her mother have won her a national award. On the publication of her winning sequence of poems, she speaks to Liz Cashdan about refugees, Englishness – and hoarding

viva Dautch won the Primers Poetry Prize last December with a A sequence of poems about clearing the house after her mother’s death. That winning sequence of poems has just been published in a collection, Primers Volume Three. And that award followed a prize BOOKS from Brandeis University in the States for work written during a residency (from 2014-16) at the Jewish Museum, London. Now the Bradford Literature Festival has commissioned her to write a poem in response to a painting, Fulfilment, by Gustav Klimt, as part of the international celebrations marking the centenary of Klimt’s death. The result is her poem, The Embrace, which she will read at the festival this summer. She is also working on her first full poetry collection, which will touch on what it means to be a diaspora Jew in modern Europe. The Primers prize was established by the Poetry School and independent publishers Nine Arches Press, and aims to bring attention to emerging writing talent. The two poets with whom Dautch shares the prize and its accompanying volume are both from immigrant families: the Philippine poet Romalyn Ante and the writer Sarala Estruch, whose family comes from the Indian subcontinent. Dautch says she was struck by the resonances between the work of the three winners: “We’re three generations of immigrants, all of us writing about what it means to be other: the fractures that appear when seas are citizens but really they’re from that part his other languages was German, and there crossed, with words from other languages of the Pale of Settlement where borders were often Holocaust survivors or their creeping into our poems and exploding the were constantly changing.” Her father children in and out of our house.” notion of Englishness.” Harry was born in this country but spoke Like many ex-soldiers, her father never Dautch, too, has a multicultural several languages. “I remember him being talked about exactly what he did during the background. She was born in Salford in fluent in at least six and often acting as a war, but Dautch says, “I know he was very 1978, but her grandparents arrived in translator for those around him. Knowing traumatised by what he saw while serving Britain from Eastern Europe: “On the Russian meant he spent a lot of time in the British Army, particularly after the census they describe themselves as Russian working with Russian ‘refuseniks’. One of liberation of the camps. One of his cousins

42 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 ©ANFISA POLYUSHKEVYCH and loss, with a rhyming pattern and and loss,witha rhymingpatternand love about Itisapoem subcontinent. of medievalPersia andtheIndian Middle Ages,thenadoptedby poets used bySpanishJewish inthe poets form its titlefromanancientArab poetic with clarityandsympatheticlove.” areillumined and madness,herpoems moves throughmemoryspacesofclutter talent andintelligencewhileshe says ofDautch: “She exhibitswonderful Linda ZisquitofIsrael’s BarIlanUniversity the path/afewdays before…” Asthepoet trap/my well-meaningmother hadseton itsshellandcaughtbythesalt- bereft/of how small/shewas:shrivelledlikethesnail there wasnothing/lefttodothatInoticed shewrites:“Itwasn’tof thepoem until my will/onherhoard.” Just theend before long asachild/thiswasmychancetoinflict objections/and pleasfortime.Silenttoo myway eyed, competent/muscling pasther she writes:“And soIintervened,clear- life.InShame, struggled inherpersonal anda womanwho a successfuldoctor of shamedealingwithamotherwhowas and Clearance, reflectDautch’s feelings Rosalind Franklin. part bytheworkofJewish geneticist, in scientific discoverymadepossible helix structureofDNA –the is reminiscentofthedouble idea isthatthepoem’s shape backwards asforwards.The palindrome –itreadsthesame isa thepoem form because andgeneticist in doctor hermotherwas a because content andform:in toescape. desperate welcomed otherstoaplaceshewas home wastransformed fromonethat obsessive hoardingandDautch’s childhood issues, wasthecatalystforhermother’s father’s death,combinedwithotherpast the child’s mind.” Thetrauma ofDautch’s itsowncreaturein until thehousebecame rottingvegetables, newspapers, goods, household barricaded herinbehind herworld. she canreshape animaginedplacewhere which describes The House andendswithTheFoundry, withthepoem much homebased.Itbegins sequence inthePrimerscollectionisvery ofJewishSchool Studies.Her sixteenpoem literature atLimmud,JW3andtheLondon Jewishwhen shelecturesonmodern says Dautch, whodraws ontheseideas theycanexploretheworld,”home before needa without aprefix.ButIagreepoets ofthewar.to theemotionalrepercussions establishing afamilylifewasprobablydue Dautch thedelay waseight.Shebelieves in marry untilhewas60,anddiedwhen with Nazi prisonersofwar.” He didn’t told methathehadtranslated interviews

The penultimate poem, Ghazal, takes Ghazal,takes poem, The penultimate suchasTheEmptying Other poems, DNA, issignificantin Another poem, The House“Her begins: mother aJewish“I amboth andapoet poet “Poets need the world” can explore they before a homebase

complexity.” we needtohave asenseofnuanceand multiple shadesrather thanone truthand the truthbuttellit‘slant’. Therearealways Dickinson’s musttell all viewthatpoetry needpoetry.especially toEmily Isubscribe and inthecurrenttroubledworld,we ofAuschwitz, I wouldarguethatbecause misrepresented. meaning hasoftenbeen in moredepth,youcanseethattheir attheseoriginal statements “If youlook afterAuschwitz? nopoetry there canbe Adorno’snothing, andTheodor that belief Auden’s accomplishes assertionthatpoetry world,inviewofWH in themodern aSyrianrefugeefamily.accommodate funds toconvertpartofitspremises Synagoguetoraise London Liberal scheme initiatedbyStreatham’s South of theAbraham’s Tent refugeeproject,a and asylumseekershelpimmigrants us,asJews,upon towelcomerefugees incumbent themselves. “Itisespecially many immigrants toBritainnowfind the ‘hostileenvironment’inwhich like manyothers,candowithout centuries. ofdifferentreligionsoverthelastfew poets usedfordialoguebetween form hasbeen on ghazals,whichwillexplorehowthe Song ofSongsandteachingaworkshop thebiblical chairing adiscussionabout concert atBradford Cathedral. Sheisalso aspartofthefestival’spoetry interfaith this summer, Dautch readingher willbe atthefestival showcasing herKlimtpoem literature andfaith.Apartfrom about and thetwohave ongoingdiscussions of theBradford Literature Festival, friends withSyimaAslam,thedirector AghaShahidAli. Kashmiri poet titledArabic, bythe another ghazalpoem, to asaresponse Israel. Shewrotethepoem struggle toframe anarrative around to aconsideration ofthewiderJewish spirals outfromDautch’s ownexperience It wordis‘Hebrew’. couplets: therepeated refrain wordineachoftheten repeated Primers Volume Three: RomalynAnte,Sarala How does she see the place of poetry How sheseethe placeofpoetry does I putittoDautch thatJewish people, Over thelastfewyearsshehasbecome

writers; and she is a supporter writers; andsheisasupporter together migrant andrefugee Ink, agroupthatbrings committee ofExiledWriters and migrant work. involved ininterfaith,refugee says Dautch, whoisheavily make anewhomeintheUK,” n Leaves Publications. Selected Poetry, 2013,Five Things ofSubstance:New and Cashdan’s latestcollectionis bradfordlitfest.co.uk. Press, 2018,£9.99. See Commane, NineArches Ed. HannahLowe withJane Estruch andAviva Dautch. She is on the organising She isontheorganising Liz JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 43 Some accurate ideaoflanguage, (Yiddish) n.‘Mother-tongue’ MAMALOSHEN how words travel between I dreamt ofrailroads Each timesheknottedustogether instead shematchedkin when theworld wasrotting and aromatic storage chests, rejoicing, limbs flying,when we came the BerlinWall withourbodies,oneon I’d switchoff, daydream, remembering Back atschoolinJanuary, studyingThe for ourteamifwe smuggledourselves negotiating CheckpointCharlie, we were tooyoung. Instead,we should have beennextbutperhapsthey Poland, Lithuania,fleeingpogroms. the journeys ourgrandparents made or Jewish Brits.Oncampthatwinterwe whether we feltBritish,Jewish, like had torunacorneroftheroom The daytheWall fellwe played the Jewish youth movement. The nameofaninternational builders’.(Hebrew): lit.‘The HABONIM shedding unfashionabledresses Their larvae biteholesincloth: Their larvae mutating inside Volume Three sequence featured inPrimers Aviva Dautch’s award-winning Here are two poemsfrom AND HABONIM MAMALOSHEN and theuglinessofescape, with lullabies with image,beyond withthewind. around her‘we’re fine, we’re fine’ – was allIever prayed for its sinews andchannels tumbling down. top oftheother, how we built Tudors, safely across. winning points became refugees thought The Holocaust from Russia, acted out British Jews depending identity game– countries like kinder sudden remembered losses. a cocoonofforgetting. and cadencesofplace,

n

BOOKS BOOKS Deadwood, from High Noon to Quentin Tarantino. One of his last books was Clive Sinclair’s True Tales of the Wild West, in which two Jewish cousins from Luton, Saltzman and Peppercorn, go on a search for the truth behind the myths of such figures as Wyatt Earp, General Custer and Geronimo. He fell in love with westerns at the local cinema in the 1950s, and he would sometimes say that he was in search for his inner cowboy. Looking at his crumpled face and unheroic figure, nothing seemed less likely. A friend later recalled that a birthday card sent by Sinclair and his wife to their son Seth was signed by the “Sheriff and his Deputy”. The Wild West was one homeland. Then there were his literary homelands. Sinclair was interviewed in the Jewish Quarterly in 1984 by Bryan Cheyette. In the interview, he talks about how he had “to leave England to find something interesting to write about. I find no engagement with England at all. Everything here is a pale reflection of elsewhere.” By “elsewhere” he means Israel, America and central and eastern Europe. He had what he called “an unrequited love affair” with Israel, explored in his book Diaspora Blues. In Israel, as in eastern Europe, writers are “writing on the edge of existence. The problems are real – life, death, censorship, imprisonment and exile”. BOOKS America as a literary homeland meant Philip Roth – rather than Saul Bellow or Bernard Malamud. “It’s the writer’s job Zombies, cowboys and to find where the edge is,” Sinclair told Cheyette, “to take the risk of seeing one step ahead and to see where he is going to talking giraffes fall over”. Of course, there was a difference between being a Jewish writer in Britain and in America. In America there is a Clive Sinclair, who died in March, was a unique and maverick real Jewish culture with magazines like story-teller, says David Herman Commentary, Tablet and Mosaic; Jewish editors and critics; and, above all, f you can imagine a Borgesian He was intensely Jewish. He knew his Jewish readers. Joseph Heller, or a Nabokovian Isaac Old Testament and for some years attended In 1983 Sinclair was one of 20 writers “I Bashevis Singer, you have something a reading group which studied a chapter of included in Granta’s Best of Young of his tone,” wrote Malcolm Bradbury in the the Hebrew Bible at each session. His last British Novelists list, along with Martin TLS, reviewing Clive Sinclair’s 1979 book, book of fiction, out this summer, is a book Amis, Julian Barnes, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian Hearts of Gold. of stories about Shylock (Shylock Must Die, McEwan, Salman Rushdie and Pat Barker. Bradbury captures what is so distinctive see opposite). Clive John Sinclair doesn’t Sinclair was the only Jew. Howard Jacobson, about Sinclair’s writing: Jewish but also sound Jewish. It’s almost a joke name as he ruefully pointed out, was too old to be wide-ranging and soaked in modern for such a Jewish writer. But his father one of the Best of Young British Novelists. literature. And he was humorous – often was originally called Smolinsky and only Sinclair, at 35, was young enough, and laugh-out-loud funny – in person and in changed his name in 1939, when he joined had already published a novel and two his writing. the British army. Typically, collections of short stories. Young enough, Sinclair died on 5 March, Sinclair has a private detective but perhaps, like Jacobson, too Jewish? less than a month after his “He was on called Smolinsky in two of his What saved Jacobson at a tough time in his 70th birthday. He was born a search for early books of short stories, career was TV. Roots Schmoots, a series in 1948, and this helps place Hearts of Gold and Bedbugs. about comedy, one-off programmes like him: he was born in the same his inner There was always a divide Sorry, Judas and appearances on The year as the state of Israel, just a cowboy” between the mundane – few years after the Holocaust, Hendon, where he grew up, grammar school educated and a lover of and St Albans, where he spent much of westerns. He was part of a very different his adult life – and the exotic. He adored literary generation from the Anglo-Jewish the Wild West. Just before he died, writers of the 1950s and ‘60s: more comic, he published a book of essays about sexy, and above all more open to other westerns called True Crit. The essays literary influences. range from John Ford to HBO’s series

44 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 ©SETH SINCLAIR; THOMAS FOURNIER: WWW.THOMFOUR.COM much missedforyearstocome. a distinctiveliterary voice,onethatwillbe humour. From thesedivisions hecreated Haidee Becker. Somanylossesandsomuch his wifeFran andhislong-time partner, calls toLAandhisdevotionfriends, and prostitutes,butalsothosedailyphone and theWildWest. vampires Storiesabout divides. HendonJews andeasternEurope, hecalledthemeveryday.to LA, father. AfterSethandhiswifeKatemoved loyal friend,andalovingdevoted Davy Crockett. Inglourious Basterdsandthestoryof Tarantino’sthe linksbetween 2009film story hasanalmosttalmudicdebateabout some New Orleansprostitutes.Thetitle called MamaCongo,several zombiesand the grotesque.Onestoryhasacharacter laugh.”cultural chaostothetuneofabelly jester jugglingbigissuesoflife,deathand wrote theLiterary Review, “a cannycourt ofall.“Sinclairthe best isgreatfun,” you.”hard; teaseandtormentshock squeamish orthelazy. Hisstoriesworkyou plotted,” wrotetheFT, “itisnotforthe eroticandweirdly students. “Wildly RevengeforhisGerman Rosenberg’s courseas whorenamesapoetry school and alectureratCambridgesummer Jewishspeaking stateineasternEurope the familiareroticweirdness,aYiddish- Steak-Eating Contest”.Bedbugsincludes TexasHamlet isreimaginedas“The giraffe Inonereference, inanIsraeli zoo. ofviewa story toldfromthepoint a privatedetective(Smolinsky)and Quarterly Award. the PENSilverPen andtheJewish the DylanThomasAward. Histhirdwon His second,Bedbugs,wasshortlistedfor wontheSomersetMaughamAward. Gold, ofshortstories,Hearts of His firstbook Britain. short storywritersinpost-war allhewasoneofthebest critic. Butabove four books. Hell. Inthenext20yearshepublishedjust from ASoapOpera dark yearsinabook, a kidneytransplant. He these described Clive himselfhadrenalfailure,dialysisand sister-in-law Susan,andhiswife,Fran. parents,his In themid-1990s,helostboth Sinclair wasonaroll.Thentragedy struck. intelligent andfunnywasn’t enough. lugubriousness didnotplay well.Being onTV.rarely appeared Perhaps his 2’s inthemid-‘80s,Sinclair Bookmark onBBC Apart fromasingleappearance Late ShowandTheSouthBankShow. publications. Statesman andthe Guardian among other March 2018.DavidHermanwritesfortheNew Clive Sinclair:born19February 1948;died5

It is not easy to make sense of these It isnoteasytomakesenseofthese all,Clivewasagenerousand Above Death &Texas hasmorethanahintof The LadywiththeLaptopisperhaps Hearts includedavampire, ofGold novelistandafine Sinclair wasagood The 1980swereyearsofacclaim. n

S w SHYLOCK MUST DIEClive Sinclair afterlife of a character who, he argues, afterlife ofacharacter who,heargues, (1994)traces the Shylock whose book an oldfriendofAntonio;John Gross, Merchant as (1977)recastsShylock Arnold Wesker, whoseplay The villain inthehistoryofantisemitism; significance ofShakespeare’s Jewish features adisquisitionontheiconic (1993) Shylock Roth, whoseOperation of hisJewish Philip contemporaries: implicitly indialoguewithanumber The Merchant ofVenice placeshim Mustepigraph toShylock Die istaken). of theGiraffe, andfromwhichthe also plays partinTears animportant ofwhich from Hamlet(aproduction the volumeandendswithaquotation Dreams, whichactsasaprologueto the exceptionofYosl Bergner’s Last revisit TheMerchant ofVenice, with MustAll ofthestoriesinShylock Die collection, however, isShakespeare. inShylock’sof Shylock, Ghost. through arevolutionaryinterpretation Charles Macklin,whomadehisname actor,Shakespearean to thefamous of Monkeys, in AWilderness narrator’s father to theghostof and IfYou Tickle Us, the HolocaustinTears oftheGiraffe metaphorical –fromthevictimsof ofotherghosts– literal and number insubstantial asakodachrome”. right throughme,asthoughIwere blowing himakiss…[but]helooks Merchant ofVenice]…I cannot resist directing thetrialscene[fromThe himself asaphantom:“My sonis seem, eerily, torepresentthenarrator Shylock’s Ghost,whoselastwords and friendofSinclair’s. Itendswith obituary ofBergner, anIsraeli artist Last Dreams, whichfunctionsasan withastory,begins Yosl Bergner’s REVIEWED BY Sinclair’s engagementwith The presidingspiritofthe Sinclairinvokes a In between, playful anddeath-haunted.It Must stories, Shylock Die, isboth i nclair’s finalcollectionof DavidBrauner “These stories stories “These lucidity” wit andlyrical have a crystalline first two collections, Hearts of Gold first twocollections,Hearts ofGold Joshua Smolinksy, afigureinSinclair’s Tubal’s recalls thatof occupation the story, ordershimtokillherfather. seduces himand,inthefinalwordsof Jessica thefemmefatalewho becomes reimagining, Tubal isaprivateeyeand withLorenzo. Inthis after sheelopes retrieve Shylock’s daughter, Jessica, for Antonioandwhoissenttotry raise the3,000-ducatloan Shylock The Merchant ofVenice whohelps by Tubal, aminorcharacter from stories. Thetitlestoryisnarrated variations onsomeofSinclair’s earlier asthe(anti-)hero. Shylock reworking ofShakespeare’s play with isMyShylock Name (2016)ispartlya and Howard Jacobson, whosenovel proteanandarchetypical; is both Sinclair has done. It is a fitting final Sinclair hasdone.Itisafittingfinal matches, ifnotexceeds,anythingthat crystalline witandlyricalluciditythat Cosmetic Effects(1989). and hismostextravagant novel, reminiscent ofthestoryAshkenazia resemblance toDonald Trump) is president withmorethanapassing features agolemturnedAmerican Us andAin’t ThattheTruth (which inIfYouMiddle Easternpolitics Tickle while themixtureofmetaphysicsand of Sinclair’s (1985); Libels novelBlood Ghost echotheself-reflexivegames andShylock’sOur Contemporary Sinclair’s ownbiography inShylock JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 45 Poignantly, thecollectionalsoplays The best ofthesestorieshave The best a The metafictionalreferencesto career. flourish toabrilliant w w of Reading. Literature atthe University of Contemporary David Brauner isProfessor Sinclair. from Smolinksyto changed hisname ego –Sinclair’s father sort ofauthorialalter (1982). Smolinskyisa (1979) andBedbugs PUBLISHER PRICE

£12.99 n

Halban BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS IN BRIEF Here’s our selection of the best new books with a Jewish theme JEWISH LIVES: COMMERCE; On the trail of the ancient vine PUBLIC SERVICES; ARTS Edited by the Jewish Museum A Roman carving of Jewish slaves led Nina Caplan on a journey London The Jewish Museum to uncover the history of Europe’s wine. Here she reveals how that London’s ambitious tale is irretrievably bound up with her own background project explores the Jewish men and women hen I was a child, I read informally, was a ritual integral to life, just who have shaped British books that brought to life my as it was for observant Jews. society. The arts, public W Australian parents’ childhood, I love wine for many reasons, not least service and commerce are the subjects or at least its myths, and books with because my late father passed his passion of the first three volumes of the six-part protagonists growing up, like me, in for it down to me, and now that I will never series. Lesser-known names, such as England. I loved girls who solved mysteries see him again it is something that we can the suffragette Lenora Cohen, feature or travelled in time or survived alone on still, in a sense, share. I am eking out the alongside celebrities such as Amy islands – although I would have found bottles he left me; soon, they will all be Winehouse – although only five out of living off the land almost impossible. I was empty, or too old. That doesn’t matter: the 250-odd entries in the Commerce a London Jewish child: survival skills, in my there are stories in those bottles that work volume are women. Interesting family, meant changing a light bulb. like memories to defy time. I can learn background essays are interspersed But the only books about Jews I was about the steep vineyards the Romans throughout the books. >REBECCA given were children’s Holocaust literature: planted on the Côte-Rôtie and the early TAYLOR wPUBLISHER Jewish Museum When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Gideon, form of sherry praised by the poet Martial London wPRICE £25 and The Diary of Anne Frank. I had been in the first century CE, and that knowledge an adult a long time before I noticed what connects me to the man who first gave me JEWS IN UNIFORM a limited window onto Jewish experience I Syrah or sherry to try. by Michael Greisman had been offered. So I set out to write a travel book with Around 66,000 Jews That realisation came in Rome, a fluid chronology, in every sense. I visited served for Britain during standing with my back to the Coliseum, vineyards, talked to winemakers and tasted World War II, and staring up at Titus’s Arch. The inner curve lovely wines, in modern France, Spain, Michael Greisman’s is decorated with ancient carvings of the Italy and yes, England. But I also looked at handsome book, Jews in BOOKS triumphal procession bringing booty from Roman ruins that are monuments to an Uniform, tells some of Jerusalem: the grim aftermath of Titus’s ancient thirst for land, and drank wine their stories: from Vera Atkins, who victory in the Jewish Wars, that told me something helped set up the Special Operations in 70 CE. Stone slaves, about where the grapes Executive (SOE), to Bernard Clarke, wrists tied, bow their “When the battles had come from, and more who played a significant role in the heads; perhaps they are were won, the about where they no longer capture of Rudolf Hess. Other tales – avoiding the sight of the lived. I suppose I sipped from pilots, sailors, soldiers, ambulance menorah, taken from the soldiers planted from a cup of longing, drivers and air-raid wardens – are less rubble of the Temple: the vines” and certainly there were dramatic but equally poignant. light among the nations base notes of sadness, as Greisman has beautifully restored the illuminating the beginning of 2,000 years there invariably are when we remember portraits that accompany each of darkness. It’s a painful image. Or is it? our dead. But the journey was fascinating. biography. > RT wPUBLISHER Smith & Two thousand years ago, the Jews were There are many gaps in the past, whether Baxter wPRICE £25 an enemy worth having. Read Josephus’ we talk about wine or history or those we history of the Jewish Wars (the only love. We can try to fill them, and when that THE WHITE CRUCIFIXION contemporary account we have) and you’ll fails, we can acknowledge their power, by Michael Dean meet a crowd of suicidal brave ‘davka-niks’ and honour them, as those vainglorious The White Crucifixion is a who are the architects, in large measure, Romans did when they built a hollow curve fictionalised account of the of their own downfall. Which is surely of stone with a story on the inside. There life of one of the most preferable to having your fate decided by are gaps in everything, as a great Jewish enigmatic artists of the others. I gazed up at those stone slaves, who poet once wrote, but longing is a part of 20th century, Marc had built the Coliseum behind me (and life, or why are we still, 70 years after the Chagall. The novel paints whose stolen wealth probably funded it, founding of Israel, intoning “Next year in a vivid picture of Chagall’s Belarusian too) and at that long-vanished menorah. Jerusalem” every Passover? The cup is a hometown, Vitebsk. Its contrasts And I thought, this is my story, too. comfort, however bitter the longing: the between rich and poor and secular and Wine flows through that story. Not ritual of drinking, of remembering, like all religious are set against the constant only was it essential to the prayers that such rituals, is sweet. n rumours of pogroms as well as the rich would have tied my wandering family to cultural life of the town – which, despite their ancestors and their lost homeland; Nina Caplan is an award- its poverty, was bustling with talented the vine, like them, was sent on its travels winning wine writer and also young artists. The scenes around the by Rome. Ancient soldiers sallied forth writes about food, and the arts. Hive, the artists’ colony in Paris where to conquer, carrying liquid supplies as She writes for New Statesman, Chagall rubbed shoulders with Amedeo fuel for their fights and balm for their The Times, National Geographic Modigliani and Chaim Soutine, are also homesickness. And when the battles Traveller, and others. The particularly engaging in this whirlwind were won and the land parcelled out as Wandering Vine: Wine, The portrait of Europe just before and after severance pay, those soldiers planted Romans and Me by Nina Caplan, World War I. >RT wPUBLISHER vines, because drinking wine, formally or Bloomsbury, 2018, £16.99. Pushkin Press wPRICE £10.99

46 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 Sephardi RENAISSANCE

48 EXHIBITION The lost world of Ioannina 50 FOOD The flavours of Morocco – in Venezuela 52 SEPHARDI VOICES Memories of Baghdad

SPONSORED BY DANGOOR EDUCATION

High society: the Levis family on Ioannina, c.1905, from the album of Nissim Levis at the Jewish Museum Greece ©NISSIN LEVIS, COURTESY OF JEWISH MUSEUM GREECE ©NISSIN LEVIS, COURTESY JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 47 EXHIBITION Still lives: the photos that capture a lost Ioannina Nissim Levis’ photographs tell the story of the Jewish community in the Greek city of Ioannina in the early 20th century. Henrietta Foster explores the images in a show at the Jewish Museum of Greece

he true paradises are the could not afford them – Jew or gentile. He paradises we have already lost", adored his family and photographed them “T wrote Marcel Proust in Les at every opportunity. He was a renaissance Temps Retrouvés, but he could just as easily man, a doctor, an artist and philanthropist, have written it about Through the Lens of with a curious and lively mind. He loved Nissim Levis, an exhibition that recently technology and machines. From what I opened at the Jewish Museum of Greece. heard, I think he liked the ladies though The photographic show is about memory he never married, and was handsome, and the attempt to capture the past of your well dressed, cosmopolitan and widely community. But how do you capture a past travelled. I would have loved to have met without grandparents or parents nearby him…” to tell you what it was like to have seen the Levis used the stereoscopic technique first car in the town, or watched the first for his photographs that gave the viewer silent film projected on a sheet at a local the illusion of seeing his images as a cafe, or stared open-eyed at the first girl panorama – very much like the bright red with bobbed hair and a short skirt? How plastic View-Masters children used to play do you remember a community that was with. The exhibition not only shows the vibrant and vital when almost nothing glass stereoscopic slides that he took but remains of that community? also Levis’ own viewing machine for them, The community in question, and as well as various clothes, medals and which is the focus of the museum’s show, artefacts belonging to him and his family. SEPHARDI RENAISSANCE is the Romaniote Jewish community of the Levis began taking photos in 1898 and north-western Greek town of Ioannina or continued until the mid-1930s, when he Jannina. In 1900 it was 4,000 strong but had problems getting the materials needed in the aftermath of World War I and the to pursue his hobby. The pictures show ensuing depression it had dwindled to his three great obsessions after medicine 2,000 by 1928. After World War II, there – photography, travelling and cars. In fact, were a mere 163 Jews in the city and today there are rather too many photographs barely 50 remain. of the endless mishaps he was getting Clockwise from top: Levis family, Ioannina, c.1905; One of those who grew up there is into with his cars, with impatient family Levis family, 1898; Epirus, c.1913; Hiette and Asher Zanet Battinou, who is also the director members waiting by the side of the road and friends at their wedding, 1928; Nissim and friends, of the Jewish Museum of Greece in to be rescued by a horse and cart. The Café Soufflet, Paris, c.1900; Marseilles, 1900s Athens. She is a passionate believer in travel included trips to Venice, the Swiss the power of memory. For Battinou, the Alps, Marseilles and Paris, featuring richly most poignant photograph of all. Hiette exhibition, which features the photographs decorated salons with lavish ormolu lamps with her daughter Mirette in her arms,next of former Ioannina glistening above tables to her grandmother Rifka and her mother resident Dr Nissim “Evidence of a laden with food and Annetta, as well as her sister Nelly. Four D Levis, is personal. wine. Elderly ladies and generations of women from the same She grew up hearing happy, bourgeois small children are shown family at their home on Koundouriotou stories surrounding family life retiring to bed as the Street in the summer of 1930. the distinguished Levis was preserved young men dress up and 25 March, 1944 was a bitterly cold family from her paternal tell each other outlandish day. Just before dawn a light snow fell as grandmother, and later for future tales. His great-niece a convoy of trucks left Ioannina’s central met the descendants of generations” Hiette is there with her square carrying 69-year-old Nissim and his members who survived younger sister Nelly in family, alongside Battinou’s grandmother World War II. front of the Acropolis. It is the story of a and 1,700 other Jews. The city had fallen Nissim Levis was born in 1875 and bourgeois family who knew how to enjoy under German occupation in September trained to be a doctor, first in Lausanne themselves. 1943 and although some Jews had fled and then in Paris. He was aware that he The most moving images are the for Athens or joined the Resistance in the came from a privileged background but photographs of Hiette’s wedding to Asher mountains, most of the community was he also had a social conscience. Battinou Moissis on 27 May, 1928. The whole family there on that snowy morning. adds, “He often treated his patients for are there in their finest to celebrate. These The trucks headed to the transit camp free and gave medications to those who joyous images are followed by perhaps the of Larissa, where they joined the train from

48 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 My top picks The Jewish Museum of Greece is an Athens gem. Its director Zanet Battinou highlights five exhibits that are special for her

JOSEPH ELIGIA’S TALLIS One of my favourite pieces is from Joseph Eligia, a poet from my hometown of Ioannina, who is related to my paternal family. His family gave the museum his tallis (prayer shawl) and tallis bag (pictured left) – the tallis is stained at the back from use. The bag is inscribed with his father’s name, “Eliyah Joseph Eliyah 5650” (1890). The poet died very young, in 1931.

19TH CENTURY BRIDAL COSTUME This is part of our SEPHARDI RENAISSANCE large ethnographic collection where you can find Romaniote and Sephardic costumes (below) from the late 18th to the early 20th century.

INTERIOR OF PATRAS SYNAGOGUE The synagogue was built in the 1920’s, but after the community dwindled, it was transported to Athens and reconstructed in our museum in 1984. This spiritual part of the museum represents a peaceful world – before it was shattered by World War II.

AUSCHWITZ PRISONER’S UNIFORM This was worn by Daniel Bennahmias Athens heading towards Auschwitz. Ninety coloured spectacles. It set me apart from from Salonica, who was forced to per cent of those on board did not return. the other children at school. I saw just how serve as a Sonderkommando – one The only survivor from the Levis family was fragile happiness is,” she says. of the inmates who were ordered to Nissim’s great-niece Hiette, whom he had For Battinou it is important to tell “the dispose of the bodies of gas chamber so often photographed and called his “little story of a corner of Jewish Greece through victims. He survived and wrote his Amazon” due to her tomboy disposition. the microhistory of this one family. Here testimony of life in Auschwitz. On her return to a devastated Ioannina are images that celebrate life, showing how it was Hiette who found the glass slides. people dressed and amused themselves.” JUDAEO-GREEK SEDER TIPS She had returned with her husband to The museum celebrated its 40th Two handwritten pages outline find that the family home had been looted anniversary last year and Battinou plans instructions for a Passover Seder. and set on fire. Nothing remained. But by to bring more local stories to the attention The manuscript, from Ioannina and chance she came across a vendor on the of visitors and boost research into social dating from around the early 20th same street selling her great-uncle’s glass history projects. Such initiatives give century, uses Judaeo-Greek words (the plates. She found a few more in a nearby “glimpses of lives past but not entirely lost Romaniote idiom) but is written using antique shop – and rescued 550 glass to us, even though they were blighted by the Hebrew alphabet, offering plates. Thanks to Hiette, the evidence of a the black hole of the Holocaust. We choose a rare glimpse of Judeo-Greek happy, bourgeois family life was preserved to celebrate their lives and achievements in written form. n for future generations. and not simply commemorate their loss,” Battinou’s family suffered a similar says Battinou. n fate. Her grandmother was deported to Auschwitz, but survived the camp and Through the Lens of Nissim Levis – A Family, returned to Ioannina. “It was not an easy an Era is at the Jewish Museum of Greece until 5 heritage to embrace. It was painful to think October. jewishmuseum.gr. Henrietta Foster is a of my grandmother in Auschwitz all alone, TV producer and director. She is also co-authoring NISSIN LEVIS, COURTESY OF JEWISH MUSEUM GREECE NISSIN LEVIS, COURTESY

© and that made me view life without rose- a book about Hungarian Jews.

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 49 FOOD

A taste of Morocco – in Venezuela Amid a devastating economic crisis, Estrella Benmaman turns her home into a restaurant every month, putting a new spin on her Fez-born grandmother’s recipes. Jasmina Kelemen pays a visit SEPHARDI RENAISSANCE canopy of chamomile, rosemary voice was heard over the pleasant thrum of uncles and cousins gathering at Mama and lavender hung drying from the friends catching up on the patio: “Where’s Mery’s Caracas home for Shabbat. One A ceiling, perfuming a stone patio Estrella?” It was time to greet her guests. day, as Benmaman was hosting a lunch where almost a dozen diners gathered On the last Thursday of each month, for friends, one of the attendees asked her on a balmy evening in February. The Benmaman, 54, turns her home into why she didn’t do this for money. Recently herbs weren’t just for decoration. Estrella Paladar Estrella, serving the Moroccan divorced and mostly working as a visual Benmaman uses them to season the meals recipes that she grew up helping Mama artist, she needed to generate an income. she serves guests in her home on the Mery, her Fez-born grandmother, She began working as a private caterer, southern outskirts of Caracas, Venezuela. prepare. Paladar literally means ‘palate’ in but not until she focused on the food she This particular evening’s four-course menu Spanish, but it is also used to describe an grew up with did she develop the purpose included cream of pea with mint, roasted underground restaurant that is run out of and commitment that would be needed to red peppers, grilled eggplant, and oriza, a a home. Relying on Instagram and word of sustain a new business inside a teetering wheat stew that Sephardi Jews have been mouth to bring in customers, Benmaman Venezuela. “This is my way of honouring eating since at least the 13th century. has transformed her home kitchen over my family,” she told me when we met a few While guests sipped on a homemade the last five years into a unique culinary days before the February dinner. welcoming liqueur tinctured with experience, flourishing just as Venezuela Moroccan Jews began arriving in lavender, they were unaware of the rising has descended into what has become its Venezuela in the 1800s. These existing tension just behind them in the kitchen. worst economic crisis. networks turned Venezuela, “of all the It was almost 8pm, and Benmaman was Building from a base of her countries in the Spanish-speaking world, running late. Conversation came to a stop grandmother’s recipes, Benmaman has into a central destination”, said Aviad as she hurriedly mixed yogurt and sliced expanded her cooking to include Moroccan Moreno, a fellow at the Center for Israel cucumbers, adding salt here, tossing in classics that were not part of her Sephardi Studies at Ben Gurion University. mashed garlic there, while keeping an eye family’s culinary traditions and added Benmaman’s family’s journey to on the stew bubbling on the stove. Laura her own Venezuelan twist to create a South America is typical of this migration: Marcano, her assistant, was awhirl with kitchen that could have only sprung from spasms of violence leading up to activity, washing dishes, refilling a tray of here. She does not keep a kosher kitchen, Morocco’s independence coincided with small glasses, and updating Benmaman but that melding of traditions with local on last-minute seating rearrangements. adaptations firmly roots her in centuries of Fez comes to Caracas (above and right): food, drink They conferred over which of the five Jewish cooking. and ambience at Estrella Benmaman’s Caracas starters, served mezze style, should go in Benmaman always liked feeding guests. home, where she opens her kitchen up as a Moroccan which type of serving bowl until a woman’s It’s how she grew up, with her aunts and restaurant every month

50 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 ©NATALIA BRAND herbs. Guaripita is an alcohol distilled herbs. Guaripitaisanalcoholdistilled guaripita, acordialBenmamansteepswith in. Marcanoservedeachguestlavender favourite occasions. reservedforspecial caramelised onions,wasonceafamily The orizastew, and withsweetpotatoes withhergrandmother’sbegan sofrito. Estrella litthegasstoveinherkitchenand February. Hoursherguestsarrived, before the maincourseservedthateveningin and paprika,everythingstartedwiththat.” (sauce). Olive oil,garlic, Mama Mery andhersofrito where Iam,remember I smellthem,nomatter are scentsthatwhenever always “There cooking. waves ofgrandchildren, MamaMery was of afamilywithsevenchildrenandseveral rice, orwashinglentils.Asthematriarch garlic,separating whether itwaspeeling given somethingtokeepherhandsbusy, inthekitchenandbeing sat onastool place. Paladar ismyidentity,” shesaid. culture] untilfinally, well,Ifoundmy [toMoroccanorVenezuelanbelonging aren’t available here.“Ididn’t feelmuch adaptationsincelemons limes –alocal and cinnamon.Meals includedcured or couscousaccompaniedbysugar meatballs withcumin,stuffedzucchini, Moroccan versionofLadino.Dinner was Haketia,the Benmaman. Thefamilyspoke adifferentway ofspeaking,”food, said of but inside,therewasadifferenttype in Caracas. happiest, sothefamilyreconstituteditself Venezuela. ThesisterinVenezuela wasthe daughters livedinIsrael, Canada,and mother andthreeyoungerchildren.Older Mery, waslivinginTangier withEstrella’s the early1950shergrandmother, Mama Venezuela.an economicallybooming In

By 7.30pm, herguestsstartedtofilter of Those arethebuildingblocks Her earliestmemoriesareofbeing “Outside thehouse,IwasVenezuelan, “Her kitchenisa experience” unique culinary inflation rates. to exchangefluctuations andmonthly change herpriceseachmonth, according to source.Ultimatelyshewillhave to morecostlyandharder ingredients being reduced herpriceinthelastyear, despite hasdiminished.Benmaman spending decade ago.Even inthoserarefied circles, a dollars whenoilpriceswerehighabout middle class,whowereabletoputaway richest inthiscityorthedwindlingupper putting itoutofreachforallbuteitherthe (£9),effectively around 121bolivars, including chunksofbeef. caramelised onionsand stew withperfectly This eveningthatmeanttoppingthethick inanyway the recipe her palateseesfit. history, sheallowsherselflicencetoalter Andalucian manuscript.Whileexaltingthe that attributedittoa13th-century fororiza inacookbook once foundarecipe thatIateinmyhome,”a book shesaid.She something inMoroccoorsee and turmericallinonepot. of spicessuchasginger, cinnamon,cumin prepare it.Sheenjoysitsdeliciousinterplay had togoMoroccolearnhow offwithlamb. Benmaman usually topped soup filledwithavarietyoflegumesand courses isharira, aspicy, tomato-based of Moroccanfood,” sheexplained. she learnedtoprepareit.“It’s likethejewel whisked theplatesaway. Benmaman Marcano sugarjust before with powdered spices. Shesprinkledthegoldenpuff fish tingedwithcuminandothersavoury course. Atthisdinner, itwasstuffedwith pastry pastelthatisalways servedassecond the nexttable.” Here, youdon’t at knowwhoisgoingtobe always knowwhoyou’re goingtoruninto. said afterthedinner. “Anywhere else,you istotallydifferent,” “This experience. she the firsttimeandwassmittenwith recently attendedaPaladar lunchfor had broughtfivefriendswithher. She old whousedtoworkinpublicrelations, vegetables. Monicaa49-year- Rabellino, them withpickled,roasted,andgrilled over rowsofsmallservingdishes,filling “Moroccan touch”. imbues everything.Her friendscallither sweetandsavoury alchemy between as lavender orlimeandchilli.Theperfect likes toaddaromaticherbsinstead,such passion fruitandlotsofsugar. Benmaman coast,typicallymixedwith Caribbean by Afro-Venezuelan communitiesonthe The February dinneratPaladar cost “It’s feelingwhenIdiscover abeautiful Another ofBenmaman’s mostpopular Rabellino’s favourite dishwasafilo Meanwhile, Benmamanhovered It was only as an adult that It wasonlyasanadultthat inherhome. Arabic food pastel. Itwasconsidered she didn’t growupeating the tabletoexplainthat attheheadof appeared @paladarestrella Estella Benmaman isonInstagram at Jasmina Kelemen isajournalistinVenezuela. with permission.Seebit.ly/jr-morocco-flavours. Magazine, attabletmag.com,andis reprinted originallyappeared inTabletThis story can doit,” shesaid.“Butnotyet.” bring myworkwithmeinhands.SoI done. How doIgosomewhereelse?” child ofimmigrants, Idon’t know howit’s world hasleft,” a shesaid.“Despitebeing me toleave, anditfeelslikethewhole sustain her, shewillremain. created inthisplace.AslongasPaladar can or thebusinessthatemergedfromstories to leave, notthehousethatherfatherbuilt ButBenmamancan’tschool. bringherself father inPeru aftergraduating fromhigh desirable. Bothherdaughtersjoinedtheir that inthe1950sweredeemedless amongthecountries uncles aredispersed in thepast15years.Her parents,auntsand Jewish isestimatedtohave population left Moreexodus. thanhalf ofVenezuela’s her familyhasonceagainjoinedalarger and morethan60yearsinthetropics, humanitarian emergency. intoa full-fledged most impoverished in theworldbuthassuckednation’s the highestrates ofviolenceandinflation crisis thatisnownotonlymarkedbyoneof Nearly a allofherfamilyhaslefttoescape everything. financial crisispermeates and familytraditions, butVenezuela’s 14 differentplacestofindeverything.” Ihaveshopping lastweekbecause togo “I have adinnerinfourdays butIstarted much. “It’s anadventure,” saidBenmaman. theprice hasrisenso couscous because find. Sheisalsolearningtomakeherown hardto flouristoo longer makesitbecause made thefilofromscratch. Her supplierno was thefirstshe'd servedinwhichshe She then answers her own question: “I She thenanswersherownquestion:“I “For telling years,myfamilyhasbeen After hundredsofyearsintheMaghreb food toher about I hadcometospeak The lastpastelonthatFebruary evening JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 51

n SEPHARDI RENAISSANCE SEPHARDI SEPHARDI VOICES

WE CONTINUE OUR SERIES, BASED ON INTERVIEWS AND IMAGES FROM THE ARCHIVE OF SEPHARDI VOICES UK, THAT UNCOVERS THE STORIES OF SEPHARDIM FROM AROUND THE WORLD SEPHARDI RENAISSANCE

THIS ISSUE: lived there. I went to the Laura Kadoorie School, the Alliance Israelite school. I left school in 1946, when I was 16, and went to How Baghdad’s eternal summer the British Institute to learn more English. Our family was very religious. We turned to a climate of fear learnt Hebrew at school, but after a few years this was forbidden. This was the Eileen Khalastchi was born in Baghdad in 1929 and lived through late 1930s and it started to be difficult some of the most tumultuous times in Iraqi history. She talks to for the Jews. Sometimes there were demonstrations. I remember my father Linda Dangoor and Bea Lewkowicz of Sephardi Voices UK about used to send someone to bring us home the Jewish community that lived in Iraq's capital. Portrait Rob Greig from school. Then he employed a teacher at home for my sister and me to SEPHARDI VOICES: Tell me about printing textbooks in Arabic. First we lived learn Hebrew. your family. in a Jewish area in Dorat Street. My most On Yom Kippur 1940 there was an EILEEN KHALASTCHI: My grandfather vivid memory of that time is of a cow that incident. After we broke our fast, my Haham Ezra Dangoor was the Chief Rabbi our neighbours used to milk in front of our brother took my sister and me for a walk. of Baghdad. He used to give his wages to house. I had a small bottle to fill with milk I saw someone on a bicycle pass by. And the poor. He was a very good man. He had a for me to drink. This is how it used to be, to then I felt something hot on my back. He printing works that printed Hebrew books, have the cow milked near the house. threw acid on my back. Thank God it wasn’t including a Haggadah, which had his name Then we moved to Bataween, which on my face. The next day we went to the in it. My father carried on the business, was a mixed neighbourhood – many Jews police. Nothing came of it.

52 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 SV: Were [Jewish] people worried? Eliahoo and Khatoon Dangoor and their EK: Yes. But we were Iraqis. We children, from left to right: Sasson, Saliim, cherished our country. So whatever Eileen, Doreen, Naim, Abudlla (sitting) happened we never thought of leaving. We had good Muslim send a plate of Turkish delight and friends. My brother had a Muslim a plate of sugared almonds in a car [business] partner and the families with a maid who distributes them to were good friends. They live in friends and family. I made these plates London, and we are still like one for the bride when my son Freddy got family. But the government was married. against us. In 1941 there was the Farhoud SV: Can you tell us more about the [the pogrom against Iraqi Jews]. It 1958 revolution? was Shavuot. Mobs went to Jewish EK: We listened to the radio and heard houses and even took Jews from a that there was a revolution. The king, bus and killed them. It went on for the regent and the whole family were two days and we were really afraid. killed. We were frightened. But then My father took me and my mother and used to put up tents and live there for the Abdul Karim Qassim [a Communist] sister to our Muslim friends. Only my three summer. They had parties and we used to came to power. Things settled. He was a brothers and father remained in the house. hear the music, and they made masgouf good leader. And he was good to the Jews. Our cook told us afterwards that the mob (grilled fish). It was a good time. After the revolution, we had the best came to the house and tried to break the When my niece Linda was one year old, years – until 1963, when they overthrew SEPHARDI RENAISSANCE door. One of the rioters said, “Don’t go to I wanted to surprise her parents and make Qassim. But people were afraid. One year this house; they are nice people. I’m not a dress for her. I bought some net and I after the revolution, my brothers left Iraq. coming with you.” So they didn’t break in. wanted her to try it. When I put the dress They wanted us to leave but my father and One of my brothers was in the army on her, she started screaming. I kissed her; in-laws didn’t want to. It was a sad time. and the head of the army liked him. My I gave her a sweet; I said, “Please don’t…” All our friends and most of our relatives father used to give him presents. He I didn’t want her parents to hear her left and we didn’t know what was going to came to the house that morning with two screaming. It was a beautiful dress, and happen to us. soldiers, and told them, “You have to take she wore it on her first birthday. I still have After 1963, when the Ba’ath party care of the family, so nobody can break in.” a picture of her wearing it. came to power, they killed Abdul Karim We had a big house with a big garden In 1948, when Israel was born, Iraqis Qassim. Life started to be bad for the Jews. and when my brothers got married they turned against the Jews again. My father They stopped giving us passports. For ten lived in the same house. This was the was arrested like many others, for no years we couldn’t leave the country. People custom. When they had their children, they reason. That night a friend phoned whose started going illegally, through the north to had nannies, so you can imagine, we had father was also arrested. He said, “They Iran and then to Israel, or through Basra. many employees; two nannies, the cook, are coming to search. If In June 1967 I was on the maid. They quarrelled, but my mother you have any [postage] the roof with the maid was always the peacemaker. stamps with Palestine on “I felt something to prepare the beds. My them, get rid of them.” So hot. Someone had husband was at the office. SV: Who did the shopping? we burnt everything with thrown acid on The boys [her sons] were EK: My father did the shopping. If we were Hebrew on it. And the at school. I had my radio in the car, we stopped near a shop and my next day they searched my back” with me and heard that father went in and bought what we needed. the house. war had broken out with Or the driver got what we needed. But a We used to have three Jewish clubs. Israel. I ran downstairs and telephoned woman never did the shopping. We used to go [to them] all the time. my husband. I said, “Quickly, we have to But after 1948 the government took the get the boys.” My husband heard them say SV: So was your mother mainly at home? clubs from us. But in 1952, there was the on the radio, “We have brought down 70 EK: Yes. In London, if you don’t have a Mansour Club: a mixed club with Muslims, Israeli airplanes”. They were making up party, you don’t meet anybody. But there Christians and Jews. It held parties and stories – Israel was winning – but the radio we telephoned, we said, “Are you at home? there was bingo, swimming, tennis and said the Arabs were winning. We are coming to visit.” And it’s not a big films, and we were members. My husband brought the boys home. fuss. I mean you don’t have to make dinner. We had a good life after 1952. I got We sat near the radio. My husband listened It’s just tea with cookies, simple. But it’s married at the Mansour Club in 1955. to one station; I listened to another. The nice. Then the people we visited came back Israeli radio only had music. We started after two weeks. And this is how we used to SV: How did you meet your husband? believing that the Arabs were winning. meet our friends. EK: His sister was my best friend. We knew Later that night, Israel gave the full news. each other as children. We met in 1954 at And we were relieved. SV: What rhythm was there in terms of his younger sister’s wedding in Paris. He My father, who had been arrested in winter and summer? went back to Baghdad and asked my father 1948, was arrested again in 1967. He was EK: In summer we used to sleep on the if he could marry me. Then my uncle came well known and had enemies – or the roof. We had two sets of beds, one set up in from London to Paris to ask me. I stayed government just took him as they did many the room and one set up on the roof. It’s so in Paris for another two months to make others. My husband had friends in high beautiful to sleep on the roof. It’s so cool, my trousseau. I heard that my in-laws sent positions. One was a general. Muslims and so nice to look at the stars. I miss it. In my father a huge tray of Turkish delight, were afraid to say they were friendly with summer the river level drops and there was too large to go through the front door even Jews. But this man said to my husband, “I ROB GREIG: WWW.ROBGREIG.COM; COURTESY OF EILEEN KHALASTCHI COURTESY ROB GREIG: WWW.ROBGREIG.COM;

© an island in the middle of the river. People with both doors open! It is the custom to am your friend and I’ll come to visit you

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 53 SEPHARDI VOICES

and put my car in front of your house.” said, “No, the Jews are good people; we So the minute my father was arrested, shouldn’t put them in camps.” I thought of my husband got in touch with the friend, giving my two sons to Christian friends but who said, “Don’t worry, he’ll be released.” then thought, “I’ll send them to London, to And the next day he was. my sister.” She sent them to Carmel College After the ’67 war, the authorities cut our [a Jewish public school in Oxfordshire]. In telephones. We couldn’t go October 1973 my parents anywhere. “I don’t want to left. My husband and I In 1969 the government were supposed to leave hanged nine Jews: one see Baghdad in after them. But because of day the woman who did ruins. I want the Yom Kippur war the our washing came to us, government stopped issuing frightened. She said, “I’ve to remember it passports. We applied just seen, at the square, as I knew it” again in 1974 and left in people hanged. And the December. When we lost government and the people, they were our nationality, the government took a WHAT I BROUGHT rejoicing.” And after that, they used to third of our income, on the basis that they WITH ME… take people from the street: 52 Jews were would look after the property. The rest is in Eileen Khalastchi has lived killed or missing. We were at the wedding our name. God knows if we will ever get it. of someone who worked at the office. We in London since 1974 but her went to the bride’s house to congratulate SV: Were you sad to leave? memories of Baghdad are her. Her father was supposed to come. We EK: Happy and sad; happy to be with the rekindled when she takes out the were waiting and waiting, but he didn’t children, with the family, with my parents, precious mementoes she brought come. The next morning, the husband told but sad to leave the country. to England with her us that his father-in-law hadn’t come back home. And that was that. SV: What sort of identity did you want to MY GRANDPARENTS’ KEY pass on to your children? The key to my grandparents’ house in SV: What were the people who were EK: They loved Iraq. During the 2003 Baghdad is heavy and it was carried hanged accused of? war, my younger son said, “I want to go to on a belt around the long, Arabic- EK: Spying for Israel, of course. Baghdad. I want to visit.” I said, “What are style robes that were worn by my you talking about, now, with this war?” He grandfather. My family of around SV: Did lots of your friends leave? said, “Now is the best time, it’s going to get 15 – plus servants – all lived there until EK: Yes. In 1970 many people went through worse. We have friends there. Afterwards it I was about six, when I moved with the north of Iraq. The Kurds helped the will be difficult.” It’s true! Who can go now my parents to another house. My Jews a lot. to Baghdad? I don’t want to see Baghdad in grandfather was the Chief Rabbi and SEPHARDI RENAISSANCE ruins. I want to remember it as I knew it. I remember the house being filled with SV: Did people still go to synagogue? books and many visitors. EK: They could go to synagogue but SV: Which language did you speak to your they were afraid. The Meir Taweig, the children? THE WEDDING CANDLE synagogue near us, remained open until EK: Arabic. They speak Arabic but my son Two nights before my wedding my recently. There are about 10 or 15 Jews didn’t teach his daughters Arabic. bridegroom and I had a henna party [left in Baghdad] but still they went to that at my parents' home for my friends synagogue [before it closed]. SV: Did you get involved in anything in and family – as was traditional in England to do with your Iraqi heritage? Baghdad. There are photos of me SV: When did your family leave? EK: In 1970 my brother, Naim, [Sir with all my fingertips covered in balls EK: In 1974. We didn’t know what was Naim Dangoor, CBE] started The Scribe of cotton wool that had been soaked going to happen. At one time, the magazine. It was our heritage and our in henna. The bridegroom, however, government was thinking of putting us in news for 30 years. I was involved with only has to have one fingertip covered a concentration camp. But the president it for 10 years. with henna. Another photo shows me Abdel Rahman Aref was a good man. He standing next to a thin candle that SV: Is there a continuity of your is as tall as I am! It was traditional Eileen’s great-grandfather, the Chief Rabbi of heritage today? for these long candles to be lit on Baghdad Haham Ezra Dangoor EK: Yes, some of the heritage the night of the henna party and left is still there. The young until they went out – usually the next generation didn’t know day. The weddings were very big, about it if the parents didn’t with hundreds of people invited and pass it on, but through The celebrations often lasting seven days. Scribe they learnt a lot. A SUMMER FAN SV: How would you Baghdad summers are intensely hot describe your identity? so we carried large fans made out of EK: I’m 100 per cent reeds everywhere and also had them Iraqi. I love Iraq. But scattered around the house. Winters unfortunately we can’t could be cold though and we used be there. n tall oil heaters that we also used to boil kettles on put chestnuts on top to ROB GREIG: WWW.ROBGREIG.COM; COURTESY OF EILEEN KHALASTCHI COURTESY ROB GREIG: WWW.ROBGREIG.COM;

See www.sephardivoices.org.uk roast them. n ©

54 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 WHAT’S HAPPENING

The Jewish Renaissance quarterly guide to the latest cultural events

HOW TO BE LISTED: government. Plus, listen to Moses in an audiovisual Email all events to listings@ pieces from Shostakovich’s romp through the edible jewishrenaissance.org.uk Babi Yar Symphony and read Promised Land. Rayner TOP and be sure to include the other Russian poets with explains why thou shalt name of event, date(s), translations. always eat with thy hands, start time, entry fee, 7.30pm. FREE. Richmond why thou should worship PICKS address, contact details Synagogue, TW9 1AP. leftovers and why thou must (for print) and a brief www.rjch.org.uk celebrate the stinkiest of description. Events foods. He’ll be signing copies submission deadline for our Thursday 19 July of his book afterwards, The next issue is 13 September. Leo Marks and SOE: 10 (Food) Commandments. A Wartime Tale 9.15pm. £22.50. Brasserie As we publish events for up William Tyler MBE looks at Zédel, W1F 7ED. www.brasserie to three months in advance, Leo Marks’ contribution to zedel.com details may change, so winning World War II. With please check with venues particular focus on The Life COMEDY before setting out. That I Have, which he wrote

Additions to events and for his fiancé, who died in a Monday 23 July WHAT’S HAPPENING amendments will be sent plane crash. Marks went on Lynn Ruth Miller: I Love to JR subscribers in our to use this poem as a code Men fortnightly newsletter. for a special operations At 83, Lynn Ruth Miller agent who was dropped into may be the oldest gigging FILM Tuesday 21 August occupied France. Jewish stand-up comic out Seven Beauties and Panel Discussion BOOKS & 10.45am-3.45pm. £40. JW3, there, but she can spar with Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmuller, the first POETRY NW3 6ET. 020 7433 8988. the best of them. Here she woman ever nominated for the Best Director www.jw3.org.uk examines the men she’s loved Oscar, turns 90 in August. To celebrate, JW3 Tuesday 10 July and what she learned from presents a rare screening of her 1975 drama Literary Lunch with Sunday 29 July each of them – especially Seven Beauties, about an Italian criminal Katharine McMahon Uprooted the difference between love, determined to survive the Holocaust. Followed by London author Katharine Harif co-founder Lyn Julius infatuation and lust. Also a panel discussion with JW3’s film programmer McMahon talks about her discusses her book Uprooted: featuring original music by Alex Davidson, Jewish educator Jacqueline life, work and latest book set How 3,000 Years of Jewish Michael Roulston. Nicholls and film lecturer Dr Julia Wagner. in World War II, The Hour Civilisation in the Arab World 9.15pm. £18. Brasserie Zédel, 8pm. £12. JW3, NW3 6ET. 020 7433 8988. of Separation. Vanished Overnight. W1F 7ED. www.brasserie www.jw3.org.uk 12pm. £20 (inc. lunch). Read our review of Uprooted zedel.com Northwood United Synagogue, in the Apr 2018 issue of JR. TALKS Sunday 15 July HA6 2YP. https://myus.theus. 11am. £15. Hampstead Thursday 6 September Creativity Against the Odds: Art and org.uk Synagogue, NW6 1AX. 020 Brit(ish) Stand Up Comedy Internment During World War II 7435 1518. www.harif.org Comedy to coincide with the Monica Bohm-Duchen examines the urge Thursday 12 July museum’s Astérix exhibition. human beings feel to create art in adverse Modern Jewish Literature Monday 13 August Astérix found much to laugh circumstances. She’ll be focusing on the art Explore modern Jewish Laydeez do Comics about when he came to produced in Warth Mills and other British literature through reading Explore the life and work visit the Isles, but how do internment camps, as well as the Japanese- Israeli, European and of Charlotte Salomon at we feel about Britishness American camps in the USA and the Nazi American books with Jewish the first women-led graphic today? Diverse comics Alice concentration camps. author, translator and poet novel forum. Hear Corinne Fraser, Pierre Novellie and 2-3pm. FREE. Manchester Jewish Museum, M8 8LW. Aviva Dautch. Pearlman from Myriad Sindhu Vee – led by Ben Van www.manchesterjewishmuseum.com Read our interview with Editions speak about their der Velde, resident MC at Aviva Dautch in Books & latest publication, The Inking Good Ship Comedy – will THEATRE Wednesday 11 – Sunday 29 July Poetry, p42. Woman, which celebrates tackle topics of identity, Barry Humphries’ Weimar Cabaret 10.30am-12.30pm. £20. JW3, 250 years of women assimilation and Brexit. A risqué, sophisticated and seductive tribute to NW3 6ET. 020 7433 8988. cartoonists in Britain. 6-9pm. £10, £5 concs. Jewish the jazz-infused music of the Weimar Republic. www.jw3.org.uk 7-9.15pm. Free with museum Museum, NW1 7NB. www.jewish Reawakening that raucous spirit of 1920s adm. Jewish Museum, NW1 museum.org.uk and 30s Berlin in this revelatory concert, the Russian Poetry 7NB. 020 7284 7384. oft-forgotten composers of the time get a good Read and learn more about www.jewishmuseum.org.uk FAMILY airing. Many were Jewish and their art was Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a condemned as ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis. Soviet poet who was key Tuesday 11 September Until Friday 31 August Listen to our interview with Barry Humphries in speaking up during the Jay Rayner: 10 Food Hampstead Beach on JR OutLoud. Khrushchev Thaw about Commandments The sun (hopefully), sand 7.45pm, 2.30pm (Wed & Sat exc. 11 Jul), 3pm (Sun the persecution of Jews by Join the award-winning and sea (well, a paddling only) £19-£75. Barbican Theatre, EC2Y 8DS. the Nazis and the Soviet restaurant critic and culinary pool) returns to north www.barbican.org.uk

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 55 EVENTS LONDON

TALKS London as JW3 brings the Sunday 2 September Sunday 29 July Thursday 12 July beach back. For two months Shadows and Stories Simon & Garfunkel Tuesday 10 July London 1938: The visitors will be able to enjoy Family Afternoon Singalong Apocalypse Now International Reaction a host of seaside activities Celebrate the European Artists and musicians Gideon Clive Lawton OBE explores to the ‘Degenerate’ Art without leaving the city. Day of Jewish Culture with Conn and Tom Briggs what Jews have to say about Campaign 9am-10.30pm (Sun-Thu), a range of storytelling and perform hits by one of the the end of days, the Day of The National Socialist 9am-5pm (Fri). FREE. JW3, craft activities. world’s most famous folk Judgement, the Messiah, exhibition of ‘Degenerate NW3 6ET. 020 7433 8988. 1-4pm. £8.50, £6.50 concs. duos, Simon & Garfunkel. the Messianic age, life after Art’ in Munich was visited www.jw3.org.uk Jewish Museum, NW1 Featuring all the major death, the purpose of life and by over 2m people during 7NB. 020 7284 7384. favourites. other small matters. the summer of 1937. Sunday 29 July www.jewishmuseum.org.uk 7pm. £12. JW3, NW3 6ET. 020 10.30am-12.30pm. £20, £35 Abroad too, the show made Family French Festival 7433 8988. www.jw3.org.uk (both sessions). JW3, NW3 headlines. In this talk Dr Lucy The Jewish Museum and FILM 6ET. 020 7433 8988. www. Wasensteiner will explore Club Petit Pierrot – which has Saturday 1 September jw3.org.uk the attempts made in the been offering French lessons Tuesday 31 July London Klezmer Quartet following months to counter to babies and children across Sallah Shabati One of klezmer’s hardest- Wednesday 11 July this attack on German London since 1993 – host A screening of Ephraim gigging groups, the raucous BICOM Speaker Series modernist art. this French-themed family Kishon’s 1964 drama about LKQ showcases their most Join the Britain Israel 6.30-8pm. FREE. Wiener festival to coincide with the a lazy Jew, who schemes recent album, To the Tavern. Communications and Library, WC1B 5DP. 020 7636 Astérix exhibition. Featuring for better living conditions This performance is part of Research Centre at JW3 to 7247. www.wienerlibrary.co.uk flag making, collage classes, for himself and his family in the London Folk Festival. discuss Israel’s big issues object handling and a 1949 Israel. Phone for times. £30 (for the at 70. Guest speakers will Friday 13 July special trail through the Phone for times and prices. whole day). Cecil Sharp House, tackle subjects such as a Dame Esther Rantzen in exhibition. B’nai B’rith, Edgware NW1 7AY. 020 7485 2206. quest for peace, the two- Conversation with Miriam 1-4pm. Free with museum Synagogue, HA8 8YE. 020 www.london klezmer state solution, alliances with Margolyes adm. Jewish Museum, NW1 8958 7508. www.harif.org quartet.com Israel’s Arab neighbours, Broadcaster Dame Esther 7NB. 020 7284 7384. Trump as a disaster and how Rantzen meets actor Miriam www.jewishmuseum.org.uk Tuesday 21 August Sunday 2 September to get more involved. Margolyes for an evening of Seven Beauties and Panel Klezmer in the Park – 7.30-8.30pm. £12. JW3, NW3 unpredictable conversation, Sunday 19 August Discussion The Bigger Mix 6ET. 020 7433 8988. anecdotes and laughter. Family Cartoon Festival See Top Picks for info, p55. A fun-packed afternoon for www.jw3.org.uk All proceeds go to The Silver The Jewish Museum hosts 8pm. £12. JW3, NW3 all the family hosted by the Line national charity, which this cartoon-themed family 6ET. 020 7433 8988. Jewish Music Institute. As is transforming the lives of day to coincide with the www.jw3.org.uk well as a Kids Zone and Spiro thousands of vulnerable WHAT’S HAPPENING WHAT’S Astérix exhibition. Featuring Ark’s Hoopla with Hebrew, MUSIC older people throughout interactive workshops, Sunday 2 September this year’s festival welcomes SONGS OF the UK every week thanks biographical comic strip Richmond Synagogue klezmer from a global to its 24-hour helpline and creation, dough modelling Film Club: The Bible – selection of artists. Highlights DARKNESS, friendship services. and a special trail through In the Beginning include London’s award- DREAMS OF 7.30pm. £40. Guy Whittle the exhibition. John Huston’s 1966 religious winning ensemble Don Auditorium, Royal Society 1-4pm. Free with museum epic based on the Old Kipper with Talking Drum, LIGHT of Medicine, W1G 0AE. adm. Jewish Museum, NW1 Testament. Places must be 3yin & Camille Maalawy, http://buytickets.at/ 7NB. 020 7284 7384. reserved by emailing ivor. London Klezmer Quartet thesilverline1/170034 www.jewishmuseum.org.uk [email protected] and Kadialy Kouyate. beforehand. 12.30-6.30pm. FREE. Regent’s Sunday 15 July Tuesday 28 – Thursday 2.30pm. £5 donation. Park Bandstand, NW1 4NT. Louis Jacobs 12th Memorial 30 August Richmond Synagogue, TW9 www.jmi.org.uk Lecture JMI Youth Big Band 1AP. www.rjch.org.uk Rabbi Nathan Lopes Summer School Friday 7 September Cardozo delivers this annual Tzadik label jazz musician MUSIC She’Koyokh Saturday 8 September lecture, with a discussion Sam Eastmond leads this Sephardi-inspired music from Roxanna Panufnik’s about the Torah – “the three-day workshop for ages Thursday 26 July the Balkan/klezmer troupe. commission for the BBC deliberately flawed gift 11-19 to join the JMI Youth London 1938: Suppressed Support comes from Owl Proms, scored for two choirs, from heaven” – and Louis Big Band. The group fuses Music Parliament Choir. who use the texts of two Jacobs, Alma Deutcher together music of Jewish A live performance of 7pm. £13, £9-£12 adv. poems: Isaac Rosenberg’s In and Menachem Mendel of origin and cutting edge violin and cello from Secret location in Bow, E3. the Underworld (1913) and Rimanov. contemporary jazz sounds. Fran and Flora, who will http://thenestcollective.co.uk Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet 7pm. £12-£22, £5 students. They have two pianists be incorporating music (1923). Although written Henriette Barnet School, NW11 already and are especially once suppressed by the Saturday 8 September 13 years apart, each poem 7BN. https://louisjacobs.org looking for trumpeters, Nazis. Featuring music Last Night of the Proms: connects, describing the trombonists, saxophonists, from Weimar Germany, Songs of Darkness, Dreams fears of World War I. This Wednesday 18 July guitarists, bassists and traditional Roma and of Light piece also reflects Panufnik’s London 1938: Émigré drummers of grade five or klezmer string music, and See highlight box for details interest in world music and Artists in Britain after equivalent. songs from Eastern Europe. (right). different cultures. 1933 10am-4pm. £75. SOAS, Main 6.30-8pm. £10. Wiener 7.15pm. £27-£100. Royal Albert 7.15pm. £27-£100. Royal Albert Monica Bohm-Duchen Building, WC1H 0XG. 020 Library, WC1B 5DP. 020 7636 Hall, SW7 2AP. 020 7589 Hall, SW7 2AP. 020 7589 explores the experiences of

7898 4307. www.jmi.org.uk 7247. www.wienerlibrary.co.uk 8212. www.royalalberthall.com 8212. www.royalalberthall.com the (mostly German-Jewish) ©BENJAMIN EALOVEGA

56 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 EVENTS LONDON

émigré artists who came their fathers and play some Thursday 6 September – to England after the Nazis of their cantorial recordings. THEATRE EAST WALL Saturday 20 October came to power in 1933. Featuring the sons of Charles One for the Road / The She examines not only their Lowy (Hampstead), Moshe New World Order / achievements and legacy, Korn (Hendon), Pinchas Mountain Language but also the challenges they Faigenblum (Willesden / Ashes to Ashes faced on their arrival. and Cricklewood) and To honour the 10th Read more about Defending MH Taylor (Dollis Hill). anniversary of Harold ‘Degenerate’ German Art Booking essential. Pinter’s death, the theatre in Art, p32. 8.30pm. £3. Edgware United that bears his name is 6.30-8pm. FREE. Wiener Synagogue, HA8 8YE. putting on a season of his Library, WC1B 5DP. 020 7636 www.edgwareu.com one-act plays. Running 7247. www.wienerlibrary.co.uk until February 2019, all 20 Sam Cohen Memorial of the Nobel Prize-winning Wednesday 25 July, Lecture: Self-Defence and DON’T playwright’s short plays will Wednesday 29 August Abortion in Jewish Law MISS! be performed. Opening the & Wednesday 26 Professor Dov I Frimer season is One for the Road, September examines the conceptual Wednesday 18 – Sunday 22 July The New World Order, Curator’s Talks: Astérix justification for the ‘right Taking place in the grounds of one of London’s most iconic Mountain Language and in Britain of self-defence’, as found buildings, East Wall will see over 150 dancers and musicians fill Ashes to Ashes (6 Sep-20 To coincide with the in Jewish Law. the Tower of London’s west moat in an extraordinary outdoor Oct), as well as The Lover museum’s show about 7.30pm. FREE. Central performance. Directed by contemporary Israeli dancer and and The Collection (13 Sep-

Astérix and his co-creator Synagogue, W1W 6NW. choreographer Hofesh Shechter, East Wall tells the stories of 20 Oct). WHAT’S HAPPENING René Goscinny, hear the www.spiroark.org the communities that have grown up around the Tower and Read more about Pinter at curator reveal the behind- weaves together a tapestry of music and dance that embraces the Pinter in Theatre, p38. the-scenes story of Goscinny Thursday 6 September east London’s diversity. 7.30pm (Tue, Fri & Sat), and his beloved comics. A Spatial History of 7.30pm. £12-£25. Tower of London, EC3N 4AB. http://eastwall.org 2.30pm (Thu only). £15- 2-2.30pm. Free with museum Drancy: Architecture, £65. Harold Pinter Theatre, adm. Jewish Museum, NW1 7NB. Appropriation and SW1Y 4DN. 084 5871 www.jewishmuseum.org.uk Memory company that changed the new show premieres. Holy 7615. www.pinteratthe Stephanie Hesz-Wood world. Told in three parts; Sh!t follows a Jewish couple, pinter.com Monday 30 July discusses the legacy of the trio play the Lehman Simone and Sam, a pair Curator’s Talks: The Long Drancy, where 75,000 brothers, sons and grandsons of 40-somethings trying Thursday 13 September Road to Emancipation Jews were apprehended as they document the rise desperately to get their – Saturday 20 October A look at the process of and detained during World and fall of the fourth largest daughter into the local The Lover / The Collection emancipation in Britain, and War II. investment bank in the US, Church of England school. See above for info. the main political and social 6.30-8pm. FREE. Wiener Lehman Brothers Holdings. Read more about Holy Sh!t Read more about Pinter at debates of the time. With Library, WC1B 5DP. 020 7636 7pm, 1pm (Tue & Sat only). in Theatre, p36. the Pinter in Theatre, p38. prints and objects that are 7247. www.wienerlibrary.co.uk £15-£67. National Theatre, 7.30pm, 7pm (10 & 12 Sep 7.30pm, 2.30pm (Sat only & 9 not usually on display. SE1 9PX. 020 7452 3000. only), 2.30pm (Wed & Sat Oct). £15-£65. Harold Pinter 3-4pm. Free with museum adm. THEATRE www.nationaltheatre.org.uk from 15 Sep). £10-£32.50. Kiln Theatre, SW1Y 4DN. 084 5871 Jewish Museum, NW1 7NB. Theatre, NW6 7JR. 020 7328 7615. www.pinteratthe www.jewishmuseum.org.uk Until Saturday 1 Wednesday 11 – Sunday 1000. https://kilntheatre.com pinter.com September 29 July Tuesday 14 & Fun Home Barry Humphries’ Weimar Thursday 6 – Sunday Friday 12 & Saturday Wednesday 15 August Jewish director Sam Gold Cabaret 9 September 13 October 2020 Vision makes his Young Vic debut See Top Picks for info, p55. The Merchant of Venice Old Stock: A Refugee Clive Lawton talks about with the Tony Award-winning 7.45pm, 2.30pm (Wed & Sat / Twelfth Night / The Love Story the world of 1948 and musical Fun Home. Written exc. 11 Jul), 3pm (Sun only) £19- Taming of the Shrew A dark folktale featuring 1968, as well as dreams by fellow Jewish creative Lisa £75. Barbican Theatre, EC2Y London’s Globe klezmer performed by and aspirations 50 years Kron, this musical is based on 8DS. www.barbican.org.uk Theatre tours this trio of Canadian musician Ben on, in the morning lectures. the autobiographical 2006 Shakespeare plays with Caplan. Old Stock is based He’ll then be joined in the graphic novel by Jewish writer Wednesday 18 – Sunday a twist. A team of eight on the true story of writer afternoons by Hagai Segal Alison Bechdel. 22 July accomplished actors will Hannah Moscovitch’s great- to discuss Israel 1948-2020; 7.30pm (Mon–Sat; exc 27 East Wall take to the stage each grandparents, two Jewish and Dr Helena Miller on the Aug), 2.30pm (Wed & Sat See Don’t Miss for details night/afternoon and offer Romanian refugees who topic of visual art in the early only; exc 23 & 27 Jun, 18 Jul, 4 (above). audience members the fled to Canada in 1908. years of the State of Israel. & 15 Aug). £10-£40. Young 7.30pm. £12-£25. Tower of chance to vote on which of Theirs is a story about how 10.30am & 2pm. £20 (per Vic, SE1 8LZ. 020 7922 2922. London, EC3N 4AB. http:// the three plays they’d like to love after being broken session), £30 (full day). JW3, www.youngvic.org eastwall.org to see that day. by the horrors of war and NW3 6ET. www.jw3.org.uk Read previous reviews one’s relationship with God. Until Saturday 22 Wednesday 5 September and interviews around Listen to our interview with Wednesday 5 September September – Saturday 6 October Shakespeare on the JR Blog. Hannah Moscovitch on My Father, the Cantor The Lehman Trilogy Holy Sh!t 2pm, 7.30pm (Fri only), 1pm & the JR blog. Now grown men, the children Simon Russell Beale, Adam To launch Kilburn’s new 6.30pm (Sun only). £5-£22. 8pm. £20, £18 concs. of famous UK chazanim Godley and Ben Miles tell Kiln Theatre (formerly the Shakespeare’s Globe, SE1 9DT. Artsdepot, N12 0GA. www.arts

©VICTOR FRANKOWSKI ©VICTOR from the post-war era discuss about the Jewish family and Tricycle) Alexis Zegerman’s www.shakespearesglobe.com depot.co.uk

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 57 EVENTS LONDON

WALKS cemeteries together with the and choral conductor Sarit Saturday 4 August & Klezfest fascinating lives of those for Aloni will lead the group. Saturday 15 September A five-day klezmer course at Sunday 15 July whom Hoop Lane is their 7-9pm. First two classes free, Writing a Family History the Jewish Music Institute. Stitch, Stitch, Stitch final resting place. after that £tbc depending on Author Nick Barlay – whose Guest lecturers share the Explore the ever-changing 11am-1pm. £15. Jewish Museum, numbers. Wimbledon (address book Scattered Ghosts, history, melodies and dances garment trade of the NW1 7NB. 020 7284 7384. revealed upon contact). about his Hungarian Jewish of klezmer. Featuring Ilana East End that was once www.jewishmuseum.org.uk [email protected] family, was longlisted for Cravitz – violinist and author dominated by French and the JQ Wingate Prize – leads of Klezmer Fiddle: A How-To Jewish immigrants. Sunday 16 September Saturday 28 July these one-day workshops. Guide – German mandolin 11am-1pm. £15. Jewish Museum, Royal Connections Autobiographical Comic Open to those wanting to virtuoso Andreas Schmitges, NW1 7NB. 020 7284 7384. Follow in the footsteps Book Workshop turn their family history into accordionist Alan Bern www.jewishmuseum.org.uk of British monarchs and Learn how to tell your own an engaging narrative. and more. Participants will uncover their Jewish story through words and Read our review of Scattered play in groups, improvise, Wednesday 18 July connections. images. Led by Dr Sarah Ghosts in JR’s Jan 2014 issue. interpret scores and play live Jewish Heroes & Villains 11am-1pm. £15. Jewish Museum, Lightman, an artist, curator 10am-5pm. £150. Lift to the public. Stroll through London’s NW1 7NB. 020 7284 7384. and award-winning author. Islington, N1 9PW. www.family 12pm-6.30pm. £150-£225. East End to discover Jewish www.jewishmuseum.org.uk 2-3.30pm. £8.50, £6.50 historywritingcourse.co.uk SOAS, Main Building, WC1H personalities. Find the first concs. Jewish Museum, NW1 0XG. www.jmi.org.uk Jew to win the Victoria WORKSHOPS 7NB. 020 7284 7384. Sunday 19 – Friday Cross, the female spy who www.jewishmuseum.org.uk 24 August Ot Azoy! died fighting the Nazis, and Until Wednesday Golden Peacock The Jewish Music Institute’s several Jewish gangsters. 26 September Wednesday 1 – Thursday A week-long course from annual summer course in all 10.15am. £15. JW3, NW3 6ET. Mixed Voices Choir 16 August JMI covering everything you things Yiddish. All ages are www.jw3.org.uk A weekly Wednesday Intensive Hebrew Summer need to know about Yiddish invited to learn about the rehearsal for a choir Evening Ulpan culture, language and song. language, songs and culture. Sunday 5 August learning a repertoire of A friendly Hebrew course Led by acclaimed Yiddish As well as class work, the Theology to Theatre, Jewish and Israeli music. taught by experts. singer and teacher Shura course also features music, Morals to Music: Hoop The evening is open to all 6.30-9.45pm. £380 (two Lipovsky and others. theatre, poetry and lectures. Lane Cemetery (who can sing in pitch), weeks), £210 (one week). 9.30am-5pm. £150-£225. 9.30am-5pm. £150-£225. Discover the history of Jewish or otherwise. Central Synagoguge, W1W SOAS, Main Building, WC1H SOAS, Main Building, WC1H the Sephardi and Reform Classical singer, pianist 6NW. www.spiroark.org 0XG. www.jmi.org.uk 0XG. www.jmi.org.uk WHAT’S HAPPENING WHAT’S

Jewish Lives Project. Books

Three fully illustrated books featuring specially commissioned thematic essays and biographical profiles of prominent British Jews.

Available now at: jewishmuseum.org.uk/jewish-lives

58 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 Jewish Renaissance half page.indd 1 27/06/2018 17:05:42 EVENTS NATIONAL

BERKSHIRE CORNWALL close to Victoria Station the Jewish Historical Society ground between 1835 and THEATRE MUSIC (Strangeways, Red Bank of England. 1929. Four tours will run Thursday 26 July - Saturday 14 July and Lower Cheetham). 8pm. £3. Allum Lane throughout the day, no Saturday 15 September London Klezmer Quartet Whilst the community has Community Centre, Elstree, booking necessary. Sweet Charity One of klezmer’s hardest- now moved out to the city WD6 3PJ. https://jhse.org 10am-4pm. FREE. Deane From director Paul Hart – gigging groups, the raucous suburbs, evidence of the Road Cemetery, Liverpool, L7 with book by Neil Simon, LKQ showcases their first Jewish communities still KENT 0ET. [email protected]/0151 709 music by Cy Coleman, lyrics most recent album, To the exists today. Starting at the FAMILY 3431. www.princesroad.org by Dorothy Fields – this new Tavern. This performance museum, guides will take Monday 30 July – staging follows the trials is part of Dante Summer walkers around the streets Thursday 2 August TALKS and tribulations of Charity Festival and LKQ will of Lower Cheetham. Sadeh Summer Camp Sunday 2 September Hope Valentine (Rebecca also be leading a klezmer 1-3pm. £7. Manchester Jewish A Jewish outdoor education The Jews of Holland Trehearn), a dancer in a workshop at the same Museum, M8 8LW. 084 3208 summer camp for ages Rabbi Dr Martin van sleazy New York bar. Charity venue (4.30-6pm). 0500. www.manchester 5-10. Here, children den Bergh, Minister of is used to a series of duds 7.30pm. £14, £7 children jewishmuseum.com will combine Judaism, Liverpool’s Childwall when it comes to guys, but a (£8/£4 for the workshop). environmental education Hebrew Congregation, chance meeting in a broken- Callington Church, PL17 7RE. HAMPSHIRE and food growing with grew up in Zimbabwe, but down lift with Oscar (Marc www.londonklezmer THEATRE creative play and fun. Email is in fact Dutch. Here he’ll Elliott) turns her luck around. quartet.com Sunday 23 September talia.chain@sadehfarm. be discussing the history 7.30pm, 2.30pm (Thu & Sat Esther Rantzen: That’s Life co.uk to book. of the Jews of Holland. only)). £19-£33. Watermill THEATRE A celebration of Dame 10am-2pm. £10 per day. 8pm. £3. Jewish Community Theatre, Newbury, RG20 Wednesday 18 July Esther Rantzen’s 50th Sadeh and Skeet Hill House, Centre, King David Campus,

8AE. 016 354 6044. National Youth Dance year in broadcasting. Orpington, BR6 7QD. Liverpool, L15 6WU. WHAT’S HAPPENING www.watermill.org.uk Company/Sharon Eyal: The award-winning http://sadehfarm.co.uk https://jhse.org Used to Be Blonde broadcaster, philanthropist CAMBRIDGESHIRE Now in its sixth year, and campaigner tours the MERSEYSIDE WORKSHOPS BOOKS & POETRY National Youth Dance UK with her daughter – the FAMILY Until Thursday 27 Friday 13 July, Thursday Company returns to Sadler’s presenter and journalist Sunday 16 September September 23 August & Friday 21 Wells with the premiere of Rebecca Wilcox. The pair Heritage Open Day: Israeli Dancing September a new work created by the look back at their illustrious Princes Road Synagogue A weekly workshop in Israeli Meet the Author: George Israeli choreographer and careers, as well as offering Book yourself onto dance traditions, taking Culling 2017-18 guest artistic director up a candid insight into their one of these three pre- place every Thursday. Phone George Culling was a Sharon Eyal. family and personal life. arranged tours. to confirm the class 19-year-old Lancaster Read our interview with 7.30pm. £23.50. Theatre 10am-4pm. FREE. Princes is on before attending. navigator during World Sharon Eyal in the Apr 2018 Royal, Winchester, SO23 8SB. Road Synagogue, Liverpool, L8 7.30-9pm. £5. Jewish War II and has collated his issue of JR and read our www.dameestherrantzen.com 1TG. [email protected]/0151 709 Community Centre, King David experiences and those of his review of Used to Be Blonde 3431. www.princesroad.org Campus, Liverpool, L15 6WU. comrades into a book. He’ll on the JR blog. HEREFORDSHIRE www.liverpooljewish.co.uk be signing said book – Tales 7.30pm. £12, £6 concs. MUSIC Sunday 16 September of Lancasters and Other AMATA, Penryn Campus, Thursday 2 August Heritage Open Day: Deane MIDLANDS Aircraft: Dangerous Skies in Falmouth University, Bernstein and Mahler Road Cemetery TALKS the Second World War – at TR10 9LX. 013 2625 Talented young musicians Located in the Kensington Sunday 2 September IWM Duxford. 9349. http://nydc.org.uk from the National Youth area of Liverpool, Deane Birmingham Jewish 11am-1pm & 2-4pm. FREE. Choir and National Road Cemetery was Graduates Association Imperial War Museum Duxford, GREATER Youth Orchestra of Wales used as a formal burial Dr K McGuffin delivers this CB22 4QR. 012 2383 5000. MANCHESTER celebrate the centennial www.iwm.org.uk TALKS of Leonard Bernstein’s Sunday 15 July birth with his infectiously COMEDY Creativity Against the rhythmic Chichester ARE YOU ORGANISING A RAFFLE Tuesday 17 July Odds: Art and Internment Psalms. Followed by FOR YOUR SYNAGOGUE OR CHARITY? Daniel Cainer’s More During World War II eminent conductor Carlo Jewish Jewish Jewish Jewish Jewish RENAISSANCERENAISSANCE RENAISSANCE RENAISSANCE Gefilte Fish and Chips See Top Picks for info, p55. RENAISSANCE A FRESH PERSPECTIVE ON JEWISH CULTURE Rizzi guiding the orchestra A FRESH PERSPECTIVE ON JEWISH CULTURE A FRESH PERSPECTIVE ON JEWISH CULTURE A FRESH PERSPECTIVE ON JEWISH CULTURE SPONSORED BY DANGOOR EDUCATION APRIL 2017 £7.25 JULY 2016 £7.25 SPONSORED BY DANGOOR EDUCATION A FRESH PERSPECTIVE ON JEWISH CULTUREAPRIL 2018 £7.25 SPONSORED BY DANGOOR EDUCATION SPONSORED BY DANGOOR EDUCATION JULY 2017 £7.25 The all-singing, all-joking 2-3pm. FREE. Manchester through the vast emotional SPONSORED BY DANGOOR EDUCATION SALONICA OCTOBER 2017 £7.25 PLUS Sephardi AND PLACES RENAISSANCE comedian plays the Jewish Museum, M8 8LW. 084 landscape of Mahler’s huge OUR NEW SECTION

HAVEN IN THE FENS ROCK ANDHUNGARY ‘greatest hits’ from his 3208 0500. www.manchester Fifth Symphony. CAMBRIDGETO GIBRALTAR’S JEWS ROLL FACE THE FUTURE FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

FREDERIC RAPHAEL, ELAINE FEINSTEIN, PHILOSOPHERS, SCIENTISTS, IN BETWEEN ACTIVISTS & highly humorous set of jewishmuseum.com 2.30pm. £10-£35. Hereford STUDENT LEADERS DUTCH WHAT NOW FOR GEORGE SZIRTES HOLLAND’S JEWS? JOSEPH KERTES COURAGE ESZTER SUS Á N ON THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF observational comedy. Cathedral, HR1 2NG. ATHENS HUNGARY’S JEWS RADICALSROBIN LUSTIGAND KOOKS ASKS INDO-IRAQI FLAVOUR FUSION HOFESHTHE SIX SHECHTER DAY WAR THE SIX DAY WAR JEWISH PIRATES DYEING THE KNOT Is Trump good for the Jews? The story behind London’s food sensation TheNo footage boycott that at the disappeared Wells GENDER BENDERS ItsNICHOLAS impact in Arab HYTNER lands SYNAGOGUES OF MOSUL MY INVISIBLE CULTURE MYRevenge TEENAGE on the high HERO seas Streisand and other 60s upstarts The artists who dared to be different Mike Leigh on Arnold Wesker The new henna wedding parties A new vision for UK theatre Where Jews and Muslims once prayed NAOMI GAMES THE GOLEM IN ICELAND Roxana Jebreel’s Sephardi manifesto The émigré design revolution The audience can also WALKS https://leonardbernstein.com Ancient myths retold look forward to some new Sunday 29 July; Sunday material. This show is part 5 & Sunday 19 August; TALKS JR WILL BE PLEASED TO ADD TO of the Cambridge Summer Sunday 9 & Sunday 23 Tuesday 4 September THE PRIZES BY DONATING A YEAR’S Music festival. September The Jewish East End SUBSCRIPTION TO THE MAGAZINE 7.30pm. £16.50, £11 concs. Heritage Walk: Jewish Rachel Kolsky delivers this EMAIL CAROLINE@ Unitarian Church, Cambridge, Manchester talk about the surviving CB1 1JW. 012 2335 7851. In the 19th century memories of London’s JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK http://cambridgesummer Manchester’s Jewish Jewish East End for the music.co.uk community settled in areas Herts & Middx branch of

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 59 EVENTS NATIONAL

talk about migrants details (left). Thursday 2 – Saturday that he’s not at the bottom MUSIC and the law. Read previous reviews 25 August of the social ladder. Saturday 25 August 7.30pm. £5, £20 annual and interviews around Daphna Baram: 8pm. £5. Monkey Barrel Baltimore Symphony m’ship. The Old Post Office Shakespeare on the JR Blog. Sugarcoating Comedy Club (venue 515), Orchestra: A Bernstein Building, Birmingham, B13 8JP. Phone for times and prices. A Middle Eastern Mary Edinburgh, EH1 1QR. Celebration 078 0729 3254. Bodleian’s Old Schools Quad, Poppins gets type 2 diabetes www.edfringe.com Marin Alsop and the Bodleian Libraries, OX1 from her spoonful of sugar Baltimore Symphony THEATRE 3BG. 018 6527 7162. and is told to lose weight or Saturday 4 – Saturday Orchestra are joined Tuesday 7 - Wednesday www.shakespearesglobe.com lose her toes. And just when 25 August by Nicola Benedetti to 8 August her coveted red EU passport Aaron Simmonds and the celebrate Leonard The Merchant of Venice SCOTLAND arrives, her new compatriots Person That He Loves Bernstein on the centenary / Twelfth Night / The COMEDY decide to Brexit. Will she Join Jewish comedian of of his birth. Taming of the Shrew Wednesday 1 – Sunday ever get anywhere on time? the year and wheelchair 7.45pm. £15-£47. Usher Hall, London’s Globe Theatre 26 August Find out in Daphna Baram’s enthusiast Aaron Simmonds Edinburgh, EH1 2EA. tours this trio of Shakespeare Ashley Blaker: Observant hilarious journey into body, for his show all about love, https://leonardbernstein.com plays with a twist. Eight Jew politics and, well, body sex and Harry Potter. actors will take to the stage Ashley Blaker isn’t your politics. The Israel-born 6.45pm. FREE. Tolbooth Hebrides Ensemble each night/afternoon and average Orthodox Jewish human rights lawyer turned Market (venue 98), Edinburgh, The well-loved Scottish offer audience members the man. He is also a successful comedian will be reflecting EH8 8BN. www.edfringe.com ensemble celebrate chance to vote on which of comedian who has on half a lifetime of political Bernstein’s centenary the three plays they’d like to performed two sold-out and physical relentlessness Jew-O-Rama year with two of his see that day. UK tours, as well as touring and strife. Jewish stand-up comedy from compositions, punctuated Read previous reviews the US, Israel and South 7pm. £7, £5 concs. Sweet Aaron Levene and Philip by music by Copland in this and interviews around Africa. Now he presents Novotel (venue 188), Simon (Jewish Comedian of all-American recital. Shakespeare on the JR Blog. a show for the gentiles. Edinburgh, EH3 9DE. the Year 2015). Previously the 11am. £11-£34. The Queen’s Phone for times and prices. Join Blaker as he explains www.edfringe.com show has featured special Hall, Edinburgh, EH8 9JG. Doddington Hall, Lincoln, some of the mysteries guests, so there may be some https://leonardbernstein.com LN6 4RU. 015 2269 4308. of his religion. Thursday 2 – Sunday during their Edinburgh www.shakespearesglobe.com 3-4pm. £7.30-£11.80. 26 August run too. THEATRE Underbelly Bristo Square Ari Shaffir: Jew 1.45pm. FREE. Opium (venue Friday 3 – Sunday 26 NORTHUMBERLAND (venue 302), Edinburgh, EH8 See highlight box for details 96), Edinburgh, EH1 1JW. August THEATRE 9LH. www.edfringe.com (right). www.edfringe.com Triptych Saturday 11 - Sunday 6pm. £7. Heroes @ The Hive Three Israeli dancers evoke 12 August Wednesday 1 – Monday (venue 313), Edinburgh, EH1 three stories on the same WHAT’S HAPPENING WHAT’S The Merchant of Venice 27 August 1LG. www.edfringe.com COMEDY stage. Aya doesn’t like dogs, / Twelfth Night / The Bennett Arron: I’ve Never Lior wants to sing for you Taming of the Shrew Told Anyone This Joel Sanders: Angry Boater ARI SHAFFIR: and Nofar wonders why she See Midlands listing for Bennett Arron is revealing No skills, no patience, JEW was never harassed as a details (above). secrets. The problem is, hypertension and a boat. teenager. Through dance, Phone for times and prices. they’re not all his to tell. In What really happens when physical theatre and circus Alnwick Playhouse, NE66 this personal, shocking and you abandon the land performance the trio will try 1PQ. 016 6551 0785. hilarious show, Jewish comic to follow your dreams? to make you laugh and cry. www.shakespearesglobe.com Bennett – the star of the Now in its fourth year, the 1pm. £8, £6 concs. Sweet BBC Radio 4 sitcom Alone, glorious, comedic voyage Grassmarket (venue 18), NOTTINGHAMSHIRE and the series Bennett from suburbia to chaos Edinburgh, EH1 2HS. THEATRE Arron Worries About – finally comes to Edinburgh, www.edfringe.com Friday 31 August – reveals intimate information courtesy of disgruntled Saturday 22 September about himself, his family, Jewish comic Joel Sanders. Thursday 2 – Sunday 26 SOMERSET Sweet Charity famous comedians and TV 7.25pm. FREE. Laughing Horse August THEATRE Directed by Bill Buckhurst. execs. See it now before it’s @ Finnegan’s Wake (venue 101), Ari Shaffir turned his last Wednesday 12 See Berkshire listing for censored. Edinburgh, EH1 2HE. Fringe show into a Netflix September further info, p59. 12.10pm. £10, £9 concs. www.edfringe.com special called Double Esther Rantzen: That’s Life 7.30pm, 1.30pm (Thu only), Underbelly Bristo Square Negative. This year, See Hampshire listing for 2.30pm (Sat only). £8.50- (venue 302), Edinburgh, EH8 Tim Renkow Tries to Punch he returns to tackle his info, p59. £45. Nottingham Playhouse, 9LH. www.edfringe.com Down Orthodox Jewish upbringing. 7.30pm. £23.50. Octagon NG1 5AF. 0115 941 9419. The golden rule of comedy Ari questions all the things Theatre, Yeovil, BA20 1UX. www.nottinghamplay Daniel Cainer: Old Dog, is ‘no punching down’. Aim rabbis never wanted him www.dameestherrantzen.com house.co.uk New Shtick! for the big-hitters and don’t to, like who were the real The all-singing, all-joking mock the little men, in other bad guys in Sodom and SUFFOLK OXFORDSHIRE comedian returns to words. But Tim Renkow Gomorrah? And why do THEATRE THEATRE the Fringe for the 12th is a crippled, redneck, Chasidim dress like Johnny Thursday 12 & Friday Wednesday 18 - Sunday successive year with a brand Mexican Jew, so it’s hard Cash fans? If you miss Shaffir 13 July 29 July new show. for him to find a group he’s here, he’ll be back in the UK National Youth Dance The Merchant of Venice 12-1pm. £6.50-£12. Underbelly not allowed to make fun of, in November. Company/Sharon Eyal: / Twelfth Night / The George Square (venue 300), which is insulting. Join him 6pm. £7. Heroes @ The Hive Used to Be Blonde Taming of the Shrew Edinburgh, EH8 9LH. as he tries to find a group (venue 313), Edinburgh, EH1 Now in its sixth year, See Midlands listing for www.edfringe.com that is off-limits and prove 1LG. www.edfringe.com National Youth Dance

60 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 EVENTS NATIONAL

Company returns to MUSIC Friday 20 July Hove’s Ralli Hall every Wales), the Ark, a Torah Sadler’s Wells with the Saturday 1 & Sunday 2 National Youth Dance Tuesday. scroll and other features. premiere of a new work September Company/Sharon Eyal: 7.45-9.45pm. Phone for prices. 10.30am-3pm. FREE. Cardiff created by the Israeli Festival of Jim Used to Be Blonde Ralli Hall, Hove, BN3 3TH. 012 Reform Synagogue, CF24 0EJ. choreographer and 2017- A small family-friendly See Suffolk listing for 7368 8538. http://cadw.gov.wales 18 guest artistic director music festival established details, p60. Sharon Eyal. in memory of She’koyokh’s Read our interview with WALES WILTSHIRE Read our interview with Eyal accordion player Jim Sharon Eyal in the Apr 2018 FAMILY MUSIC in the Apr 2018 issue of JR Marcovitch. With issue of JR and read our Saturday 21 & Sunday Monday 30 July and read our review of Used She’koyokh, London Klezmer review of Used to Be Blonde 22 July West Side Story Medley to Be Blonde on the JR blog. Quartet, John Hegley, Rimski on the JR blog. World War I: Living History The West of England Youth 7.30pm. £12, £9 concs. and more. 7.30pm. £12, £8 concs. Learn about the life of the Orchestra and Wiltshire Jerwood DanceHouse, 12pm. £40, £10 (ages 3-16), Brighton Dome, BN1 1UE. 012 cavalry troops, nurses and Youth Jazz Orchestra join DanceEast, Ipswich, IP4 £10-£15 for cars/vans. Location 7370 9709. http://nydc.org.uk civilians during World War the celebrations of Leonard 1DW. 014 7329 5230. http:// near Lewes revealed upon 1. This event is part of the Bernstein’s centenary with an nydc.org.uk purchase. festivalofjim@gmail. WORKSHOPS commemorations of the evening of Big Band classics. com, www.festivalofjim.com Until Tuesday 100th anniversary of the 7.30pm. £15, £9 concs. SUSSEX 25 September end of the conflict. Wiltshire Music Centre, FILM THEATRE Chutzpah Choir 11am-4pm. £8.50, £5.10 Bradford on Avon, BA15 1DZ. Sunday 19 August Wednesday 11 - Saturday A weekly Yiddish singing under-16s, £24.60 family. https://leonardbernstein.com Sussex Jewish Film Club: 14 July class led by Polina Shepherd Caerphilly Castle, CF83 1JD. A Serious Man The Merchant of Venice on most Tuesdays. Phone http://cadw.gov.wales YORKSHIRE

A delightfully dark comedy / Twelfth Night / The to confirm the class is on TALKS WHAT’S HAPPENING from Joel and Ethan Cohen. Taming of the Shrew before attending. Sunday 23 September Monday 3 September A Serious Man tells the story See Midlands listing for 11am-1pm. Hove (contact Heritage Open Day: What Jews Left Behind of Larry Gopnik, a physics details, p60. for exact venue details). Cardiff Reform Synagogue A lecture by Nick Evans professor whose life is rapidly Phone for times and prices. [email protected] Hear talks on the (University of Hull). unravelling, so he seeks the Brighton Open Air Theatre, synagogue’s history and 8pm. FREE. United Hebrew help of three rabbis. Hove, BN3 6EH. 078 0229 Israeli Dancing Judaism. Plus view the Congregation Synagogue, 7pm. £4. Ralli Hall, Hove, BN3 9267. www.shakespeares A weekly Israeli dance sanctuary, windows (as seen Leeds, LS17 8DW. 011 3318 3TH. [email protected] globe.com class that takes place at in the book Biblical Art from 6403. https://jhse.org

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BECKYREDMAN.COM EXHIBITIONS LONDON

Ben Uri Photography: A Public Art, Mark Gertler Bomberg JEWISH MUSEUM 1840-1939 Born to Austrian Jewish This touring exhibition JEW(ISH) CARTOONS Classic photographs and parents in London’s East curated by the Ben Uri rarely seen images of artists, End, Mark Gertler studied Gallery returns home. Born in writers and actors. Work at the Slade School of Art, Birmingham to Polish-Jewish by Edward Steichen, James before becoming a key immigrant parents, David Abbe, Berenice Abbott, Cecil figure in London’s avant- Bomberg spent his formative Beaton and Dorothy Wilding garde art scene between the years in London’s East End among others. wars. Guest-curated by Ben amongst the Whitechapel Until 7 October Uri’s Sarah MacDougall, Boys. He went on to become WC2H 0HE. 020 7306 0055. featuring one of Ben Uri’s one of the 20th century’s www.npg.org.uk 11 Gertlers: Rabbi and leading British artists, Rabbitzin. engaging in Yiddish culture, Royal Academy of Art Until 21 October contributing to pre-war 250th Summer Exhibition SW1P 4RG. 020 7887 8888. British modernism, working BOOK The RA’s annual Summer www.tate.org.uk as a war artist during World Exhibition returns with a Wars I and II, and much NOW! mighty bang this year as Trafalgar Square more besides. This exhibition extravagant British artist The Invisible Enemy documents the painter’s Until 17 September Grayson Perry curates. Should Not Exist life and achievements in To coincide with their Comic Book Artists in Residence Among the 1,300 artworks A 14-foot-long winged bull chronological order. programme, the Jewish Museum presents a selection of on display is Anish Kapoor’s sits atop the Fourth Plinth Until 16 September drawings, cartoons and caricatures by Jewish artists. These Symphony for a Beloved in Trafalgar Square. This NW8 0RH. 020 7604 3991. works illustrate changing humour and social commentary Daughter, a bold red recreation of Lamassu, the www.benuri.org.uk from the early 20th century to today. sculpture in the Annenberg stone deity that protected the NW1 7NB. 020 7284 7384. www.jewishmuseum.org.uk Courtyard. ancient Assyrian city Nineveh Dutch Centre Until 19 August until Isis destroyed it in 2015, Suzanne Perlman: W1J 0BD. www.royalacademy. comes from the mind of Catching the Ephemeral Etz Chayim Gallery Jew(ish) Cartoons: org.uk Iraqi-American artist Michael A major retrospective of Biblical and Rabbinical Drawing from the Rakowitz. Inspired by the work by Suzanne Perlman, a Text, Paper Cuts and Prints Collection and Community Tate Britain homeland of his mother’s student of Oskar Kokoschka. Etchings and prints from the See Book Now for info All too Human: Bacon, family – who emigrated to Perlman had a distinguished Hebrew Bible by Mordechai (above). Freud and a Century the US from Iraq in 1946 artistic career spanning Beck, a Jerusalem-based Until 17 September of Painting Life – and the recipes of his WHAT’S HAPPENING WHAT’S seven decades. artist. You can also meet A celebration of painters Iraqi-Jewish grandmother, Until 31 August Beck at the gallery on 5 Comic Book Artists in in Britain who represented Rakowitz used 10,500 empty EC2N 2HA. 020 7588 1684. August, 2.30-5.30pm. Residence human figures, relationships Iraqi date syrup cans to cover www.dutchcentre.com Until 13 August Leading comic artists work and surroundings in the the statue. Viewing by appointment: on their own cartoons live most intimate of ways. Until 2020 Embassy of Germany [email protected]. at the museum, responding Featuring Lucian Freud and WC2N 5DN. 020 7983 4750. Finchleystrasse: German Northwood & Pinner Liberal to the galleries and visitors. Francis Bacon alongside www.london.gov.uk Artists in Exile in Great Synagogue, HA6 3AA. 019 See them in action and you rarely seen work from their Britain, 1933-1945 and 2382 2592. www.npls.org.uk/ may just end up as a work contemporaries, such as Wiener Library Jewish Life in Germany etzchayim.htm of art. Artists include Zoom Frank Auerbach and Paula London 1938: Defending Today Rockman, Lucie Arnoux, Rego. ‘Degenerate’ German Art To commemorate the Jewish Museum Tasreen Rahman, Charlotte Until 27 August An exploration of the November Pogroms of 1938 Astérix in Britain: The Life Bailey, Tom Berry, Matt history and context of an and the beginning of the and Work of René Goscinny Boyce, Taymah Anderson Aftermath: Art in the Wake exhibition originally held Kindertransport to Britain, A playful exhibition about and Paul Shinn. Check the of World War I in 1938 in London entitled the German Embassy the tiny but tough fictional Jewish Museum website Tate marks 100 years since 20th Century German presents two exhibitions. Gaul Astérix and his Jewish for details on who will be the end of World War I Art. This year marks the Curated by the Ben Uri co-creator René Goscinny. drawing and when. with an exploration of 80th anniversary of the Gallery, Finchleystrasse Explore the imagination of Until 16 September the impact the war had show, which was the most focuses on work by German Goscinny (brought to life by NW1 7NB. 020 7284 7384. on British, German and prominent response to the Jewish artists who had to illustrator Albert Uderzo) www.jewishmuseum.org.uk French art. Featuring work Nazi campaign against flee Nazi Germany, while and discover his story, from a by George Grosz and ‘degenerate’ art. To this day Jewish Life in Germany childhood in Argentina to a National Portrait Gallery Otto Dix that exposes it remains the largest display Today provides insight into glittering career that began One Unbroken Stream the unequal treatment of of 20th-century German Germany’s thriving and in New York and flourished A collection of portraits by disabled veterans in post-war art ever staged in Britain, diverse Jewish community in Europe. Featuring rare five major artists: Jean- society. Plus Fernand Léger featuring over 300 examples through poster artwork. original scripts, storyboards, Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and CRW Nevinson, who by artists who faced The next open day is 13 photographs, films, sketches, Edgar Degas, Sickert, reveal visions of the future, persecution in Germany. September, 4-8.30pm; dressing-up stations, games David Bomberg and Frank and Hannah Höch and Read more about the registration essential. and more. Auerbach, to reveal a chain André Masson, who were exhibition in Art, p32. Until 27 September Read more about Astérix in of teacher-pupil relationships instrumental in the birth of Until 14 September SW1X 8PZ. 020 7824 1300. Family, p65. spanning a century. dada and surrealism. WC1B 5DP. 020 7636 7247.

http://benuri.org.uk Until 30 September Until 2 September Until 23 September www.wienerlibrary.co.uk OF JEWISH MUSEUM LONDON ©COURTESY

62 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 EXHIBITIONS NATIONAL & EU

GREATER scenes – drawings from his GERMANY National Holocaust POLAND MANCHESTER internment on the Isle of Man Jewish Museum, Berlin Museum, Amsterdam Galicia Jewish Museum, Imperial War Museum during World War II. Ganzfeld ‘Aural’ In Memoriam by Willem Krakow North, Manchester Read more about Fred A temporary structure in Volkersz Coming Full Circle: Light Lest We Forget? Uhlman in the Apr 2018 the museum’s gardens A memorial for the pupils Motives A look at the issue of JR. houses James Turrell’s light of the 1st Montessori One half of a two-part commemoration of war as a Until 11 August installation, Ganzfeld School in Amsterdam, who exhibition (the other part at fluid concept, one that spans NE1 7RU. 0191 222 6059. ‘Aural’. Light is a central were murdered during the Krakow’s Jewish Community the personal, community and https://hattongallery.org.uk symbol in Judaism, linking Nazi occupation of the Centre) by American artist state tributes. Including the the beginning and end Netherlands (1940-45). Margot S Neuhaus about original Joey puppet from EUROPE of creation, and Turrell’s Created by Willem Volkersz, the light that comes after the National Theatre’s War AUSTRIA immersive piece is an artistic the installation comprises 172 grappling with a dark period. Horse. Museum Dorotheergasse, interpretation of the creation wooden suitcases. Neuhaus’s parents were 27 July 2018 – 24 February 2019 Vienna of light. Until 31 August Polish Jews who survived​ the M17 1TZ. 016 1836 4000. The Place to Be: Salons - Until 30 September Holocaust, though​ most of www.iwm.org.uk Spaces of Emancipation 10969. +49 30 2599 3300. Art to Remember their relatives​ did not. While The salons of Vienna, www.jmberlin.de Post-war artwork from exploring these feelings MERSEYSIDE 1780-1930, were networking the museum’s collections. Neuhaus created works in Tate Liverpool hubs shaped by their Jewish NETHERLANDS Featuring pieces by 27 Jewish stark blacks and reds (In Life in Motion: Egon hostesses. They were also Jewish Historical and non-Jewish artists in Memoriam, seen at the JCC), Schiele/Francesca spaces of empowerment Museum, Amsterdam which the persecution of Jews as well as more calming Woodman for women who were still Maria Austria: Living for plays a role. yellows and oranges (Light

A decade on from Tate excluded from public life. This Photography Until 2 September Motives, seen here). WHAT’S HAPPENING Liverpool’s acclaimed show introduces the salons of An exhibition about famous Until 16 September Klimt exhibition, it brings Fanny Arnstein and Josephine Dutch Jewish photographer Poems from Bergen-Belsen 31-052. +48 12 421 68 42. together the work of his Wertheimstein and more. Maria Austria (1915-75). A selection of 11 poems by www.galiciajewishmuseum.org radical protégé, Egon Read more about the This is the first time her Felix Oestreicher. He wrote Schiele (1890–1918), with exhibition in Passport, p16. comprehensive and versatile these during his interment in Jewish Community the striking photography Until 14 October oeuvre from the 1930s to Westerbork transit camp and Centre, Krakow of Francesca Woodman 1010. +43 1535 0431. 1975 has been shown in Bergen-Belsen concentration Coming Full Circle: In (1958-81). www.jmw.at context, with much unknown camp from November 1943 Memoriam Until 23 September or rediscovered work. to May 1945. See Galicia Jewish Museum L3 4BB. 015 1702 7400. FRANCE Until 2 September Until 20 September listing above for info. www.tate.org.uk Musée D’Art et 1011 PL. +31 20 531 0310. 1018 DB. +31 20 531 0380. Until 16 September D’Histoire du Judaisme, www.jhm.nl http://jck.nl/en 31-055. www.jcckrakow.org SUSSEX Paris Pallant House Gallery, Tribute to the Donors Polin Museum of the Chichester A large selection of LA SYNAGOGUE DE History of Polish Jews, Dorothy Bohm: Sussex ancient and contemporary Warsaw Photographs photographs, rare objects, REICHSHOFFEN BEN JACK Estranged: March 68 and Black-and-white family archives and NASH: LEFTOVER FROM its Aftermath photographs of Sussex life testimonies of Comtadin and A look at the antisemitic during the 1960s and 70s Maghrebian Jews that tell the THE VOID campaign that culminated in by Jewish photographer history of the Jews of France. the expulsion of 13,000 Jews Dorothy Bohm. She escaped Until 13 January 2019 from Poland in 1968. to Britain from Nazi Europe Read about the 1968 in 1939 and became known Christian Boltanski film on Polish refugees in for her portraiture, and street The Parisian artist evokes the Copenhagen in Film, p34. and travel photography. Shoah in this major work. Until 24 September Until 2 September The piece, which is located 00-157. www.polin.pl PO19 1TJ. 012 4377 4557. in the courtyard, is made up http://pallant.org.uk of numerous posters that SPAIN the weather progressively Guggenheim Museum, TYNE & WEAR degrades. Bilbao Hatton Gallery, Until 31 December Chagall: The Breakthrough Newcastle 75003. +33 (1) 5301 8653. Years, 1911-1919 The Making of an www.mahj.org BOOK More than 80 works from the Englishman: Fred Uhlman, NOW! early career of Marc Chagall a Retrospective La synagogue de (1887-1985). Witness a time The first UK retrospective Reichshoffen, Alsace Until 30 September when Chagall’s background of work by German émigré Ben Jack Nash: Leftover This ambitious, award-winning, contemporary art installation in Russian folk art artist Fred Uhlman in 50 from the Void takes over a dilapidated synagogue in rural French Alsace. intermingled with the most years heads out on tour. The See Book Now for info It will breathe fresh life back into the building, creating a progressive experiments of exhibition features paintings (right). connection between the local population and a forgotten the Parisian avant-garde. and drawings from 1928 Until 30 September part of their heritage, as well as providing a platform for its Until 2 September to 1971, most notably a 67110. studio@benjacknash. sustainable future. Read more about the exhibition on p12. 48009. www.guggenheim- selection of Mediterranean com. www.benjacknash.com Alsace, 67110. [email protected]. www.benjacknash.com bilbao.eus

JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 63 EVENTS ISRAEL

EILAT types of beer to sample from contributions by Jews to the MUSIC ART OUT OF THE BLUE Israel and further afield. Plus global industry. See records, Sunday 26 – Tuesday live music and DJs. books, merch, magazines 28 August 40-45 NIS. Gan HaAtsmaut and interactive installations. Red Sea Jazz Festival (Independence Garden). No end date specified A three-day celebration of www.jerusalembeer.com 61392. www.bh.org.il jazz in Israel, featuring both big and burgeoning acts. FILM Eretz Museum 555 NIS, 500 NIS concs. Thursday 26 July – The Map: Reading Various venues at Eilat Port. Sunday 5 August Between the Lines For further info, visit: Jerusalem Film Festival Sculptures, paintings, photos http://en.redseajazz.co.il The best of international and more that explore the and new Israeli cinema. With idea of the map in Israeli art. HAIFA panel discussions, workshops 30 October WALKS BOOK and live music. 69975. +972 (0) 3641 5244. Every Wednesday NOW! Visit www.jff.org.il for further www.eretzmuseum.org.il Free Walking Tour of Haifa details. Journey through Louis No end date specified Tel Aviv Museum of Art Promenade, the stunning Explore the origins of tekhelet and argaman (blue and purple MUSIC Arieh Sharon: Architect Baha’i Gardens, the German dyes), from the bold hue of the Mediterranean shores to the Tuesday 4 – Saturday 8 of the State colony and Wadi Nisnas, national colours of the State of Israel. See culturally significant September The first retrospective of the colourful food market. archaeological items, 2,000-year-old fragments dyed in International Chamber work by one of Israel’s Your guide will be wearing a tekhelet and argaman found in caves in the Judean Desert, the Music Festival architectural forefathers. bright yellow hat. only known jar in the world that was painted entirely in purple, The 21st annual ICMF. Arieh Sharon, a graduate of 10.30am. FREE. Meet in front which features royal inscriptions by Darius I, King of Persia in Featuring the Jerusalem the Bauhaus School, planned of HaBank, HaNassi Blvd 119. four languages, plus rare prayer shawls and historic flags as Quartet, violinist Latica hundreds of kibbutzim, www.freetour.com/haifa Israel celebrates its 70th anniversary year. Honda-Rosenberg, pianist office blocks, hospitals and 9104601. +972 2561 1066. www.blmj.org Elena Bashkirova and more. university campuses. JERUSALEM 770-1020 NIS (5-7 concerts), Until 14 October ART 170 NIS (single concert). Visit 61332. +972 (0) 3607 7020. Bible Lands Museum Jewish holiday. Featuring Wednesday 26 & http://jcmf.org.il for more info. www.tamuseum.org.il Out of the Blue Shabbat sets, a portable Thursday 27 September See Book Now for info chuppah, matzah-making Limmud Italia Days Wednesday 8 – Tuesday WALKS (right). kit, objects for the Havdala Jerusalem 28 August Every Sunday - Thursday WHAT’S HAPPENING WHAT’S No end date specified ceremony and more. Two days celebrating Mekudeshet – Jerusalem Free City Tour of Tel Aviv Until 5 October the integration of Italian Sacred Music Season A three-hour guided tour Jerusalem in Babylon: New Jewish culture in Jerusalem. The popular Sacred Music of Tel Aviv’s highlights, light on the Judean Exiles Christian Boltanski: Featuring discussions, text Festival runs for three weeks, including Old Jaffa, Sarona Learn about the story of Lifetime studies, tours, workshops, with music and art spanning gardens and the Israeli the destruction of the First Born in 1944 to a Jewish lectures and more. continents and faiths. Diamond Exchange. Temple and Jerusalem, and father and Catholic 9.30am-5pm. 240 NIS, 175 Visit www.mekudeshet.com for Participants will be collected the exile of the Judeans to mother, Parisian artist NIS concs (two-day pass), 195 details. from their hotels. Babylon. Christian Boltanski grew NIS, 165 NIS concs (one day 9.15am & 1.15pm. FREE. No end date specified up surrounded by survivors only). Email infogerusalemme@ SAFED www.freetour.com/haifa 9104601. +972 2561 1066. of war and the memories limmud-italia.it for venue info. MUSIC www.blmj.org of those who died. These www.limmud-italia.it Tuesday 14 – Thursday Every Friday childhood experiences 16 August Sarona Israel Museum heavily influence his work. FESTIVALS International Klezmer Discover the history and Zurbarán: Jacob and His Until 31 October Monday 30 July – Festival heritage of the restored Twelve Sons 9171002. +972 2670 8811. Thursday 2 August One of the biggest open-air Templar colony at the heart Portraits of Jacob and his www.imj.org.il Jerusalem Wine Festival festivals of Jewish soul music of Tel-Aviv. 12 sons, completed by 17th- A celebration of Israeli in the world, with stages 11am. FREE. Meet at 34 Eliezer century Spanish painter FAMILY wineries. Last year’s festival throughout the city. Kaplan St (corner of David Francisco de Zurbarán in Daily hosted around 60 wineries For further info, visit Elazar St). www.visit-tel-aviv. 1640. Each of Jacob’s sons – King David offering hundreds of wines, www.safed-home.com/ com/tours founders of ancient Israel’s 12 A new evening show at the some entirely new, with live klezmerfestivalofsafed.html Tribes – is depicted with his Tower of David Museum. music every evening. Every Saturday MOSHE CAINE personal attributes based on Experience the story of 95 NIS. Israel Museum, 11 TEL AVIV From Old Tel Aviv Jacob’s blessings David, from shepherd to Ruppin Boulevard. +972 2670 ART to the White City in the book of Genesis. king, via 45 minutes of music 8811. www.imj.org.il Beit Hatfutsot See the development Until 2 October and projections on the walls Let There Be Laughter: of the city from a small of the ancient citadel. Thursday 23 & Friday Jewish Humour Around neighbourhood to the World To Go: New Designs for Times vary. 40-65 NIS (event 24 August the World Heritage site of White City. Jewish Ritual Objects only), 50-80 NIS (event & Jerusalem Beer Festival What makes Jews so funny? 11am. FREE. Meet at 46 Leading contemporary museum adm). Tower of David The twelfth Jerusalem Beer Find out at this light-hearted Rothschild Blvd (corner of designers have created Museum, 9114001. www.tod. Festival drops into town, look at the origins of Jewish Shadal St). www.visit-tel-aviv.

travel-sized objects for a org.il/en/the-night-spectacular featuring more than 150 humour and the major com/tours © OF PTIL TEKHELET JERUSALEM: COURTESY

64 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 ©2018 LES EDITIONS ALBERT RENE/GOSCINNY-UDERZO 3 1 2 in concentration camps. interned –andsomemurdered Members ofGoscinny’sfamilywere there, aswellinEasternEurope. the warandhadfriendsfamily had returnedtoFrance alotbefore influenced byWorld War II–hisfamily wasobviously and Churchill.Goscinny or 16featuredrawings ofHitler, Stalin fromwhenhewas15 His sketchbooks world incidentsontheyoungartist. showtheinfluenceof sketchbooks Goscinny’s spiritedchildhood TV interview of them both together.TV interviewof themboth The exhibition hasadelightfulclipof ofimmigrant stock. legend wereboth so thecreatorsofFrench national Uderzo’slook. parentswereItalian, Astérix andhisfriendstheirdistinctive Uderzo,illustrator Albert who gave relationshipwiththe collaborative his and itwastherethathebegan allwererejected. of hiscartoons – magazine, asking iftheyhadreceivedfive is aletterfromhimtothe New Yorker the city. exhibitintheshow Onepoignant Will Elder, andattemptedtogetworkin artistsHarveyKurtzmancomic book and industry. He trained withrenowned York totryhisluckinthecartooning After thewar, movedtoNew Goscinny in Argentina. was veryyoungwithhisparentstolive and theUkraine. He leftFrance whenhe were Jewish immigrants fromPoland inParisborn in1926 toparentswho by RenéGoscinny. TheFrenchman was Romanforces,wascreated the occupying villageinresistanceagainst his shambolic

FAMILY his creator about thepluckycomicGauland you (probably) didn’t know Rebecca Taylor picksfive things characterthe cartoon Astérix. René Goscinny, themanbehind Museum Londonshedslighton A new show attheJewish Yes really! Astérix isJewish. Goscinny retuned to Europe in1951 retunedtoEurope Goscinny Astérix,thefearlessGaul,wholeads RENÉ GOSCINNYWAS JEWISH FEATURED HITLERANDSTALIN HIS EARLY DRAWINGS WAS ANIMMIGRANT ALSO COLLABORATORGOSCINNY’S

4 THREAT (SOUNDFAMILIAR?) didn’t have anexclamationmark, hehad American resistingwhitesettlers. with Uderzo about Oumpah-pah, aNative magazine, includinganothercollaboration was veryfunnyandnotracist anymore.” aJewtook toturn itintosomethingthat one whichwasracist andantisemitic. It “always existedasanationalstereotype, interview thatAstérix’s Gaullishidentity Museum London,saidinarecent France.who occupied theRomansandGermans between makes itclearthattherewereparallels illustrations, forthefirstframe ofAstérix, should show. Thefirstdescriptionofthose whatthepictures detailed notesabout wrotethestorieswith featured. Goscinny comic, Pilote, in whichAstérixfirst andUderzoGoscinny foundeda Goscinny’s typewriter isondisplay.Goscinny’s typewriter As it alsowrotestripsforTintinGoscinny Abigail Morris, directoroftheJewish A SMALLCOMMUNITY UNDER ASTÉRIX THESTORY TELLS OF

5 listings, p62. until 30September. For detailsseeart furthe Asterix inBritainrunsatLondon’s Jewish Museum who wishestoremainanonymous. including itemsfromaBritish enthusiast museum hascollectedsomeexhibits, here isfromtheInstitute;although the his daughterin2016.Much ofthematerial InstituteinParisGoscinny –foundedby into 150languages. have translated been series andthebooks adaptations have madeoftheAstérix been French culture.Over100movie popular Nice. Bythen hewasalreadyalegendof diedandwasburiedin in 1977Goscinny undergoing aroutinetestathisdoctor’s After sufferingaheartattackwhile Astérix books. the originalAstérixscriptsandearliest to improvisehisown.Alsoonshoware The cartoonist’s spiritlivesonattheRené JEWISH CEMETERY INNICE GOSCINNY ISBURIEDINTHE JULY 2018 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 65

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FAMILY MEET THE READER SEE BRIGHTON LIKE A LOCAL A NEW SERIES IN WHICH WE GET TO KNOW YOU, OUR READERS Yael Breuer reveals the best bits where she lives

GRAB A BITE TO EAT… There isn’t a Jewish deli or kosher restaurant, but Brighton is one of the best places in the country if you’re vegetarian. There’s a falafel place, Fil Fil (pictured), that’s run by a Palestinian woman from Haifa in Israel and is very nice. When I go I often order the mezze plate, which comes Yael Breuer with a very nice selection of falafel, salads and sauces. BRIGHTON, SUSSEX “The significance of Judaism for me is not EXPLORE THE CULTURE… For something unusual with a Jewish HAVE YOU ALWAYS LIVED IN BRIGHTON? religious, but cultural” flavour, people should see the Regent I came to Brighton from Israel – where I Middle Street Synagogue (pictured met my husband, who is English. I came HOW DID YOU DISCOVER JEWISH below). It opened in 1875 and is here in my early 20s, did my degree at RENAISSANCE? absolutely spectacular. It doesn’t Sussex University and I’ve been in Brighton I think it was when my book was published operate as a synagogue anymore, ever since. three years ago and Jewish Renaissance but it’s open on special occasions and did a feature about it. What I liked about during the Brighton festival. WHERE IN ISRAEL ARE YOU FROM? the magazine then – and still do – is that, I grew up in a secular family in Rehovot. like Brighton, it’s varied. There are some TAKE A CLASS… I still consider myself secular, but it’s very fantastic articles about art, culture, a hint There are four active synagogues in WHAT’S HAPPENING WHAT’S important for me that my children grow of politics and a very good listings section. Brighton and they all hold a variety up knowing about their Jewish heritage, so Plus I really do love the fact that various of events for all ages. There’s also they had their bar and bat mitzvahs here, issues are dedicated to different localities. a Jewish community centre in Hove and we celebrate the Jewish festivals, albeit I find it educational and I do keep the called Ralli Hall that holds workshops not in a particularly religious way. magazines as a reference point. and classes. I myself hold an ulpan – Hebrew school – and my class reflects WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU TO BE OF THE PEOPLE WE’VE FEATURED, WHO Brighton’s varied demographic. I think JEWISH? WOULD MAKE FOR A GREAT DINNER the youngest is a student of 20 and the The significance of Judaism for me is not PARTY GUEST? oldest must be in her late 80s. religious, but cultural and, to an extent, I would like to invite Steven Berkoff, traditional. I’m involved with the Reform although I’d also be terrified. I’ve always GO FOR A WALK… Jewish community in Brighton: I teach admired his work and think he’s an Obviously the seafront is attractive, Hebrew, write for some Jewish publications amazing performer and director. In fact, but my favourite place in the city to and I’m also interested in Jewish history. I first saw a production of his – Kvetch – walk is the North Laine. It’s Brighton’s I work for a charity that is not related to when I was a student here at Sussex. It’s busy, bohemian area, full of unusual the Jewish community, but I also wrote the about the Jewish community in England, shops and boutiques, very colourful European Days book Hilarious Hebrew [see JR, Oct 2014], which was an eye-opener for me and a good characters and a great atmosphere. which teaches Hebrew vocabulary. introduction having just come from Israel. + 1000 activities LOOK TO THE FUTURE… of Jewish Culture WHAT DO YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT WHAT’S THE FIRST QUESTION YOU’D The Bloom Foundation is proposing BRIGHTON? ASK HIM? to build a super-duper Jewish hub + 180K visitors Brighton is so colourful and tolerant and I would be interested to hear his opinions in Hove. So a community centre, a non-conformist. There’s a quote that I about Israel. There’s a lot of pressure on new Orthodox synagogue, Jewish SEPTEMBER 2018 love that says, “It’s easier to get your aura people in the arts to speak up against Israel café, accommodation and shops. + 420 cities cleansed in Brighton than it is to get your and I feel that it’s very one-dimensional. Part of the idea is to attract people – +INFO: jewisheritage.org boiler fixed,” and it’s true! It’s just different Steven Berkoff has not succumbed to this especially young families – to increase and I love the fact that you can be anyone in pressure over the years, so I’d like to ask the size of our Jewish community. Brighton and look like anything you want him about that. n and no one will bat an eyelid. There’s not Interview by Danielle Goldstein a huge Jewish community here, but there AUSTRIA BELARUS BELGIUM BOSNIAAHERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC is a sizeable one, and there’s a small Israeli Want to share your story? Email danielle@ community that is very active. You get a jewishrenaissance.org.uk with your name, age DENMARK FRANCE GEORGIA GERMANY GREECE HUNGARY IRELAND ITALY LATVIA

real variety of people here. and local area. WIKI COMMONS PHOTOGRAPHY; SOPHIE SHEINWALD LITHUANIA LUXEMBOURG NETHERLANDS NORWAY POLAND PORTUGAL ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVENIA SPAIN SWEDEN SWITZERLAND TURKEY UNITED KINGDOM UKRAINE 66 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK JULY 2018 European Days + 1000 activities of Jewish Culture + 180K visitors SEPTEMBER 2018 + 4 20 cities +INFO: jewisheritage.org

AUSTRIA BELARUS BELGIUM BOSNIAAHERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC DENMARK FRANCE GEORGIA GERMANY GREECE HUNGARY IRELAND ITALY LATVIA LITHUANIA LUXEMBOURG NETHERLANDS NORWAY POLAND PORTUGAL ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVENIA SPAIN SWEDEN SWITZERLAND TURKEY UNITED KINGDOM UKRAINE free for friends Camden Town Generously supported by: The Adlard Family Charitable Trust Jewish Museum London Jacaranda Trust Raymond Burton House 129 – 131 Albert Street Astérix in Britain is based on an original exhibition London NW1 7NB by The Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris (MAHJ) jewishmuseum.org.uk/asterix Archive film footage #AsterixInBritain courtesy of INA France