film – Page 4

Salomé’s rightful place

Salomé: Woman of Valor will have its world première at the Chutzpah! Festival March 8-10. (image by Anya Ross, graphics by John Greenaway)

There have been many interpretations of Salomé – thought to be the woman whose alluring dance persuaded King Herod to honour her request that he have John the Baptist beheaded – but none quite like that of Salomé: Woman of Valor, which has its world première at Chutzpah! March 8-10.

The creation of this complex, multilayered work that combines poetry, music, dance and film was led by composer and trumpeter Frank London and poet and performer Adeena Karasick. It features live music by London, percussionist Deep Singh and keyboard player Shai Bachar. The poetry is written and performed by Karasick, the dance choreographed and performed by Rebecca Margolick and Jessie Zaritt, and the video analyzing Charles Bryant’s 1923 silent film Salomé was made by Elizabeth Mak. The whole production is directed by Alex Aron.

“Frank was intrigued by the Salomé story due to the visual cornucopia of the Bryant film, and because it is a story where dance was at the centre, motivating the complex chain of events, and thus ripe for reinvention as a contemporary dance-theatre piece incorporating Bryant’s imagery,” Karasick told the Independent about why the work focuses on Salomé and not another Jewish historical or literary woman. “However, he was only aware of the [Oscar] Wilde retelling of the Salomé story and thus not really interested in her narrative. He came to me to see if I could reenvision her story in a more compelling way.”

It has always bothered her, said Karasick, how, within Christian mythology and entrenched in history by writers like Wilde, Gustave Flaubert and Stéphane Mallarmé and artists such as Gustav Klimt, Gustave Moreau and Aubrey Beardsley, “Salomé was seen as yet another Jewish temptress/Christian killer – but, in fact, there isn’t any evidence to substantiate this claim. According to apocrypha and Josephus’s Antiquities, she came from Jewish royalty and there is no evidence she murdered John the Baptist or even danced for Herod,” said Karasick.

“The only historical reference that [Herod’s wife] Herodias’s daughter’s name was Salomé is from Flavius Josephus, who makes no other claims about her – not that she danced for Herod, not that she demanded John’s head, but only that she went on to marry twice and live peacefully. The other apocryphal reference is that a daughter danced for Herod, which caused him to lose his mind and kill John the Baptist. Thus, the conflagrated Salomé that appears in the Wilde play, [Richard] Strauss opera and all subsequent productions, is an amalgamated construct, so we felt it was our duty to set the record straight.”

In fact, added Karasick, there are three women named Salomé in Jewish history: Salomé, daughter of Herodias and Herod II (circa 14-71 CE); Queen Salomé, her great-aunt (65 BCE-10 CE); and Salomé Alexandra (139-67 BCE).

“Her great-aunt, Salomé I, was the powerful sister and force behind Herod the Great, king of Judea and Second Temple rebuilder,” said Karasick, while Salomé Alexandra (also known as Shelomtzion) was one of only two women who reigned over Judea.

“I wanted my Salomé, Salomé of Valor, to carry the weight of both her genetic lineage and the cultural heredity of her name, embodying the legacy and power of the women that came before her,” said Karasick.

Karasick, who was born in Winnipeg, grew up in Vancouver, earning her bachelor’s from the University of British Columbia. She did her master’s at York University and her PhD at Concordia University. Among other things, she teaches literature and critical theory at Pratt Institute in New York, is co-founding artistic director of KlezKanada and performs her work around the world. The author of nine books – with a 10th, Checking In, published by Talonbooks, on the way – she has been awarded for her contributions to feminist thinking and, last year, the Adeena Karasick Archive was established at Special Collections, Simon Fraser University.

London – a member of the Klezmatics and the group Hasidic New Wave, who has performed with countless musicians and made numerous recordings of his own – saw Karasick perform in New York in 2011. He then hired her, she said, “along with Jake Marmer to design and lead the poetry retreat at KlezKanada…. We hadn’t yet collaborated before this, but I was always compelled by his music and the breadth of all he created as a masterful revolutionary himself, not only as a spectacularly fierce trumpet player but virtuosic composer, reinvigorating klezmer music, transcendentally intermixing it with aspects of world music, jazz, Chassidic new wave, punk – and always felt it would be a thrilling and highly symbiotic artistic match.”

When Frank approached her about the Salomé project, said Karasick, they both “fell in love with the Bryant film but were so perplexed” about Salomé’s “reputation in cultural history.”

So, Karasick started researching, “poring through the multiple and conflict[ing] narratives – through Josephus and the apocrypha, locating the many discrepancies between Christian and Jewish mythologies, speaking with specialists in the field, and became fascinated with how there are so many ‘truths,’ stories, misreadings, and how imperative it is to question these grand narratives, problematize traditional cultural, moral and religious perspectives.

“For millennia,” she said, “Jews have been portrayed as the murderers of gods and prophets in other people’s mythologies, so Salomé: Woman of Valor deconstructs this mythology, exposing how she was not a demonic murderess, and opens up the possibilities for infinite retelling and how truth itself is always a construct of veiling and unveiling.”

About the magnitude of the project, Karasick said, “As the author of nine books invested in issues of ethnicity, gender and ways to construct meaning, as professor of poetry and critical theory, gender images in the media, and poetics and performance, Salomé: Woman of Valor is a logical progression in my 30-year career, and has allowed me to integrate my experiences in one work – something that I have never done before.

“Due to the scope of this show,” she said, “I’m able to weave together the multiple styles of writing that I’ve experimented with over the years – sound poetry, homophonic translations, post-language conceptualism, kabbalistic and feminist revisionist practices, all syntactically playful, polyphonic, ironic and rhythmically complex – a fusion of my esthetic passions and expertise; opening a space of female empowerment.”

While London has been involved in many projects, Karasick said Salomé might be the first for him with performance poetry at the centre.

“We created Salomé: Woman of Valor as an integration of performance poetry, dance, music and video exploring the dialectic between narrative and abstraction – it is a quantum leap forward in collaborative artistic development, challenging my conceptual processes of making an artwork,” she said. “I couldn’t be more excited.”

Salomé: Woman of Valor is already being presented in an array of venues and contexts, said Karasick. “Its form and content make it appropriate to be presented at jazz, dance, poetry, new theatre, literary and electronic literature festivals; in performing arts centres, universities, avant garde text-based multimedia events, as well as events focusing on new media and cross arts,” she said.

“With its feminist and mystical kabbalistic take on Jewish historical subject matter and a live score which draws from East European Jewish music (klezmer) with jazz, Arabic and Indian musics, our Salomé is especially attractive to Jewish culture festivals and to presenters of Jewish music, language, dance and art.”

The libretto has been published in Italian and in English, and selections of it have been published in Bengali, Arabic, Yiddish and German. It is “being taught in universities worldwide in departments of global literature, Jewish studies and humanities and media studies,” she said.

The artists bringing Salomé: Woman of Valor to Vancouver are all “at the forefront of their respective fields,” said Karasick, “and so I feel so fortunate to be working with such powerful creators, all revolutionaries in their own ways. Frank works with Shai Bachar and Deep Singh on a number of musical projects – Deep and Frank started the internationally acclaimed bhangra-klezmer fusion band Sharabi; and [Frank] co-developed Night in the Old Marketplace with Alex Aron, so bringing her on board as a director seemed a natural fit.

“Over the five years of envisioning the piece, we tried on a number of dance styles, ranging from tribal belly dance to sword dance/swallowers, and, with the advice of (Merce Cunningham protégé) Gus Solomons, Jr., settled on the avant garde modern dance of Israeli superstar Jesse Zarrit and the stunningly poetic Rebecca Margolick, with a shout-out to the Dadaist Loïe Fuller stylings by Jodi Sperling.”

Mak’s video on Bryant’s silent film, notes the project’s promotional material, is “punctuated with Jim Andrews’ stunning vispo [visual poetry], with special video appearances by … Tony Torn as Herod, lit by Nicole Lang.”

“Together,” said Karasick, “we’re expanding our work in ways only dreamed possible; have created an intellectually provocative, audio-visual sensorium, informed by our (Frank’s and my) ongoing obsession with excess, desire and pushing boundaries.”

And it’s an interest, if not obsession, with many others, as well. The Kickstarter campaign for Salomé surpassed its goal of $20,000, about half of the project’s budget.

“The show has been garnering a lot of love and support from colleagues and patrons,” said Karasick, “perhaps due to ways that it addresses the social and political necessity to speak the unspoken, resist stereotypes, misrepresentation and outdated myths, and fosters a thinking that leads to a hybridized syncretic culture, one that honours the intermixing of blood, belief, rhythm, texture and being. Content-wise, it addresses outdated notions of identity and ethnicity, and carves out a space where difference and otherness can be celebrated. We feel incredibly grateful, and hope that we can keep growing it. Broadway, here we come!”

But, first, the Chutzpah! Festival. They have also been invited to Toronto’s Ashkenaz Festival and the Boston Jewish Music Festival, said Karasick, who will continue to tour with the Salomé books. “Frank,” she said, “will record and release the music as a CD. We hope to see it at major festivals and venues worldwide.”

The presentations of Salomé at Chutzpah! are presented in association with the Dance Centre, where the performances will take place. For tickets and the full festival lineup, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

An accidental journey

Salvador Litvak was in Vancouver for a Shabbaton at the Kollel last month. (photo from Salvador Litvak)

At a Kollel Shabbaton last month featuring Accidental Talmudist and filmmaker Salvador Litvak, no one was asking that age-old Jewish question, “When do we eat?” In fact, on the night of June 23, during the first of three sessions with Litvak, more than 100 attendees sat spellbound as he shared the love story of his Hungarian grandmother Magda, who survived the Holocaust in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Litvak, who was born in Chile and now lives in Los Angeles, recalled his grandparents’ story and how Magda’s death led to an epiphany that jump-started his spiritual journey. According to Litvak, witnessing his grandmother passing to the next world, where she was welcomed by his grandfather Imre (who was murdered in the Holocaust), was one of the seminal experiences of his life and it eventually resulted in his becoming an “accidental Talmudist,” with many detours along the way.

Litvak revealed his story in stages over the next two days at the Kollel, which brought him to Vancouver as part of its “focus on creating and promoting exciting and meaningful, social, cultural and educational programs that invite people to experience Judaism … in an inclusive, comfortable, joyful and nonjudgmental environment,” said Kollel director Rabbi Shmuel Yeshayahu.

Over the course of the weekend, Litvak shared a drash about the Torah portion, led an interactive workshop on Sunday about discovering one’s life’s mission and traced the stages in his life that led him to create the Accidental Talmudist blog, which attracts more than one million readers (Jews and non-Jews). He also spoke about how he came to embrace his Jewish and Hispanic roots.

Litvak’s journey has been an unconventional one. In fact, during the Sunday workshop, he jokingly claimed that “smoking pot got him into Harvard” because, after the incident, his father forced him to become a runner, which led to his becoming a champion cyclist. These extracurricular activities, said Litvak, helped him get into Harvard, where he took pre-med courses but ended up at New York University Law School. When he wasn’t in the classroom, he spent time in Greenwich Village. “I was a law student by day and a poet warrior by night,” he said.

Going back to his childhood, he said, “I was born in Santiago, Chile, that’s how I ended up with such a crazy name as Salvador Litvak, which is very similar to Jesus Goldberg.”

Like most kids, he was concerned about fitting in, despite several disadvantages. “I already had foreign parents, I was too tall, my hair was bright red, unruly, a mop, and there was no way I was going to fit in,” he said. So, while he agreed with his parents’ plan for him to go to Harvard to become a doctor, he made a decision in Grade 3 to use his middle name Alex instead of Salvador because “it made him feel more American.” It wasn’t until attending a Latino Students Association annual black tie gala at NYU that he would reclaim his Latino heritage.

Litvak had not attended any of the organization’s prior events because he had only felt nominally Hispanic. He attended this one with his girlfriend on a lark because he could wear his tux and get a free meal. When he found out, to his horror, that he would have to make a speech at the gala, he thought of leaving, but then realized that “all of the events of my life had actually coalesced into this moment for a reason.”

He seized the moment and shared with the audience how he’d been passing for 17 years as a white-bread American, and vowed to use his Spanish name, Salvador, from that day forward. Even though he wasn’t plugged into Judaism during his NYU days, this reclamation would be the first step for him to also reclaim his Jewish identity. “I let that moment be a key moment in my life,” he said, “because I knew that G-d was speaking to me and was saying to me, be who you are; you can’t do anything in this world if you aren’t who you really are.”

Litvak graduated, and practised corporate law for a short time before abandoning that career (much to the chagrin of his father) to become a filmmaker. This led to another milestone in his Jewish journey – producing and directing what is now a holiday comedy classic, the story of a Passover seder gone awry entitled When Do We Eat?, starring the late Jack Klugman in his final film role, as well as Lesley Ann Warren, Max Greenfield and Ben Feldman.

By his own admission, When Do We Eat? – which was realized with the help of his wife Nina and his Vancouver cousin Horatio – is a “very irreverent and raucous movie.” Even though the movie, which is about the “fastest seder in the West,” had a deep Jewish message based on sparks of kabbalah and Chassidut, it was panned by major media like the New York Times and Roger Ebert as being anti-Jewish. Nonetheless, word-of-mouth led to the film becoming a cult classic and a Passover tradition for many Jews around the world.

While Litvak had a bar mitzvah, he wasn’t particularly connected to his Jewish roots until the day he walked into a bookstore called 613 – The Mitzvah Store in the Pico Robertson district of Los Angeles and picked up a book called Berachos. It led him on the next leg of the spiritual journey that had begun with the passing of his grandmother.

He learned from the clerk at the bookstore that he had picked up the first book of the Talmud on a special day. The Talmud is read by many Jews all over the world as part of a worldwide program called Daf Yomi (literally, “Page of the Day”). It takes seven-and-a-half years to read the whole Talmud and Litvak had bought Book One on Day One of the program. He decided that this was not a coincidence and embarked on a seven-and-a-half-year talmudic journey, which led to one of his most memorable spiritual experiences: participating in a siyum (or concluding ceremony) at MetLife Stadium in New York with 93,000 Jews.

So, picking up that book of Talmud “accidentally” at a bookstore in Los Angeles set Litvak on a journey that inspired him to establish the Accidental Talmudist blog, which features Jewish wisdom and humour, and music from Jewish artists like Matisyahu, Peter Himmelman and the Moshav Band, as well as a live weekly show that is seen in more than 70 countries. Aside from connecting Jewish souls, the blog has introduced new fans to When Do We Eat? and there are plans for an Accidental Talmudist book and movie.

As we continue to ask that vital question, “When do we eat?”, Litvak will continue to connect Jewish souls one matzah ball and one page at a time.

For more information about the Accidental Talmudist, visit accidentaltalmudist.org. For information on the new Daf Yomi class at the Kollel, led by Asaf Cohen daily, at 8 p.m., visit thekollel.com.

David J. Litvak is a prairie refugee from the North End of Winnipeg who is a freelance writer, former Voice of Peace and Co-op Radio broadcaster and an “accidental publicist.” His articles have been published in the Forward, Globe and Mail and Seattle Post Intelligencer. His website is cascadiapublicity.com. He is not related to Salvador Litvak.

Using film school as therapy

From Ma’aleh School of Television, Film and Art, standing, from left to right, are Asher Lemann, David Cohen, Chanan Ariel, Ofir Shaer, Yosef Baruch Kalangel and Nachum Lemkus. Sitting, from the left, are Keren Hakak, Menachem Assaraf and Shalom Sarel. (photo from Ma’aleh)

When a major donor came to Neta Ariel, director of Ma’aleh School of Television, Film and Art, with an offer to provide scholarships as long as the students give back to the community, Ariel accepted the challenge.

“Ma’aleh is located in the centre of Jerusalem and, unfortunately, there are a lot of social issues,” Ariel told the Jewish Independent. “For example, lots of high school-age teens walk the streets or, during the night, use drugs and live on the streets. So, my students tried to help them – we knew a few of them, and we invited them to come to the school once a week for two hours in the afternoon to learn about film.”

The students at Ma’aleh became mentors, encouraging the teens to bring their own stories to life through the materials. Another group – comprised of immigrants from Ethiopia – also works with the students.

“Tell your story,” said Ariel of the most important aspect of the program.

“At the end of the year,” she said, “when we screened the movie for the group, teacher, friends … it was an amazing thing. They [had] left high school, or the family didn’t want them; they felt like they’re losers and didn’t have self-confidence. When we had the screening and their family or friends came, they really appreciated them. And the film gave them hope. We thought, the making of the film was not only fun, it was a teaching tool to uplift them and our students.”

Through learning how to film, from making personal connections and from telling their stories – which often included trauma or conflict, from rape, violence and negative treatment to gender or sexual orientation issues – they began to heal.

For most participants, it was their first encounter with therapy.

“Most of the time, at the end of the day, after the project was done, they shared with us that this is the first time they’d dealt with this,” said Ariel. “This was their way to tell the society, family or friends that this is their story and what I suffer from.”

From these beginnings, the school developed a curriculum for the program and, with each passing year, it has grown. Now, the school offers two such programs, focusing on how to use film as therapy and how to work together.

“You have a group of social workers and filmmakers,” explained Ariel. “Every week, they meet and work on the exercises we give them, and they work together to find a balance. It works well, the partnership. It’s amazing how the psychologist becomes a filmmaker and the filmmaker comes to understand psychology.”

Months after Operation Protective Edge, the school decided to host a group of bereaved mothers from the conflict, to determine if there was a way they could help.

They found ways of incorporating filmmaking into the process of mourning. At each meeting, they studied and focused on one aspect of filmmaking – lighting, filming, music, and so on. Once taught, participants were given an exercise to practise the skill. Then, they were given a camera and asked to practise filming.

“They didn’t tell them to make a movie about something specific,” said Ariel. “They gave them a task about something emotional. Most chose an aspect connected to the son they lost a few months ago.

“Then, we teach them how to write the script, how to do voiceovers, how to incorporate music. Automatically, most would think about their son or themselves and their fears. So, part of the meeting was talking about what we go through, and a lot of it was about creating things.

“At the end of the year, everyone together made a film called Saba. The main character in the movie is the grandfather, as all of them had mentioned their grandfathers, from time to time.”

Last year, the school opened a bereaved fathers group and found that, while they seemed to barely communicate in the classroom, they collaborated well outside of class. They put together what Ariel described as an “amazing movie” about their surviving kids.

“This is something the fathers said – that the kids at home blamed the parents, saying that, at home, they give a lot of time, attention and energy to something dedicated to the dead son … and [are] not taking care of them,” said Ariel. “Regardless of the age of the kids, in every house, they found it was the same situation. And, it was just amazing.

“Now, we are trying to open a group for grandparents … but, most of them, they can’t come, too hard for them, very far. So, I hope that … we’ll open another group for bereaved mothers … those who couldn’t come last time.”

While the main objective of Ma’aleh stems from a Jewish perspective, Ariel travels the world to introduce filmmaking and therapy to schools.

“Most of our students come from a Jewish Orthodox background … not all, but a lot of them,” said Ariel. “And, a lot of the subjects we touch on are connected to Jewish identity and our roots.”

At the time of her interview with the Independent, Ariel had just returned from the United States, where one of her stops was at a Christian school, where she spoke about how to best relay religious differences through film.

Apart from teaching, Ariel uses these trips to fundraise for the school and to keep in touch with filmmakers, mostly in Los Angeles.

“When they come to Israel, they help us, come to give a workshop at our school,” said Ariel. “We do projects together. Most importantly, we’re sharing our graduate movies with the world. A lot of institutions in Israel and America use them as education tools, cultural tools, and even, from time to time, to promote Israel.

“My goal is that this tool will be used for all kinds of populations. Many different kinds of groups can take care of themselves using this process.”

For more information, visit maale.co.il. The bereaved fathers’ short film can be seen at youtube.com/watch?v=uoNiQVSqhOw&feature=youtu.be.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Baking bread together

Grace Haan, JSA Peer Support trainer and supervisor, and Charles Liebovitch, JSA Peer Support coordinator, at the March 8 Food and Film Empowerment session. (photo by Binny Goldman)

The screening of Dough at the March 8 Food and Film session of the JSA Snider Foundation Empowerment Series continued the 2016-17 series’ theme of “Eating our way through Jewish history: Food, the doorway to our culture.”

Presented in partnership by the Jewish Seniors Alliance and the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, this latest session took place at the Unitarian Centre.

JSA president Ken Levitt greeted those gathered, taking the opportunity to introduce the alliance’s new motto – “Seniors, stronger together.” He emphasized the comma in the phrase, as it had been the topic of much discussion. He also credited me for the motto’s origin.

Gyda Chud, convener of this third session of the food-related Empowerment Series, said she was happy to see so many women in the audience as the event took place on International Women’s Day. Chud was wearing a scarf commemorating the World March of Women that took place in Montreal in 2000.

Michael Schwartz, JMABC coordinator of programs and development, noted how women were responsible for the existence of many organizations in the province. He stressed the importance of families contributing their own pieces of history to the museum to help future generations know the community’s origins and its past. And he asked audience members to become members of the museum, the benefits of which include receiving The Chronicle, which will keep them up-to-date on the museum’s events and research. One upcoming event, he said, is the Supper Club, which will take place at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, where the museum is housed. He concluded, “Without further a dough we hope you enjoy the movie Dough.”

Dough depicts the desperation that sometimes drives people together. Widowed and finding it hard to manage, Nat Dayan is desperate to save his London bake shop from closing – his grandfather had opened Dayan and Son 60 years ago. Customers are getting scarce, moving away or dying, and Nat’s son, a lawyer, is not interested in continuing the family business or helping it survive. In addition, competition is becoming a concern, with a shop next door that is selling baked goods, as well as groceries, and Nat’s apprentice has left to work for them.

Struggling to keep his kosher bakery open, Nat hires Ayyash, the teenage son of his cleaning lady. Ayyash has been selling drugs to help support his mother and himself and, when Ayyash accidentally drops cannabis into the challah dough mix, sales at Dayan and Son soar. Long lines appear and the closing of the shop seems far off.

A warm and special friendship develops between the Muslim boy and the Jewish baker, as Ayyash and his mother go to live at Nat’s when their home floods. A line in the film – Fiddler on the Roof meets West Side Story – helps describe what we see developing.

Tragedy is averted when a fire set by a competitor, instead of destroying the shop as well as Nat’s dream forever, serves to bring them closer together with mutual aspirations of continuing to exist. Dayan and Son survives with the “son” being Ayyash. The theme is an especially moving one – overcoming racial prejudice and bringing about closeness through the will for openness, acceptance and understanding, which can be found in unexpected places.

Chud thanked the delighted audience and invited all to enjoy baked goods – though not the cannabis-filled ones in the movie. The JSA staff worked hard to bring this event to the public, and Stan Shear was invaluable for all his technical work.

May we “break bread” together in the future. B’tayavon, b’shalom.

Binny Goldman is a member of the Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver board.