Category: Lead Story

Not unlike the Jewish Hollywood moguls who virtually created the film industry and the well-documented Jewish influence on comedy and basketball, a handful of underemployed yet enterprising Jews created and built the comic book industry. The best loved superheroes (and villains), including Spider-Man, Superman and Batman just to name a few among literally hundreds, were conceived and brought to life by Jewish writers and artists. And utilizing a 5,000 year culture of storytelling along the way, they managed to seamlessly blend Jewish folklore (picked up by many Jews but missed by the goys) into their fantastic tales.
The first real comic book appeared in 1934—a no-frills collection of reprinted newspaper comic strips. Many of the original American newspaper strips were created by Jewish artists; notable among them were Bud Fisher (Mutt & Jeff), Ham Fisher (Joe Palooka) and Al Capp (Li’l Abner). The comic book was the brainstorm of Jewish entrepreneur M.C. Gaines (Max Ginzberg), and his Famous Funnies #1 is acknowledged as the first of its kind.
The instant success of the format spawned numerous rival publications, but the limited archives of reprintable newspaper strips were soon exhausted. Publishers, recognizing a cash cow, frantically rushed new titles into print. This opened a niche for young imaginative Jewish writers and artists (despite the fact that this was considered the bottom rung of all artforms), many of whom had found their entree into publishing blocked by the rabid anti-Semitism and quotas of the day. In 1935, one such publishing house, Detective Comics, Inc. (later DC Comics), began to run a strip with an intriguing character named Dr. Occult, a supernatural detective created by a couple of Cleveland-based Jews, Jerome Siegel (the writer) and Joe Shuster (the artist). The pair soon stripped Dr. Occult of his trademark trenchcoat and instead dressed him in colorful blue tights and a red cape…and Superman was born.
Max Gaines (by now an employee of DC) was impressed with the character’s potential and alerted DC’s Jewish publishers Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz who, while skeptical, nonetheless in 1938 published the “Man of Steel’s” first strip in the newly formed Action Comics. To the delight of Jewish readers, Siegel and Shuster had imbedded troves of Jewish symbolism in Superman’s origin and in many ways had made their character a metaphor for the Jewish experience in 1930s America. While to gentiles it appeared that Superboy was raised by Ma and Pa Kent as a Methodist with midwestern values, Baby Superman’s given name on the planet Krypton was Kal-El, not some neat sounding gibberish but a name that roughly translated from Hebrew means “All that is God.”
Savvy readers soon realized parallels between the story of Moses and that of Superman who, as a baby, was placed in a small vessel (in his case, a rocket) and sent to Earth to help mankind and avoid certain death as his planet was annihilated. Perhaps his creators also had in mind the Kindertransports, children whose parent were victims of the Holocaust and who were rescued from the Nazis and sent to England. Yes, Superman, strange visitor from another planet (does this reflect the unassimilated Jews fleeing shtetl life and sure extinction in Europe and their transition to America?), who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men (like the mythical Golem made of clay who protected oppressed Jews). Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter (the deferential, spectacled, bookish look was the Jewish stereotype of the ’30s and Kent’s quest to hide his past and true identity and “blend in” was what many Jews felt they had to do) for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never- ending battle for truth, justice and the American way (clearly evident when Superman, to the delight of Jews worldwide, took on the greatest villains imaginable, the Nazis…and Joseph Goebbels denounced Superman as a Jew!).
Superman—with his array of superpowers—was an instant hit and earned an iconic standing in American pop culture. Competitors rushed their own versions into production, many of which became the genre’s classic heroes. Thus the “Golden Age” of comics was ushered in, and by the mid-1940s more than thirty publishers were churning out over 150 titles monthly to satisfy many millions of readers.
Like TV’s best loved Jewish boy, Jerry Seinfeld, I’ve also had a lifelong love affair with Superman. What hormone frenzied kid hasn’t fantasized about having X-ray vision? Who has never grappled with pronouncing the name of Superman antagonist Mr. Mxyzptik or considered the nuances of the Bizarro world. And isn’t the Fortress of Solitude the best damn clubhouse known to man or boy? Black and white TV gave a face to Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Perry (“Don’t call me Chief”) White, and top-ten radio gave us Donovan’s Sunshine Superman. But nothing could beat the comic book drawings and imagination of Siegel and Shuster. And for reasons  henceforth explained, my affair was semi-secret. Now that I’m out of the closet, I can finally divulge it all.
First off, let me state unequivocally that comic books were totally taboo in our house when I was growing up—Banned! Forbidden! My mother never failed to remind me that they would “rot” my mind and of course everyone knew that comic books led to depraved juvenile delinquency and an eventual trip to jail…Do not pass go! I’m sure my father would rather have found me with a “French deck” than a copy of Vault of Horror in my little hands.
There was also a subliminal implication that reading comics violated some cultural Jewish tradition. Mom insisted that comic books were for idiots who couldn’t otherwise read, a low brow, gentile affectation, OK for certain other kids, just not for me. (Jeez…they didn’t even allow Reader’s Digest in the house—“Read the ‘real’ book, they’d say.) As far as my mother was concerned, reading comic books would surely prevent me from going to college, never amounting to anything other than a “ditch digger” (the greatest horror she could conceive). And so while the shelves in my room groaned under the weight of the “Classics,” I became a furtive closet comic lover for nothing more than the sheer escapism it provided my eight-year-old brain.
I got in the habit of keeping a new Superman in my binder to glance at during those moments of incredible boredom that my teachers seemed to easily provide. I admit that I found Lex Luthor’s diabolical musings much more interesting. Mom never caught on over the years that Classics Illustrated comics (created by Albert Kantar, no relation) served my generation as the source of instant book reports for those of us caught with our pants down on the morning a few paragraphs on such ponderous works as Moby Dick or A Tale of Two Cities was due. As a matter of fact my entire knowledge of Christianity was based on their “special” issue, The Story of Jesus.
To satisfy my secret fascination with the comic book heroes of the ’50s, I was luckily able to get my fix at the local barbershop, which always had an array of the latest titles available to the assembly line of kids needing a crewcut. I never minded the long wait on a busy day as it afforded me more time to peruse the latest adventures of Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern and the Justice League of America. Woe was me when “Barber Frank,” as my grandpa called him, closed down his shop forever one day due to what I learned later had been a thriving bookmaking operation. (I had always wondered what those men in suits slinking in and out of the shop’s back room—and who never got haircuts—were doing there!) With my library shuttered, I was forced to dedicate my allowance to buying comics despite my paranoia over getting caught with the goods and being sent to reform school. I kept them in a plastic bag inside a hole I dug on the side of our garage, covered by a piece of slate.
It was against this backdrop that one of the most memorable events of my pre-teen years occurred. I had been dropped off for the day at my maternal grandparents’ apartment in a Russian enclave on Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx. When grandpa finally arrived home after driving his cab, I was thrilled to see that he was holding a very large manila envelope bursting with vintage comic books. These weren’t just the run-of-the-mill titles I’d seen at the barbershop. These were “pre-code” books with the most lurid covers I had ever seen. And there had to be at least a hundred of ’em! Talk about the  first true kvelling experience of my life.
I didn’t know where to begin. I’ll never forget my first glimpse of Baffling Mysteries, with a green mutant carrying a blonde in a bikini with pointed Madonna-style cups. Well, I figured I had my summer reading list set. But before I had even sorted them out, the apartment door swung open and in walked my old man! Now it wasn’t just that I was sitting in the middle of the biggest pile of crime and sex comics imaginable—from the look on pop’s face, it must have been an assortment of the vilest contagion ever assembled. In a heartbeat, the easy-going smile of my mild-mannered, advertising man dad who worked for a great metropolitan ad agency, turned to rage, and what ensued was a violent argument with his in-laws, the likes of which I had never seen. Accusations flew, and there was a moment when I actually thought my dad would knock the old Russian right on his tuchus. Instead, as my heart was pounding, my father scooped up all the comics and jammed them down the garbage chute right outside the apartment door as he hustled me down the hallway and into the elevator, leaving grandma and grandpa open-mouthed and bewildered. I’m sure they never really understood what had gone so terribly wrong. Next for me came the unhappy recap in the car by dad on the evils of comics and their “bad” influence, which lasted all the way home to Long Island. Over the next 50 years of his life, I never saw my father get that angry again ever, not even when my brother egged our neighbor’s Cadillac one Halloween. Over the next few days, I had the time to reflect on just how serious this comic book reading business could be…not!
This was also about the same time I had a classmate in grammar school named Laura Siegel. I knew two things about her. One, she was Jewish and, two, her father was an artist of some kind. As one of the only Jewish boys in the grade (in fact, in our whole town), I always had the suspicion that her mother was eyeing me as a prospective beau, which made me instantly uncomfortable because I was still too young to realize how to deal with hormonal little Jewish girls…or their mothers. Too wrapped up in a nine-year-old’s diversions like waffle-ball, Mickey Mantle and baseball cards, I didn’t make the connection…Laura Siegel…artist father…So even though Laura was one of the more pleasant little girls in my grade, I totally dissed her. The Siegels soon moved away, to California I heard, and just after they did I learned the astonishing fact: Laura’s dad was the artist and co-creator of Superman! I was in shock. Hold on, I thought at the time, let me get a grip. The creator of Superman was Jewish? And had lived for years a few blocks away? Well, suddenly my comic book world turned upside down, and I began to kick myself about Laura Siegel. Just think…if she had stayed around and if I had had the nerve, I could’ve had a date with Superman’s daughter! And her mom Joanne who I had shied away from looking in the eye? She had been the model for the original drawings of Lois Lane. Sadly, she recently passed away.
My parents are no longer around either, and I wish I had been able to present my mom with a list of all the synagogue-going, seder-making, well- educated Jewish artists and writers who produced the best work the comic book world has ever seen. To my knowledge, none of them ever did so much as a day in reform school.
So, Mom, this list’s for you.

THE CHUTZPAH LIST:
JEWISH GIANTS OF THE COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY

Will Eisner (1917-2005). A legend in the industry and arguably the godfather of the modern comic book, Eisner created many familiar comic book characters including Blackhawk and Sheena, but his greatest contribution may have been the masked crime fighter, The Spirit. Eisner is regarded as the originator of the graphic novel; his seminal A Contract With God, four short stories about life in the Bronx, helped establish the genre merging comic books and literature (and is said to be on its way to the big screen). Many of his graphic novels were semi-autobiographical, exploring the Jewish immigrant communities of his origins. His last one The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion sought to debunk and expose the anti-Semitic text purporting to describe the Jewish plan for global domination as a hoax. The Eisner Award, named in his honor, is the Oscar of the industry. In 2002 Eisner received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Federation For Jewish Culture, only the second such honor in their history.

Stan Lee (Stanley Lieber, 1922 – ). The iconic figurehead of industry giant Marvel (originally called Timely Comics under publisher and pulp czar Martin Goodman), Lee, as writer and editor, is credited with the creation of Spider-Man. Lee collaborated with artist Jack Kirby (Jacob Kurtzberg, 1917-1994) and his brother Larry Lieber on literally hundreds of comic book characters. The Lee-Kirby legacy includes the first family of Marvel, The Fantastic Four (Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and The Thing), X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos and the Silver Surfer. Lee’s scriptwriting established the elements of the Marvel “style,” in which imaginative artists like Kirby plotted the sequential art and then turned the boards over to Lee. He would then add the dialogue, which included for the first time in comic books the use of social commentary and more sophisticated vocabulary. Unlike DC’s super-human stars Superman and Batman, Lee created his heroes as freaks, often flawed characters with human emotions and failings that readers could readily identify with. Lee’s heroes were often subject to ridicule and prejudice—Lee and Kirby no doubt used some of their characters as metaphors for Jews and other slighted minorities. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Lee is still active; his latest endeavor is a collaboration with the National Hockey League called The Guardian Project. Thirty new superheroes, one representing each NHL team, were unveiled at this year’s All-Star game.

Harvey Kurtzman (1924-1993). Kurtzman is spiritual father and inspiration behind the first comic book aimed at adults, Mad Magazine. In 1952, Kurtzman edited, wrote and even illustrated the groundbreaking satirical journal with the portrait of gap-toothed Alfred E. Neuman (“What, me worry?”) on the cover. The irreverent style introduced teens and adults alike to parodies of American institutions and became an overnight sensation. Kurtzman and his zany crew gave Mad an unmistakable Jewish imprint often flavoring the text with Yiddishisms. Mad’s Jew crew included Abraham “Al” Jaffee (whose trademark Mad Fold-in continues as one of Mad’s signature features), Dave Berg (the Lighter Side), Will Elder (Wolf Eisenberg), Frank Jacobs and Mort Drucker. Kurtzman eventually left Mad and was responsible for two clones, Trump and Help. He is also credited, with Elder, with the creation of the sexy strip Little Annie Fanny that ran in Playboy from 1962-88.

Bob Kane (Robert Kahn, 1915-1998). The Eisner Hall of Fame artist who collaborated with fellow Jews, writer Bill Finger (1914-1974) and artist Jerry Robinson (1922-), created one of the mainstays of popular culture, the caped crusaders, Batman and Robin, for DC Comics in 1939. The “dynamic duo” of Kahn and Finger, both graduates of DeWitt Clinton High in the Bronx, developed an exciting and distinct alternative to Superman. The character was influenced by the cinema hero Zorro, detective Sherlock Holmes and a Leonardo da Vinci drawing of a flying machine with bat wings. Batman was unique among his superhero contemporaries in that he had no super powers. The creative minds of Kane and Finger spawned some of the most enduring villains in the superhero genre, including The Riddler, The Joker and The Penguin, and a host of intriguing props like the Batmobile and Batman’s utility belt. Kane went on to develop Courageous Cat for TV in the ’50s. Bill Finger scripted the original incarnation of the Green Lantern for DC and was scriptwriter for a few of the most popular ’60s TV shows including 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye. Robinson served a stint as illustrator of Rocky and Bullwinkle on TV.

Joseph Simon (1913- ). The comic book artist, publisher and first editor-in-chief at Marvel had an iconic career and a storied association with his lower east side neighborhood pal Jack Kirby (aka “The King of the Comics”). He produced the most political of all the superheroes in the Marvel universe, Captain America. Simon and Kirby had the chutzpah in 1940 (bucking popular sentiment a year before the US entry into WWII) to depict the flag-dressed hero slugging Hitler in the jaw in the premiere issue. During the war years, Simon introduced more patriotic comics, two of which, Newsboy Legion and Boy Commandos, were huge hits. The pair made a 180-degree turn from crime and superheroes when they introduced Young Romance, which established yet another important comic book genre. Simon made his mark on the children’s market developing such characters as Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich and Baby Huey. He created and launched Sick, a counterpart to Mad, and was again in the news in 2007 when Marvel announced the “death” of Captain America and he quipped, “It’s a hell of a time for him to go…We really need him now.”
William “Bill” Gaines (1922-1992). When he took over Educational Comics (EC) following the death of his father, comic book pioneer M.C. Gaines, the company was primarily know for bland adaptations of Bible stories. Bill Gaines soon changed the course of the industry by introducing a series of lurid, visceral, crime-, horror- and science fiction-themed comic books with titles like Tales From the Crypt, Haunt of Fear and Vault of Horror. The comics and their imitators were a smashing success, however the public backlash against such “filth” led to Gaines’s ill-fated appearance before a Senate sub-committee to defend his art and himself. Much of the venom directed at Gaines and the industry’s Jewish leaders in the press and at the hearings unfortunately took on an anti-Semitic bent. The highlight of the hearings was undoubtedly the long exchange between the eccentric (he often kept the office water coolers filled with wine) Gaines and Senator Estes Kefauver as they debated the relative good taste of a cover depicting a bloody axe, a severed woman’s head and dripping blood. By the conclusion of the hearings in 1954, Gaines had been fingered as an amoral and even pornographic publisher, and the industry bowed to censorship, adopting a comics “code” which limited gore and sex. EC was nearly destroyed and dropped most of its titles. Gaines saved the company by changing his recently started Mad from a comic book to a “magazine,” which exempted it from the strict code regulations. The code in turn gave rise to the “underground” comics of the ’60s and ’70s like the x-rated Zap Comix. Gaines’ gruesome library became the forbidden fruit of comic book collectors to this day.

UNVEILING THE JEWISH SUPERHERO

For most of the first 50 years of comic books, the acknowledgment of a character’s religion (especially a Jewish one) was essentially taboo. The comic book world was rocked (no pun intended) in 2002 when in Vol. 3, issue #56 of The Fantastic Four, it was revealed that Richard Benjamin Grimm, the human form of the orange rock man known as The Thing (a Lee/Kirby creation) was in fact Jewish. In the story Remembrance of Things Past, The Thing returns to his old neighborhood to find his old friend, pawnbroker Mr. Sheckerberg near death from an attack by arch villain Powderkeg. A despairing Thing as a last resort begins davening and recites the traditional Sh’ma Yisrael prayer, and Sheckerberg recovers. In one of the all-time classic comic book punchlines, the defeated Powderkeg asks, “Are you really Jewish?” Thing snarls back, “Yea…you got a problem with that?” “No, no, it’s just that…you don’t look Jewish!,” exclaims Powderkeg. In subsequent issues, Kirby drew The Thing in skullcap and talus—more proof you couldn’t get! Since then the list of Jewish characters has steadily increased including:
Batwoman. Alias Kate Kane was introduced as not only a Jewish crime fighter, but as a tattooed lesbian to boot! Gevalt! Astute readers will notice little storyline clues like her observance of Jewish holidays including Chanukah and the menorah displayed in many panels that show her condo.

Jewish Hero Corps. Alan E. Oirich’s whimsical answer to the lack of mainstream Jewish heroes was the creation of the Corps, whose list of characters includes Dreidel Maidel, Yarmulke Youth, Minyan Man, Shabbas Queen and Menorah Man—all of whom fight the evil Fobots, robots who scheme to erase Jewish memories worldwide.

Kitty Pryde. Alias Sprite and Shadowcat, the mutant associate of the X-Men with the ability to pass through solid matter has had her Jewish heritage and faith displayed front and center. Her character development included a story about her grandfather, Sam Prydenen, who had been interred in a concentration camp. Even more telling is the large Star of David pendant she wears as part of her usual uniform.

Magneto. One of the greatest villains ever and central to the X-Men series, his Jewish ethnicity is well defined. Born Max Eisenhardt, he is a Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz survivor who avows to use his superpowers, which include the control of magnetism, to protect other mutants from a fate similar to Jews in the Holocaust. It gets pretty convoluted…trust me on this one.

Sabra. The name given for Jews born in Israel is the alias of Ruth Bat-Seraph, a human mutant raised on a secret kibbutz who, as “Defender of Israel,” first appeared in issues of The Hulk and later became the first superhero to serve as an agent of the Mossad. Her costume is made of an Israeli flag. Enough said.

Sandman. The alias of Wesley Dodd who dressed in a green business suit and gas mask was part of DC’s Justice Society of America during the Golden Age. Sandman proved to be quite a mensch, preventing the assassination of a Rabbi Glickman by Nazis in one issue. He then explained to his girlfriend the reason for his intense interest in the case…his mother was Jewish!
Shaloman. Created by Philadelphia artist Al Wiesner in the ’80s and still at the drawing table, the “Kosher Crusader” is normally an inanimate rock shaped like a shin who springs to life as a superhero (“The Man of Stone”) with Superman-like powers when the words “Oy vey” are uttered in stories centered around traditional Jewish themes.

Wiccan. Alias William “Bill” Kaplan is a Marvel hero and member of the Young Avengers with force field generation superpowers. The storyline says he is the son of reform Jews and his father a cardiologist no less!

Not unlike the Jewish Hollywood moguls who virtually created the film industry and the well-documented Jewish influence on comedy and basketball, a handful of underemployed yet enterprising Jews created and built the comic book industry. The best loved superheroes (and villains), including Spider-Man, Superman and Batman just to name a few among literally hundreds, were [...]

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Not unlike the Jewish Hollywood moguls who virtually created the film industry and the well-documented Jewish influence on comedy and basketball, a handful of underemployed yet enterprising Jews created and built the comic book industry. The best loved superheroes (and villains), including Spider-Man, Superman and Batman just to name a few among literally hundreds, were [...]

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Without chutzpah, Simone Dinnerstein’s talent as a classical pianist might still be known to just a select group. Without her determination and perseverance to raise the funds needed to record JS Bach Goldberg Variations (Telarc), she might not be sitting on the world stage right now. Go back to her childhood, and without the great tradition of live music as an accompaniment to ballet class (in most places outside the US, that is—much to the woe of teachers here), Simone might not have been more drawn to music than to going en pointe. And without an artist for a father, Simone and her parents might not have been living in Italy, where she took that class.
“Without her raising the money, that CD would not have existed. To propel herself to raise money and find avenues for distribution —that is striking,” says her father, the celebrated American painter Simon Dinnerstein. “I never thought of her being a musician or pianist or heading in that world—it’s superb and incredible. Most times in families involved with the arts, it’s in one area, painting or writing, for instance.”
Simon had gently nudged young Simone toward art. “I enjoyed doing that,” says Simone, now 38, “but after taking piano lessons, I felt a natural affinity for the instrument. I found my own creative voice, separate from my father’s, but at same time, growing up in a household where arts were an important part of our lives, this made me feel connected.
“Dad is unusual as an artist,” she continues. “He knew very clearly what he wanted to do—he doesn’t do commissions, only paintings or drawings that he wants to do. He’s inspiring, uncompromising. My career has been different. I had to do different things like teaching young kids and collaborating with other artists.”
Both agree that being an artist is about a lot more than how talented you are. To make a living doing it, you have to be good at a number of things, like fundraising—you’re either independently wealthy or you figure out how to raise that money. You have to meet a lot of people and be socially at ease, explains Simon. You might not necessarily think of that as a needed skill, but for an artist, there is a world of gallery dealers, promoters and art collectors you want to be comfortable mingling with. “If you want to be an artist, musician or composer, at issue is the ability to improvise and be resilient. If you receive some negative response or hit potholes, you need to be able to bounce back and figure out how to overcome them,” he adds.

Dinnerstein At 38
“I know the kind of music I feel the strongest playing, music that shows my own voice,” says Simone who, in March 2005, made her now famous recording with producer Adam Abeshouse and later that year produced her own New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. In August 2007, the CD was released and earned the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Classical Chart during its first week of sales. It also appeared on numerous “Best of 2007” lists including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker. All that acclaim eventually led Simone to an exclusive agreement with Sony Classical.  “Now working with a huge recording company, after being so indie for so long—I met Sony teams in Berlin, New York and Tokyo—it’s fascinating to see how they work with classical music.” Simone’s first recording for Sony, aéén all-Bach CD called Bach: A Strange Beauty, will be released in January 2011. The title comes from a Francis Bacon quote, and in the liner notes of the album Simone discusses how her father and his views about visual art have influenced her as a musician.
Simone also credits part of her success to the fact that she was not a child prodigy or an artist who plays for an elite audience. “My career developed because I hadn’t done those things. I made a recording that had something to say—my work is not only for the classical connoisseur, it reaches out to more people. It’s the American-dream story, if you work hard you can still succeed.” One way Simone connected with a wider audience was by starting Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public and hosted by New York City public schools. All the musicians performing donate their time, and ticket sales benefit the schools’ Parent Teacher Associations. The series began last year at PS 321, the Brooklyn elementary school that Simone attended and that her son now attends and where her husband teaches and her mother Renée Dinnerstein taught. This year, the series has expanded to include PS 142 on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. Simone enjoys playing in these intimate settings, and children and families are able to hear classical music right in their own neighborhoods.

Simon Says
Though Simon talks of the differences between the various art forms, Simone’s beautifully designed website reflects the intermingling of art and music and the strong relationship of the two artists—it includes many of Simon’s drawings of her, Simone at the piano and, of course, in his major work, The Fulbright Triptych. Simon began studying painting in the mid-1960s and spent 1970 and ’71 in Germany on a Fulbright Grant for graphics—being there just 25 years after the end of WWII created mixed emotions and spurred that masterpiece of contemporary art, a larger than life, striking family tableau with exquisite detail, done in oils on three wood panels.
“The Fulbright Triptych could have only been done in Germany. If I had gone to Spain—where I was interested in studying with Antonio Lopez Garcia—I would have returned to being a student, mentored by him. Instead I was left on my own and had to find a support system for the passion I had, a form to describe the art I was trying to do,” says Simon. “The god of irony operated here big time. I’m not that religious, but it is an anamoly that I would do such a strong painting there.”
The painting wasn’t finished when Simon and Renée returned to New York. He recalls what happened next as a 1 in 25 or 40 million shot, “an example of many fates coinciding in one particular instant and the amazing response by one individual,” the late gallery owner and artist George Staempfli. In 1973, Staempfli and his then gallery director Phillip Bruno went to Simon’s studio in Brooklyn and Staempfli bought The Fulbright Triptych in its unfinished state, allowing Simon the time and freedom to finish it.
Now, over 35 years after its completion, the work, which is in the collection of The Palmer Museum of Art at Pennsylvania State University, is the subject of a new book to be published in April ’11 by Milkweed Editions. The Suspension of Time is a collection of essays by an extraordinarily diverse range of contributors from Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri to acclaimed poet Dan Beachy-Quick, and from art historians such as Colin Eisler, Albert Boime and Thomas M. Messer to composer George Crumb and actor John Turturro, as well as Simone and Renée, who is currently working on her own book about play at school (she blogs on that topic at investigatingchoicetime.com). “It’s a daring book for Milkweed to do,” says Simon. “As an artist I have thousands of different art books—maybe 12 are on a single painting. It’s a fantasy that it would warrant a book.”
An image of the entire painting begins and ends the book, and 35 details will be reprinted, each one a full page, echoing the way you would look at the painting itself, first from 12 feet away, then close up. Each of the essays has an evocative visual that accompanies it. For instance, next to Renée’s writing is a photo of the ship that took them to Germany with all its attendant hoopla, including a brass band playing. Beyond each essay offering its unique perspective, when taken as a whole they develop a dialogue of collaboration between visual, literary, musical and other arts. Much like the life led by this very unique family.
To read more about both artists, go to simonedinnerstein.com and  simondinnerstein.com. Of note: Simone will be appearing in concert in Philadelphia on December 6 at Church of the Holy Trinity presented by Astral Artists and on December 12 in Toronto at Royal Conservatory of Music; 2011 dates are on her website. To coincide with the publication of The Suspension of Time, The Fulbright Triptych will be on display at the Consul General of Germany, 871 United Nations Plaza at 47th Street in New York City from June 15-October 31, 2011. ©

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Without chutzpah, Simone Dinnerstein’s talent as a classical pianist might still be known to just a select group. Without her determination and perseverance to raise the funds needed to record JS Bach Goldberg Variations (Telarc), she might not be sitting on the world stage right now. Go back to her childhood, and without the great tradition of live music as an accompaniment to ballet class (in most places outside the US, that is—much to the woe of teachers here), Simone might not have been more drawn to music than to going en pointe. And without an artist for a father, Simone and her parents might not have been living in Italy, where she took that class.
“Without her raising the money, that CD would not have existed. To propel herself to raise money and find avenues for distribution —that is striking,” says her father, the celebrated American painter Simon Dinnerstein. “I never thought of her being a musician or pianist or heading in that world—it’s superb and incredible. Most times in families involved with the arts, it’s in one area, painting or writing, for instance.”
Simon had gently nudged young Simone toward art. “I enjoyed doing that,” says Simone, now 38, “but after taking piano lessons, I felt a natural affinity for the instrument. I found my own creative voice, separate from my father’s, but at same time, growing up in a household where arts were an important part of our lives, this made me feel connected.
“Dad is unusual as an artist,” she continues. “He knew very clearly what he wanted to do—he doesn’t do commissions, only paintings or drawings that he wants to do. He’s inspiring, uncompromising. My career has been different. I had to do different things like teaching young kids and collaborating with other artists.”
Both agree that being an artist is about a lot more than how talented you are. To make a living doing it, you have to be good at a number of things, like fundraising—you’re either independently wealthy or you figure out how to raise that money. You have to meet a lot of people and be socially at ease, explains Simon. You might not necessarily think of that as a needed skill, but for an artist, there is a world of gallery dealers, promoters and art collectors you want to be comfortable mingling with. “If you want to be an artist, musician or composer, at issue is the ability to improvise and be resilient. If you receive some negative response or hit potholes, you need to be able to bounce back and figure out how to overcome them,” he adds.

Dinnerstein At 38
“I know the kind of music I feel the strongest playing, music that shows my own voice,” says Simone who, in March 2005, made her now famous recording with producer Adam Abeshouse and later that year produced her own New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. In August 2007, the CD was released and earned the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Classical Chart during its first week of sales. It also appeared on numerous “Best of 2007” lists including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker. All that acclaim eventually led Simone to an exclusive agreement with Sony Classical.  “Now working with a huge recording company, after being so indie for so long—I met Sony teams in Berlin, New York and Tokyo—it’s fascinating to see how they work with classical music.” Simone’s first recording for Sony, aéén all-Bach CD called Bach: A Strange Beauty, will be released in January 2011. The title comes from a Francis Bacon quote, and in the liner notes of the album Simone discusses how her father and his views about visual art have influenced her as a musician.
Simone also credits part of her success to the fact that she was not a child prodigy or an artist who plays for an elite audience. “My career developed because I hadn’t done those things. I made a recording that had something to say—my work is not only for the classical connoisseur, it reaches out to more people. It’s the American-dream story, if you work hard you can still succeed.” One way Simone connected with a wider audience was by starting Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public and hosted by New York City public schools. All the musicians performing donate their time, and ticket sales benefit the schools’ Parent Teacher Associations. The series began last year at PS 321, the Brooklyn elementary school that Simone attended and that her son now attends and where her husband teaches and her mother Renée Dinnerstein taught. This year, the series has expanded to include PS 142 on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. Simone enjoys playing in these intimate settings, and children and families are able to hear classical music right in their own neighborhoods.

Simon Says
Though Simon talks of the differences between the various art forms, Simone’s beautifully designed website reflects the intermingling of art and music and the strong relationship of the two artists—it includes many of Simon’s drawings of her, Simone at the piano and, of course, in his major work, The Fulbright Triptych. Simon began studying painting in the mid-1960s and spent 1970 and ’71 in Germany on a Fulbright Grant for graphics—being there just 25 years after the end of WWII created mixed emotions and spurred that masterpiece of contemporary art, a larger than life, striking family tableau with exquisite detail, done in oils on three wood panels.
“The Fulbright Triptych could have only been done in Germany. If I had gone to Spain—where I was interested in studying with Antonio Lopez Garcia—I would have returned to being a student, mentored by him. Instead I was left on my own and had to find a support system for the passion I had, a form to describe the art I was trying to do,” says Simon. “The god of irony operated here big time. I’m not that religious, but it is an anamoly that I would do such a strong painting there.”
The painting wasn’t finished when Simon and Renée returned to New York. He recalls what happened next as a 1 in 25 or 40 million shot, “an example of many fates coinciding in one particular instant and the amazing response by one individual,” the late gallery owner and artist George Staempfli. In 1973, Staempfli and his then gallery director Phillip Bruno went to Simon’s studio in Brooklyn and Staempfli bought The Fulbright Triptych in its unfinished state, allowing Simon the time and freedom to finish it.
Now, over 35 years after its completion, the work, which is in the collection of The Palmer Museum of Art at Pennsylvania State University, is the subject of a new book to be published in April ’11 by Milkweed Editions. The Suspension of Time is a collection of essays by an extraordinarily diverse range of contributors from Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri to acclaimed poet Dan Beachy-Quick, and from art historians such as Colin Eisler, Albert Boime and Thomas M. Messer to composer George Crumb and actor John Turturro, as well as Simone and Renée, who is currently working on her own book about play at school (she blogs on that topic at investigatingchoicetime.com). “It’s a daring book for Milkweed to do,” says Simon. “As an artist I have thousands of different art books—maybe 12 are on a single painting. It’s a fantasy that it would warrant a book.”
An image of the entire painting begins and ends the book, and 35 details will be reprinted, each one a full page, echoing the way you would look at the painting itself, first from 12 feet away, then close up. Each of the essays has an evocative visual that accompanies it. For instance, next to Renée’s writing is a photo of the ship that took them to Germany with all its attendant hoopla, including a brass band playing. Beyond each essay offering its unique perspective, when taken as a whole they develop a dialogue of collaboration between visual, literary, musical and other arts. Much like the life led by this very unique family.
To read more about both artists, go to simonedinnerstein.com and  simondinnerstein.com. Of note: Simone will be appearing in concert in Philadelphia on December 6 at Church of the Holy Trinity presented by Astral Artists and on December 12 in Toronto at Royal Conservatory of Music; 2011 dates are on her website. To coincide with the publication of The Suspension of Time, The Fulbright Triptych will be on display at the Consul General of Germany, 871 United Nations Plaza at 47th Street in New York City from June 15-October 31, 2011. ©

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Without chutzpah, Simone Dinnerstein’s talent as a classical pianist might still be known to just a select group. Without her determination and perseverance to raise the funds needed to record JS Bach Goldberg Variations (Telarc), she might not be sitting on the world stage right now. Go back to her childhood, and without the great [...]

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Without chutzpah, Simone Dinnerstein’s talent as a classical pianist might still be known to just a select group. Without her determination and perseverance to raise the funds needed to record JS Bach Goldberg Variations (Telarc), she might not be sitting on the world stage right now. Go back to her childhood, and without the great [...]

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How cultural heritage shaped the visions of four unique architects

By Tina Isen Fox

Michael Hauptman
From Synagogues To Churches, Reaching Out To All Religions

“I always wanted to build a synagogue,” says Michael Hauptman, founding partner of Brawer and Hauptman Architects, a firm that specializes in building non-profit institutions including the development and renovations of synagogues and churches. “I was always interested in synagogue design.” Hauptman discovered this niche early on in his career and knew from the start that this was the kind of work he loved. He and his partner David Brawer joined forces 25 years ago after they both graduated with a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Their venture into designing religious buildings began when Congregation Tiferet Bet Israel in Blue Bell, PA commissioned them for their first synagogue project—Hauptman describes the congregation as literally taking a “leap of faith” in hiring the new firm. From there, business quickly snowballed. Today they are the go-to firm for creating, renovating and restoring religious buildings, forty percent of Brawer and Hauptman’s projects. Other clients include healthcare organizations, community and civic organizations, as well as colleges and universities.
Brawer and Hauptman truly is an “equal opportunity” firm: “We’ve done churches for every denomination you can think of.” Ironically, one of the very first and most recognized projects the firm ever undertook was not a Jewish one, but came from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The steeple and roof of historic Olde St. Augustine’s Church in Old City Philadelphia had been destroyed in a storm. The restoration of the landmark also returned the interior to its original turn-of-the century appearance. Working with religious groups offers an added dimension to projects, which Hauptman values. “It’s not just working with appreciative people, but working with people with a different motive. It’s very satisfying.” Their current projects include synagogues in New Orleans, Harrisburg, PA and Scotch Plains, NJ and a 50,000 square foot pediatric center for Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Of course, going green is at the forefront of architectural development, but for Jews, Hauptman says, “It’s been a part of synagogue construction since biblical times. No matter what religious group you are working with part of their mission is stewardship of the earth, and for the Jewish community it’s tikkun olam (repairing the world). The concept works well with sustainability.”
Other notable Brawer and Hauptman designs include renovations for Philadelphia’s Society Hill Synagogue, Young Israel of the Main Line in Bala Cynwyd, PA and the Chabad Jewish Enrichment Center in Wilmington, DE.  Hauptman’s bottom line is simple, “We enjoy working with all our clients in helping them solver their problems.” Religion notwithstanding.

Saul Jabbawy
Israeli Influence Threads Its Way Through His Work
Iraq might be the last place you think of as a homeland for Jews, but for Saul Jabbawy, it was his birthplace and first place he called home. His parents created strong family ties there, but life for Jews in Iraq wouldn’t last. During the political upheaval of the early 1970s, Jabbawy’s family, one of the last Jewish families in Iraq, escaped under duress and was smuggled through the Iranian border (a route virtually inconceivable today) into Israel. Saul spent the remainder of his childhood growing up in Tel Aviv whose environment and culture would later influence his work and his life. The family eventually immigrated to the Boston area, and Jabbawy came to Philadelphia for studies at the University of Pennsylvania where earned a graduate degree in architecture and stayed.
His interest in design found a perfect match at the Philadelphia firm Ewing Cole, where he developed a specialty in healthcare and research and development design. As Director of Design, he leads a group responsible for creating the overall image, shape and master plan for interiors, including lobby spaces and public areas, for many hospitals, specialized care centers and patient centers, among corporate projects. Jabbawy understands that people in health care and R&D have a need for relief at their workplaces and that patients benefit from the right surroundings as well. “Research shows that people heal better and faster if they have views of the outdoors and natural light,” he says.
At Ewing Cole, Jabbawy’s work takes him across the country, heading up current and past projects such as the Alcon laboratories in Texas, American Red Cross buildings in St. Louis, Atlanta and Los Angeles, Jefferson Lab, a physics lab, in Newport News, VA, as well as Children’s Hospital and Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Recently completed, The Patient Care Pavilion at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, NJ, has earned raves from both the professional and patient communities.
Many of Jabbawy’s design influences can be traced back to his childhood in Israel where both modern and ancient architecture met head to head. “When you grow up in Israel you spend much of your time outdoors playing,” says Saul. “The architecture in Israel is connected with landscape. In terms of openness, it really affected the way I think and work.” When asked how a building remains timeless, he explains, “Architecture is a cultural endeavor so if you’re involved in culture you are involved in time. The relationship to the outdoors and the green movement come from a fundamental interest in connecting the buildings to the outdoors, allowing daylight and views of the outdoors…It’s an extension of what you do. You don’t separate it.”
It could be argued then that there’s a little bit of Jabbawy’s Israel wherever you look.

Denise Scott Brown
The Grandmother of Architecture

An icon. A legend. A groundbreaker. If there is one female name synonymous with both Philadelphia and international architecture, it’s Denise Scott Brown. She and her husband and partner, Robert Venturi, have been the creative and innovative force behind their eponymous firm, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc., for more than four decades. Collaborator in the architecture and planning of many of the world’s most prestigious and lauded buildings, Scott Brown’s international reputation continues to inspire young architects. The firm has created a large portfolio of work in architecture and urban design and has earned countless awards and honors. Guided by their philosophy to bring thoughtful and humane design to their work, Scott Brown and her husband embrace the ethics of social planning, meaningful design and environmental responsibility. Contemporary terms such as integrated, organic and sustainable have described their work long before it became fashionable to use such descriptions. Her design achievements are well known to many, but her personal story and Jewish influence may not be.
“Nothing is very simple about me,” says Scott Brown, now 79.  “I have a very complex identity.” Born in Zambia and raised in South Africa, her parents were of Russian descent. Scott Brown’s Jewish roots and her youth in South Africa set the stage for her future architectural inspirations. She recalls how her family hosted refugees from Europe during WWII and the image of her grandmother listening to Hitler on the radio and yelling back in German, “Liar!” Growing up Jewish in a divided country presented many challenges, and Scott Brown experienced her share of anti-Semitism, especially at school. Today she takes pride in supporting issues of social concern that affect South Africa and has “adopted” children attending her former school there.
She left South Africa to study at the venerable Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. In 1958, she and her first husband, Robert Scott Brown, came to the US to study city planning and architecture at the University of Pennsylvania (he died tragically in a car accident the following year). At Penn, she earned Master’s degrees in both disciplines while teaching and later taught at Berkeley UCLA, Yale and Harvard.
Her youth in South Africa, where a dominant British society contrasted to the African way of life, expressed itself in college where she dared to explore the contradictions that existed in architecture. In her bones, she says, was the feeling of what she calls, “Ought vs. Is”—the way planners think the world ought to be designed versus the way people, in fact, live. “I loved the fight between architecture and planning,” she admits. Surprising to many, female architects were not rare back then. “When I started as an architect they called it women’s work,” she remembers. However, most architects at the time refused to be influenced by her concept. Brown embraced the tension because she had experienced it her entire life: “I was very influenced, challenged, confused and infused by it and the only person who had any sympathy with what I was trying to do, to bring the two together, was Robert Venturi. We’ve used that dichotomy and challenge of the two all the way through our careers. It’s what makes our architecture interesting and unusual.”
Scott Brown and Venturi began working together in 1960, married in 1967 and have been a team ever since. Throughout their career they’ve shared the common philosophy that there is more than one way to solve a problem and that the process of the work must be evolutionary. She speaks excitedly about VSBA’s latest design project, Lenfest Hall at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and talks proudly about The Perelman Quadrangle at The University of Pennsylvania—a project that is hers alone. “It’s very fulfilling to me to make something that resuscitated five buildings. It was a sustainable thing to do…a beautiful project.”
In the recent past, the firm completed two projects for religious groups, the chapel at The Episcopal Academy in Newtown Square, PA and a synagogue in Sunbury, PA for Congregation Beth El Synagogue—VSBA’s first synagogue design.
Scott Brown admits that the world doesn’t always give her credit for the collaborative nature of her work with Venturi.  She says that sexism still exists in the architectural world and that people like to tie their wagon to a design “guru” or father figure—in her case Venturi— and ignore the female collaborator. Those who know about Scott Brown and her work know that she and her husband deserve equal billing.
Today, she continues to write extensively and last year published a collection of her works, Having Words.  Critics now call her “the grandmother of architecture” to which she replies, “I’m happy I’m allowed to be that and happy to receive it.”

Mario Zacharjasz
The Wandering Jew

Was born in Cuba, raised in Puerto Rico, moved to Israel, lived on a kibbutz, attended Hebrew University, studied at University of Florida, led tours to Israel during summers, graduated college in Philadelphia—meet Mario Zacharjasz, an amalgam of cultural diversity and Jewish heritage. Mario is a founding partner, with David Polatnick and Michael Skolnick, of PZS Architects in Philadelphia. The firm, specializing in a variety of architectural genres—corporate, commercial, residential and, more recently, educational buildings for colleges and universities and elementary and charter schools—has been on a path of steady growth. PZS’s newest, most prominent Philadelphia buildings are The Ayer on Washington Square, Ten Rittenhouse on Rittenhouse Square, for which they served as architects of record, and they’ve also just completed the Salvation Army Kroc Center endowed by the Kroc’s of McDonalds fame, a 12-acre, 130,000 square foot community center in the Nicetown section of North Philadelphia, complete with an aquatics facility, soccer field, gym, chapel and café.
Zacharjasz’s family left Cuba in 1960 when he was a child. Havana had had a large Jewish community, but with the rise of Fidel Castro, Jewish families fled. His landed in Puerto Rico. As a young man, Zacharjasz became involved in Young Judaea, the Jewish youth movement, which led him to Israel where he lived on a kibbutz and later attended Hebrew University.
After earning a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Temple University, Zacharjasz put down roots in Philadelphia. “I’m a walking identity crisis,” Zacharjasz says, laughing. “Jews are always surprised to know I’m Latino and Latinos are always surprised to know I’m Jewish.” He takes pride in both his cultural heritages (he describes High Holiday meals at his house as a mixture of Jewish and Cuban food) and uses the best of each to educate and illuminate. “I always wanted to help out the Latino community. I think it’s important to be a (Jewish) community leader, but it’s also a great way for people to understand what the Jewish community is all about. I’m constantly going back and forth. It’s great. I’m sort of a conduit.” Zacharjasz has led several humanitarian missions to Cuba through the group Jewish Solidarity, delivering supplies, antibiotics and vitamins to Jewish groups still in Havana.
Mario serves as president of the American Institute of Architecture in Philadelphia and is an active member of his synagogue Beth Tikvah B’Nai Jeshurun in Erdenheim, PA. He also serves on many boards that touch both his cultural and architectural identity.  A walking United Nations, Zacharjasz shows us that Jews come from even the most unexpected places. ©

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How cultural heritage shaped the visions of four unique architects

By Tina Isen Fox

Michael Hauptman
From Synagogues To Churches, Reaching Out To All Religions

“I always wanted to build a synagogue,” says Michael Hauptman, founding partner of Brawer and Hauptman Architects, a firm that specializes in building non-profit institutions including the development and renovations of synagogues and churches. “I was always interested in synagogue design.” Hauptman discovered this niche early on in his career and knew from the start that this was the kind of work he loved. He and his partner David Brawer joined forces 25 years ago after they both graduated with a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Their venture into designing religious buildings began when Congregation Tiferet Bet Israel in Blue Bell, PA commissioned them for their first synagogue project—Hauptman describes the congregation as literally taking a “leap of faith” in hiring the new firm. From there, business quickly snowballed. Today they are the go-to firm for creating, renovating and restoring religious buildings, forty percent of Brawer and Hauptman’s projects. Other clients include healthcare organizations, community and civic organizations, as well as colleges and universities.
Brawer and Hauptman truly is an “equal opportunity” firm: “We’ve done churches for every denomination you can think of.” Ironically, one of the very first and most recognized projects the firm ever undertook was not a Jewish one, but came from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The steeple and roof of historic Olde St. Augustine’s Church in Old City Philadelphia had been destroyed in a storm. The restoration of the landmark also returned the interior to its original turn-of-the century appearance. Working with religious groups offers an added dimension to projects, which Hauptman values. “It’s not just working with appreciative people, but working with people with a different motive. It’s very satisfying.” Their current projects include synagogues in New Orleans, Harrisburg, PA and Scotch Plains, NJ and a 50,000 square foot pediatric center for Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Of course, going green is at the forefront of architectural development, but for Jews, Hauptman says, “It’s been a part of synagogue construction since biblical times. No matter what religious group you are working with part of their mission is stewardship of the earth, and for the Jewish community it’s tikkun olam (repairing the world). The concept works well with sustainability.”
Other notable Brawer and Hauptman designs include renovations for Philadelphia’s Society Hill Synagogue, Young Israel of the Main Line in Bala Cynwyd, PA and the Chabad Jewish Enrichment Center in Wilmington, DE.  Hauptman’s bottom line is simple, “We enjoy working with all our clients in helping them solver their problems.” Religion notwithstanding.

Saul Jabbawy
Israeli Influence Threads Its Way Through His Work
Iraq might be the last place you think of as a homeland for Jews, but for Saul Jabbawy, it was his birthplace and first place he called home. His parents created strong family ties there, but life for Jews in Iraq wouldn’t last. During the political upheaval of the early 1970s, Jabbawy’s family, one of the last Jewish families in Iraq, escaped under duress and was smuggled through the Iranian border (a route virtually inconceivable today) into Israel. Saul spent the remainder of his childhood growing up in Tel Aviv whose environment and culture would later influence his work and his life. The family eventually immigrated to the Boston area, and Jabbawy came to Philadelphia for studies at the University of Pennsylvania where earned a graduate degree in architecture and stayed.
His interest in design found a perfect match at the Philadelphia firm Ewing Cole, where he developed a specialty in healthcare and research and development design. As Director of Design, he leads a group responsible for creating the overall image, shape and master plan for interiors, including lobby spaces and public areas, for many hospitals, specialized care centers and patient centers, among corporate projects. Jabbawy understands that people in health care and R&D have a need for relief at their workplaces and that patients benefit from the right surroundings as well. “Research shows that people heal better and faster if they have views of the outdoors and natural light,” he says.
At Ewing Cole, Jabbawy’s work takes him across the country, heading up current and past projects such as the Alcon laboratories in Texas, American Red Cross buildings in St. Louis, Atlanta and Los Angeles, Jefferson Lab, a physics lab, in Newport News, VA, as well as Children’s Hospital and Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Recently completed, The Patient Care Pavilion at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, NJ, has earned raves from both the professional and patient communities.
Many of Jabbawy’s design influences can be traced back to his childhood in Israel where both modern and ancient architecture met head to head. “When you grow up in Israel you spend much of your time outdoors playing,” says Saul. “The architecture in Israel is connected with landscape. In terms of openness, it really affected the way I think and work.” When asked how a building remains timeless, he explains, “Architecture is a cultural endeavor so if you’re involved in culture you are involved in time. The relationship to the outdoors and the green movement come from a fundamental interest in connecting the buildings to the outdoors, allowing daylight and views of the outdoors…It’s an extension of what you do. You don’t separate it.”
It could be argued then that there’s a little bit of Jabbawy’s Israel wherever you look.

Denise Scott Brown
The Grandmother of Architecture

An icon. A legend. A groundbreaker. If there is one female name synonymous with both Philadelphia and international architecture, it’s Denise Scott Brown. She and her husband and partner, Robert Venturi, have been the creative and innovative force behind their eponymous firm, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc., for more than four decades. Collaborator in the architecture and planning of many of the world’s most prestigious and lauded buildings, Scott Brown’s international reputation continues to inspire young architects. The firm has created a large portfolio of work in architecture and urban design and has earned countless awards and honors. Guided by their philosophy to bring thoughtful and humane design to their work, Scott Brown and her husband embrace the ethics of social planning, meaningful design and environmental responsibility. Contemporary terms such as integrated, organic and sustainable have described their work long before it became fashionable to use such descriptions. Her design achievements are well known to many, but her personal story and Jewish influence may not be.
“Nothing is very simple about me,” says Scott Brown, now 79.  “I have a very complex identity.” Born in Zambia and raised in South Africa, her parents were of Russian descent. Scott Brown’s Jewish roots and her youth in South Africa set the stage for her future architectural inspirations. She recalls how her family hosted refugees from Europe during WWII and the image of her grandmother listening to Hitler on the radio and yelling back in German, “Liar!” Growing up Jewish in a divided country presented many challenges, and Scott Brown experienced her share of anti-Semitism, especially at school. Today she takes pride in supporting issues of social concern that affect South Africa and has “adopted” children attending her former school there.
She left South Africa to study at the venerable Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. In 1958, she and her first husband, Robert Scott Brown, came to the US to study city planning and architecture at the University of Pennsylvania (he died tragically in a car accident the following year). At Penn, she earned Master’s degrees in both disciplines while teaching and later taught at Berkeley UCLA, Yale and Harvard.
Her youth in South Africa, where a dominant British society contrasted to the African way of life, expressed itself in college where she dared to explore the contradictions that existed in architecture. In her bones, she says, was the feeling of what she calls, “Ought vs. Is”—the way planners think the world ought to be designed versus the way people, in fact, live. “I loved the fight between architecture and planning,” she admits. Surprising to many, female architects were not rare back then. “When I started as an architect they called it women’s work,” she remembers. However, most architects at the time refused to be influenced by her concept. Brown embraced the tension because she had experienced it her entire life: “I was very influenced, challenged, confused and infused by it and the only person who had any sympathy with what I was trying to do, to bring the two together, was Robert Venturi. We’ve used that dichotomy and challenge of the two all the way through our careers. It’s what makes our architecture interesting and unusual.”
Scott Brown and Venturi began working together in 1960, married in 1967 and have been a team ever since. Throughout their career they’ve shared the common philosophy that there is more than one way to solve a problem and that the process of the work must be evolutionary. She speaks excitedly about VSBA’s latest design project, Lenfest Hall at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and talks proudly about The Perelman Quadrangle at The University of Pennsylvania—a project that is hers alone. “It’s very fulfilling to me to make something that resuscitated five buildings. It was a sustainable thing to do…a beautiful project.”
In the recent past, the firm completed two projects for religious groups, the chapel at The Episcopal Academy in Newtown Square, PA and a synagogue in Sunbury, PA for Congregation Beth El Synagogue—VSBA’s first synagogue design.
Scott Brown admits that the world doesn’t always give her credit for the collaborative nature of her work with Venturi.  She says that sexism still exists in the architectural world and that people like to tie their wagon to a design “guru” or father figure—in her case Venturi— and ignore the female collaborator. Those who know about Scott Brown and her work know that she and her husband deserve equal billing.
Today, she continues to write extensively and last year published a collection of her works, Having Words.  Critics now call her “the grandmother of architecture” to which she replies, “I’m happy I’m allowed to be that and happy to receive it.”

Mario Zacharjasz
The Wandering Jew

Was born in Cuba, raised in Puerto Rico, moved to Israel, lived on a kibbutz, attended Hebrew University, studied at University of Florida, led tours to Israel during summers, graduated college in Philadelphia—meet Mario Zacharjasz, an amalgam of cultural diversity and Jewish heritage. Mario is a founding partner, with David Polatnick and Michael Skolnick, of PZS Architects in Philadelphia. The firm, specializing in a variety of architectural genres—corporate, commercial, residential and, more recently, educational buildings for colleges and universities and elementary and charter schools—has been on a path of steady growth. PZS’s newest, most prominent Philadelphia buildings are The Ayer on Washington Square, Ten Rittenhouse on Rittenhouse Square, for which they served as architects of record, and they’ve also just completed the Salvation Army Kroc Center endowed by the Kroc’s of McDonalds fame, a 12-acre, 130,000 square foot community center in the Nicetown section of North Philadelphia, complete with an aquatics facility, soccer field, gym, chapel and café.
Zacharjasz’s family left Cuba in 1960 when he was a child. Havana had had a large Jewish community, but with the rise of Fidel Castro, Jewish families fled. His landed in Puerto Rico. As a young man, Zacharjasz became involved in Young Judaea, the Jewish youth movement, which led him to Israel where he lived on a kibbutz and later attended Hebrew University.
After earning a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Temple University, Zacharjasz put down roots in Philadelphia. “I’m a walking identity crisis,” Zacharjasz says, laughing. “Jews are always surprised to know I’m Latino and Latinos are always surprised to know I’m Jewish.” He takes pride in both his cultural heritages (he describes High Holiday meals at his house as a mixture of Jewish and Cuban food) and uses the best of each to educate and illuminate. “I always wanted to help out the Latino community. I think it’s important to be a (Jewish) community leader, but it’s also a great way for people to understand what the Jewish community is all about. I’m constantly going back and forth. It’s great. I’m sort of a conduit.” Zacharjasz has led several humanitarian missions to Cuba through the group Jewish Solidarity, delivering supplies, antibiotics and vitamins to Jewish groups still in Havana.
Mario serves as president of the American Institute of Architecture in Philadelphia and is an active member of his synagogue Beth Tikvah B’Nai Jeshurun in Erdenheim, PA. He also serves on many boards that touch both his cultural and architectural identity.  A walking United Nations, Zacharjasz shows us that Jews come from even the most unexpected places. ©

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How cultural heritage shaped the visions of four unique architects By Tina Isen Fox Michael Hauptman From Synagogues To Churches, Reaching Out To All Religions “I always wanted to build a synagogue,” says Michael Hauptman, founding partner of Brawer and Hauptman Architects, a firm that specializes in building non-profit institutions including the development and renovations [...]

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How cultural heritage shaped the visions of four unique architects By Tina Isen Fox Michael Hauptman From Synagogues To Churches, Reaching Out To All Religions “I always wanted to build a synagogue,” says Michael Hauptman, founding partner of Brawer and Hauptman Architects, a firm that specializes in building non-profit institutions including the development and renovations [...]

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6ABC Matzo Balls

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6ABC Matzo Balls

Start uga_filter:

6ABC Matzo Balls

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6ABC Matzo Balls

Start uga_filter:

August 15, 2011

I watched the eight Republican candidates debate among themselves last week.  Many of the opinion-makers of our country, early on decided to attack many of these candidates, most of whom either are themselves card-carrying members or adherents of the Tea Party as well as members of the Republican Party.  All are seeking Republican Party support while advocating Tea Party positions on major issues, e.g., reducing or eliminating entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and slashing federal government expenditures.

Candidates like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) have been described by some observers of the political scene as wackos or crazies.  I think those views are now changing.  I must admit here that I have used those words in describing the views of some candidates, but I won’t anymore.  The eight participants in the debate handled themselves extremely well.  While I was not persuaded by their arguments and views and remain a Democrat supporting many Democratic programs, I can well understand why they and their supporters demand changes in federal programs along the lines advocated by Tea Party philosophy.  Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll, coming in one percentage point ahead of Ron Paul.  Tim Pawlenty came in third and has withdrawn from the race.

Liberal philosophy has adopted the Keynesian position that in times of recession and depression, government must prime the pump and spend its way out to achieve better times.  The Tea Party view and that of the Conservative government of David Cameron in Great Britain adheres to the old-fashioned view that my mom often expressed:  “You don’t spend money you don’t have.”  That was my view when I was mayor of New York City and in my personal life.  I have two credit cards.  I have never paid charges on either of them over and above my actual purchases.  I am one of those customers the credit card companies hate and may lose money on, if they are dependent on the usurious rates of interest they receive from those using their credit cards as access to bank loans.

When I was Mayor, I supported then and do now a GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) balanced budget imposed by the state legislature requiring New York City to limit its operating budget to what was reasonable to expect the City to receive the year of the adopted budget.  The Tea Party believes in a balanced budget for the U.S. and wants to enact it into law by the adoption of a constitutional amendment.  Liberals are horrified with the idea.  My mother would have loved it.  It seems to me to make sense, provided there is an exception when the U.S. is at war.

We were a lower-middle class family when I grew up in Brooklyn.  Perhaps even poorer than we thought.  My father made $65 a week.  Our rent in Flatbush in 1941 was $65 a month – the then accepted ratio – and my parents were able to lead a reasonably decent lifestyle, bringing up three children and sending them to college.  I believe my parents values would be described as politically liberal.  Early on in my political career, I referred to myself as a liberal with sanity.

Mr. President, the country we all love is hurting enormously, with huge unemployment.  Isn’t it possible to create work programs like the WPA (Works Progress Administration) and spend monies on infrastructure for bullet trains, repairing roads and bridges that are falling down and other truly needed capital programs by creating what we don’t have now – a separate capital budget (which states and cities have) that would permit borrowing and pay the cost of a capital item over its expected life, instead of maintaining the single unified budget which the U.S. currently has?  I am not an economist, but shouldn’t that be considered?  The need for jobs with our unemployment rate in excess of 9 percent is universally accepted.

People everywhere are asking why don’t you call the Congress back from their unearned vacations to address the huge problems now facing the nation.  You can still win back the support of the public by publicly setting forth in detail your plan to address these enormous problems.  It should be a plan fashioned not on consensus, but your plan and if your political adversaries oppose it, so be it.  Then you must go over their heads to the vast public, appealing to its common sense, asking them to support you.  Take your plan into the next election and make your proposed programs the referendum on which the public will be voting in the presidential election of 2012.

Remember what Harry Truman did in 1948 with the do nothing Congress?  While Harry Truman is my political hero, you are far more eloquent than he was.  You can bring the nation to your side if you convince people that what you are asking them to do is to join hands in self-sacrifice, sharing the nation’s burden proportionately to their economic status.  We are a generous nation, a patriotic nation, a nation like no other in our diversity.  Today, we are so divided and feel leaderless.  You can bring us together and lead us to the promised land.

Mr. President, doesn’t it appear strange to you that the war in Afghanistan has been going on for ten years and this month of August, we have already sustained 51 deaths there?  We spend billions annually on the military budget.  Indeed, our military budget is equal in the aggregate to the military budgets of the next 17 nations.  I suspect the Taliban spends less than $10 million on its military, maybe $50 million annually, and yet, they have fought us to a standstill.  Shouldn’t we be getting out this year, instead of waiting for 2014, or as appears to be the case, staying permanently in a land where the people hate us?

Mr. President, we have been in Iraq for eight years.  We have spent hundreds of billions fighting the insurgents in Iraq.  Probably over a trillion dollars for the two wars – Afghanistan and Iraq – that are bleeding us, killing and injuring our young soldiers, ripping off the billions we send to rebuild their country, while our people are suffering in an economic crisis.  Within the past week, Iraq’s premier aligned Iraq with Syria and Iran, our declared enemies.  Syria is now engaged in killing its own citizens, shooting them down in the streets of Hama and other cities.  Does it make sense that you criticize Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, and now our supposed ally, the new Iraq, is supporting the butcher of Syria?  While he is doing that, The Times reports we are negotiating with Iraq to stay past the end of this year with no date set for our leaving.

We are told Iraq needs our soldiers to protect it until Iraqi soldiers become able to do so.  Mr. President, what happened to the Iraqi soldiers’ ability?  That army eight years ago was the terror of the region.  Mr. President, our country is hurting.  Please take the actions needed to assure us someone is in charge.

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August 15, 2011

I watched the eight Republican candidates debate among themselves last week.  Many of the opinion-makers of our country, early on decided to attack many of these candidates, most of whom either are themselves card-carrying members or adherents of the Tea Party as well as members of the Republican Party.  All are seeking Republican Party support while advocating Tea Party positions on major issues, e.g., reducing or eliminating entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and slashing federal government expenditures.

Candidates like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) have been described by some observers of the political scene as wackos or crazies.  I think those views are now changing.  I must admit here that I have used those words in describing the views of some candidates, but I won’t anymore.  The eight participants in the debate handled themselves extremely well.  While I was not persuaded by their arguments and views and remain a Democrat supporting many Democratic programs, I can well understand why they and their supporters demand changes in federal programs along the lines advocated by Tea Party philosophy.  Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll, coming in one percentage point ahead of Ron Paul.  Tim Pawlenty came in third and has withdrawn from the race.

Liberal philosophy has adopted the Keynesian position that in times of recession and depression, government must prime the pump and spend its way out to achieve better times.  The Tea Party view and that of the Conservative government of David Cameron in Great Britain adheres to the old-fashioned view that my mom often expressed:  “You don’t spend money you don’t have.”  That was my view when I was mayor of New York City and in my personal life.  I have two credit cards.  I have never paid charges on either of them over and above my actual purchases.  I am one of those customers the credit card companies hate and may lose money on, if they are dependent on the usurious rates of interest they receive from those using their credit cards as access to bank loans.

When I was Mayor, I supported then and do now a GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) balanced budget imposed by the state legislature requiring New York City to limit its operating budget to what was reasonable to expect the City to receive the year of the adopted budget.  The Tea Party believes in a balanced budget for the U.S. and wants to enact it into law by the adoption of a constitutional amendment.  Liberals are horrified with the idea.  My mother would have loved it.  It seems to me to make sense, provided there is an exception when the U.S. is at war.

We were a lower-middle class family when I grew up in Brooklyn.  Perhaps even poorer than we thought.  My father made $65 a week.  Our rent in Flatbush in 1941 was $65 a month – the then accepted ratio – and my parents were able to lead a reasonably decent lifestyle, bringing up three children and sending them to college.  I believe my parents values would be described as politically liberal.  Early on in my political career, I referred to myself as a liberal with sanity.

Mr. President, the country we all love is hurting enormously, with huge unemployment.  Isn’t it possible to create work programs like the WPA (Works Progress Administration) and spend monies on infrastructure for bullet trains, repairing roads and bridges that are falling down and other truly needed capital programs by creating what we don’t have now – a separate capital budget (which states and cities have) that would permit borrowing and pay the cost of a capital item over its expected life, instead of maintaining the single unified budget which the U.S. currently has?  I am not an economist, but shouldn’t that be considered?  The need for jobs with our unemployment rate in excess of 9 percent is universally accepted.

People everywhere are asking why don’t you call the Congress back from their unearned vacations to address the huge problems now facing the nation.  You can still win back the support of the public by publicly setting forth in detail your plan to address these enormous problems.  It should be a plan fashioned not on consensus, but your plan and if your political adversaries oppose it, so be it.  Then you must go over their heads to the vast public, appealing to its common sense, asking them to support you.  Take your plan into the next election and make your proposed programs the referendum on which the public will be voting in the presidential election of 2012.

Remember what Harry Truman did in 1948 with the do nothing Congress?  While Harry Truman is my political hero, you are far more eloquent than he was.  You can bring the nation to your side if you convince people that what you are asking them to do is to join hands in self-sacrifice, sharing the nation’s burden proportionately to their economic status.  We are a generous nation, a patriotic nation, a nation like no other in our diversity.  Today, we are so divided and feel leaderless.  You can bring us together and lead us to the promised land.

Mr. President, doesn’t it appear strange to you that the war in Afghanistan has been going on for ten years and this month of August, we have already sustained 51 deaths there?  We spend billions annually on the military budget.  Indeed, our military budget is equal in the aggregate to the military budgets of the next 17 nations.  I suspect the Taliban spends less than $10 million on its military, maybe $50 million annually, and yet, they have fought us to a standstill.  Shouldn’t we be getting out this year, instead of waiting for 2014, or as appears to be the case, staying permanently in a land where the people hate us?

Mr. President, we have been in Iraq for eight years.  We have spent hundreds of billions fighting the insurgents in Iraq.  Probably over a trillion dollars for the two wars – Afghanistan and Iraq – that are bleeding us, killing and injuring our young soldiers, ripping off the billions we send to rebuild their country, while our people are suffering in an economic crisis.  Within the past week, Iraq’s premier aligned Iraq with Syria and Iran, our declared enemies.  Syria is now engaged in killing its own citizens, shooting them down in the streets of Hama and other cities.  Does it make sense that you criticize Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, and now our supposed ally, the new Iraq, is supporting the butcher of Syria?  While he is doing that, The Times reports we are negotiating with Iraq to stay past the end of this year with no date set for our leaving.

We are told Iraq needs our soldiers to protect it until Iraqi soldiers become able to do so.  Mr. President, what happened to the Iraqi soldiers’ ability?  That army eight years ago was the terror of the region.  Mr. President, our country is hurting.  Please take the actions needed to assure us someone is in charge.

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August 15, 2011 I watched the eight Republican candidates debate among themselves last week.  Many of the opinion-makers of our country, early on decided to attack many of these candidates, most of whom either are themselves card-carrying members or adherents of the Tea Party as well as members of the Republican Party.  All are seeking [...]

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August 15, 2011 I watched the eight Republican candidates debate among themselves last week.  Many of the opinion-makers of our country, early on decided to attack many of these candidates, most of whom either are themselves card-carrying members or adherents of the Tea Party as well as members of the Republican Party.  All are seeking [...]

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The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but never dribbling (a minor adjustment never envisioned by Naismith) and final scores like 5-4. It wasn’t until Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century adopted the “ultimate city game”—and over the course of a few decades, from the ’20s to the ’50s, added innovations in play and strategy—that it went from one requiring brute strength to one that stressed skill and strategy. In their hands, basketball, first conceived as a simple, easy to play (but hard to master) game, became the crossover dribbling, three-point bombing sport that it is today.
Contrary to cultural stereotypes, early in the 20th century, most Jewish kids played basketball and played it well. The old schoolyard cliché that “any Jew great at sports was probably adopted” didn’t hold water. Those of us compelled to debunk the notion of Jews “without game” need look no further than the game of the ghettos during that golden era, when the sport was indeed considered the “Jewish game.” Because basketball requires very little in equipment at its bare root level, ghetto kids could improvise with makeshift paper balls shot through the lowest rung of the fire escape (backboards were unheard of). Leagues sponsored by YMHAs, yeshivas and synagogues flourished—in addition to the benefit of keeping kids off the corner and out of trouble, rabbis also realized that these teams served a greater purpose by ensuring that kids kept willingly coming back to shul.
Almost all Jewish neighborhoods had their own teams, rivalries were in fact fierce, and there was no question that the best ball in the era was played in New York and Philadelphia, the cities with the largest Jewish populations. For the chosen few, proficiency in shooting the rock could land one a college scholarship (often the only way a poor Jew could hope to attend) and provide a portal into middle class America. College basketball was one area of life where Jews were rarely denied the right to participate, certainly not the case in many other sports. Not surprisingly, many players stayed local, creating an era of elite college teams like City College of New York (CCNY), Long Island University (LIU), New York University and Temple. After a good college career, Jewish players on early semi-pro fives could earn as much as $5 a game, a veritable fortune back then.
During this era, so-called “Jew Ball” evolved—what was first used as a slur or, at best, a backhanded compliment, the term came to define the style of play that was later lauded as the “thinking man’s” game. Incorporating defense and constant motion with the aim of hitting the open man, it was the antithesis of the foul-plagued “football style” offense that prevailed in the early days. Indeed it was a style crucial to the later success of the college and pro game, and one that seminal coaches like Nat Holman and later his protégé Red Holzman, and later on his protégé Phil Jackson, would refine to perfection. Why, if that guy Naismith hadn’t come up with a few now-antiquated rules himself, you could almost say Jews invented modern basketball.
Just as stereotypes unfairly label today’s black players, many were foisted on the Jewish players in the ’20s and ’30s. Jew Ball provided an easy mark for journalists like Paul Gallico, the eminent sports editor of the NY Daily News who expressed the goy “excuse” in a 1930s column, stating that “the reason that basketball appeals to Hebrews is that the game places a premium on an alert scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart-aleckness.” Players who lost to all-Jewish teams whined that the shorter Jews had “God-given better balance and speed.” Genetic advantage or not, the fact is that in 1930, in the biggest college game of the year, with NYU facing CCNY (both teams were undefeated), 9 of the 10 starters were Jewish. How cool is that?
After the second World War, in an era when the hoopla of March Madness was as yet inconceivable and pro ball was still a curiosity, a handful of mostly eastern teams would battle in the once prestigious National Invitational Tournament (NIT) at Madison Square Garden in college basketball’s showcase event. NIT championship games, up until the ’50s, often included CCNY, LIU or St. John’s, schools that perennially produced some of the best and most innovative basketball in the nation and whose Jewish-laden rosters were the toast of the town. And when local Jewish fans checked their morning papers to find out how the rest of the best had fared, most looked first to see how the “Mighty Mites” of Yeshiva University had done against the other beasts of the east.
Those were the glory days for Jewish basketball, when players were still referred to as cagers (courts used to be ringed with wire or rope mesh to keep play continuous and protect players from abusive fans), when they shot and passed with two hands and when dunks were reserved for doughnuts—under the old rules, touching the rim was illegal. Sixty years before Air Jordans, $3 could get you a pair of black high-top Chuck Taylor All-Stars (and a hamburger and Coke for lunch), shorts were, well, short, and cheerleaders wore letter sweaters and ankle socks. Fans waved pennants, not Styrofoam fingers. Yes, it was a time when stars with names like Heyman, Schectman and Schayes pounded the hardwood, and the Jewish players were truly kings of the court.
By the late 1940s the heyday of the Jewish basketball star had diminished for a variety of cultural and demographic reasons, including a mass migration of middle-class Jews to the suburbs. The crushing blow was probably the point shaving scandal that rocked college basketball after the 1950 season. That many of the culprits were players from CCNY and NYU (who accepted money from gamblers to lose games on purpose or win games but by less than the point spread) proved to be a death knell for New York City college ball. But for what the game is now, we pay homage to its past with Chutzpah’s guide to Jewish basketball, A to Z.

By Len Canter

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The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but never dribbling (a minor adjustment never envisioned by Naismith) and final scores like 5-4. It wasn’t until Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century adopted the “ultimate city game”—and over the course of a few decades, from the ’20s to the ’50s, added innovations in play and strategy—that it went from one requiring brute strength to one that stressed skill and strategy. In their hands, basketball, first conceived as a simple, easy to play (but hard to master) game, became the crossover dribbling, three-point bombing sport that it is today.
Contrary to cultural stereotypes, early in the 20th century, most Jewish kids played basketball and played it well. The old schoolyard cliché that “any Jew great at sports was probably adopted” didn’t hold water. Those of us compelled to debunk the notion of Jews “without game” need look no further than the game of the ghettos during that golden era, when the sport was indeed considered the “Jewish game.” Because basketball requires very little in equipment at its bare root level, ghetto kids could improvise with makeshift paper balls shot through the lowest rung of the fire escape (backboards were unheard of). Leagues sponsored by YMHAs, yeshivas and synagogues flourished—in addition to the benefit of keeping kids off the corner and out of trouble, rabbis also realized that these teams served a greater purpose by ensuring that kids kept willingly coming back to shul.
Almost all Jewish neighborhoods had their own teams, rivalries were in fact fierce, and there was no question that the best ball in the era was played in New York and Philadelphia, the cities with the largest Jewish populations. For the chosen few, proficiency in shooting the rock could land one a college scholarship (often the only way a poor Jew could hope to attend) and provide a portal into middle class America. College basketball was one area of life where Jews were rarely denied the right to participate, certainly not the case in many other sports. Not surprisingly, many players stayed local, creating an era of elite college teams like City College of New York (CCNY), Long Island University (LIU), New York University and Temple. After a good college career, Jewish players on early semi-pro fives could earn as much as $5 a game, a veritable fortune back then.
During this era, so-called “Jew Ball” evolved—what was first used as a slur or, at best, a backhanded compliment, the term came to define the style of play that was later lauded as the “thinking man’s” game. Incorporating defense and constant motion with the aim of hitting the open man, it was the antithesis of the foul-plagued “football style” offense that prevailed in the early days. Indeed it was a style crucial to the later success of the college and pro game, and one that seminal coaches like Nat Holman and later his protégé Red Holzman, and later on his protégé Phil Jackson, would refine to perfection. Why, if that guy Naismith hadn’t come up with a few now-antiquated rules himself, you could almost say Jews invented modern basketball.
Just as stereotypes unfairly label today’s black players, many were foisted on the Jewish players in the ’20s and ’30s. Jew Ball provided an easy mark for journalists like Paul Gallico, the eminent sports editor of the NY Daily News who expressed the goy “excuse” in a 1930s column, stating that “the reason that basketball appeals to Hebrews is that the game places a premium on an alert scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart-aleckness.” Players who lost to all-Jewish teams whined that the shorter Jews had “God-given better balance and speed.” Genetic advantage or not, the fact is that in 1930, in the biggest college game of the year, with NYU facing CCNY (both teams were undefeated), 9 of the 10 starters were Jewish. How cool is that?
After the second World War, in an era when the hoopla of March Madness was as yet inconceivable and pro ball was still a curiosity, a handful of mostly eastern teams would battle in the once prestigious National Invitational Tournament (NIT) at Madison Square Garden in college basketball’s showcase event. NIT championship games, up until the ’50s, often included CCNY, LIU or St. John’s, schools that perennially produced some of the best and most innovative basketball in the nation and whose Jewish-laden rosters were the toast of the town. And when local Jewish fans checked their morning papers to find out how the rest of the best had fared, most looked first to see how the “Mighty Mites” of Yeshiva University had done against the other beasts of the east.
Those were the glory days for Jewish basketball, when players were still referred to as cagers (courts used to be ringed with wire or rope mesh to keep play continuous and protect players from abusive fans), when they shot and passed with two hands and when dunks were reserved for doughnuts—under the old rules, touching the rim was illegal. Sixty years before Air Jordans, $3 could get you a pair of black high-top Chuck Taylor All-Stars (and a hamburger and Coke for lunch), shorts were, well, short, and cheerleaders wore letter sweaters and ankle socks. Fans waved pennants, not Styrofoam fingers. Yes, it was a time when stars with names like Heyman, Schectman and Schayes pounded the hardwood, and the Jewish players were truly kings of the court.
By the late 1940s the heyday of the Jewish basketball star had diminished for a variety of cultural and demographic reasons, including a mass migration of middle-class Jews to the suburbs. The crushing blow was probably the point shaving scandal that rocked college basketball after the 1950 season. That many of the culprits were players from CCNY and NYU (who accepted money from gamblers to lose games on purpose or win games but by less than the point spread) proved to be a death knell for New York City college ball. But for what the game is now, we pay homage to its past with Chutzpah’s guide to Jewish basketball, A to Z.

By Len Canter

Start uga_filter:

The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but never dribbling (a minor adjustment never envisioned by Naismith) and final scores like 5-4. It wasn’t until Jewish immigrants [...]

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The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote “muscular Christianity.” That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but never dribbling (a minor adjustment never envisioned by Naismith) and final scores like 5-4. It wasn’t until Jewish immigrants [...]

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If you live in NYC you had the opportunity to taste a French macaron (as they say it) free on French Macaron Day, initiated here on Sunday March 20 by Francois Payard, one of the foremost émigré chocolatiers from the motherland. In a world where a single one of these cookies costs between $2 and $5 (and they are nowhere more overpriced than at Maison du Chocolat, albeit a bastion of silken ganache and other treats, but still…), it seemed almost worth the drive in from my hinterlands in CT…until I remembered that gas is $4 a gallon and a round trip is about 7 gallons, best case scenario.

Just to show you how reality can never keep pace with trendy, macarons are already considered passé in some dessert circles. But still many people haven’t heard of, much less tasted a macaron, so it’s understandable that the New York Times would announce the freebie in the food section last Wednesday and then report on the events in today’s paper. The reporter even took the time to explain that a macaron is not a macaroon as in Passover coconut cookie macaroon. HOWEVER, I have two salient points to make. 1. One “o” or two, these are perfect for Passover because almonds substitute for flour the same way coconut does and 2. We are privileged to include Joan Nathan’s recipes for a variety of flavors here and in the new issue of Chutzpah.

Like the chocolate-covered ganache Chanukah gelt we brought you in our last issue, you can make this on your own. Don’t worry about the cracks the Times warns of. Having had the original at Laduree in Paris and those at Pierre Herme and other Jean-come lately’s, I can assure you that yours will melt in your mouth as easily as theirs. Of course, you haven’t really lived until you’ve sat down and eaten an entire box (as I typically do after begging any family member and friend who visits Paris to bring them back to me).  If you’ve got the money for shipping, you can now get them from Florian Bellanger’s madmacnyc.com, he of Fauchon in Paris, Le Bernardin in NYC and most recently Cupcake Wars. And they’re reasonably priced. Don’t scoff at the rose flavor until you try it. Sublime!

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If you live in NYC you had the opportunity to taste a French macaron (as they say it) free on French Macaron Day, initiated here on Sunday March 20 by Francois Payard, one of the foremost émigré chocolatiers from the motherland. In a world where a single one of these cookies costs between $2 and $5 (and they are nowhere more overpriced than at Maison du Chocolat, albeit a bastion of silken ganache and other treats, but still…), it seemed almost worth the drive in from my hinterlands in CT…until I remembered that gas is $4 a gallon and a round trip is about 7 gallons, best case scenario.

Just to show you how reality can never keep pace with trendy, macarons are already considered passé in some dessert circles. But still many people haven’t heard of, much less tasted a macaron, so it’s understandable that the New York Times would announce the freebie in the food section last Wednesday and then report on the events in today’s paper. The reporter even took the time to explain that a macaron is not a macaroon as in Passover coconut cookie macaroon. HOWEVER, I have two salient points to make. 1. One “o” or two, these are perfect for Passover because almonds substitute for flour the same way coconut does and 2. We are privileged to include Joan Nathan’s recipes for a variety of flavors here and in the new issue of Chutzpah.

Like the chocolate-covered ganache Chanukah gelt we brought you in our last issue, you can make this on your own. Don’t worry about the cracks the Times warns of. Having had the original at Laduree in Paris and those at Pierre Herme and other Jean-come lately’s, I can assure you that yours will melt in your mouth as easily as theirs. Of course, you haven’t really lived until you’ve sat down and eaten an entire box (as I typically do after begging any family member and friend who visits Paris to bring them back to me).  If you’ve got the money for shipping, you can now get them from Florian Bellanger’s madmacnyc.com, he of Fauchon in Paris, Le Bernardin in NYC and most recently Cupcake Wars. And they’re reasonably priced. Don’t scoff at the rose flavor until you try it. Sublime!

Start uga_filter:

If you live in NYC you had the opportunity to taste a French macaron (as they say it) free on French Macaron Day, initiated here on Sunday March 20 by Francois Payard, one of the foremost émigré chocolatiers from the motherland. In a world where a single one of these cookies costs between $2 and [...]

Start uga_in_feed Ending uga_in_feed: Start uga_track_user Start uga_get_option: ignore_users uga_options: array ( 'internal_domains' => 'www.chutzpahmag.com,chutzpahmag.com', 'account_id' => 'UA-15887648-1', 'enable_tracker' => true, 'track_adm_pages' => true, 'ignore_users' => true, 'max_user_level' => '8', 'footer_hooked' => true, 'filter_content' => true, 'filter_comments' => true, 'filter_comment_authors' => true, 'track_ext_links' => true, 'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/', 'track_files' => true, 'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/', 'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc', 'track_mail_links' => true, 'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/andrew@chutzpahmag.com', 'debug' => true, 'check_updates' => true, 'version_sent' => '1.6.0', 'advanced_config' => true, ) Ending uga_get_option: ignore_users (1) Start uga_get_option: max_user_level uga_options: array ( 'internal_domains' => 'www.chutzpahmag.com,chutzpahmag.com', 'account_id' => 'UA-15887648-1', 'enable_tracker' => true, 'track_adm_pages' => true, 'ignore_users' => true, 'max_user_level' => '8', 'footer_hooked' => true, 'filter_content' => true, 'filter_comments' => true, 'filter_comment_authors' => true, 'track_ext_links' => true, 'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/', 'track_files' => true, 'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/', 'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc', 'track_mail_links' => true, 'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/andrew@chutzpahmag.com', 'debug' => true, 'check_updates' => true, 'version_sent' => '1.6.0', 'advanced_config' => true, ) Ending uga_get_option: max_user_level (8) Tracking user with level 0 Ending uga_track_user: 1 Calling preg_replace_callback: ]*?)href\s*=\s*['"](.*?)['"]([^>]*)>(.*?) Ending uga_filter:

If you live in NYC you had the opportunity to taste a French macaron (as they say it) free on French Macaron Day, initiated here on Sunday March 20 by Francois Payard, one of the foremost émigré chocolatiers from the motherland. In a world where a single one of these cookies costs between $2 and [...]

Start uga_wp_footer_track: Start uga_get_tracker Start uga_in_feed Ending uga_in_feed: Start uga_track_user Start uga_get_option: ignore_users uga_options: array ( 'internal_domains' => 'www.chutzpahmag.com,chutzpahmag.com', 'account_id' => 'UA-15887648-1', 'enable_tracker' => true, 'track_adm_pages' => true, 'ignore_users' => true, 'max_user_level' => '8', 'footer_hooked' => true, 'filter_content' => true, 'filter_comments' => true, 'filter_comment_authors' => true, 'track_ext_links' => true, 'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/', 'track_files' => true, 'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/', 'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc', 'track_mail_links' => true, 'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/andrew@chutzpahmag.com', 'debug' => true, 'check_updates' => true, 'version_sent' => '1.6.0', 'advanced_config' => true, ) Ending uga_get_option: ignore_users (1) Start uga_get_option: max_user_level uga_options: array ( 'internal_domains' => 'www.chutzpahmag.com,chutzpahmag.com', 'account_id' => 'UA-15887648-1', 'enable_tracker' => true, 'track_adm_pages' => true, 'ignore_users' => true, 'max_user_level' => '8', 'footer_hooked' => true, 'filter_content' => true, 'filter_comments' => true, 'filter_comment_authors' => true, 'track_ext_links' => true, 'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/', 'track_files' => true, 'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/', 'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc', 'track_mail_links' => true, 'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/andrew@chutzpahmag.com', 'debug' => true, 'check_updates' => true, 'version_sent' => '1.6.0', 'advanced_config' => true, ) Ending uga_get_option: max_user_level (8) Tracking user with level 0 Ending uga_track_user: 1 Start uga_get_option: account_id uga_options: array ( 'internal_domains' => 'www.chutzpahmag.com,chutzpahmag.com', 'account_id' => 'UA-15887648-1', 'enable_tracker' => true, 'track_adm_pages' => true, 'ignore_users' => true, 'max_user_level' => '8', 'footer_hooked' => true, 'filter_content' => true, 'filter_comments' => true, 'filter_comment_authors' => true, 'track_ext_links' => true, 'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/', 'track_files' => true, 'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/', 'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc', 'track_mail_links' => true, 'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/andrew@chutzpahmag.com', 'debug' => true, 'check_updates' => true, 'version_sent' => '1.6.0', 'advanced_config' => true, ) Ending uga_get_option: account_id (UA-15887648-1) Ending uga_get_tracker: Start uga_insert_html_once: footer, Footer hooked: HTML inserted: Location is FOOTER Inserting HTML End uga_insert_html Ending uga_wp_footer_track: Start uga_shutdown Start uga_in_feed Ending uga_in_feed: Start uga_track_user Start uga_get_option: ignore_users uga_options: array ( 'internal_domains' => 'www.chutzpahmag.com,chutzpahmag.com', 'account_id' => 'UA-15887648-1', 'enable_tracker' => true, 'track_adm_pages' => true, 'ignore_users' => true, 'max_user_level' => '8', 'footer_hooked' => true, 'filter_content' => true, 'filter_comments' => true, 'filter_comment_authors' => true, 'track_ext_links' => true, 'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/', 'track_files' => true, 'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/', 'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc', 'track_mail_links' => true, 'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/andrew@chutzpahmag.com', 'debug' => true, 'check_updates' => true, 'version_sent' => '1.6.0', 'advanced_config' => true, ) Ending uga_get_option: ignore_users (1) Start uga_get_option: max_user_level uga_options: array ( 'internal_domains' => 'www.chutzpahmag.com,chutzpahmag.com', 'account_id' => 'UA-15887648-1', 'enable_tracker' => true, 'track_adm_pages' => true, 'ignore_users' => true, 'max_user_level' => '8', 'footer_hooked' => true, 'filter_content' => true, 'filter_comments' => true, 'filter_comment_authors' => true, 'track_ext_links' => true, 'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/', 'track_files' => true, 'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/', 'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc', 'track_mail_links' => true, 'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/andrew@chutzpahmag.com', 'debug' => true, 'check_updates' => true, 'version_sent' => '1.6.0', 'advanced_config' => true, ) Ending uga_get_option: max_user_level (8) Tracking user with level 0 Ending uga_track_user: 1 Footer hook was executed Start uga_get_option: footer_hooked uga_options: array ( 'internal_domains' => 'www.chutzpahmag.com,chutzpahmag.com', 'account_id' => 'UA-15887648-1', 'enable_tracker' => true, 'track_adm_pages' => true, 'ignore_users' => true, 'max_user_level' => '8', 'footer_hooked' => true, 'filter_content' => true, 'filter_comments' => true, 'filter_comment_authors' => true, 'track_ext_links' => true, 'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/', 'track_files' => true, 'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/', 'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc', 'track_mail_links' => true, 'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/andrew@chutzpahmag.com', 'debug' => true, 'check_updates' => true, 'version_sent' => '1.6.0', 'advanced_config' => true, ) Ending uga_get_option: footer_hooked (1) Start uga_get_option: debug uga_options: array ( 'internal_domains' => 'www.chutzpahmag.com,chutzpahmag.com', 'account_id' => 'UA-15887648-1', 'enable_tracker' => true, 'track_adm_pages' => true, 'ignore_users' => true, 'max_user_level' => '8', 'footer_hooked' => true, 'filter_content' => true, 'filter_comments' => true, 'filter_comment_authors' => true, 'track_ext_links' => true, 'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/', 'track_files' => true, 'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/', 'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc', 'track_mail_links' => true, 'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/andrew@chutzpahmag.com', 'debug' => true, 'check_updates' => true, 'version_sent' => '1.6.0', 'advanced_config' => true, ) Ending uga_get_option: debug (1) -->