December 8, 2014: Legendary folksinger Woody Guthrie and his Chanukah songs

By Michael Regenstreif

On page 17 of this issue, there is a JTA Chanukah feature that centres on a current exhibit at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, which focuses on the relationship of Chanukah music and Christmas music, specifically noting contributions of Jews like Irving Berlin, the composer of “White Christmas,” to Christmas music and of non-Jews like legendary folksinger Woody Guthrie to Chanukah music.

I was particularly happy to see the mention of Guthrie in the article as I’ve been interested in Guthrie and his songs and other writings since I was a teenager. Guthrie, one of the most important and most influential folksingers of the 20th century, wrote thousands of songs in a period of about a decade-and-a-half beginning in the late-1930s, the best known of which is “This Land is Your Land.” The vast majority of those songs were never recorded. Most were unseen and unknown sets of lyrics, without sheet music, in Guthrie’s notebooks and other papers.

In the 1990s, my friend Nora Guthrie – Guthrie’s daughter – began to organize her father’s archives. Coming across these thousands of unknown and unheard songs, she began to recruit appropriate contemporary composers to set some of them to new music. About 15 years ago, Nora told me that she’d found dozens and dozens of Jewish-themed songs in the Woody Guthrie Archives and was going to ask the Klezmatics – one of the greatest of contemporary klezmer bands – to work on some of them.

Now, I knew that Marjorie Mazia Guthrie (née Greenblatt), Woody Guthrie’s second wife, and Nora and her brother Arlo’s mother, was Jewish. And I had the two Chanukah songs that Guthrie recorded in 1949 in my CD collection. But I’d no idea of all the other Jewish-themed songs (nor did Nora until she discovered them in the archives). There were many more Chanukah songs, songs about Jewish history, spirituality and culture, and many celebrating the predominately Jewish neighbourhood of Coney Island in Brooklyn, where the Guthrie family lived in the 1940s and ’50s. One song, “Ilsa Koch,” written in 1947, was one of the first contemporary songs to ever address the horrors of the Holocaust.

Around the time she discovered those Jewish-themed songs in her father’s papers, Nora also learned that her grandmother, Aliza Greenblatt – whom she just knew and thought of as her “bubbie” – was a famed Yiddish poet and passionate Zionist. In researching these Jewish-themed songs of her father’s, as well as her grandmother’s work, she came to understand the profound influence the Ukrainian-born Yiddish poet had on the Oklahoma-born folksinger and songwriter. The Klezmatics eventually, recorded two CDs of Woody Guthrie’s Jewish-themed songs. One of them, Wonder Wheel received the 2006 Grammy for Best Contemporary World Music Album. The other CD is Happy Joyous Hanukkah, a wonderful collection of Guthrie’s Chanukah songs, which range from silly kids’ songs to “The Many and the Few,” a long ballad that is a near-perfect telling of the Chanukah legend told from the points-of-view of many of the important figures in the legend. Near the end of the song, Guthrie writes from the perspective of the City of Jerusalem in which the legend’s Chanukah miracle takes place.

“The Many and the Few” is one of the two Chanukah songs that Guthrie himself recorded in 1949, just a few months after Israel’s War of Independence, a time when Jerusalem was divided and Jews had no access to the Western Wall, the last remnant of the ancient Jewish Temple so central to the Chanukah legend.

“My name is Jerusalem where Judah came back/To build up my Temple once more/To cut down the weeds and thorny brush/That grows ‘round my windows and doors/Whole stones, whole stones, we’ll build and pray/To God as a wholehearted Jew,” Guthrie sang, implicitly linking Jerusalem, the Temple and the Jewish people to the new modern state and its capital

Happy Chanukah!

November 24, 2014: New film explains connections between Judaism, the Jewish people, and the Land of Israel

By Michael Regenstreif

One of the ugliest aspects of the movement to delegitimize the State of Israel is the denial of the deep historical and religious connections of Judaism and the Jewish people to the Holy Land – a denial that also seems to be at the root of the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, the nation-state of the Jewish people. The late Palestinian Authority (PA) president Yasser Arafat, for example, rejected the historical existence of the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, a deceit that seems to remain as PA policy.

American filmmaker Gloria Greenfield has responded brilliantly to this effort at delegitimization with Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation, a documentary in which 36 talking heads – including academic, religious and legal experts – explain the ongoing centrality of the Land of Israel, and of Jerusalem, to Judaism and the Jewish people, the constant presence of Jewish people there from ancient biblical times to the present, and the legal case for the modern state.

Earlier this month, I attended the Canadian premiere of Body and Soul, presented by the Free Thinking Film Society at the Library and Archives Canada auditorium – an evening that also included a question-and-answer period with Greenfield and Rabbi Reuven Bulka.

Although there is little in Body and Soul that will surprise anyone who has studied Jewish history seriously, the commentaries are fascinating. Among those interviewed in the film are such religious experts as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, and Rabbi Jeffrey Woolf, an authority on the relationships between Judaism, Christianity and Islam; renowned academics, including historian Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University and Robert S. Wistrich of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, probably the world’s leading expert on antisemitism; and legal experts, including MP Irwin Cotler, a former minister of justice of Canada, renowned Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, and Alan Baker, a former Israeli ambassador to Canada.

The evidence these and the other experts in the film cite – including religious texts, archeology and historical records – is compelling, and Greenfield has woven all of the various strands and commentaries together beautifully in the 65-minute presentation. This is a film I strongly encourage all in the community to see at the earliest opportunity. It seems to me this is a film that should be shown at schools, synagogues and community centres. It is also available on DVD. Visit www.bodyandsoulthemovie.com for more information about the film and to view the trailer.

Mazel Tov, Harvey Glatt!

As some know, I have long been active in the Canadian folk music scene. So, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I extend a hearty mazel tov to community member Harvey Glatt, who will receive the Unsung Hero Award at the 2014 Canadian Folk Music Awards ceremony on Saturday night, November 29. The annual event moves from city to city and region to region around the country and takes place this year at the Bronson Centre in Ottawa.

The Unsung Hero Award is presented in recognition of “the exceptional contribution of an individual, group or organization to any aspect of the Canadian folk music scene.”

That Ottawa, today, boasts one of the most active folk music scenes in Canada is, in many ways, due to Harvey’s pioneering efforts as a concert producer, artist manager, record store owner and radio station owner. For many decades, he, along with his wife Louise, has been one of Ottawa’s most important and influential patrons of the arts. Their patronage, I would add, is equally significant in the folk, classical and jazz worlds, and in the theatre scene, too.

There are three major awards of this type on the Canadian folk scene, and, with the Unsung Hero Award, Harvey will have received all three. Just last month, he received Folk Music Ontario’s Estelle Klein Award, which is presented annually for “significant contributions to Ontario’s folk music community,” and he was the 2010 recipient of the Ottawa Folk Festival’s Helen Verger Award, which is presented annually to “an individual who has made significant, sustained contributions to folk/roots music in Canada.”

November 10, 2014: A day that strengthened our understanding of what it means to be Canadian

By Michael Regenstreif

It was a sad, scary and strange day here in Ottawa.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014 was so very sad, of course, because Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a Canadian Forces reservist standing ceremonial guard at our National War Memorial, was murdered, shot cowardly in the back by a terrorist, leaving behind a five-year-old son he was, by all accounts, devoted to.

It was a scary day. As quickly as the news broke of the attack at the War Memorial, we heard that Parliament itself – the very seat of our Canadian democracy – was under attack. The Hill and much of downtown Ottawa was locked down as reports of gunfire in Centre Block quickly spread through the city.

It was, we learned, the same gunman who shot Cirillo at the War Memorial that launched the attack on Parliament. And it all happened so fast, apparently less than two minutes from the time of the Cirillo murder until he entered Centre Block. Samearn Son, a brave security guard on duty at the door, saw the gun and tried to wrestle it away. Son was shot in the foot (he was treated at the Ottawa Hospital and released), but his actions alerted security staff to the danger.

House of Commons Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, a veteran former RCMP officer, quickly went to his office, retrieved his firearm and, with other security officers and RCMP officers, engaged the attacker in a gunfight killing him.

All this took place while the parties were holding their weekly Wednesday morning caucus meetings. The Conservative Party – including the prime minister and cabinet ministers – and New Democratic Party meetings, in fact, were taking place behind closed doors in the very corridor, the Hall of Honour, where the shoot-out took place.

Although the terrorist was killed just moments after his spree began at the War Memorial before 10 am, Ottawa remained a scary place for many more hours through the rest of the morning, the afternoon and well into the evening.

Although it turned out he was a lone wolf, there were initial reports of two, possibly three terrorists on the loose in downtown Ottawa or in the wooded areas behind the Parliament buildings.

There was an early report of shots fired near the Château Laurier Hotel, literally just steps from both the National War Memorial and Parliament Hill, which turned out not to be true. Then there were reports of shots fired in the nearby Rideau Centre shopping mall. Later, those reports changed to shots fired somewhere outside the Rideau Centre. These reports also turned out to be false.

Meanwhile, cell phone networks all over Ottawa were overloaded and jammed for hours. MPs, Hill staffers and people working in offices blocks away remained under lockdown as rumours swirled through the city. And, when the Ottawa Police and RCMP held a news conference at 2:15 pm, they did not seem to yet know how many suspects were involved. The situation, they said, was “ongoing.”

Not just sad and scary, it was an altogether strange day in Ottawa. The normal rhythms of our city were thrown off as we tried to understand and cope with the brutal murder of the soldier at the War Memorial, the attack on Parliament, and of just not knowing what was going on.

The prime minister, we were told, had been taken to an undisclosed safe location. It would be 10 hours before we heard from him.

And it was on Twitter at 12:40 pm from Employment and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney that we learned the soldier shot at the War Memorial had died. Why were we hearing this in a tweet from the employment minister and not from an announcement by the defence minister or the minister of public safety?

It was also a day that brought us together. We came together in grief over the heartbreaking loss of Nathan Cirillo, in admiration for the valiant efforts of those on the scene who tried to save him, and in awe of the bravery of Kevin Vickers and the police and security officials who protected Parliament and the city.

It was a sad, scary and strange day. A day we will not soon forget. But it was a day that strengthened our understanding of what it means to be Canadian.

October 22, 2014: Shimon Peres still inspires as he looks for new job

By Michael Regenstreif

“So now what?” asks the caption at the beginning of a hilarious and inspiring five-minute video that follows 91-year-old Shimon Peres as he cleans out his former office and goes looking for a new job.

At the employment office, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning former president and prime minister of Israel – who served in some sort of high-level position since the founding of the modern state – is told he has no practical experience before being sent off on a series of job try-outs as a gas station attendant, security guard, supermarket cashier, pizza deliveryman, stand-up comedian, and skydiving instructor.

Interacting with the people he encounters at these various jobs, Peres – with wit, humour and economy of words – offers brief words of wisdom that touch on such themes as peace, hope, remarkable accomplishments like the Entebbe rescue, and Israel’s emergence as a high-tech start-up nation.

Watching the video, I was reminded of the three days in May 2012 I followed Peres – then the world’s oldest head of state – on his visit to Ottawa. I particularly remember standing a few feet away at the National Gallery of Canada, at a reception hosted by the Embassy of Israel, as he gave a riveting speech, which hit on many of the same themes as the video.

Along with several other topics, such as the enduring Canada-Israel friendship, Peres spoke without notes about the State of Israel – its past, its present and its future – about the changes then sweeping across the Middle East, and about science and technology, making predictions about breakthroughs to come well into the future. He even cracked some jokes foreshadowing his bit as a comedian in the video.

Peres was inspirational on his visit to Ottawa, and he is again in the video.

The video ends with a quote from Peres, “You are as great as the cause that you serve, and as young as your dreams.” It is a reminder that Israel, our communities, whether there or here in the Diaspora, and all of us as individuals, have hopes and dreams that we must continue to strive toward.

Yidlife Crisis

Speaking of entertaining videos, YidLife Crisis, a new web series out of Montreal, has been sweeping the Jewish world over the past few weeks. Inspired by what creators Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion describe as the Yiddish rhythms and sensibilities inherent in such TV shows as Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Each five-minute episode – the first four are now online at www.yidlifecrisis.com – features Chaimie (Elman) and Leizer (Batalion), both in their 30s, engaged in often funny conversations and arguments in Yiddish (with English subtitles).

Echoing the discussions that used to take place between Jerry and George in the coffee shop on Seinfeld, Chaimie and Leizer’s encounters also take place over food in Mile End, Montreal’s old Jewish neighbourhood that is now a multicultural area equally famous for its Old World Chasids and New World hipsters.

In the first episode, Chaimie and Leizer break the Yom Kippur fast over poutine. In others, they meet for smoked meat and Greek food.

The best of the first four episodes has the pair walking from the iconic St. Viateur Street bagel bakery to the equally iconic bagel shop a few blocks away on Fairmount Avenue while engaged in Talmudic-like debate over which has the better bagel – an unresolvable argument familiar to almost anyone from Montreal. The pair of Chasidic men, about their same age, they encounter along the way appear to be engaged in actual Talmudic discussion.

Warning: Not everything Chaimie and Leizer eat is kosher and some of the dialogue is not for the easily offended. The series is rated “Chai+ (18 and over).”