WeWriWa—Raizel’s flashback

April 14, 2024April 14, 2024 ~ Carrie-Anne ~ 1 Comment

weekend_writing_warriorsveteransbadge_4

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

This comes from “Rising from the Rubble,” from Saga VII (the 2000s) of my magnum opus Cinnimin, which begins on 12 September 2001. Eighteen-year-old Raizel Brandt-van Acker, who was brought to safety with seconds to spare, is now in NYU Downtown Hospital with broken legs and ribs, stitches in her head, migraines, smoke inhalation, and PTSD.

She expected to find talkshows when she turned on the TV in the morning, but instead was confronted with horrifying replays of what happened yesterday, on every single channel. Most of these things she never saw because she was inside almost the entire time. These images trigger her into an intense flashback.

Raizel gasped for breath as she mentally replayed that moment when her tower had violently shaken again and a fireball soared up through her limited line of vision on the floor. In her mind, she wasn’t safe in the hospital, but still pinned under the desk on the 91st floor as acrid smoke choked the air and flames crept down from upper stories. The bed gave the illusion of shaking as though there were an earthquake, and her ears madly rang, as she replayed that fatal moment her life had been turned upside-down forever. If only she hadn’t gone to the window to investigate the source of the strange loud noise coming closer and closer, she might not have been trapped alone, and she would’ve been able to evacuate on foot immediately. Now she was a helpless hospital patient who couldn’t walk, all because curiosity got the better of her at the worst possible time.

“Just breathe in and out, Miss,” she heard an unfamiliar female voice instructing. “Take long, slow, deep breaths. You need to breathe normally for the sake of your recovery, particularly your broken ribs.”

Raizel was jolted back to her surroundings by this reminder that she was far from the grisly scene being replayed on TV, and in a very safe place. She focused on her breathing and took the requested slow, deep, long breaths to get air back into her lungs.

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

Within a few minutes, the terror had passed, and she was inhaling and exhaling normally again.

“Isn’t there anything else on TV but news?” Raizel asked, speaking slowly to avoid losing control again. “I don’t want to see all that on every channel. Bad enough I had to live through it yesterday.”

The nurse shut off the TV. “All the major stations are broadcasting news nonstop. It’s just like when JFK was assassinated when I was a child. Normal life won’t resume for quite some time. Why don’t you have some breakfast and then go back to sleep? You need a lot of rest after major surgery. I’ll also send orders to refill your IVs. My name is Denise, by the way. I’m your morning nurse.”

The Jewish Museum of New York City (המוזיאון היהודי של ניו יורק)

April 11, 2024April 1, 2024 ~ Carrie-Anne ~ 1 Comment

New York City’s Jewish Museum is at 1109 Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side, along Museum Mile. The building started life as the mansion of German-born financier Felix M. Warburg, and was built from 1907–08. Architect Charles Pierrepont Henry Gilbert designed it in Châteauesque style.

Felix’s widow Frieda sold the mansion to architect Emery Roth and developer Henry Kaufman in 1941, but when the plans to convert it into an apartment failed, Frieda bought back her property. In 1944, she donated it to the Jewish Theological Seminary for what would’ve been Felix’s 73rd birthday.

JTS redesigned it and converted it into a museum, which had a preview of its very first exhibit on 6 May 1947. Two days later, it officially opened for business. Frieda, who hadn’t been inside since she sold it, reported, “I discovered to my joy that instead of depressing me, it gave me a wonderful feeling of happiness.”

A sculpture garden next door, designed by Adam List, was dedicated in 1959. The lawn, which took up most of the original property, was replaced in 1962 by a new annex for more exhibits.

After a lot of back and forth debate between JTS, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, Manhattan Community Board 8, and local residents, the museum was designated a city landmark on 24 November 1981, and added to the National Register of Historic Places on 29 October 1982.

The museum was compelled to expand in 1985, since there was only space for a few hundred objects, despite 14,000 being in the collection. The original plans were for a separate building, but in 1988, they hired architect Kevin Roche to design an identical seven-story annex north of the museum.

Construction started in 1990, and the museum temporarily relocated to the New York Historical Society during the next two and a half years.

The original objects in the museum, a Judaica collection, were housed at the JTS library before moving to the former Felix M. Warburg House. After getting several hundred more objects donated, they created, still on their own premises, the Museum of Jewish Ceremonial Objects. Even more donations followed, including 350 precious treasures sent from Poland in 1939 as a protective measure.

In 1952, the U.S. Military Government gave the museum 120 recovered pieces of Judaica that had been looted by the Nazis.

Today, the museum has almost 30,000 objects. After turning towards a strong focus on modern art in the Sixties, they’ve since returned to their original mission of Jewish art and culture. On display are paintings, sculptures, Judaica, holiday cards, photographs, prints, books, coins, and archaeological treasures, from Antiquity to current times and every corner of the Diaspora. They have the largest collection of Judaica and Jewish art outside of Israel.

In 1972, they successfully negotiated the acquisition of almost 600 ancient artifacts from Israel.

Artists in the museum include Marc Chagall, Reuven Rubin, Man Ray, James Tissot, Alfred Stieglitz, Adolph Gottlieb, Isidor Kaufmann, Maurycy Minkowski, Theresa Bernstein, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Emmanuel Mané-Katz, and Édouard Moyse.

Throughout its history, the museum has hosted many provocative, groundbreaking, unique exhibitions, such as Primary Structures (1966), Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art (2002), Too Jewish?: Challenging Traditional Identities (1996), Houdini: Art and Magic (2010), The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth, and Justice (1987), and Gardens and Ghettos: The Art of Jewish Life in Italy (1986).

Wall mosaic from Isfahan, Iran, Copyright Wikipedia Loves Art participant “The_Grotto,” Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic

The museum partners with Film at Lincoln Center for the annual New York Jewish Film Festival (started in 1991), which screens international documentaries, shorts, and features telling all kinds of stories, as well as restorations of classic films.

In addition to the usual types of art and Judaica, they also have unique items like a carousel horse carved by Charles Carmel ca. 1914, in the Coney Island style.

The museum is the oldest surviving Jewish museum in the world and the very first U.S. Jewish museum. Never one to rest on their laurels, museum curators continue to hold intriguing, thoughtful, innovative exhibits, as well as weekly programming to get kids interested in art and special monthly tours for the disabled.

Museum website

WeWriWa—Waking to a new reality

April 7, 2024April 7, 2024 ~ Carrie-Anne ~ 2 Comments

weekend_writing_warriorsveteransbadge_4

This is the opening of the second section of “Rising from the Rubble,” from Saga VII (the 2000s) of my magnum opus Cinnimin, which begins on 12 September 2001. While 23-year-old survivors Mancika and Ammiel have escaped to a safe, healing haven in the Poconos, 18-year-old Raizel Brandt-van Acker is stuck in NYU Hospital.

Raizel was brought to safety with seconds to spare, and she now has broken legs and ribs, stitches in her head, and a migraine disorder. Yesterday she had surgery to install external fixators in her legs. Though her father begged to take her home to New Jersey to recover, the doctor said it was far too soon for her to leave.

Raizel awoke in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room full of strange objects. Her confusion increased when she became aware of dull aches in her ribs and legs, two IVs in her left arm connected to nearly-empty bags of mystery fluids, and foreign objects in her lower leg bones and on the back of her head. Sitting on a chair was a large plastic bag, and her purse was on a nightstand. Then a sensation of shivering struck her, though she was covered by several blankets.

Only when she saw the teddybear and stuffed Dalmatian tucked under her arms did it slowly start to dawn on her. She wasn’t waking from the strangest dream of her life, but waking in the hospital she’d been taken to after the worst real-life experience ever. Instead of putting on some of the nice new clothes she’d bought for her new life at NYU, she had no choice but to wear an ugly hospital gown for the next few months, and instead of going to breakfast at one of NYU’s kosher eateries, she could only eat milkshakes, broth, and yoghurt for the near future.

She wouldn’t be going to her part-time waitressing job at Windows on the World or her classes either. No one had any work in a building that no longer existed, and it was impossible to go to school in such an injured, traumatized state.

Raizel reached for the nearby remote control and turned on the TV, which was affixed to the ceiling by a moveable arm.

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

The clock on the wall indicated 9:00, so there must be some talkshows on the air. Those were always fun to watch when she was home from school, even if her parents nagged about how they weren’t intelligent entertainment and probably featured some guests just making up wild stories for their fifteen minutes of fame.

Instead of the crazy, hilarious antics of Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Maury, Ricki Lake, or Sally Jessy Raphael, Raizel’s eyes filled with the sight of the macabre, sprawling pile of rubble she had very narrowly escaped being buried alive in. She’d only gotten a limited view from a safe distance in triage yesterday, but now she could see the entire pile stretched out on all sides, smoke and flames rising from it, a cruel commingling of tower walls, cement, shattered glass, wood, paper, metal, the gutted remains of buildings, and a strange thick dust coating everything. A menacing cloud held court in the air above, as though a nuclear bomb had gone off.

Forverts (פֿאָרווערטס)

April 6, 2024March 17, 2024 ~ Carrie-Anne ~ 2 Comments

Forverts (Forward) started its life as a daily Yiddish-language newspaper on 22 April 1897, published in New York City. Its founders were Abraham Cahan (7 July 1860–31 August 1951) and Louis E. Miller, né Efim Samuilovich Bandes (1866–1927), who based their new paper’s name on Vorwärts, the newspaper published by the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

Forverts was the political successor of another Yiddish Socialist newspaper, Di Arbeter Tsaytung (The Workman’s Paper), which ran from 1890–94 and merged with Dos Abend Blatt (The Evening Paper) as its evening supplement.

Abraham Cahan

Mr. Cahan became full-time manager and sole editor of Forverts in 1903. Under his watch, it went from a niche publication for people in a very specific political party, with all of 6,000 subscribers, to a beloved, integral part of the city’s Yiddish-speaking Jewish community.

One of the most popular features was A Bintel Brief (A Bundle of Letters), where Mr. Cahan answered heartfelt letters from readers with all sorts of questions and worries. As time marched on, these issues changed from immigration-related (e.g., how much to assimilate, working on Shabbos, MIA husbands) to the aftermath of the Shoah, vegetarianism, interfaith marriage, TV addiction, and Christmas trees.

Pictured on the front page is the Forverts building

It’s also fascinating to see how sensibilities and common beliefs shifted. E.g., a man in 1906 was very unorthodoxly advised by Mr. Cahan to not marry the mother of his stillborn child (whom he no longer loved) but instead to help her to attain her own independence. He also suggested the woman pretend to be a divorcée to avoid her future husband slut-shaming her.

Then a spokesman for a group of 68 people who regularly met to debate various topics wrote in, completely disagreeing with Mr. Cahan’s advice. Their consensus was that the young people marry and learn to love one another, because ZOMG, just think of the scandal otherwise!

Compare that to how many people today no longer blink an eye at non-virginal brides!

Some fellow Jewish journalists weren’t very happy at how Mr. Cahan wrote about a wide range of topics in Forverts, but he didn’t want to limit his audience. His newspaper was instrumental in helping many new immigrants to become acclimated to America, something they couldn’t fully do if they were immersed in an old-country bubble.

Over the years, Forverts gradually evolved from a Democratic Socialist to a Social Democratic newspaper, supporting such core causes as the labor movement, a living wage, safe and humane working conditions, free education, universal healthcare, and eradicating poverty.

By 1912, circulation was 120,000, and it had risen to become one of the leading American city newspapers by the late Twenties and early Thirties, with over 275,000 subscribers. Due to the disgusting “Emergency Immigration Quota” of 1921 and 1924, those numbers dropped to 170,000 by 1939.

Forverts was the first paper to publish Fred Beal’s firsthand accounts of the devastating Holodomor, Stalin’s planned genocidal famine in Ukraine, while many other leftist papers refused to touch the story or even believe it. Their labor editor, Harry Lang, had visited the USSR and knew Mr. Beal’s testimony was tragically true.

Daily circulation had plummeted to 56,126 by 1962, with 59,636 Sunday subscribers. As a result, the daily publication schedule changed to weekly by 1983, and they added an English supplement. Most people just didn’t speak or read Yiddish anymore, apart from the Chasidic community centered in Brooklyn.

The English supplement became a separate weekly paper called The Forward in 1990, and had 26,183 subscribers by 2000. Meanwhile, the Yiddish version only had 7,000 subscribers and was fast losing even more circulation. As of this date, Yiddish subscribers are holding even at around 5,500, with an unexpected boost from university students studying the language.

Forverts remains one of only two non-Chasidic Yiddish newspapers in publication. (The other is Birobidzhaner Shtern [The Birobidzhan Star] in Russia.)

From 2013–17, it was published biweekly in both English and Yiddish, and online daily, each with their own separate contents. There was also a Russian-language edition from 1995–2004, which diverged significantly from The Forward’s longstanding left-wing politics. In May 2007, three years after being sold to Russian American Jews for Israel, it was renamed The Forum.

In July 2016, The Forward became a monthly magazine. Its final print newspaper was published 30 June 2016, bringing almost 120 years of history to an end. It’s now published exclusively online, in both English and Yiddish.

Forverts occupied a ten-story building at 175 Broadway on the Lower East Side during its golden era, completed in 1912 and designed by architect George Boehm, across the street from Seward Park. In 1974, declining circulation compelled them to seek a more modest HQ. The building was converted to condos in the Nineties.

Their office is currently in the Financial District.

The Forward has won 119 Rockower Awards since 2020, recognizing excellence in Jewish journalism, and four Religion News Association Awards. It was also nominated for a James Beard Association Award in 2020.

Searchable archives
English edition (paywall currently removed)
Yiddish edition
Selections from the Bintel Brief
Bintel Brief curriculum guide for educators
Books by Abraham Cahan

Eldridge Street Synagogue (בית הכנסת ברחוב אלדרידג)

April 5, 2024March 15, 2024 ~ Carrie-Anne ~ 7 Comments

Eldridge Street Synagogue, located at 12 Eldridge St. on the Lower East Side (in a portion of the neighborhood that overlaps with Chinatown), was completed in 1887 and among the earliest American synagogues built for the Orthodox Ashkenazic (Eastern European) community. Prior, most synagogues were Sephardic (Spanish and Portuguese) or German Reform. But with the huge influx of immigrants from the Pale of Settlement fleeing Tsar Aleksandr III’s pogroms, demographics swiftly began changing.

The congregation was named Kahal Adath Jeshurun (Community Assembly of Yeshurun [a poetic name for the People of Israel, which also comes from a root meaning “upright”]). One of its founders was Rabbi Eliahu Borok, formerly Head Rabbi of St. Petersburg.

Architects Peter and Francis William Herter were German Catholics who immigrated in 1884 and had never constructed a synagogue before. They chose a Moorish Revival style, with marble columns, stained-glass rose windows, sweeping arches, a vaulted ceiling with painted gilded stars, hand-stenciled walls, and glass and brass chandeliers. They put twelve rondels on the façade, representing the Twelve Tribes of Israel, as well as five arches for the five books of the Torah and four wooden doors for the four Matriarchs.

The local community as well as professional critics loved it, leading the Herter Brothers to earn many more commissions, mostly for tenements (at least fifty). Though these were Old Law tenements, they had much better lighting and ventilation than the bare minimum mandated by law. Their trademark was a Magen David etched on the doors.

Until the building of this grand synagogue, most Eastern European immigrants had been worshipping in repurposed stores, tenements, carriage houses, outbuildings, stables, stores, social halls, former churches. Unlike the established German and Sephardic Jewish communities, these people didn’t have much money. And without money, there was little choice but to stay clustered in the very densely-populated Lower East Side instead of moving uptown or to the outer boroughs.

As many as 800 families belonged to Eldridge Street Synagogue from its inception till 1920, its golden heyday. There were a thousand seats, and during the High Holy Days, cops had to patrol the streets to make sure the crowds didn’t get out of control. This wasn’t just a shul, but a makeshift settlement house, a place where new immigrants could learn English, get job pointers, eat, secure loans, find housing, and get help for sick and dying loved ones.

Eventually, many of the congregants’ economic fortunes turned around, and they were able to leave the Lower East Side for less crowded neighborhoods. The racist, nativist, xenophobic, eugenics-inspired “Emergency Immigration Quota” of 1921 (made even more ridiculously strict in 1924) also severely limited the number of new immigrants. Those who remained on the Lower East Side then got an additional blow in the form of the Great Depression.

Fewer and fewer people used the main sanctuary, though it still hosted a number of important, large events. The building began falling into disrepair, and people moved into the cellar study hall for worship during the 1950s. In that same decade, rain leaking from the roof and weakened stairs necessitated the synagogue being cordoned off. The original east rose window was also damaged by weather. No photos or drawings of it are known to survive.

The Eldridge Street Project was founded in 1986 to restore the magnificent, historic building and use it for cultural and educational programs, as well as bringing religious services back. In 1989, a skeleton was discovered in the cellar.

The renovation, which cost $20 million, finished on 2 December 2007. The former synagogue was reopened to the public as the Museum at Eldridge Street. In this new incarnation, it hosts tours of the building with lessons on American Jewish history, immigration, and the Lower East Side. There are also religious services, but not in the main sanctuary.

In 1996, the synagogue was designated a National Historic Landmark.