Shabbat Eve
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December 24, 2021
A New Scroll of LA Jewish News
Folks,
Some days, you have to accentuate the NEGATIVE. Early this week, one of our sons, who has been visiting with us, tested positive for COVID-19 (he is feeling better, thank you). Since then, Brenda and I have been taking home-tests to see if we have it too (so far, no.) What do I do while waiting the 10-15 minutes for the line or lines on the test strip to appear? I make nervous jokes, attempt to read anything that is nearby, and pray. Though we have both been fully immunized, there is no shot to protect us from angst and the horror stories of the daily news. In times of surge, I find myself revisiting the words of Modeh Ani (Find them HERE), which acknowledges God’s compassion in restoring us to life each day. “I am grateful to you,” it begins.
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Shabbat shalom
Edmon J. Rodman
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GUIDE FOR THE JEWPLEXED
When Malka Meets Santa
A Chassidic Kris Kringle? Maybe when Shabbat falls on Christmas Eve.
Edmon J. Rodman
As quietly as rising challah, Jews prepare for Christmas.
Slipping a favorite DVD into the player, then popping open a take-out carton or two of Kung Pao something, we make ready for a quiet December’s eve.
But before you get shluffy from all that MSG, let me recommend a film to consider for a Christmas Eve from my personal collection of imaginary films. It’s called “When Malka Met Santa.”
I know, I know: It sounds like a direct-to-cable holiday movie even more suspect than “Santa Conquers the Martians.” Nonetheless, it’s a film that could be playing near you soon, opening Dec. 24, or whenever Christmas Eve lands on Shabbat.
The two stars of this soon-to-be released film — A-listers Shabbat HaMalka, the Sabbath Queen, and Santa Claus — rarely perform together. But when they do, they offer the Jewish audience a peak into a story of religious conflict and tension beyond the usual December dilemma fare. A critic might wonder: Do these two really need to share screen time? Don’t they appeal to different audiences?
Just look at their conflicting styles.
Santa, whose late-night performances are known to millions, likes to clandestinely drop into homes through the chimney. He hails from the North Pole.
On the other hand HaMalka, the shechina, the feminine presence that Jews welcome into their households and synagogues every Friday night, doesn’t need a chimney to enter a scene. Like Elijah, she’s more of a front-door type. And HaMalka hails from a more mystical background.
The accidental co-stars do have something in common; both have theme music written by Jews. But HaMalka’s, “L’Cha Dodi,” found on her “Kabbalat Shabbat” soundtrack and everybody’s mix list, doesn’t rely on red-nose reindeers in white Christmas dreams for flavor.
She prefers a more regal approach: “Come my beloved, with chorus of praise” begins the song that introduces her presence to her worldwide audience.
As to audience, each has a different approach to treating their fans.
Once a year, Santa makes the rounds offering his loyal base a reward. His “naughty or nice” list is a major meme.
HaMalka makes the rounds once a week, every week. She visits without spotlights or outdoor displays, or making judgments. You can’t sit on her lap. And she travels light, preferring a less materialistic approach. HaMalka brings only, as her song goes, an idealistic “new light.”
Santa, of course, is known for his big reveal, the audience give-away — the fancy wrapping and tantalizingly large package under the tree. It’s a broad performance that fills one with wonder: Is the packaging more intriguing than the contents?
HaMalka, according to her fans, is the total package. Not to sound like her publicist, but she’s a peaceful Shabbat guest host whose easy feeling performances bring her fans through the week.
To one of HaMalka’s biggest fans, Abraham Heschel, the idea of a Sabbath Queen, or bride, signified “majesty tempered with mercy and delicate innocence that is waiting for affection.”
Santa engenders affection, too. His fans write songs to him hoping that he’ll “hurry down” their chimneys and bring them gifts like “two front teeth.”
After imagining them on screen together, I have to admit I didn’t see much chemistry. Santa is more of a physical comedy guy, while HaMalka goes for a more spiritual presence.
He’s always up on rooftops, sometimes sliding off them, while the trades compare HaMalka to a fountain of blessings and say she’s simply radiant.
So where does this mismatched couple meet?
In Malibu, of course, where all the celebrities hook up.
As the scene plays out, it’s sunset at the end of a long work week and Santa, before beginning his long night of deliveries, stops for a break on a deserted stretch of beach. In the distance he sees a vision in white walking slowly toward him as his sleigh bells suddenly start to go “Bim-bam.”
Now folks, if you think for one moment that as the sun sets, HaMalka and Santa meet on the sand, and the Sabbath Queen greets the Ho Ho Guy with “Shabbat Shalom,” and she climbs into his sleigh and they go for a ride, and then she talks him into taking Shabbat off …
And as they fly over LA, after hearing a loud chorus of L’cha Dodi coming from a synagogue, they land in the temple’s parking lot, where because every car’s alarm goes off the congregants all rush outside and are greeted by the HaMalka and “HaSanta,” who donates everything in his bag to the temple’s teen group’s toy drive …
If you think that’s how “When Malka Meets Santa” ends, wow, do you need a break from all the rum-pa-pa-bumming in your ho-ho-ho home.
Actually, after sharing a moment on the beach, the two agree to keep their relationship professional, meeting only occasionally for Chinese takeout.
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Vintage jacket tells a rebellious Jewish story
Elan Rodman
Recently, I went on a thrift adventure to the South Bay, looking to score some wearable artifacts for my upcoming pop-up sale at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. As I wandered around the racks of a giant Salvation Army in Lawndale, I discovered a brown leather jacket with a faded tag that said “Schott” inside. A couple days later, I was browsing shops on La Brea and discovered that Schott, a company that specializes in leather goods, had a flagship store there.
Little did I know, this vintage find and boutique has a Jewish connection that zips neatly into the history of leather jackets from coast-to-coast.
Schott was founded in 1913 by Jewish brothers named Jack and Irving Schott in New York City. They began their careers as peddlers working in the garment industry in lower Manhattan. From there, they transformed horse hides, cow hides, zippers (they were one of the first to put a zipper on a jacket) into functional sartorial statements for motor cycle riders, various sub-cultures, and the U.S. military.
During World War I, the brothers were commissioned by the U.S. Army to design a jacket for the air force and the “Bomber” jacket was born. After WWII, bomber jackets became commercially accessible and Schott Brothers had a major hit on their hands. In the 1960’s, even The Jewish Velvet Underground member Lou Reed can be seen wearing one.
Leather jackets made by Schott have also found a place in American pop culture. In the rebel rousing “The Wild Ones,” Marlon Brando dons a Perfecto Schott Motorcycle jacket, stitching the Schott brothers’ work into the fabric of cult recognition. As a result, motorcycle jackets after WWII, according to Schott’s website, “Were Banned” in U.S. schools over fears of a “Hoodlum” culture developing.
By 2014, however, the jacket design had earned museum status, as a Schott biker jacket was included as an “iconic symbol of rebellion, function, and ‘cool,’” at an exhibition at the Museum at FIT, New York’s famed Fashion Institute of Technology.
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Have the blahs from the fa-la-la-la-lahs?
Even at this tinsel time of the year, the re-lit neon lights of LA’s Broadway shine through with the little-known story of the city’s Jewish history. Many of street’s 12 movie theaters, including the Palace, were designed by Jewish architects like G. Albert Lansburgh, or conceived by Jewish showmen, like Sid Grauman.
Other historic buildings found on Broadway were the homes of Jewish-owned department stores, men’s and women’s clothing shops, jewelry stores, food markets, and cigar stands.
Over the last year, I have been collecting artifacts of Broadway’s past, researching and walking the street, getting a feel for the Jewish life that once flourished there. To share that work with you, I will be leading a walking tour of the street called “Jewish Lights Over Broadway" on Sunday, January 16 from 7 to 9 p.m.
The tour, organized with the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, the tour (RESERVATIONS REQUIRED, make them HERE) illuminates how the Jewish entrepreneurs of Broadway, many of them immigrants, filled the street with bright lights, and the city’s homes with music, the latest in fashion, and the staples required to satisfy a hungry, growing city.
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Seen On the Way: Terminal Annex US Post Office
If you are seeking some cultural stimulation during the coming winter holiday plan to spend some time with Boris Deutsch at the downtown Terminal Annex Post Office. On the Annex's interior walls, Deutsch, a Jewish artist who didn’t just mail it in, painted a spectacular series of 11 tempera on plaster “lunettes” depicting “Cultural Contributions of North, South, and Central America.”
How does a painter from Lithuania get a commission to paint indigenous South and Central Americans in quetzal feather headdresses in a U.S. Post Office? In 1939, Deutsch won a U.S. Treasury Department competition. His theme “Culture of the Americas,” completed in 1944, shows scenes of indigenous peoples, as well as science and industry.
During the Great Depression, Deutsch also painted murals for the post office in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, and Reedley, California.
Born in Lithuania in 1892, Deutsch attended cheder in Berslov, and later studied art at the Riga Polytechnical Institute. He came to Seattle in 1916, and moved to Los Angeles around 1920. While continuing to paint, he supported himself with work at the Famous Plyers Lasky Studios. By 1923, he left the studio, and caught the attention of the local art scene and the Jewish community with his canvasses “portraying the sorrows of the downtrodden Jew,” said the local Jewish press.
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