Bruce Feiler: September 2007 Archives

I'm scheduled to board a ship in Athens, Greece, this weekend and sail for Turkey, so I'll be offline for a few days. In the meantime, here are some links to some fascinating pieces I've enjoyed recently.

The first is from my longtime friend David Margolick about Elizabeth Eckford, the black schoolgirl dressed in white who walked through the jeering mob in Little Rock 50 years ago this week -- depicted in the famous photograph by Will Counts. Here's the link, and here's a piece about the controversy behind the piece.

The second is from Ann Patchett, the novelist from Nashville, who writes a wonderful piece about the quirky music of Music City.

And speaking of Ann Patchet, if you've got a few minutes and sometimes find yourself wondering what it's like to write a book, here's a wonderful clue: It's a piece on NPR about Ann's relationship with her "first reader," Elizabeth McCracken.

Some writers spend a life time writing about the place where they live. Some have strict routines and need to be surrounded by their favorite things in order to write.

Ann Patchett, author of the novel Bel Canto is not that kind of a writer. She says she can write anywhere — hotel rooms or airports if need be. And she is not interested in creating fiction based in Nashville, where she has lived most of her life. But what she cannot do without is a "first reader."

The WSJ opinion page explores how to get conservatives involved in interfaith relations.

There is an assumption by commentators on the right and the left that as far as religion goes, it is liberals who work--and care to work--across faith lines. Interfaith activity is understood as a politically and theologically liberal enterprise. This stems in part from the fact that the most widely recognized examples of interfaith cooperation have occurred on the left. Martin Luther King Jr.'s partnership with Abraham Joshua Heschel (the prominent Jewish theologian and civil-rights leader) is probably the most famous. Other figures who have reached across religious lines include The Very Reverend James Parks Morton (former dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine) and international icons like Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu.

But during my years at the Interfaith Center of New York, a nonprofit organization devoted to fostering interreligious civic relationships, I found that the stereotypes about who is willing to form partnerships were wrong. When the center first opened, we received enthusiastic support from liberals and were ignored by conservatives. Our programs looked diverse, and they were, religiously speaking. But participants were homogeneously liberal.

The more conservative religious folks were not interested in talking about spirituality, peace-building and social justice. So we refocused our programs to include seminars and information sessions on issues such as domestic violence, health-care access and immigration rights. Suddenly, every kind of religious leader came, including conservatives. Their religious perspectives did not change, but our assumptions did.

First step: Get enough paint.

I've been on Remsen street three times in the last 24 hours at the site of yesterday's random swastika painting. I've spoken to a number of people quite knowledgeable about the situation. Here's what I know: The best guess is that someone around 8 pm on Monday night took a can of black spray paint and started down by the East River and began randomly spraying carefully drawn, double-lined black swastikas on certain houses, on some cars, and eventually on two synagogues that are about four or five blocks away. The houses seem not to have been singled out because they were occupied by Jews. Apparently by the time they got to the second synagogue, the one where my daughters go to school, they must have run out of paint, because the swastika on the steps was not complete. What's been striking to the people who are close to the situation is that no damage was done to the synagogues, no vandalism, no rocks through windows, nobody tried to tear down the succah that stands right over where the painting was done. If this person or persons were hellbent on terrorizing Jews that would have been an easy step.

What's been troubling to officials, apparently, is that this person or persons then came back a few hours later and distributed some fliers that said negative things about Jews. This shows much more malicious forethought (and may have left fingerprints). All these things are being investigated, though I didn't get the sense that anyone expects anything to come of the investigation.

I personally was impressed that the folks I ran into and spoke to about this situation had a sense of calm and perspective. This is spray paint, not an existential threat to Jews, and given all the heads of state in town and the anxiety about the Middle East, one guess is that this might be the letting off of some steam about that issue. This weekend at least one of the synagogues will be decorating its succath. Next week they'll close off the streets and dance with the torah to celebrate reaching the end of the annual reading. My guess is that it will be more crowded than usual.

We're in full preschool phase-in mode around here. Anyone with young children will recognize the game. Our two-year-olds had their first day of a two-day-a-week preschool a week ago today. For the first day the parents go and stay in the room, then the parents are moved the next day to an adjacent room, then down the hall, the first day they go for one hour, then one hour and fifteen minutes, then an hour and a half, etc. The whole process takes nearly six weeks.

So this morning we get them up, into their "pink-a-liciou" and "blue-a-licious" clothes, have the fight over the proper color socks, manage to get a few bites of french toast down them, have the fight about whether they will walk or ride in the stroller, and then off the go. It's outrageiously cute, and effortful, Mrs. Feiler Faster then gets the FeilerFasterettes to day three of the phase in process as their school at the nearby synagogue. When suddenly: Police cars and news crews are swarming the building. The street is filled with people. Overnight, police found swastikas on two synagogues side by side in Brooklyn Heights.

Here's the NYDN. To see photos of the images, click here.

Twisted vandals spray-painted swastikas and hate messages on two synagogues and a number of other buildings and cars in a Brooklyn neighborhood last night, police said.

The foot-square Nazi symbol was painted in black atop the staircases to Congregation B'nai Avraham and the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue on Remsen St. in Brooklyn Heights sometime after 9 p.m., they said.

The foyer of a four-story apartment building at 45 Columbia Place, about a half mile away, was defaced with a 4-foot swastika under which was scrawled the message, "Kill Jews."

At least one other building and two cars were spray-painted on the two blocks.

Police said they had no suspects but were investigating.

Kevin Carberry, a sixtysomething real estate agent who found a swastika on his building on Columbia Place, said the vandalism didn't make sense.

"It's irrational and it's sad, but I don't think it has anything to do with me. I'm Irish. I've lived here all my life and I've never seen anything like this," he said.

Carberry and other victims suspected the vandals were teens out to cause trouble rather than true hatemongers.

"As for my place, I think I was just next in line," he said.

Apparently this is the second time this has happened in a week.

I have some experience with swastikas and synagogues. The synagogue I grew up in in Savannah, GA, is across the square from Jim Williams' house. Jim, of course, is the murderer in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. He often complained about parking during the high holidays and once hung a Nazi flag on the front of his house. He was a pretty despicable person, and his love of guns didn't make him more charming. Later, he shot his gay lover and not any of us.

Having said that, I have not normally been someone who is overly concerned about the painting of swastikas as graffiti, which happens fairly regularly these days around the world. Obviously it's unnerving, and the image of my daughters climbing up a set of stairs painted with a swastika is sickening, even stomach turning. I feel the impulse of rage.

But my guess is that this is probably some hooligans proud of themselves. I certainly hope that's all that it is, and maybe we'll find out. The idea that an increase in these incidents is the mark of a rise in anti-Semitism strikes me as questionable. Maybe it's becaue I grew up in the South not that long ago where individual anti-Semitism (not that directed at Israel) was a fact of life. Either way, I'm glad police are investigating. I doubt they're find out who did it. (Maybe all those security cameras?) But I hardly think that even two incidents in a week in Brooklyn is a mark that anti-Jewish sentiment is surging in New York City.

First thoughts while watching the extraordinary debate at Columbia today. Lee Bolinger gave a passionate, thoughtful introduction that was a mastery of deft put down. It will likely be viewed as a classic and I thought it was extremely well composed (love the "Would you wipe us out, too?" line), but I thought it was unduly harsh, considering, as the president of Iran later said, Columbia had invited him. It also showed how Americans are capably of viewing the situation with Iran through only one prism: our own.

By contrast, the professor who handled the Q&A did a much more masterful job pressing his questions, insiting on a follow-up, and not allowing Ahmadinjead to fillibuster tough questions.

As for the president, his glib slipperiness was evidently on display. Everyone can have a favorite moment, but the one that will come back to haunt him most, I predict, will be the one on homosexuality: "We don't have that problem in our country." I was personally at a co-ed, straight-gay party in Tehran in 2000 where the host would defy this proclamation. His answer about women will satisfy few inside or outside his country: That they are respected. By your standards alone.

But one of the more telling moments for me involved something that I've written about here in the past, namely the distinction he drew between Jews and Zionists. Whatever else you think about the president, his point his true: That Iranians can accept Jews living in their country while also calling for the destruction of Israel makes sense to many Iranians, including Iranian Jews.

My other impression, switching among CNN, FOX, and MSNBC, is that the American cable media are completely buying into the neo-con, brinksmanship hook, line, and sinker. And they don't even realize it; there simply is no alternative voice being articulated in the mainstream media. Props, though, to Shep Smith on FOX for pointing out to John Bolton that maybe it was a sign of strength that Americans could listen to the president of Iran. Bolton, as you might imgaine, was having none of it. "You can hear Ahmadinejad anytime you want on the Internet." Would that that be the only place we could hear Mr. Bolton.

A race for the gutter in Washington this week, as United States congressmen trip over themselves to stoke the flames of the religious wars. So a question: Who is a greater threat to America's security, AIPAC, which Democratic Congressman Jim...

The NYT jumps on genital mutiliation bandwagon, so to speak, with an article about how Egyptians are bonding together to fight so-called Female Genital Mutilation. This at the same time that a trial is underway in Washington State on the...

Just when I thought the talk about circumcision might die down around here, along comes a lawsuit in Seattle: A convert to Judaism wants to circumcize his 12-year-old son, but the man's estranged wife (the boy's mother) is objecting. A...

Genius website? Or big disappointment? http://www.speedtrap.org/speedtraps/stetlist.asp....

Or is it the media? Do we really need a report in every media outlet that Croc shoes can get caught in escalators and threaten the health of Western civilization? They're plastic. They're easily washable. They work. One of the...

America is at war with itself over Iran, or at least the Administration is. Over the weekend, I saw multiple reports about infighting in the U.S. government between the bomb-them-now hardliners under Dick Cheney and the talk-to-them-and-wait moderates under Rice....

Google is preparing to sue the starters of JewTube claiming copyright infringement, but Yahoo avoided doing the same over Jewhoo. What is the Jew.S.A. coming to? Come to think of it, maybe we should start a contest for the best...

Happy New Year to Jews out there, who are probably not exactly celebrating the occasion by checking out a blog. But in case you're not reading the NYT either, I couldn't resist pointing out a sentence deep in my friend...

As many of you know, I'm working on a new book about the Bible in America. One of the things I write about is the Liberty Bell, which has a quote from Leviticus 25 on its side. The words say,...

The biggest crisis in the entertainment business that you've never heard of, and may not even care about, is the crisis of finding circus acts. This problem has fascinated me since my year as a circus clown some years back....

So far, God seems to be the big loser in the '08 election. Defying every prognostication, the candidates leading in the polls -- Rudy and Hillary -- are viewed as the least religious. And the "most religious" candidate on the...

Forget the world, it's Barbie's rear end that is truly flat. The LAT traces progress by tracking the MADE IN _______ sticker on Barbie's tushie.While feminists have long vilified Mattel's iconic creation as a destructive role model for girls --...

The obituary of God is being written on the bestseller lists these days, as we all know. But now the latest chapter in the Death of God sweepstakes seems to be written ... in synagogue! The Reform movement has written...

I was looking around the Internet yesterday for some information about how God asked the Israelites to the sign the covenant at Sinai -- at one point he has them sprinkle blood -- when I stumbled onto this exchange with...

The question of how much the Internet will change the Middle East, or other dictatorships, has swirled in recent years. Egyptians authorities have clamped down on bloggers in a number of high-profile cases. But news seeks light, as Cairo is...

CNN called as I was on the Brooklyn Bridge this morning reporting that my appearance has been bumped by Larry Craig playing footsie with the justice system and a terror plot in Germany....

My appearance on CNN scheduled for last week, has now been scheduled for [Update: 8:30 AM] Wednesday morning. To refresh, this grew out of the TIME cover on Mother Teresa and her doubts about faith and the question I was...

I'm bumping this entry back to the fore today because it's experiencing increased traffic. I'm the father of two-year-old girls, so I've not faced the issue of whether to circumcise my children or not. My guess is that my wife...

Howard Dean tells Muslims to run for office to get their message heard. Smart. The GOP ignores the largest Muslim gathering in the country. Stupid. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told American Muslims gathered in Rosemont to think beyond...

Valedictorians strike me as people who know how to follow instructions. Hardly the rebellious type. I should know. I was the Valedicotrian of the Savannah Country Day School class of 1983. And my honor came with a speech, as such...

I've wanted to try this restaurant in Chicago ever since my friends at GOURMET announced last October that it was the best in the country. Now, a devastating article explaining how its master chef has tongue cancer: A year after...

My brother passed along this summary from the WSJ about a TNR article on the booming number of converts to the Russian Orthodox church among disenchanted evangelicals:The Orthodox Church is attracting an increasing number of disenchanted evangelical Christians in the...

A sudden surge in talk about bombing Iran in coming weeks. My email box got a few hits this weekend from friends pointing to articles about the idea that the U.S. might bomb Iran in coming weeks. The talk seems...