Esther Kustanowitz: January 2009 Archives

Before "Loving Leah" even Sunday night in California, the east coast calls began. The first call came from my parents. "I hope you're watching this," they said. I had plans, I told them, and wouldn't be home for it. Then my friend Suzy called in. "Are you watching this? You need to watch this because I need you to tell me if all this crazy stuff is true."

"This crazy stuff" is the film's basic premise: a young Hasidic widow becomes part of a Levirate marriage, an obscure, rarely-if-at-all observed Jewish ruling in which she marries her late husband's unmarried brother in order to provide the deceased with an heir post-mortem-- I explained what I knew: that the ritual itself was real and not invented, and yes, the deceased's brother can really exempt himself from it by spitting into a shoe. But I had to admit that I had no idea if anyone really did that nowadays, or whether it was being presented accurately and respectfully in the show.

Late last week news broke that someone was trying to extort the Travolta family for $20 million, but no one seemed to know the details. Some thought that the extortion money was to suppress photos taken at the time of Jett Travolta's death (a horrible thought, if I may editorialize, that paparazzi would intrude on such a time in a family's life, even if they are celebrities/public figures).

TMZ's latest report has some additional details that negate the above theory, but the reason for the extortion is still not completely known:

We have now confirmed that the alleged extortion attempt does not involve pictures of Jett as he was dying. As for what the extortion attempt is about....no one will say.

UPDATE: We've confirmed the alleged extortion is over the circumstances surrounding Jett's death, but we have no more specifics. And, we've learned, it was Travolta's reps who contacted cops and lodged the complaint

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This kind of extortion plot and media attention must be a horrible addition to what is already a terrible time for the family. I hope that this is the last we hear of extortion plots against a grieving family, and that they can get back to mourning their son.

As I watched the season premiere of "Lost" Wednesday night on ABC, it occurred to me that all of pop culture's flash forwards and flashbacks (done masterfully here, in my opinion, as well as in "Damages" and other shows) owe a debt of gratitude to "Pulp Fiction" - with its many characters whose lives interlock in ways they don't know about, but which the audience is privy to through a series of seemingly disjointed anecdotal scenes that, despite their perceived randomness, together do create a contiguous plot.

Maybe it's my tendency to look at everything through a spirituality/pop culture lens, but it seems to me that TV's themes - justice and retribution, good and evil, crime and punishment, sins of parents being visited upon the next generation, etc - are also inherited from the Biblical literary tradition.

When I was studying Torah text in yeshiva day school, we would occasionally encounter a phrase that seemed out of place, or which recounted an event that hadn't yet happened in the linear reading of the text. Our teachers would note a principle that roughly translated to "there is no chronological order in the Bible":

The principle of ein mukdam umeauchar is usually explained as follows: "The Torah did not care to for chronology and chapters that were given first are preceded by those given later (Rashi Pesachim 6b)." In other words, the Torah is arranged by topics, not chronology. ".. For more on this see The AishDas Society website.

What is it about Latin American countries and the Blessed Virgin? First there was the Mexican Playboy featuring a sexy Mary on the cover. And now, according to Reuters, fashion designer Ricardo Oyarzun has "sparked outrage in Chile by dressing up models like the Virgin Mary -- in some cases with ample, near-naked breasts."

The designer defends his show:

"There is no pornography here, there's no sex, there are no virgins menstruating or feeling each other up," Oyarzun said ahead of the catwalk show set to be held at a Santiago nightclub later on Thursday. "This is artistic expression."

On the other hand, a local Episcopal Conference condemned the show, but, interestingly, without ever using the word "sex":

"We look on with special pain and deplore those acts which seek to tarnish manifestations of sincere love toward the Virgin Mary, which end up striking at the dignity of womankind by presenting her as an object of consumption," Chile's Episcopal Conference, which includes Catholic bishops, said in a statement.

Sexualizing the Virgin Mary seems to be the artistic expression du jour, but be warned, as in Oyarzun's case, you may be the target of threatening phone calls and have your doorstep smeared with excrement. It is obviously not the most modest presentation of the Virgin Mary, and done in service of fashion, perhaps the intentions are less reverential than religious art and iconography. Still...

Sure, you've heard of Anne Frank. But what about Hannah Senesh?

In 1944, Hungarian-born poet Hannah Senesh was safe in Palestine, working the land with a group of young Zionist immigrants, most of whom had fled European persecution. But when word of Hitler's Final Solution reached Senesh and her friends, a small group of them volunteered to go back and rescue Jews. They parachuted back into Hungary, where Hannah was captured, imprisoned, tortured and eventually executed for treason. Her mother, who had been unable to leave Hungary, was a witness to her daughter's heroism; after Hannah's execution and her own subsequent deportation on a death march, Hannah's mother escaped, and lived to tell both her and her daughter's stories. Many of Hannah's writings survived the war and have become part of the canon of beloved Israeli literature.

Now this relatively unknown story gains some visibility with "Blessed is the Match," a new documentary directed by Roberta Grossman, an experienced and award-winning filmmaker. The film (watch the trailer) has some Hollywood weight to it, with "Friends" creator Marta Kauffman as executive producer ("Weeds" creator Jenji Kohan is also listed in the credits). The remarkably filmed picture also features the voices of Joan Allen and Alona Tal, giving voice to the diaried words of Catherine and Hannah Senesh.

It's hard to keep track of what celebs are up to. Starting with the Jen-Brad-Angelina thing: In a recent interview, Jennifer Aniston called Angelina Jolie "uncool" for starting a relationship with her then-husband Brad Pitt. Now Pitt is setting the...

I always wonder what new angle writers will take when tackling the complex issues involved in the dating scene, both in the fiction and non-fiction realms, and what their reasons are. I mean, the books pile up year after year:...

Whether you knew him as Tommy on "Eight is Enough," Buddy Lembeck on "Charles in Charge," "that guy who yelled at the cameraman" on "Celebrity Fit Club," or even occasional alter ego Bibleman, Willie Aames has been in and out...