NY Jewish books: The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus
I'm a a poet, translator, book reviewer, journalist, & Shoshana Cooper's trophy husband. Download my two poetry collections from my website and buy my translation of Rachel Eshed's Little Promises. Also see my website, my Live Journal, my blogs on posterous, wordpress, and blogspot, my Facebook profile, my professional Facebook page, my Twitter profile, and my Friendfeed; see my Google profile for a more comprehensive list of my web 2.0 websites.
My translation of Israeli poet Rachel Eshed's book Little Promises is published in a bilingual edition by Mayapple Press. In its Hebrew original, this collection of intense erotic poetry won the 1992 AKUM prize in Israel. Novelist Tsipi Keller says, "It is hard to speak of Rachel Eshed's poetry without mentioning 'fire' : her poems virtually burn on the page, and David Cooper's renditions not only do justice to the original but magnify its richness." I am the author of two poetry collections, "Glued To The Sky" and "JFK: Lines of Fire" (Burlington VT: PulpBits, 2003). PulpBits went out of business in March 2007. Read these ebooks online at BookRix or download them on my website. My co-author and I are writing I Am My Beloved's, a collection of interviews and photographs of Jewish-American couples that explores the intersection of each couple's identities as a couple and as Jews and will reflect the diversity of the Jewish-American community. I cover the NY Jewish Culture beat for Examiner.com, review books for New York Journal of Books, and have taught history, poetry, and writing on the middle school, high school, and college levels.
My interests include Poetry, Literary Fiction, Modern Art, Jazz, Art House and foreign Cinema, Sex, Judaism, History, and Liberal Politics. I'm married to absract painter Shoshana Cooper, and we share our home with Sasson, a Peterbald cat. My Jewish identity is very strong, and on most Saturday mornings and early afternoons you would probably find Shoshana and me at our local synagogue , Park Slope Jewish Center. For those familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator I am an INFP or maybe an XNFP since the I is not very pronounced. I have non-hyperactive ADD ( the quiet version) and am fairly even tempered.
In addition to non-hyperactive ADD I also have allergies, asthma, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, primary lower limb lymphedema, and am a prostate cancer survivor. Lymphedema occurs when the lymphatic system is unable to adequately drain lymph fluid from an affected and thus swollen limb. I control my condition by performing a time consuming maintenance regimen which includes keeping to a low fat, very low sodium diet, sleeping in a soft cast with velcro straps that I can tighten to the correct degree of compression, wearing thigh high compression stockings in the daytime, showering in the evening before putting on the cast, performing a form of gentle self- massage to open the lymph vessels, prescribed breathing and floor exercises wearing the cast before going to bed at night, and repeating the exercises in the morning. I usually eat breakfast before exercising--it's well into the morning before I can actually start my day. Performing the evening part of the regimen precludes going out at night and has curtailed our social life somewhat.
Shoshana and I both look forward to the day a decade from now when she can retire from her day job, leave its stresses behind, and be a full time artist. I also look forward to the day when medical science finds cures for my various chronic ailments, especially lymphedema.
Arthur Green on Abraham Joshua Heschel and Hasidism
Rabbi Jeff Marker’s synopsis of Arthur Green’s talk on Abraham Joshua Heschel and Hasidism.
“For Heschel the most significant mitzvot areFeeding the poor, ending war, marching with MLK.
These are spiritual acts, not just political.
These are the acts for which we were created.“Heschel’s God was very personal, but we must do the work for God.”Originally posted by at Arthur Green on Abraham Joshua Heschel and Hasidism
On Thursday evening I went to the Abraham Joshua Heschel School and heard a lecture by Arthur Green titled “What Heschel Learned From Hasidism.” Green was a close student of Heschel when he was a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in the 1960s. It was a brilliant talk, though I thought I would share what I managed to take down and remember.
First of all, Green said, Heschel would have hated the title of the talk. He did not like divisions in Jewish life. He bridged worlds and was critical of all of them. He wrote about many of them.
Heschel was a living link to the lost world of Jewish Europe. In his first real appearance on the public stage in Americal, at YIVO in 1944, he spoke about that lost world. He later expanded this into his book “The Earth is the Lord’s.” Around the same time, in 1943-44, he reclaimed his middle name. Before that he was known, and wrote as, Abraham Heschel. After this he was Abraham Joshua Heschel. This was the name of his famous great great grandfather and reflected his Hassidic identity. His family was from the Ukrainian school of hasidism which was a kind of peasant hasidism. His father was an immigrant to Warsaw which was generally dominated by the Ger/Kutsk school, which was more rational and skeptical of miracle workers and similar stories. There were no yeshivas reflecting his heritage, and his early education was under the influence of Ger. Heschel later said he lived between these two worlds, Medzibush and Kutsk.Heschel grew to see the Hasidic world as “small minded” and wanted a secular education. It would have been a scandal for him, scion of a Hasidic dynasty, to go to a secular gymnasium in Warsaw. His tutor arranged for him to attend a gymnasium in Vilna, a center of the anti-Hasidic misnagdim. After a year he enrolled in university in Berlin. He also wrote poetry. In time he learned to speak in Biblical language which was accessible to both Jews and Chrisitians.So, what did Heschel learn from Hasidism? Green says five things, and he will especially expand on the fifth.A sense of wonder - “The whole world is full of God’s glory!”There is nothing you can proveReligious truth is about testifying, not proving. His book “The Sabbath” is an expansion on ideas in
“Sfas Emes,” a book by an earlier Gerer rebbe.He understood the need for charismatic religious figures, but saw corruption in the Hasidic world.
So he went back to the prophets as his authentic “rebbes.”
(Buber, the outsider, could romanticize Hasidic leaders, not Heschel)
His lecture “Did Maimonedes think he had attained prophesy?” actually applies to him also.
He did become a prophetic figure, and saw it in Martin Luther King Jr. which led him to accept it also in himself.
There is a Hasidic expression “Zogt Torah” - to speak Torah (different from to learn or teach).
The word IS the Torah.Chesed and Simcha - Loving Kindness and Joy
Even his criticism is through chesed.
His Judaism is of love and joy. He rarely spoke about sin or repentance (unlike Solevetchik)
He focuses on action, to do good, not focus on sin and guilt. There not much reference to Messianism. He is more interested in We redeeming God, not God redeeming us.“God in Search of Man” - God needs us!
The way we act is meaningful to God, it makes a difference, even in a cosmic sense.
(This is contrary to Mainmonedes who says God is perfect, has no needs)
This idea goes back to Ramban, Nachmanedes. Mitzvot bring the Shechinah out of exile.Heschel traced this debate back to Rabbis Akiba and Ishmael in the second century of the common era.
Ishmael - the Mishkan (Tabernacle) is only post Golden Calf. The people need it.
Akiba - Mishkan is renewal of creation, full of secrets of creation.Heschel derived this from Hasidism
For early hasidim, all mitzvot/acts have cosmic significance.
For later hasidim, the acts of the rebbes have this significance.For Heschel the most significant mitzvot are
Feeding the poor, ending war, marching with MLK.
These are spiritual acts, not just political.
These are the acts for which we were created.Heschel’s God was very personal, but we must do the work for God
(still balancing Metzibush and Kutsk)These are my rough notes on a very polished talk, but I hope they give a sense of it.
The Economist: new research challenges Chomsky’s linguistics
Apr 14th 2011 | from the print edition
The evolution of language
Babel or babble?
Languages all have their roots in the same part of the world. But they are not as similar to each other as was once thought
2011 Jewish fiction and poetry books
2011 Jewish fiction and poetry books (a list of Jewish fiction and poetry books I reviewed in the past year).
Farewell Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011)
Video portrait by John Feldman of artist Helen Frankenthaler commissioned by Purchase College School of the Arts for the 2008 Nelson A. Rockerfeller awards.
NY Times critic’s notebook: Two Artists Who Embraced Freedom
My political prediction for 2012 (based on absolutely no inside information): Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden swap places. Biden becomes Secretary of State — a position he’s apparently coveted for years. And Hillary Clinton, Vice President.
So the Democratic ticket for 2012 is Obama-Clinton.
Why…
Rape culture is when men feel so entitled to have access to women that they throw bowling balls at us when they are denied.
(via knittingknots)
2 book reviews: “The Break” and “Underground Time” — New York Journal of Books
Thanks to a change in the publication date of one of the books I have two reviews published on the same day. Both are novels in translation, one from Italian and the other from French.
“The Break is reminiscent of Italian neo-realist cinema of the late 1940s and is enthusiastically recommended to all readers. Kudos to Howard Curtis for a wonderful translation.” This paperback is printed on high quality paper with a handsome wrap-around cover.
“Because Underground Time’s prose largely lacks the delicious density of the best literary fiction in translation, it appears to target a middlebrow readership. But readers with highbrow tastes may want to make an exception to their usual literary fare on account of its social criticism.”
Read these and my other book reviews on New York Journal of Books.
