Semnal Editorial: La anul, la Ierusalim, o carte, de Angela Furtuna

A apărut volumul intitulat La anul, la Ierusalim, o carte, – Maree şi memorii culturale – Vol. I, de Angela FURTUNĂ, editat de Biblioteca Bucovinei “I.G.Sbiera”, 2009, cu o copertă de Devis GREBU, 350 p.

Cartea conţine capitole de dialoguri şi eseuri, note de lectură, analize şi meditaţii vizând paradigmele culturale şi politice europene, relaţiile de comunicare dintre românism, europenism şi iudaism, teme inedite din istoria mentalităţilor culturale. O secţiune aparte a volumului aduce un omagiu limbii ebraice, simbolismului şi expresivităţii sale lirice, pe linia articulării dintre noetică şi noematică.

Informaţia vastă, abordarea cărturărească şi analiza aplicată oferă, în acest prim volum, răspunsuri la întrebarea: de ce una din cele mai mari pierderi înregistrate de România şi Europa ultimului secol a fost tezaurul culturii iudaice.
Volumul este aşezat sub auspiciile reflecţiei lucide a mai multor gânditori, întemeindu-se pe raţiune, înţelepciune, moderaţie şi originalitate în interpretarea istoriei culturii şi civilizaţiei de joncţiune dintre iudaism şi europenism, respectiv românism:

Te duci şi citeşti ce-au scris şi alţii, în alte culturi, fără presiunea utilităţii imediate, dar mereu atent. Trebuie să aştepţi activ ideile noi, căutând peste tot…(Moshe Idel).

Popoarele între dânsele nu sunt decât ramurile unuia şi aceluiaşi copac şi, astfel, mi-a fost dat să-mi găsesc patria în trecutul neamului meu şi, totdeodată, în mijlocul poporului în care m-am născut…(Moses Gaster).

Realitatea continuă să fie ocultată şi ignorată…

(Vladimir Tismăneanu).

Şi să mă culegi din nou din risipirea în care m-am risipit în mii de bucăţele, când, îndepărtându-mă de Tine Unul, am dispărut fărâmiţat în multe…(Sfântul Augustin).

Nu călătoresc fără de cărţi nici pe timp de pace, nici pe vreme de război, […] Ele sunt cea mai bună muniţie pe care am găsit-o pentru această călătorie omenească” (Michel de Montaigne, Essais, livre III, 2).

Memoria, iar nu aşteptarea, este cea care dă unitate şi plenitudine experienţei umane” (Hannah Arendt).

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‘Ajami’ goes to the Oscars

Frankly speaking I did not expect it. I was surprised even when ‘Ajami‘ made it for the short list, but here we are. For the third year in a row an Israeli film makes it in the final five for the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film of the Year. It’s not about the Lebanon war this time, although it does deal in its own way with the Israeli-Arab conflict. 90% spoken in Arabic. Co-directed by two young directors, one Arab, one Jewish at their first feature film, and set in the mixed Jewish and Arab city of Jaffa, now part of Tel Aviv, the film is first of all a smartly written story, sometimes so smart it is not easy to watch, and also a piece of the Israeli and Middle Eastern puzzle that is not visible for many of the Israelis. I liked it, but I was not enthusiastic when I saw first the film, and I wrote about it in my other piece already published on the blog.

On Friday I hope to go and see what is said to bee the great rival of ‘Ajami’ in the race, Michael Haneke‘s Das Weisse Band. It already grabbed La Palme d’Or. We’ll see.

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Film: ‘Burn After Reading’ – (Coen brothers, 2008)

There is one mis-perception that this film fixed in my mind – there are not really funny films about stupid people. Stupid people are … well … stupid, their behavior is by definition subject of easy jokes, so for smart and educated audiences laughing at stupid people comes together with a feeling of guilt. No fun.

What makes ‘Burn After Reading’ different then? I think that one of the reasons is that this is not only a comedy about stupid people, but more about a stupid people in a stupid system. The Coens attack, catch, and dissect a lot of holy cows of the American political system (the CIA, the government secrecy), morality (matrimonial fidelity), social habits (Internet dating, the gym) and national obsessions (the shrink, the divorce lawyer, the plastic surgery). Almost nothing that is a cliche in the average American behavior escapes becoming a victim of their cynical look.

While the script has certainly its role in the success of the comic experience, the story by itself does not try to be more than a funny chain of coincidences that hit a bunch of characters that act according to their immediate instincts and bad planning, something that brings us back to the time of the great comedies in the 30s and 40s of the past century. It would have been of no special effect without the master story telling skills of the Coen brothers, which pace their gags and laughs in the 96 minutes of screening (low figures well below recent Hollywood average).

Overall however the film succeeds through the perfect casting, and the brilliant manner by which the Coens succeed to bring the best out of their actors. John Malkovitch is an actor of all seasons, one of those that brings his personality in any role he does. Not here, where he melds into the alcoholic spy clerk, who loses his useless job and wife, hates the whole world and nobody cares about him, his life, or even about him losing the secrets he was supposed to have learned during his career. Frances McDormand who was the Coen’s unexpected heroine in ‘Fargo’ is back in the role of a gym clerk who does not hesitate to betray her country to finance plastic surgery, but worries even more being in time at her workplace after leaving the Russian embassy. Brad Pitt is her gym trainer companion, looking flat-minded and younger than in the teen years of his role as Benjamin Button.

And then George Clooney. I feel every time that I write about Clooney in the last few years that I need to apologize (to myself of course, as he does not read me or care) for having underestimated his talent and having considered him yet another TV actor and beautiful face. His work as a director and his last performances as an actor are better and better. Here he is superb, the happy husband who cheats his wife with Internet dates without knowing the reason, the involuntary and hysterical killer who associates with other stupid people in senseless actions.

Yes, it’s a cynical view of the world – but hey, this is entertainment, these are the Coen brothers. I am only worried a bit as I heard that the subject of their last film are the Jews!

More information about the film and reviews can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887883/.

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Viata lui Solomon Marcovici

Prietena mea Delia Marc mi-a trimis o contributie exceptionala – o prezentare ilustrata cu documente autentice a vietii fratelui bunicului ei Solomon Marcovici, cazut pe front in primul razboi mondial.
Fie-i memoria binecuvantata.
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In the streets of Jerusalem

We spent the weekend in Jerusalem attending a seminar of the Forum for Liberal Thinking with the subject of liberalism in the religions of the Middle East. I hope to find time to say more about the seminar and the other places I have visited, but to start with here are a few photo-shots taken yesterday and today in the streets of Jerusalem.

The welcome sign when entering Jerusalem on Highway 1 has become the spectacular bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava.The photo is taken today, the blue color is not the sky (it was a desert storm day and poor visibility) but the light filter in the windshield of my car 🙂

Jerusalem, the Calatrava bridge

Yesterday we started in the Jabotinsky and HaNasi streets, in the area where the President’s House is located. It’s a mix of old and new buildings, united in style by the Jerusalem stone, until today compulsory on any external walls of the houses built in Jerusalem according to a city regulation dating from the British Mandate period.

Jerusalem, new architecture

Here the blue belongs to the sky, it was a beautiful day yesterday.

Jerusalem, Jabotinski Street

The target of the morning visit was the Museum of Islamic Art, where we wanted to see two exhibitions. They were interesting, I will talk about them separatly.

Jerusalem, Islamic Art Museum

Close by I photographed another beautiful building. It’s the Israeli Bar Association, here is the place for my friend Asher, who is a new immigrant and Hebrew student right now, and will be an Israeli lawyer sometimes soon, I hope.

Jerusalem, lawyers association building

About the Notre Dame Center which hosted us and the seminar I will write separatly. It’s a beautiful building, with a captivating history and present.

Jerusalem, Notre Dame Center

The building is just near the Flowers Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, The Flowers Gate into the Old City

It’s one of the smaller and less spectacular access gates into the Old City of Jerusalem, but it was enough for us to enter and wander through the streets which were getting empty with the sunset.

Jerusalem, Armenian Restaurant in the Old City

Jerusalem, street in the old city

The old city walls area is under permanent construction, the ‘light train’ (tram) line takes forever to build, new underground passages seem to pop up all the time, and there seems to be something new being excavated and build all the time I am there. While during the day traffic is a nightmare, at night the area empties, the construction works are not that visible, and the Old City walls look even more spectacular.

Jerusalem by night, by the Old City

Jerusalem, Old City walls by night

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J.D. Salinger (1919 – 2010)

One of the greatest writers of our times J.D. Salinger, the author of Nine Stories and of The Catcher in the Rye died. The Catcher in the Sand salutes his memory.

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Apel Public de la Vlad Solomon

Prietenul meu dr. Vlad Solomon a rugat sa fie transmis urmatorul apel:

In vederea unei expozitii organizate la Jewish Museum din Amsterdam, pe tema Avangarda Evreiasca Interbelica din Romania, expozitie care va fi itineranta, rugam persoane care poseda (sau pot procura) materiale (opere, carti, filme,  fotografii documentare sau de familie, acte de nastere, documente publicate, manuscrise inedite, reviste, fotocopii, inregistrari, articole din  presa, critici, cronici, corespondente, obiecte), sau au amintiri relevante despre  perioada romaneasca a artistilor Victor Brauner, Marcel Iancu (Janco), M.H. Maxy, Arthur Segal, Tristan Tzara, Paul Paun si Jules Perahim, sa ia legatura cu Dr. Vlad Solomon, email vlad_solomon2003@yahoo.com , sau pe adresa postala, 11, Janusz Korczak Street, Kiriat Ono, 55602, Israel, tel ++972-3 – 5350453 / 6356660, seara, dupa orele 21.
Rugam transmiterea acestui apel in toate colturile lumii.
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David Krakauer and the Klezmer Madness!

David Krakauer is one of the well known clarinetists of our times, an acclaimed artist expressing himself in traditional East European Jewish music, in jazz, and classical music.

Born in 1956 Krakauer and his band band Klezmer Madness! are promoting a style that is both true to the traditional origins of the Jewish music, and also takes the genre in new territories in fusion with jazz, rock, and even hip-hop.  Here he is playing with his band in what is today the world capital of klezmer music – Krakow, home city of the famous klezmer trio Kroke.

See and hear him playing with local musicians in the synagogue in Dneipropetrovsk.

Here he is with a couple of more rock-oriented arrangements, and also saying a few words about his music.

Krakauer collaborated with famous chamber music ensembles including the the Tokyo String Quartet and the Kronos Quartet. in collaboration with jazz pianist Uri Caine. Krakauer performed music written for him by Osvaldo Golijov for a BBC documentary ‘Holocaust, A Music Memorial from Auschwitz’ which won an International Emmy in 2005. The film deals with the experience of the musicians who were forced by the German to play for the deportees during their last walk to the gas chambers.

David Krakauer’s Web site can be accessed at http://www.davidkrakauer.com/

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International Remembrance Holocaust Day

January 27 is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Many events are taking place on this occasion, I will mention two that drew my attention,

Angela Furtuna sent me the poster of an event organized on this occasion in the city of Suceava, in the North of Romania. The program includes a conference on the European Nazi movements, readings from books about the Holocaust, a DVD about the liberation of Auschwitz, the launching of a book about the Jewish Community of Suceava, and a musical program that comprises recordings by Arthur Rubinshtein, Glenn Gould and Itzhak Perlmann.

Holocaust Day Event in Suceava

Of the many museums and memorials that describe the atrocity of the tragedy inflicted to the Jewish people, preserve the memory of the martyrs, and educate the younger generations, the most impressive remains by far Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

The current temporary exhibition at Yad Vashem that has opened on the occasion of the remembrance day deals with ‘The Architecture of Murder: The Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprints’:

http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/auschwitz_architecture/index.asp

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Shanghai, les années folles

The documentary directed by Oliver Horn and Anne Riegel, prezented by the European culture TV chain ARTE brought up a fascinating period in the history of the 20th century China – the years of development and expansion, of conflicts and contradictions of the city of Shanghai betweent 1911 and 1937. This was the background on which the first part of Ang Lee’s Se,Jie (Lust, Caution) took place.

The landscape of the ultra-modern city of today is still marked by the front shore buildings of the Shanghai of the 20s and 30s and the authors of the film play repeatedly with this juxtaposition, maybe in order to underline a continuity beyond the convulsions of history.After the proclamation of the Chinese Republic in 1911 the city became a  crossroads of commerce and industry and a cosmopolitan center of banking and entertainment. The Foreign Concessions relying on the clauses of extra-territoriality granted to them after the Opium Wars in the 19th century extended their influence, and many of the documents in the film rely on the writings of journalist and writer Albert Londres, who lived in the city for two periods and wrote sharp investigative articles as well as deep analysis of the life of the area. (Londres also visited the mandatory Palestine in 1929, at a pick period of Arab attacks against the Jewish community. He was supportive of the creation of a Jewish state, but pessimistic about the chances of peace between Jews and Arabs.)

Du Yuesheng

The foreign influence was matched only by the influence of the mafia controlling the opium traffic. The central figure described in detail in the documentary was Du Yuesheng, the leader of the Green Gang, which won the local mafia wars, kept good relations with the foreigners and both with the ruling nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai-Shek as well as with the emerging Chinese Communist Party which was founded actually in Shanghai. The intrigues and crime stories of the epoch take an important part of the film, and they are both interesting and entertaining.  Incidentally, many of the mafia heads had a passion for cinema, studios were open in their villas, and the film production flourished in the city in the 30s, and to it we own many of the filmed sequences we can see in Horn and Riegel’s film.

old Shanghai shore line

The good life ended with the Japanese invasion in 1937. An American newsreel included in the film shows the horror of the bombing, which was a prelude to the massive bombing and destruction of cities in World War II.

Horn and Riegel’s fim presents a complex and well commented view of a city that played an important role in the history of the first part of the 20th century and seems to take back its place in the 21th century as well.

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