Ashley Parker, UPenn '05 — NYT Magazine Feature Writer

During college, I took both of the classes that Paul Hendrickson taught. English 145 and English 155.

English 145, Advanced Non-fiction Writing, in that nook of a room at the end of the second floor. Filled with easy chairs and sofas. Three non-fiction pieces, the first a personal memoir, the second two — go out and find the stories and show their characters.

English 155, Writing in the Documentary Tradition, just up the stairs and to the left — around the table. Follow a topic, a person, a place for an entire semester. Own the experience. Bring it to life. I chose the Penn basketball stadium, the Palestra, "College basketball's most historic gym," as many know it.

Hendrickson went by PH — from the first e-mail he wrote to the class, colloquially among the students and straight to his face. He was a writer. Yes, teaching at a university. But a writer first and foremost —none of the formalisms, please.

After thirty years at the Washington Post, writing features, a few books along the way, he found his way to Penn to teach.

"You need to feel the words between your fingers," he'd say, rubbing his thumb and fore-finger together. "You feel it?"

Ashley Parker's writing had that texture. Always.

Her award-winning piece about Penn's high-stakes poker players. Her documentary following a resident at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The DP feature on Communications Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson, which underwent revisions in that nook on the second floor of the Kelly Writer's House.

I took both of PH's class with Ashley. We served on the Daily Pennsylvanian's 119th board of editors together.

In a class filled with writers who had to apply to get into these non-fiction workshops, where we work-shopped our pieces on a weekly basis, she blew us all out of the water.

During one of the final classes of our Doc Seminar, Eliot Sherman said, "Parker — you're going to make it."

We haven't spoken since graduation in 2005. But her cover story in the Times Magazine rocks my world.

This NYT Magazine Cover Story indeed marks her arrival.

Well done, Parker.

Milot HaYom

A few Hebrew vocabulary words for your Sunday afternoon.

This one, courtesy of Guy.

פרסה, parsah: noun; a hoof, a horseshoe, a u-turn
לפרסס, lefarses: verb;  to make a u-turn

The word for making a u-turn in Hebrew is the same as the one for "horse shoe" or "hoof" — naturally enough, the shape of the u-turn.


דוגרי, dugri: noun; straight talk, to the point.

Israelis are known for saying what's on their minds, cutting through the polite platitudes which are common in America. Let's cut to the chase – בוא נדבר דוגרי.

The 40th anniversary of the Kent State massacre and a shoutout to Jonah Lowenfeld

Reading through The Forward, I happened upon this article by my friend and former roommate Jonah Lowenfeld. As you will quickly see, anything he writes is worth reading.

Remembering Kent State as an American Tragedy With a Jewish Face

By Jonah Lowenfeld

KENT, OHIO — At 11 p.m. on May 3, a group of marchers will begin a candlelight vigil at Kent State University in Ohio to recall what is for many a distant echo from another era.

COURTESY OF KENT STATE UNIVERSITY

‘The Day the War Came Home’: Clockwise from top left, Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Sandra Scheuer and Jeffrey Miller were killed when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on a group of unarmed students and bystanders during campus anti-war protests on May 4, 1970. The shootings came after some students hurled rocks at the soldiers.

The killing of four unarmed students by members of the Ohio National Guard during a national wave of campus protests against the Vietnam War will have its 40th anniversary this year. And as they have every year since 1971, those honoring the students’ memory will circle the area where the demonstrations took place and end up in the parking lot where they were killed.

There, the gathering will hear students from the campus Hillel recite the Kaddish.

The Jewish prayer for the dead has been recited regularly at this annual event since the early 1980s — a reflection of the fact that three of the “four dead in Ohio” famously memorialized in song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were Jewish.

Neither at the time of the shootings nor since has anyone looked closely at this odd fact — one that seems odder still for a campus where Jews have never made up more than 5% of those enrolled. Karen Weinberger, a sorority sister of Sandra Scheuer, one of the slain, recalled that back then “it wasn’t anything that was really of great significance. The significance was the fact that you had four students that died and nine that were injured.”

But if the shootings themselves were not a Jewish tragedy, the first commemorations of them were overwhelmingly so. “What happened that day was not a Jewish event,” said Tom Sudow, an alumnus who transferred to Kent State in the fall of 1973. “The response to May 4 in a lot of ways, though, became a Jewish event.”

Today, the killings are memorialized by no fewer than four separate markers at and around the site. They convey official recognition of what happened there by everyone from the campus administration to the federal government, to the Ohio Historical Society. But in 1971, as the first anniversary of the killings approached, there were no plans to do anything to note the date’s passing. The war in Vietnam was still raging, Richard Nixon was still president, and Kent State seemed unwilling to confront its recent bloody history. “It wasn’t, ‘Cover up,’” Sudow recalled. “It was, ‘If we ignore it, maybe it will go away.’”

JOHN FILO/GETTY IMAGES

‘Four Dead in Ohio’: Mary Ann Vecchio screams as she kneels over the body of student Jeffrey Miller during an anti-war demonstration on May 4, 1970.

It was the campus Jewish community that stepped up then. “Hillel was very involved and had a prominent role in commemorating the lives of the four students lost,” said Jennifer Chestnut, the current executive director of Hillel at Kent State.

The Kent State Hillel back then was housed in a rented apartment and had a staff of one: Rabbi Gerald Turk. A charismatic Orthodox rabbi known for his Bukharan yarmulke and his out-of-the-box programming, Turk led the effort to place a simple plaque bearing the names of the four victims on the ground of the parking lot where they died. Dedicated May 4, 1971, it was the first physical marker of the deaths on campus.

In 1974, the plaque was stolen and later returned, riddled with bullet holes. A granite replacement was rededicated by a group of faculty members on May 4, 1975. It remained the only physical memorial on campus until 1990, when the university administration dedicated its own memorial.

The Jewish community on campus still commemorates the events of May 4, often in the context of universitywide events. The candlelight walk and vigil — one of the most distinctive elements of the annual May 4 commemoration — exemplify this.

Initiated in 1971 by then assistant professor of sociology Jerry Lewis, the yearly walk begins in the area of the campus where the protests took place, and ends at midnight in the parking lot where Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder were killed. The midnight vigil continues, in 30-minute shifts, until 12:24 p.m. on May 4 — the exact time of the shootings.

Lewis, now a professor emeritus, has tried, by his own account, to keep the walk and vigil simple. But he did allow for one significant addition: “In the early 1980s, Rabbi Turk came to me and said, ‘Do you mind if I say Kaddish?’ I said, ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ because I knew that three of the students were of the Jewish tradition.”

In the meantime, as tempers have cooled, many of the questions about what happened then have been resolved, but not all.

When Nixon announced the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia on April 30, 1970, students on campuses across the country protested. At Kent State, students broke windows of some of the businesses in the city of Kent. And at 5 p.m. the next day, amid rumors of plans to destroy the ROTC building on the campus, the mayor of Kent summoned the National Guard. The ROTC building did go up in flames Saturday evening, May 2, and the guardsmen then cleared students from the area, using tear gas and bayonets.

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The next day, Ohio Governor James Rhodes visited the campus — by then wholly occupied by the Guard. Rhodes, who was in a tough race for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate, gave a speech designed to cement his position as a law-and-order candidate. He called the students who rioted “worse than the Brown Shirts and the communist element,” and promised to use “whatever force necessary to drive them out of Kent.” On Monday, May 4, at a noontime protest, demonstrators defied dispersal orders from the guardsmen, with some of the students hurling rocks at them from a distance. After an extended standoff, 28 guardsmen fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds at a group of unarmed student demonstrators and nearby bystanders. Four were killed; nine were wounded.

Protesters Krause and Miller were both Jewish. Scheuer and Schroeder, were bystanders, Scheuer being the third Jew.

In September 1970, a federal panel established to investigate the Kent State deaths — as well as the killing of two black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi and campus unrest nationwide —condemned the “indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students” at Kent State as “unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.”

In the years since, numerous articles, books, government inquiries, TV specials and films have attempted to answer some of the difficult questions about “the day the Vietnam War came home.” Were students armed, as was initially reported? (No.) Were guardsmen ordered to fire? (It appears that they were — though no individual was ever clearly identified or held accountable for giving the order.) Were so-called outside agitators responsible for inciting the students to protest? (Possibly, but every one of the dead and wounded was a full-time Kent State student.)

Alan Canfora, a Kent State alumnus who was among the wounded protesters, recalled, “There were about 500 protesters there, and another 1,500 bystanders.” That three of the slain were Jews, he said, was “just an extremely unlikely mathematical probability.” No one believes they were — or could have been — especially targeted.

Few beyond the Kent State campus know about the Jewish connection to the events of May 4. But in 1970, at least some American Jews were aware of their connection to Krause, Miller and Scheuer. “I heard from so many people,” said Elaine Holstein, Miller’s mother, “and I know there were people in the Jewish community. Most people were very supportive.”

Canfora, as director of the Kent May 4 Center, for years has been collecting materials related to the shooting. When the Krause and Scheuer families invited him to retrieve materials from their houses for his archive in the 1990s, he found “numerous letters from synagogues across the country” among the papers. Each family had also received “hundreds of certificates,” Canfora said, “where members of the Jewish community across our country had purchased a tree in Israel and planted it in memory of our martyrs.”

In recent years, the university has become more comfortable with the legacy of May 4. At the urging of students, faculty and alumni, Kent State has established a number of memorials to the slain and wounded students. Earlier this year, part of the campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places. And later this year, the university will open the May 4 Visitors Center, which tells about the history of the university’s darkest day.

But to all this, Doris Krause, whose daughter, Allison, was 19 when she was killed, responded as any mother would. “I wish it weren’t so,” she said.

Rak b'Yisrael (only in Israel) and a return to Milot HaYom

The intersection of Rav Ashi and Ravina, in the Ramat Aviv neighborhood of Tel Aviv. These two Babylonia Amoraim are traditionally attributed as the editors of the Babylonian Talmud.

And now back to  our Milot HaYom portion of the program:

אֻמְדָּנָה, umdena: assessment, evaluation. 

I am the only American in the class where we read this word in an article (as well as the only male, providing a particularly unique perspective) and the teacher still chose to translate it into simpler Hebrew. That was encouraging.

מַשְׁכַּנְתָּא, mashkanta: mortgage.

Ari thinks that this word sounds like an expletive when said quickly and sometimes uses it as such.

When you are not a mourner — Thoughts on Yom HaZikkaron 5770

Last night the Peaceful Lion and I headed to Kikar Rabin in Tel Aviv  for the city’s commemoration of Yom HaZikkaron, the National Memorial Day for Fallen Soliders and Victims of Terror. Over the years, Israel has built a canon of poetry and music devoted to the memories of those that have died. The songs are slow, they invite the crowd to sing along. They often allude to other canonical texts from throughout the course of Jewish civilization. Sure there are the classics, but there are also enough to fill the radio waves for an entire day with very few repeats.

Sunday night’s tekes (ceremony) featured the best of Israel’s rock stars singing said classics in front of a standing-room only crowd in what equates to the town square. In between, the MC said a poem, the jumbo-tron played a clip of a family telling the story of their loved one who died. We heard the narrative from the sources, related to the intangible through poetry.

This morning, I went to the tekes of HaGymnasia HaIvrit, a high school in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem dating back to 1909. The school remembered 138 people this year. The MC formally welcomed us to the event, we again heard narratives, interspersed with music. And heard each of the 138 names.

Over the past two days, I’ve felt tugged in multiple directions, an outsider who does not have Israeli family, who thankfully does not have a personal connection to one of the narratives that play on television on every 4 Iyyar (I am aware of the calendar differences from year to year). But I am continually drawn to the importance and imperative of this communal narrative, of educating about it, as I relate personally to the civil religion of Israel through music, though stories of the common human, stories that have evolved to become a part of the National religion of the Jewish nation.

While sitting in the school courtyard this morning, I thought about what it means to force a nation to mourn. What it means to force individuals to mourn. Is this possible when people are personally connected to the event, whether family or otherwise? All the more so, is it possible when people are there without a personal story of their own that they are remembering?

The gemarra in Masechet Sukkah explicates the Mishnah’s statement “Shluhei Mitzvah peturin m’hamitzvah” (those who are on the way to do a commandment are exempt from performing [another] commandment). It assumes the general rule that “haosek bamitzvah, patur min hamitzvah,” one who is performing a mitzvah is exempt from another mitzvah (Sukkah 25a).

In the course of this discussion, we learn that a person who is tarid, worried or obsessed with something, is exempt from a mitzvah in the same way that someone who is physically performing a mitzvah. From here, we learn that the groom is exempt from Shema on his wedding night.

We also learn specifically that someone who is in mourning is not exempt from mitzvot, because as the gemarra describes, this mourning is tirda dirshut, voluntary distress.

I don’t think it’s only a post-modern reading to say that on the face of it, saying that a mourner “voluntarily” emotes, where the groom cannot help himself, is morally problematic.

But Rashi's (11^th c. Northern France) commentary emphasizes why this is the case: despite the fact that the mourner is required to perform the physical mourning acts, he is not required to emote. (טירדא דרשות - שאף על פי שהוא חייב לנהוג אבילות של נעילה רחיצה וסיכה להראות כבוד מתו - אינו חייב להצטער.)

Perhaps this is because it is impossible to mandate someone to mourn emotionally. One can mandate physical action, which might lead to an emotional outpouring in turn. But not emotions. 

Thankfully, I am not a mourner today in the technical sense of the word, halakhically or more abstractly. But on a day when the fabric of the world is shakier than normal, I greatly appreciate the foundational character of the tekesim across the country. 

On a day when I certainly cannot force myself to mourn, the civil religion of Israel, the National religion of the Jewish people provides a structure which can allow for the necessarily different mourning of each individual.

The Israeli radio station Galgalatz is currently playing in my living room and soon I will head to the tekes maavar, the bridge ceremony between Yom HaZikkaron and Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day). There will be more music tonight and tomorrow of a decidedly different character.

Below is a video assembled from last year’s tekes in Kikar Rabin:

           

An open letter to a new GREEN card holder

Dear David Meir,

While Canada still has better universal health care and the Canadian dollar is giving the US dollar a few sucker punches in the corner, on behalf of the 300 million people living in the 50 states, I would like formally to welcome you to my great country.

Don't hand in your Canadian passport or anything rash like that. But here are some things that are great about this country that you should embrace:

1. American national holidays are now known almost exclusively by the main food of the day. It's really quite remarkable. See: Turkey on Thanksgiving, BBQ on July 4 (perhaps this in itself is a reason that Jews have thrived here more than anywhere else)

2. America was the set for Borat. We owe a debt of gratitude for that. Very nice!

3. We don't have a great national food, but that's okay, because other ethnicities have brought their scrumptiousness to us. The General (General Tsao's chicken, as you know it, perhaps) tastes much better than the Colonel, after all.

4. We have a collective ideal of achieving an "American dream" for each person. It's important to dream.

5. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will gain a new poignancy in your life now.

6. The American dollar has had better days, but the bill itself is the unit of currency on the streets of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Let's face it, that's pretty convenient. Can't say that about Canada.

7. We have George Washington on the dollar bill. Canada has a duck.

8. As entertaining as the Grey Cup may be, American sports have much more cache than Candian ones.



9. The ideals of American democracy seem to me to be the way that governments should be structured. Sometimes, I'd just like Jeb Bartlet of the West Wing to run the system.

10. Safam has a song written about the immigrant experience to America. Jewish groups don't sing about the immigrant experience to Canada. Your life is a Safam song right now (OK, not really) — relish in it.

A West Wing post: Reaching for the stars

SPOILER ALERT FOR WEST WING: IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN SEASON 4, STOP HERE.

I take the second half of the subhead of this blog directly from my favorite episode of the West Wing, the Season Four premiere, “20 Hours in America.” During a campaign stop, President Bartlet gets word of a terrorist attack at a swim meet at Kennison State University. Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborne writes the following speech in the car, which Bartlet then gives to the black tie crowd:

…More than any time in recent history, America's destiny is not of our own choosing. We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people's strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arrive. 44 people were killed a couple of hours ago at Kennison State University. Three swimmers from the men's team were killed and two others are in critical condition. When, after having heard the explosion from their practice facility, they ran into the fire to help get people out. Ran into the fire. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They're our students and our teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars. God bless their memory, God bless you and God bless the United State of America. Thank you.

We can all agree that this is stunning oratory, fiction or not.

During the 2007 Oscars, there was a medley of past Best Actor award recipients’ speeches. After getting to 1993, I immediately got a phone call from Jacob, a gchat several others. See here for his speech:

Did Aaron Sorkin really just plagiarize from Tom Hanks’ Best Actor speech?!

After subsequently watching the episode, I realized that the dialogue between Sam and Mallory at the end of the episode illustrates just how aware Sorkin was of what he was doing.

See the following dialogue:

MALLORY

"This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars."? I'm weak.

SAM

Yeah. I think I stole that from Camelot.

MALLORY

Let me get you home. I don't think you're going to make it.

SAM

Yeah. I don't think I'm going to make it, either.

They walk out to the COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE and continue to the HALLWAY.

MALLORY

Camelot?

SAM

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

To the keen eye, Sorkin alludes to the fact that this speech indeed came from Hanks! You, my friend, are a great writer.

Well played, indeed.

This coming week is Yom HaZikkaron and Yom HaAtzmaut (Israeli Memorial and Independence Days), the Civil High Holidays of Israel, as some refer to them.

In the coming days I will reflect on the subhead of the blog, looking toward the stars.