Days of Dekalog
On the Days of Awe and also a noted Polish film
And we’re back!
Housekeeping notes:
Also for paid subscribers: I’m starting to think about what paid-only features to offer next year, in 2024. If you have any opinions on this—if you like the monthly questionnaire but not the reading list, for example, or if you think I should keep both, or if you’d rather something entirely new—please do feel free to let me know either in the comments or via email.
And anyone else should feel free to email (polite, constructive) feedback, too.
And now onto news, views, and Jews.
THE NEWS
For the Washington Post, I reviewed Jewish Space Lasers, a new book on the Rothschild family and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
For the Forward, I wrote about being in an interfaith couple and celebrating the High Holidays.
I really recommend this speech by Arundhati Roy on writing, India, and what matters.
Elon Musk alleged on Twitter—excuse me, X—that Soros is trying to destroy western civilization. He then met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu also met with Biden on the sidelines of UNGA.
Kyiv is going to sue Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia over their refusal to end a ban on Ukrainian agricultural products.
The report on Russell Brand is very disturbing. Multiple women allege that he sexually assaulted them and numerous people say that, for years, the media companies that employed him were complicit in behavior that was, at best, inappropriate for the workforce. I have been incredibly disheartened to see how many people have selectively read the report to pretend as though no criminal behavior was alleged (it was) or that this is some kind of establishment conspiracy with suspicious timing. It took years for this to be reported out. It was covered up for years, too. We are far enough along in history that the women in question would have known how they would be received, and that they would be called liars and threatened. They came forward anyway.
MY VIEWS ON…
…Dekalog!
As promised/forewarned, I am reporting back on my Days of Awe spent watching Dekalog.
For those who do not know: Dekalog is a 10 part Polish series directed and co-written by Krzysztof Kieślowski. Wait, no! Keep reading!
The series is set in a 1980s housing project, and each installment is loosely inspired by one of the ten commandments. (I’m watching them on Eastern Europeans dot Com. It’s a great site.)
I decided to watch it now because there are ten of them, one for each of the Days of Awe (the days between and including Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur). I didn’t totally stick to this. I started a day early. On one day, I watched two; on another, none. I’ve watched six all together so far.
They have less to do with the Ten Commandments than you’d think. Each one really just uses a commandment as a jumping off point. There are, however, two exceptions (so far).
The first exception is Dekalog 5, which is the only political Dekalog. It’s about the death penalty, and why murder by the state is as unconscionable as murder by an individual. It is an interrogation, I think, of Thou Shalt Not Kill. It’s the best of the ones I’ve seen so far.
And the other—the holiest, I think—is Dekalog 1, which takes as its Inspiration Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me. It’s a gutting hour, but I cried at the very beginning, when a young boy tells his father that he was so happy after solving a math problem, and seeing a pigeon, but then he saw a dog die, and what’s the point of anything? And what happens after you die? And his father, who is certain about everything else, pauses and thinks and tells him that you live on in other’s memories of you. And people remember if a guy had a funny walk. “Or if he was good.”
And that, to me, is what the Days of Awe are about. We live with, but also inside, one another. In how we treat each other. And maybe there is no point to solving the problem. But we try to solve it anyway, and celebrate when we do.
AND SOME STUFF ABOUT JEWS
A Texas teacher was reportedly fired for reading from Anne Frank’s diary.
Good for this kosher Chinese restaurant in New Jersey for making the NYT’s list of 50 most exciting restaurants.
From New York Jewish Week: “The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research welcomed Lithuania’s president to its Manhattan headquarters Monday to honor the Jews who rescued rare books and documents from the Vilna Ghetto and the non-Jewish Lithuanian librarian who protected the same material from destruction by the Soviets.”
Pro-Israeli democracy protesters gathered in New York and Tel Aviv to mark Netanyahu’s visit to the United States.
The men’s saber world champion is an American Jew!
Ben Samuels of Haaretz has a profile of leading women in the traditional men’s club that is American Jewish institutions.
That’s it for now! Hope to see you back here soon.
-ET