L ifestyles /C ulture
Reviews: Memories, Money Considered
B OOKS
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
‘What Happened Here?’
“The Memory Monster”
Yishai Sarid
Restless Books
AT THE INTERSECTION
of Arch Street and the
Benjamin Franklin Parkway,
an Israeli flag flaps above the
Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust
Memorial Plaza. If you’re just
driving by, the sculpture in the
center of the plaza, “Monument
to Six Million Jewish Martyrs,”
looks like a Lovecraftian horror,
or “The Thing” — seemingly
disembodied limbs and faces
straining out of a tower of flames.

Look more closely, and
you see a Torah, too. A fully
formed man with tefillin on
his forehead stretches his arms,
and two sword-wielding hands
arise at the peak of the fire. The
swords and the blue-barred
flag may as well represent the
same thing: Out of the fire and
the chaos of the Holocaust, an
iron people emerged, ready to
defend themselves.

Yishai Sarid’s “The Memory
Monster,” a 2017 Israeli novel
translated into English by
Yardenne Greenspan, released
this fall, is concerned with the
world these iron people have
created. What did it mean, for
Israelis, Jews and all of us, really,
to meld together Israel and the
Holocaust? It’s not simply a
question of facts and figures for
Sarid’s narrator, an unnamed
Israeli historian, but a question
about our peculiar inheritance,
which is adjusted and redefined
with each bequest.

Sarid, the son of longtime
Israeli politician Yossi Sarid, is a
lawyer and the author of five other
novels. His questions are piercing,
and his answers, even more so.

The novel takes the form of
a letter from the historian to
the chairman of the board of
22 OCTOBER 8, 2020
Yad Vashem, whom the histo-
rian holds in great esteem. The
feeling was once mutual, but
this is evidently no longer so.

The letter, then, is the histori-
an’s opportunity to “provide a
report of what happened here.”
“At first, I tried to separate
myself from the report and
convey it in a clean, academic
fashion, without bringing in
my own personality or my
private life, which, in and
of themselves, are nothing
worthy of discussion,” he
writes. “But after writing only
a few lines, I realized that was
impossible.” It can be easy to
lose track of the fact that the
story is progressing within a
letter, which begs the question
of whether the epistolary struc-
ture is necessary.

The historian relays the
arc of his professional life, a
middling academic career that
began as a choice between a
funnel to military intelligence
(Persian history) or Holocaust
studies. He chooses the latter,
declaring that he is “ready to
harness himself to the memory
chariot.” He becomes freakishly
adept at recalling the columns
of long-gone Jewish towns, the
names of Bavarian function-
aries and methods of efficient
extermination that make up
the Holocaust as it is taught.

Befitting a person with such
powers of recall, he becomes a
tour guide, leading travelers and
student groups at Yad Vashem,
and then, for much more
money, through Auschwitz,
Majdanek and the former sites
of Jewish life in Poland.

What he finds on these
tours is scarier to him than
anything he’d found in his
studies, deadened as he is to
the human realities of the
Holocaust. The students, if
they’re paying attention at all,
whisper that such measures
should be taken against “the
Arabs”; he’s used as a prop by
bored politicians, as a wind-up
‘The Memory Monster’ by Yishai Sarid
Courtesy of Restless Books
fact doll by glib tourists and as
an unwitting participant in a
renowned German director’s
documentary, inspiring an act
of violence for which the letter
is an explanation. All sense of
sanctity is pared away from his
project. Worst of all, his obsession
turns him into a piece of the
Memory Monster, a wriggling
life form that’s jumped from
the awful host. Consumed
by the Nazi calculation of
humanity, he finds himself
unable to hide his admira-
tion for the German people
and comes to agree with the
student who tells his class that
they must all become “a little
bit Nazi” if they are to survive
this world. He doesn’t fall
apart, but becomes something
new and terrible to behold.

Sarid has a sharp eye for the
uses and abuses of Holocaust
memory in Israel, but his book
is more than a critique of his
own country (and, of course,
a good story). It’s the work of
a lawyer, preparing us for the
JEWISH EXPONENT
‘The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex: The
History of a Multibillion-Dollar Institution’ by Lila Corwin
Berman Courtesy of Princeton University Press
In other words, she wants to
next bequest, asking: What are
we planning to do with all of make clear that her questions
and findings about Jewish
this? groups and their relationships
to power in the United States
Jews and Their Money
are not meant to function as
an “attempt to name or reify
“The American Jewish
something called Jewish
Philanthropic Complex: The
power,” but rather, a good-faith
History of a Multibillion-
deeply researched study of the
Dollar Institution”
ever-changing Jewish inter-
Lila Corwin Berman
action with power over the
Princeton University Press
course of a long period. That’s
Lila Corwin Berman gave a tough needle to thread. But
herself the unenviable task Berman, in her furious focus
of writing about Americans on her subject, makes a clean
Jewish institutions and their stitch.

The thesis of the book is
financial maneuvers over the
course of about two centuries. that American Jewish philan-
Berman, a professor and the thropic institutions, like all
philanthropic director of the Feinstein Center American
for American Jewish History at institutions, have become
Temple University, writes in the a “complex” — an inten-
introduction to her new book tional echo of Eisenhower’s
that she wants her scholarship description of the military-in-
to “make it impossible — or at dustrial-complex in 1961. In
least, an act of willful blind- their co-development with the
ness — to confuse a diffuse modern American regulatory
category of people with a turgid state, with all of its financial
and fraught abstraction about complexity, American Jewish
philanthropic institutions have
the totality of their power.”
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



L ifestyles /C ulture
been a part of reproducing the
same inequalities that the state
has, Berman argues.

Jewish philanthropy, like
the American financial system,
has developed in such a way
as to concentrate power into
the hands of a small group
of wealthy parties. Berman
sees the movement of the U.S.

economy as being in favor
of capital, at the expense of
democracy, and so, too, for
the philanthropic bodies that,
as she acknowledges, pay her
salary, support the newspaper
she reads, fund the public
radio she listens to and fills
the art museum she visits.

Philanthropy is so ubiqui-
tous that its particulars seem
natural and unchangeable.

Berman sketches the history
of Jewish philanthropy, relying
on primary source documents
and interviews with industry
leaders to explain how Jewish
communal wealth came to
be used in its present form, a
deep toolbox of donor-advised
funds and endowments that, in
her estimation, keep resources
from being distributed as they
should. Her deep knowledge of
the development of American
tax policy regarding nonprofits
powers the book forward, and
could send you looking for
more to read afterward, too.

If there is a way toward
a more democratic vision of
American Jewish philan-
thropy, Berman believes, it
will come with honest engage-
ment on the subject. No matter
what anyone else might think
about a bunch of Jews and their
money. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
Chai. News for people who know
we don’t mean spiced tea.

Every Thursday in the
JEWISH EXPONENT
and all the time online
@jewishexponent.com. @jewishexponent.com
For home delivery,
call 215.832.0710.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Zoom Singing a Bust, Choirs Get Creative
M USIC
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
AFTER 52 PEOPLE in
Washington state became
infected with coronavirus during
a choir rehearsal in March, the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention published a report
declaring communal singing a
potential “superspreader” event.

The news was devastating
to singers and choirs all over
the world.

“It became very clear that
there was not going to be any
choral music of any kind for
maybe 12 to 18 months until
a vaccine was invented,” said
Cantor David Tilman, conductor
of Shir KI, the adult volunteer
choir at Reform Congregation
Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park.

“So everybody entered this
period of frustrating inactivity
and a lot of grief and a lot of
hand wringing.”
Like everyone else in 2020,
singers and conductors have
used technology to collaborate
and adapt to their constrained
circumstances. “In mid-June, the concept of
the virtual choir was becoming
very, very popular all over the
United States, and not only
with choirs but with orchestras
as well,” Tilman explained.

Nashirah, the
Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia,
continues to meet for rehearsals
online. Meetings are typically 90
minutes and split into sections,
including sight singing practice,
presentations on breathing
techniques and lectures on
various topics in Jewish music.

Conductor Julia Zavadsky
said Nashirah will host a
virtual lecture series begin-
ning Oct. 16. The 2020
schedule includes appearances
by Jonathan Coopersmith,
chair of music studies at Curtis
Institute of Music, and Donald
Dumpson, conductor of the
Philadelphia Heritage Chorale,
who will speak about the
Shir KI sings during a recorded Rosh Hashanah performance.
connections between Jewish
and African American music.

It also will host Festival of
Light, a Chanukah celebration
featuring singers and dancers
from Israel, New York and
Argentina. The series will continue into
2021 and feature virtual choir
performances in addition to
speakers. Zavadsky said the choir’s
virtual schedule may be busier
now than it was a year ago.

“We were practicing every
day, obviously, and preparing
for concerts, but it was more
focused on only singing,”
she said. “And now, because
singing is obviously limited
in a way, we figured out that
making music together is not
limited in other ways. So we’re
exploring all of them right now
and keeping us all together and
as positive as possible.”
But what about concerts?
While actors, comedians,
dancers and other performing
artists have transitioned many
of their live performances to
Zoom, sound delays, echoes
and slow internet can wreak
havoc on singers’ timing and
sound on the platform.

“If you hear people trying to
sing on Zoom, it’s a disaster,”
said Amy Eisen, member of the
Temple Beth Hillel – Beth El
Synagogue Chorale.

A popular option for virtual
JEWISH EXPONENT
choirs is having individual
members record their perfor-
mances at home. The recordings
can then be submitted to sound
editors, who compile them
into one video that mimics the
sound of a live choir perfor-
mance with the acoustics of a
synagogue. Shir KI and Temple
Beth Hillel – Beth El Synagogue
Chorale chose this approach for
High Holiday services since the
videos could be prepared well
in advance.

Tilman said it took about
three weeks for his choir, which
consists of 25 to 30 volunteer
singers and four professional
singers, to produce a recorded
performance of
Louis Lewandowski’s Psalm 150 for
Rosh Hashanah. After sending
singers click tracks — a series
of audio cues used to synchro-
nize audio tracks — Tillman
met with the sopranos, tenors,
altos and basses for section
rehearsals on Zoom. Once the
singers learned the piece, they
were given a tutorial about how
to record and send their audio
file and 10 days to submit their
parts on their own time.

“The end result was really
spectacular,” Tilman said.

Eisen and her fellow
singers recorded 12 songs for
Beth Hillel-Beth El’s High
Holiday services using
a similar technique. While some
members of the volunteer
Courtesy of David Tilman
choir chose not to participate
virtually, 13 were featured
in the videos. She said that
while singing alone seemed a
bit strange and the technology
appeared daunting at first, the
final product felt like a team
effort. “It was really thrilling,” she
said. Nashirah plans to perform
in two ways.

For Festival of Lights,
Zavadsky will play a prere-
corded video of the singers
performing in their homes.

During the new lecture series,
however, the singers will lives-
tream together on Zoom and
sing into muted microphones
while their prerecorded voices
are played for the audience. This
approach combines a real-time
communal presence with
high-quality sound that won’t
be disrupted by Zoom delays.

Zavadsky said
an unexpected result of the
pandemic was that Nashirah
welcomed back members who
were previously too busy to
practice or had moved away
from Philadelphia.

“Don’t forget, people are
isolated,” she said. “Being in
the choir, even in the way as we
are right now, is uplifting, so
our choir actually got bigger.” l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
OCTOBER 8, 2020
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