That Marilyn Monroe was much smarter than she’s regularly given credit for is old hat by now. As if “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” wasn’t proof enough, people tout her MENSA membership (er…wait….Was that Jane Mansfield? Whatever.), erudite diary entries and winsome encomiums from her ex-husband, the late Aurthur Miller as evidence of her unrecognized brilliance. She’s a genius we’re told and it’s not hard to see why. The buxom Midwesterner made presidents beg, executives weep and the world stand up and take notice. Rags, to riches, the power of resolve over destiny, and all that good stuff. Someone once told me that Marilyn was an answered prayer: a stretch of light against a crushing darkness.  I like that description. It’s universal and simplest to understand. If Marilyn Monroe was a living prayer, than couldn’t we reasonably assume that we are too? If she could make it, shouldn’t we all? If she was unappreciated than can we rest easy?

But if Marilyn Monroe was the essence of prayer then she was also its bete noir. Parroting her way from farmhand to A-list during cinema’s “golden age” is something one only achieves through indomitably, or, in other words, by praying to oneself. Prayer is entirely dependent on the will of a greater being, i.e. G-d’s for all it can obtain. But achieving success in any field, let alone the entertainment biz, requires a brand autonomy that virtually negates any sort of codependence. Like most stars, Monroe’s successes hinged, at least peripherally, on the affirmation of certain individuals in power, but it was her ability to transcend that reliance that supercedes liturgical comparisons. Marilyn Monroe may very well have been a prayer, but the G-d who answered it existed primarily within her own heart.

We al need prayer. We all need G-d. But what so few of us are willing to accept is that I many ways G-d needs us too. Just look at the L-rd within yourself for proof of that. Just watch ‘The Misfits.”

It was as if someone in my family had suddenly gotten sick and died. That was the reaction of most of my coworkers over the past 48 hours. Everywhere I went people glanced at me as if I was a devastated soldier's wife sleepwalking my way through the day. People I'd never seen before would peek over the top of my cubicle, look down at me softly and whisper, "I'm so sorry to hear about Sharon. What's his condition?"

Not that these statements were all that inappropriate, on the contrary, I've always been a vocal supporter of Israel and—for very proud reasons--keep an Israeli flag next to an American one in a small pot above my computer. I'm also not shy about discussing my faith any who ask. At my office, Jews are something of an anomaly, so naturally people are interested in the way we see the world. In a way I've become both the rabbinic authority as well as the Israeli emissary for my little splotch of northern Chicago. (I am woefully unqualified for either charge.) Nevertheless, I've never met the premier, and am not a member of the Sharon family. I may wax ecstatic from time to time, expressing how wonderful a leader I believe him to be (I've often said I wished he could run for American President, although I'm just being hyperbolic there. He'd be a horrible fit for this country) but I was more than capable of getting through my day. Still, it was touching to see how many of my colleagues took the time to seek me out and let me know they were praying for the Israeli Prime Minister.

And I am too.

You see, I've come to regard Israel's prime minister, whoever he or she may be, as something of a steward for security of the Jewish people. If we are oppressed in Russia or Venezuela it is the prime minister of Israel who can phone that world leader, convene the United Nations Security Council and who can fight for us when no one else can. There is no Pope in Judaism, no single figure to rally the rank and file and get our needs onto the national stage; that's why Israel's Prime Minister is so important and why so many of us, even those who disliked him should pray and lament his fall from power. Tony Kushner, who I mentioned in my last post, is simply wrong when he asserts that Israel is as far removed from his life as a county like Italy. Zionism has long since become the Jewish national project, and whether you agree with it or not, represents the national aspirations of our people as a whole. It symbolizes our commitment to endure. Almost half the world's Jews live in Israel and its influence over our lives is palpable. I haven't been there in years, but I can feel the excitement of a night in Tel Aviv as vividly as I can any Chicago meet-and-greet.

I am Jew. Noam Chomksy is a Jew. Tony Kushner is a Jew. Israel is the Jewish state. It may not speak for us, but it most certainly speaks to us. We owe it to ourselves and to the memory of our ancestors to support it. To criticize and judge it too, but most certainly to support it.

Going through the world's editorials today, I notice that virtually all them expressed disappointment and loss at Mr. Sharon's departure form politics, proclaiming that his eventual demise would most certianly hamper the peace process.  This includes periodicals like The Guardian, the New York Times and even the Saudi-based Arab News—papers that normally take a very critical view of Sharon's policies.  And it is no greater testament to the man's poltical acument to note, as some have, that when Sharon first came to power his very election was seen as an impediment to peace.

How ironic is it that the only moving scene in a film created to "make a statement" appears as the film is about to end? The Manhattan skyline dominates the final scene of Steven Speilberg's new film "Munich", with the girded frames of the World Trade Center overwhelming much of the scene's final moments. As the movie draws to close, the camera zooms slightly inward and the twin towers grow in doomed prominence. Though never quite taking center stage, they assert a gravitational force over the audience beckoning us forward, while they linger in the back. A case of life shadowing art shadowing life or just a clumsy belief statement? In the end it doesn't really matter because the image is too haunting to suffer the same ideological pratfalls that stymie other movies of the "statement" variety. Nevertheless, this fictional retelling of Israel's retaliation for the murder of it's 1972 Olympic team by Palestinian terrorists is not without the trappings of a strained political parity that undermines the divisions between the criminal and the judge. Rumors that the film somehow slams Israel are not entirely unfounded, though they are exaggerated. The film does makes subtle distinctions between terrorists and who seek to punish them, but they are dubious at best and lost beneath a sea of moral equivocation.

By now it's unlikely that many filmgoers will interpret "Munich"  as much more than a grim-faced Indiana Jones flick and Spielberg is careful to underscore that it is merely "inspired" by actual events and not a thoughtful reconstruction of a verifiable story. The book it's based on, Vengeance by George Jonas has been largely dismissed as a fabrication (Jonas himself played no role in the Israeli actions, and his sources were shady at best) and no one involved in actions on either side were consulted for the purpose of accuracy. It's amusing to note that that both Israeli Mossad agents as well as the Black September mastermind have come out and denounced the film, providing further proof that nothing unites like bad PR.

"Munich" chronicles the exploits of covert Israeli operatives as they hunt, shoot and blow up members of the Palestinian Terror outfit that slaughtered the Israeli Olympic team.  With the help of a dapper French informant, the team, led by the resolute Avner, played by Eric Bana, trek across Europe assassinating Arab terrorists and making it known to other would-be assassins that "killing Jews would now be a very expensive enterprise." That's all there is to it. With the exception of a stultifying exchange between Avner and a terrorist meant to voice the grievances of the Palestinian population, the film gets no deeper than the average attack and revenge thriller. Heck, even the aforementioned gripe-fest is wrought with a stupid, violent intent. "We will make it safe for Jews nowhere in the world," the terrorist beams. Spielberg gushed over that scene to a reporter for Time magazine, but it has anti-Israeli playwright Tony Kushner's fingerprints all over it.

Which brings me to why the "pro-Israel" crowd is so put-off by the film. Let's start with Kushner himself, a great writer no doubt, his play Homebody/Kabul kept me enthralled me a few years ago, but why did Spielberg feel it necessary to elicit the help of a man who has made no secret of his disdain for Israel? It's like getting Harold Pinter to write Tony Blair's biography, absurd to the point of farce. There is no shortage of talented screenwriters who's ideological leanings are somewhat less volatile. I think Spielberg diluted the veracity of his film by choosing so polemical and individual as Mr., Kushner to help write the screenplay.

Another complaint: how come every terrorist the Mossad agents kill is made to look like the old man at the grocery store who let you take the gum for free when you were a few pennies short? They're all avuncular, well-dressed, elderly gentleman who dote on their children and translate ancient literature. It's perfectly fine, even necessary to show people as people but these men were cold-hearted killers and taking that aspect away makes them as hallow and wooden as it would have been to depict them as bile-spewing, thugs shouting "Allah Akbar" and shooting haphazardly into the air.  One should also note that none of the men the Mossad agents assassinate are seen in the sequences where the athletes are killed making it much harder to identify them as they terrorists they are. 

As Bret Stephens noted in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, the film works under the premise that retribution is somehow not a Jewish thing. Hardly. Christianity is the religion that espouses turning the other cheek, the Torah is replete with Jews taking vengeance upon those who would do them harm.  In fact, Hanukkah, the holiday that ends tonight is, at least peripherally, a tale of Jewish revenge. Striking back is very Jewish, if only we would have done it earlier.

At the end of the film, a morally awakened Avner flees Israel to make his home in New York, ostensibly too righteous to continue living in a country that would ask him to kill so many people—terrorists or not. I found his unwillingness to return to Israel one of the most disturbing  elements of the film and one tainted by a complete ignorance of Jewish thought and tradition. If anything, Avner's ethical renaissance should have reinforced his concept of right of over might, but then again, Kushner's "progressive" hand stymies the essential morality, opting instead for a pseudo-progressive, anti-anything framework. After killing so many, Avner wonders whether the whole "eye for an eye" thing is really what the world needs to stimulate peace. What we as Jews understand is that yes, an eye for an eye is exactly what the world needs to end violence because if someone attacks you and you let it pass you are condoning the wrong and authorize them to do it again your behalf.  That's inexcusable, wrong and utterly and completely not Jewish. When you're attacked you strike back. Then, if your attacker is amenable, you can begin negotiations. Never before.

There are other complaints, but enough of those for now. Spielberg should be complimented for a few things.  Well actually one thing: as slight a difference as he makes, he makes a clear distinction between terrorist and retributioner. This point is brought home in a scene where the agents plant a bomb in a phone and plan to detonate it when the perpetrator answers. When the man's daughter answers it, the agents run through the street in a mad, and successful attempt to alert those operating the remote-controlled explosive and aborting the mission. Compared to the wanton slaughter of the Palestinian terrorists the difference becomes clear.

There's a funny scene when an old Israeli tells Avner he wants receipts for all his activities. Some have said this reinforces the stereotype that Jews are cheap. To them I say, "get a hobby." We need to be able to laugh at ourselves and it was a funny scene. Even my grandmother, who has seen the horrors of ant-Semitism first hand, laughed at what felt more like an inside joke than anything else. It was a far cry from Spike Lee's cheap Jews in "Mo Better Blues." Chill, folks.

The movie did not live up to the hype and I wouldn't recommend anyone rush out to see it. At best it was a pretentious thriller at worst it was a bad pretentious thriller. See the documentary "One Day in September" for a more accurate description of what occurred during and after the Munich massacre.

Oh, and happy New Year everyone! I wish you all a wonderful 2006!

I am in the process of writing a somewhat lengthy review of Spielberg's Munich. But at first blush, I must say what a thrill it was to see a film with Jewish characters who were not (a) Holocuast victims (b) nebbish Woody Allen types (c) Greedy scum a la Mo' Better Blues (d) whiny Fran Drescher types.

Whatever one has to has to say about the film, and the events it haphazardly portays, it was refreshing to see strong Jews on screen. More in a bit.  

I love the hours just before going out on a Saturday evening.  There's a sense of authority that goes along with laying out one's "party clothes" and confirming reservations at Francesca's Forno. I love gathering together my colognes (yes, that's a plural, I own several different brands and am not afraid to use them) and shaving lotion, and dumping them near the sink as I take the second (or third) shower of the day. It's the scent of anticipation that intoxicates most.

But…

As with most self-indulgent meta-babblings, this feeling's prominence may have less to do with its import than with the unending desire to inflate our own delicate egos.  To validate self-worth, many of us construct special social ingenuities to be used in lieu of intellectual and inter-personal contrivances most modern-day thinkers aver creates real power. Yes, there's aura of autonomy dovetailing a Saturday night on the town, but the real question is whether it sticks around Sunday morning?

The toll way has fallen, crouched on one side. Cars like sugar, dust its aching back, and cloister in dense, steel packets. I watched the it with uninterrupted detachment from the conference room of my company’s corporate office. People were standing beside their cars, steely but dejected and searched for any end to the faux blizzard hazard destroying the commute. It was all so mind-numbingly awful. The only thing worse than watching a snowfall-traffic jam on TV is enduing it yourself. Thankfully, I had a ride.

We spoke of the just passed smoking ban soon to take affect in all Chicago restaurants. We spoke of the new accounts receivable girl and how we knew she’d “fit in.” And the demise of Marshall Fields. And of children (neither of us have any). And of the President. And of the Mayor. But mostly we talked about traffic. And snow. And Ice. But mostly traffic.

The day Neil Steinberg hit his wife the Chicago Sun-Times published an article covering the White Sox’s chances for survival in the first round of the National League playoffs. The article was engaging and innovative, at least as far as sports articles go. Instead of formulaic quip/comparison/stat triad, it considered the more organic aspects of the sport and the city’s relation to it. The White Sox, it contended, are to Chicago what Chicago is the country: purity.  No curses, no jinxes, no drama no superstars. People in Seattle don’t wear Sox jerseys. Neither do people in Ottawa or Seoul or Dublin.  The article concluded with the notion that while Cubs gear has become the universal sign for hopeful fatuousness, Sox hats are the universal signal for strength and loyalty and community. What was particularly poignant was that the Tribune, Chicago’s more “prestigious” paper, wasted their sports section on the bland comparisons the Sun-Times so deftly avoided. Not that that’s much of a shocker, the Sun-Times has always felt more organic and less intellectual constrained than its cross-town counterpart. More Patty Smith and less Soren Kierkegaard, to put things in a pseduo-literary context.

And as the Sun-Times remains Chicago’s livelier periodical, so too has its columnists taken a the stage as a thunderous lot of Midwestern luminaries. With the lone exception of Debra Pickett who is the journalistic equivalent of Chai Tea, the Sun-Times employs some of the finest columnists in the world, bombastic and colloquial writing in tandem with the pulse of the city. (The Tribune’s Eric Zorn and Mary Schmich make me want to burst into tears, they’re so unflinchingly pretentious. Schmich at least did some excellent reporting in the wake of Katrina, and that may be enough to restore credibility after that stupid “Sunscreen” song.) Roger Ebert aside (and Robert Novak as well, I suppose) Columnist Neil Steinberg has been the Sun-Times most provocative thinker and one of its greatest asset for years. Not because his writing is particularly insightful—even though it is—but because his cynical worldview hews the periphery of what many in this city think of things. Steinberg speaks from the alleys of southern Pilsen to yews of suburban Northbrook, he writes dark poems disguised as columns and people respond in resounding approval.  He loves the city’s dirty underbelly, but no Charles Bukowski he, Steinberg will be the first to recoil at the rawness in which he revels. Impossible to pin down politically (he hated Clinton and hates Bush) and unafraid to give voice to the Chicago’s silently sane (lambasting Canadians for worrying more about not being perceived as American than being seen as Canadian) I’ve always loved Steinberg’s columns and place him right there next to Jonah Goldberg as one of America’s greatest unsung heroes.

But then late last September Steinberg got drunk and hit his wife. Everything changed then.

Okay, perhaps that’s being a bit lugubrious because not much really changed for me. I was stunned to read that one of my favorite writers had committed such a craven act of cruelty but my life certainly didn’t change much as a result. I read the articles, how he’s slapped her and she, rightfully unwilling to endure even a second of battered-wife-ness, immediately phone the police. I waited patiently for Steinberg to finish rehab and to tell his side of the story. I had expected some degree of demonstration against Steinberg and to be sure, there are many who will never read him again, but these represent the holy rollers who probably never liked the man in the first place. Most likely these people were more upset that a newspaper communist made a mistake rather than the mistake he made. It just feels weird. News people don’t even understand mistakes, that’s why they have ombudsmen to set us straight. But mistakes happen. People do stupid, horrible things sometimes, especially when they’re drunk. Articles on the incident clearly indicated that this was the only time he’d ever hit his wife and that he was truly ashamed of his unthinkable actions. My faith in humanity is such that I was able (easily) to give him the benefit of the doubt, fallen icons are nothing new to this city and nothing new to this life, and it’s in redemption where icons become heroes. It wasn’t easy looking past the mistake and perhaps if I were a woman it would be damn near impossible, but salvation is two-way street and in this city it’s woven in the fabric of every Sox Jersey, back pizza joint and downtown high-rise in our system. 

Steinberg’s first column after rehab went to press last Monday. It was contrite, but hardly heartbreaking. A mea culpa here, explanation there, but he kept his persons life to himself. He paid homage to his wife, a woman of impeccable integrity and strength and good will. He spoke from the heart—the heart of a cynical Midwestern; admitting fault but finding solace in faith, deliverance and the benevolent heart of the city and the woman who loves him.

I will continue reading his column. Clearly, the man needs a lot of help and but based on his return piece it appears that he’s getting it. I try not to confuse goodness with greatness and intelligence with perfection. Neil Steinberg and the Chicago Sun-Times. The Sun-Times and White Sox. Bless and forgive them all.

Us all.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steinberg/cst-nws-stein28.html