Lou Reed

So, Lou Reed, important (Jewish) rock pioneer died this week.  He was one of those artists that I felt I *should* like way more than I actually did.  I have a bunch of his albums and they are largely unlistenable.  But he was a very important source for not only blues-rock but punk, as I found out in the The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's.

Death of a Gadol: HaGaon Harav Yehoshua Yeshaya Neuwirth ZT”L

A sad day, the death of a Gadol b'Yisrael: HaGaon Harav Yehoshua Yeshaya Neuwirth ZT”L [Mechaber of Shmiras Shabbos Kehilchasa] (from The Yeshiva World). Another link.

h.t. R'Shaul Robinson

Two Disco Giants Die

In my advancing years, I've come to appreciate Disco as a sporadically talented offshoot of Funk (and undisputed good). And over the past few days, two of the very greatest of the genre passed away: Donna Summer and Robin Gibb.

Below are two songs that I think are apporpriate for my nostalgic tribute to great musicians. For Donna Summer, I can't put the 17 minute "I Feel Love" so this is "Dim All the Lights"


For the Bee Gees, it's hard to choose. While their best song is "Stayin' Alive" not only is that inappropriate for an obituary, it's also overdone. I've chosen two, because they made so many good songs (I'm not joking - only a churlish ideologue can deny the quality of the Bee Gees). Here's "Tragedy" and "Inside and Out"

Tragedy

Inside and Out

The Mandelbrot dies, 85

The Benoît B. Mandelbrot has passed away, at age 85, from cancer. From the Times: "[he] was born on Nov. 20, 1924, to a Lithuanian Jewish family in Warsaw. In 1936 his family fled the Nazis, first to Paris and then to the south of France, where he tended horses and fixed tools." Pretty tough dude, Litvak Shoah survivor, mathematical genius. Sigh, I'm now imagining the 6 million of people like him who were murdered (a terrible after-effect of my being a teaching assistant for a class on the Holocaust).

My brother knows his son. And, no, I don't think Benoit invented the paisley tie, let's not sully his name.

The Day the Cheez Doodle Died

My brother alerted me to this sad news, the death of the inventor/creator of the Cheez Doodle, Morrie Yohai a'h. According to the Times:

Morrie Robert Yohai was born in Harlem on March 4, 1920, one of four children of Robert and Mary Habib Yohai, Jewish immigrants from Turkey. The family later moved to the Bronx. Mr. Yohai graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1941 and began working for Grumman Aircraft on Long Island. After enlisting in the Navy during World War II in 1942, he transferred to the Marines and saw action in the South Pacific.

How proud am I? That my beloved Doodles were invented by a Sefardi Jew who fought in World War II as a Marine. Man alive! A Jewish USMC hero of WW2 *and* who invented the cheez doodle. I'm sad I didn't know this before, and the world will miss this creative genius.

Rav Yehudah Amital Zt"l Updates

Some links to eulogies and other resources for my recently departed Rosh Yeshiva. These are from the Yeshiva and I'm just reproducing their list (however I want to emphasize the one from Jewish Ideas Daily which is a great web-resource, and subscription source in general).

1) R. Yoel Amital (Hebrew) (audio)
2) R. Shlomo Brin (Hebrew) (audio)
3) R. Aharon Lichtenstein (Hebrew) (audio)
4) R. Moshe Taragin (English) (audio)

...Some others from around the blogosphere. The first three are from Yeshiva alumni.

Elli Fischer
Michael Eisenberg
Alex Israel
Jewish Ideas Daily
"A Rare Breed this Simple Jew" (Ha'aretz)

Rav Yehudah Amital Zt"l

My Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Yehudah Amital, died this morning at age 85. He was a gadol b'Torah and gadol b'middot, a truly angelic person who radiated warmth for Torah and for humanity like his teacher, Rav Avraham Yitzhak Kook. Rav Amital zt'l was also a Shoah survivor who came to Israel in 1944 and fought in the War of Independence as a member of the Haganah. Thus, he was an embodiment of modern Jewish History as well as an embodiment of Jewish wisdom and spirituality.

Barukh Dayan ha-Emet.

Update: Some links to eulogies.

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi a'h

I just heard that Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture and Society at Columbia University, passed away today at 77. His book Zakhor is a classic in Jewish studies (a must read). Barukh Dayan ha-Emet.

Claude Levi-Strauss, Anthropologist, Dies at 100

The newest winner of my Vance Packard Award - named for the journalist who died in 1996, many years after I thought he was already dead - is enormously influential anthropologist: Claude Levi-Strauss - who died at 100 years old. When I read his stuff in college, he'd long since been elevated into the Zodiac of "important thinkers in our history that we don't consider in any way correct anymore". It's amazing that he was still alive.

Note, he did not invent the jeans, but who knows, the time frame was right!

Patrick Swayze a'h

Patrick Swayze died over the chagim and I didn't hear about it til now. He seemed like a nice fellow. And he showed that you could be a tough ballet dancer. In any case, here's a tribute video from his one and only SNL hosting gig, a stone-cold classic with the heilige Chris Farley.




Backpost. Finally written on Nov 9, 2009

Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon

So in a matter of days, Michael Jackson (50), Farrah Fawcett (62), and Ed McMahon (86) die. McMahon seemed like a decent fellow and he lived a long life. Fawcett seemed like a dingbat and since I was too young for her heyday, I never found her that attractive or interesting. Sad to die of serious cancer though. Bummer.

Then we come to Michael Jackson, who was of my era. After a day's full of hype over his death, my first and lasting reaction is "meh." Yes, his music was great... but not recently. In that sense, he stopped being relevant to me a while ago. And in the age of producers/DJs/mixers, I have a hard time figuring out how much was him and how much his crew.

Then there's the fact that his early years (which I like; "ABC" is one of my favorite songs) were the result of serious child abuse from a horrific stage-father - it taints everything from that era.

And let's not forget the persistent charges of child-molestation. Meh.

I understand the veneration for John Lennon who was a musical genius and a martyr; I understand even the intensity for Elvis... but I have never understood the attention/concern about Michael Jackson.

But "Billie Jean" is a great song.

Pic from here

Jack Kemp Dies, 73

Jack Kemp died last night from cancer at 73. I actually liked him; he was the real deal. I guess because he and I are both upstate New Yorkers. But he's a vanished breed - a non-racist, moderate Republican politician. I have long said that the 1996 Election was one of the only ones in my lifetime where I could have lived with either choice (as opposed to, lets say, 1988 which was a disaster every-which-way). In fact, it could have been a Kemp v. Gore battle in 1988 which I would have liked very much (despite that I was 2 years away from voting age). Ah well.

John Updike, Dead at 76

The obituary: from the New York Times

Update: From Sullivan, a set of links of online works by Updike:

1. Atlantic
2. The New Yorker
3. New York Review of Books
4. The New Republic
   

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman a'h

Rabbi Rackman passed away today. Here's part of the message I received from my former shul in NY: "[We regret] to inform you of the passing of Rabbi Dr. Emanuel Rackman, a leader of Modern Orthodoxy, president of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, rabbi of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, and a man who held many other important posts during his long and storied life. Funeral services 12:00 noon on Tuesday, December 2nd, at Fifth Avenue Synagogue, 5 East 62nd Street (just off Fifth Avenue). The family will be receiving condolences there beginning at 11:00 a.m. The interment will be in Israel, where the first two days of shiva will be observed. The mourners will return to New York on Friday, December 5th, and observe shiva through Tuesday morning..."

I'd link to the Wiki page about him but, sadly enough, there hasn't been one made (and I'd make it, but with two 3 hour seminars to prepare for, there's no time. Maybe manana). His bio from this article from the YU newspaper shows how impressive a leader he was: (http://tinyurl.com/5fdo77):

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, RIETS '34, earned his law degree and PhD in political science from Columbia University and was the spiritual leader of Congregation Shaaray Tefila of Far Rockaway and of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue. In 1947 he began teaching political philosophy and jurisprudence at Yeshiva College and in 1970 was named a university professor of political science. Rabbi Rackman received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Yeshiva in 1961, and was provost of Yeshiva University from 1970-1976. Rabbi Rackman has served as the president of the New York Board of Rabbis, president of the Rabbinical Council of America. A former colonel in the United States Air Force Reserve, during World War II he was chairman of the commission on Jewish chaplaincy in the United States Armed Forces. After leaving Yeshiva, Rabbi Rackman became president (1977-1985) and Chancellor (since 1985) of Bar Ilan University

I met Rabbi Rackman many times when I was working at KJ (see below) and he was one of the best pulpit rabbis around, a great pastoral leader. He taught me many lessons of how to take care of congregants that I could only aspire to (e.g. after shul on Shabbat he would go to the houses of the home-bound in order to make kiddush for each and every one). He is probably best known to many of you for his work in recent years in the struggle to free agunas.

His passing is a great loss.

Paul Newman, 83, Dies

Paul Newman, 83, Magnetic Hollywood Titan, Dies.

Crap.

Well, he died very close to Rosh Hashanah, that's got to count for something. He will always be seen as an honorary full-blooded Jew, in my book, for being a mensch.

Go with God, Ari Ben Canaan.

Barukh Dayan ha-Emet

A friend from High School. 38 years old.

George Carlin, Dead at 71

George Carlin died. AUUUGHHGGH!

Carlin was a major influence on my comedy education; I took a lot of my intonation, my use of voices, my use of words, from him. In my estimation, no comic had better timing than Carlin (at least until the 80s... his recent material is best forgotten). Very sad to lose an influence of such stature.

The Hagiography of Russert

Jack Shafer, one of the best things about Slate magazine, agrees with me about the selfish wasting of airspace and attention of the death of Tim Russert (for an example, see Remnick at The New Yorker.) Basically, they are treating him as an important world leader when, basically, he's just another of the pack of journalist-talking heads who emphasized the horse-race over real substance. Every prominent journalist who was working from 2001-2008 should be ashamed about what they let the Bush Administration get away with.

Here's a choice quote from Shafer's piece, The Canonization of Saint Russert:

I wonder whether the media grievers gave a moment of thought to how this Russert torrent they produced played with viewers and readers. Did the grievers really think Russert was so important, so vital to the nation's course, and such an elevated human being that he deserved hour upon hour of tribute? I wonder whether any of the responsible journalists paused to think, Hey, this is really weird. We're using our unchecked editorial power to soak the nation with our tears about our friend, and that's unseemly!

On days like this, I, too, hate the press.

Join the club, Jack.

Pic from here. Backpost finished 2009-12-06.

Obituary: General William E. Odom, 75

I found out from Yglesias that William E. Odom, 75; Military Adviser to 2 Administrations died over the weekend. I came across Odom from an interview he gave in February 2007 which I blogged about here. Odom was a highly respected military analyst who set about to destroy the Bush administration - and general GOP - concepts about war, and specifically about Iraq and Iran. Read the interview and you will realize that we just lost a great American.

Pic from here.

Onion Analysis

One thing I appreciate about the skill of the Onion is their ability to take any event - especially tragic ones - and find the funny. They did an admirable job after 9/11 (see here). Below is the recent joke they had about Charlton Heston's death that made me think about this:

Charlton Heston's Gun Taken From His Cold, Dead Hands



P.S. for those who don't get the joke, this from the Times obit:

In Mr. Heston, the N.R.A. found its embodiment of pioneer values — pride, independence and valor. In a speech at the N.R.A.’s annual convention in 2000, he brought the audience to its feet with a ringing attack on gun-control advocates. Paraphrasing an N.R.A. bumper sticker ("I’ll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands"), he waved a replica of a colonial musket above his head and shouted defiantly, "From my cold, dead hands!"