San Francisco, Here I Come!

photo from Hadassah Magazine

Well, this is a big week for me. I'll be heading to California on Friday morning so I can attend the premiere of THE DARKEST LIGHT on Sunday at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Having worked on this for the last few years, I have come to a deeper understanding of what happened to me and how it subtly impacted my life as a person and as a writer. There was an impact, it did influence my writing, and it made me wary of heavy-set men with big beards and flying tzitzit (fringes.) I'm not kidding about the last one. Unconsciously, I have always avoided standing near them, but that tiny action did not resonate until I was waiting to board a flight to Tel Aviv and I realized I was side-stepping away from the guy. Weird, huh? Maybe not so much. After what happened, Carlebach was just plain creepy for me. 

So, off to the City By The Bay to be part of a film that looks at the mess Carlebach left behind...including what to do about music that is so ubiquitous to our liturgy. Baby/bathwater? Something like that. No matter how I feel about the reason I'm going, I should probably admit to having a bit of a thing for San Francisco. Once upon a time I thought I might end up there. Until I went back for a family bar mitzvah last January, I'd not been back in 53 years. It's like being with an old lover you still adore; I fell for the city all over again. This will be a fast trip, but one of these days I'm gonna go spend some real time there. Of course, there is this Jewish cohousing project in Berkeley, the Berkeley Moshav, that looks mighty enticing.....

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

My personal Threads account that I almost never post to, was disabled this week. I really had to look hard to see the last thing I posted that didn't include pictures of my mirpeset....the little deck off the kitchen. The auto-nanny-bot didn't like a response to Lisa Demuth's ridiculous ad showing her as a superhero fighting fraud who was going to cut taxes and lower property tax for all. It sounded like she was running for junior high student council president making impossible promises. Plus, she stopped a sensible gun bill from making it out of committee...which is standard for a Republican except one of the supporters of that bill was a her own daughter:

Does she really think Minnesotans are that stupid? What's next, ice cream every day at lunch? Not only does this ad dance around plagiarism, it's also so racist I can't believe she put it out. Oh wait! Yes, I can. Her daughter is a school shooting survivor and she can't pull her head outta her ass far enough to get a gun bill to the floor. What an evil, evil person.

Yeah, maybe it was a bit over the top, but mine was not the only comment that followed that spaghetti lie of thought. Needless to say, she did not get the Independent Republican (Minnesota's GOP) endorsement but she's running in the primary regardless. Joining her in that bizarre field? Mike Lindell, the My Pillow whack-a-doodle MAGA election conspiracy guy, is also in the race.  Sounds like fun for the whole family! Pity that State Fair is after the primary. Those IR governor booths would be so much fun!

On a somewhat lighter note, The Wifely Person Speaks slides into another year of ranting on Sunday next. While I am at the premiere, I will be silently observing my Sweet 16 in the blog-o-sphere. Being that I've been at this for 16 years with nary a missed week, I am one seriously old person in this world. I thought I would write about my journey as a widow. That last just a couple of episodes before I was boring myself. Then, it became My Blog/My Rules. And I've never looked back. As of this moment, I have had 946,268 verified hits on the blog from all over the globe. Once upon a time I could tell when the Chinese firewall went down because I would get with Chinese identifiers. Same thing for Iran. A couple of high school English teachers in Ukraine had their classes reading the blog for several years before the war started. I loved their emails. I get regular hits from Israel, of course, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, India, and Indonesia. I have no idea why. 

I keep thinking I'm gonna stop one of these days, but every week there's a new outrage I want to fume about, so I keep going. Lucky you!

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Curious about that first dip in the 

algae filled waters of the interswamp? 

Here ya go. 

Monday, July 19, 2010: Welcome to my world

The Darkest Light

Me

For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, you may also know I've been working with Simon Mendes on a documentary about Shlomo Carlebach. For those of you unfamiliar with him, Carlebach was a prolific and popular songwriter in the 60s and 70s. His music is intertwined in our liturgy across Jewish denominations. His tunes are fun and catchy. Carlebach had a cult-like following and was considered by many to be saintly and holy.  

Or not.  You see, Shlomo was a known pedophile and abuser of women. He flattered, he groomed, he molested. And I was 14 when he molested me. 

He told me I was a schoene maidel...a beautiful girl...which I was not. I was gawky and goofy, and, well, not pretty. This was not news. I knew this and it wasn't something I thought much about. But then this famous man came from behind, wrapped his arms around me, and told me I was beautiful, I could barely breathe. He hugged me and continued to press against me while he whispered how beautiful I was... until someone else came into the place where we were standing. Then he let go. 

At this point, I have to admit my mother becomes the real hero of this story. And in very soft and non-scary tones, (hardly like my mom at all!) she explained that what I felt was his erection, which she had to further explain because I was 14, naive, and completely unaware about that sort of thing. After that very cautious, non-threatening conversation, Mom quietly took action, beginning with our outraged and very supportive rabbi.

I was warned about being alone with him after that, and in two other encounters, I made sure he didn't touch me or anyone else. His behavior, it turned out, was not unknown to his handlers or anyone else that had worked with him. It just seemed no one gave a damn. After that, I put it all away until....

Lilith published an article about Carlebach. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach's Shadow Side in 1998. I read it and shared it with Mom. She and I talked about what happened. I was relieved to know I was not alone, nor had I imagined it. Mom urged me to tell Ziggy and I did. 

When Hadassah Magazine featured him on its cover, Ziggy brought the offending item into the house pinched between two fingers and suggested I let him pitch it into the trash...or at least let him read it before I did. The story, by-lined for January 2008, appeared as the cover story of the October 2008 issue. That issue sat face down on my desk for a while before I read it...and wrote an angry letter to Hadassah, a women's organization who had, at that time, a man editor-in-chief of their glossy magazine. Shlomo Carlebach The Music Man did not get the reaction they must've expected, but there were lots of angry letters. 

Finally, in December of 2008, Hadassah pretended to address the anger:

Editor’s Note: Our October cover story, “The Music Man,” focused on the musical legacy of Shlomo Carlebach. We mentioned the controversy surrounding his behavior toward women, but many of our readers found this insufficient. The following is just one of the numerous letters we received.

They published a single, wimpy letter not written by one of us. It was not enough of a response and I damn near quit Hadassah over it. 

Enter Simon Mendes. On January 26, 2022, he reached out to me, a total stranger:

I'm writing to you today because for the last several months I've been developing and in production on a film about the legacy of Shlomo Carlebach and his music, and the question of what to do with the music...I read your story in one of the comment threads on one of the articles that has circulated over the last several years. I was struck not only by the story, but also how you shared the cover up and the fact that he was confronted repeatedly about his behavior. 

And I have been working on this film ever since. What Mendes has done in THE DARKEST LIGHT is to give voice to so many who were largely ignored or dismissed because the allegations seemed so ridiculous. But they were not. The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival describes the film this way:

In this searing portrait, filmmaker Simon Mendes examines the towering and deeply complicated shadow cast by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, the “Singing Rabbi,” whose music transformed Jewish worship across denominations and became woven into the fabric of the Jewish people. Through the perspective of his daughter, singer Neshama Carlebach—who spent years carrying forward her father’s teachings and music—the film traces a painful reckoning that emerged after numerous women publicly accused Carlebach of sexual abuse following his death in 1994. Haunted by revelations about the man she idolized, Neshama and an entire community are forced to confront the difficult question: what do you do when someone revered as a holy teacher has also caused profound harm? With compassion and complexity, Mendes crafts a thoughtful exploration of faith and accountability, capturing a community and a family still grappling with how to reconcile the comfort and ubiquity of Carlebach’s music with the disturbing allegations surrounding his legacy.

If you are in the Bay Area on Sunday, July 19th, come see THE DARKEST LIGHT...and me at noon at Kanbar Hall, 3200 California Street, San Francisco. Please stay for the panel discussion after the film. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Projects like this one is not fun.

It's serious stuff, but I am so glad I did it. 

Be a voice, not a silent observer. 

You can make a difference.