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May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review August 5, 2011 / 5 Menachem-Av, 5771

Forgotten Places

By Paul Greenberg




http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | How appropriate. The exhibit at the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock is called Forgotten Places, and it's been mounted not in one of the main galleries but in a forgettable part of the museum. The exhibit consists largely of black-and-white photographs of old, abandoned houses out in the country. The kind of photographs developed in a darkroom, the almost forgotten way.

The pictures are scattered along an upstairs hallway, in nooks, on a landing at the top of stairs, out of the way, or maybe on the way to somewhere else. Perhaps to one of the spacious, brightly lit displays for children. You might pass the pictures right by, just as you would a dilapidated old house by the side of a country road.

Back in the woods, ivy covering a door, the roof caving in, walls buckling, the old house would be just this side of a memory. And you would drive right on past the past, focused on the empty present.

The pictures' location in the museum isn't a slight, it's the perfect setting. You ask directions at the front desk to get there. The way the photographer might have had to ask for directions when she set out to take the pictures. Once taken and revealed, the images are no longer the artist's alone. Each belongs to the passing viewer now, if only for a moment, as he falls under the peculiar spell only an abandoned past may cast.

One of the artists whose work is on display, Diana Michelle Hausam, speaks of "the beauty of neglect," of "found decay," and sums up the message of the exhibit in words that ring true: "the transience of life."

What was is no more. And, yet, thanks to her, it is. These images speak to us now in a way they never could when they weren't images but mundane reality, which is never mundane looking back.

There are no people in these pictures, yet they are everywhere. Looking at the photographs, we sense their lives, and feel wonder. These places are not forgotten. They remain at the core of what it means to be from Arkansas, or maybe any rural state with a storied past. She captured our soul in a lens. Seeing the exhibit is worth even getting out into the Arkansas heat this time to year.

"I believe the most important element of my work," the artist says on one of the wall placards, "is fear, fear of what I may find and fear for my life on these ventures of mine."

How strange. At least one viewer feels no fear reflected here, only peace. An awareness of the transience of life can do that. Nothing can be changed now. The past is done. No more need to struggle with it. Only to look back and be struck by the preciousness of it.

Black-and-white is the right medium for this look into the past, the rock from which we were carved. The couple of striking color photographs in the exhibit seem more decorative than instructive; they would make pretty greeting cards.

One of the gray pictures shows a few shoes, children's shoes, that have been left behind in a long-abandoned house. Why? Forgotten? Discarded? We'll never know. The children who wore them passed from this scene long ago. Whatever became of them is beyond our ken.

Fear would be the last emotion the sight of these shoes inspires, at least in this son of a shoemaker from the old country. I grew up with the smell of leather in my father's shop downstairs. Packets of strong new, flexible leather soles were stacked here and there, waiting to be stitched onto the workshoes of black sharecroppers come to town to do their shopping of a Saturday. Leather still smells like home to me. Comforting. Standing there, looking at the picture, I swear I can smell leather again. And I feel only gratitude.

Why? Then I realize I once saw another pair of shoes in a museum. Battered, dusty, crumpled little shoes displayed against the blank white walls. Memory is imperfect, so when I get back to the newspaper I go searching for the tiny shoes on the Internet. They belonged to a two-year-old named Doris Mathes. As I recall, someone -- her father? -- had written her name and birthdate on the soles, as if he knew just how valuable, even life-saving, a pair of shoes might be on a forced march, or even after the family had reached a concentration camp.

The little shoes did not avail. Doris Mathes, born June 14, 1942, would be gassed January 17, 1944, at Auschwitz.

I look at this black-and white photograph of children's shoes left behind somewhere in rural Arkansas, with its play of sun and shadow, and it seems filled with light. I feel only gratitude. And a surge of wild hope. America!

Paul Greenberg Archives

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