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May 24, 2013

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'

Caroline B. Glick: Thank you, Hafez al-Assad

Diana West: From the Brooklyn Bridge to London
Morgan Housel: Why spotting bubbles is so much harder than you think

Environmental Nutrition editors: NuVal labeling to the rescue?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Memorial Day: Jews Serving and KIA in War on Terror; Liberace Bio-Pic; Jew Wins "Survivor"; Shalom, Dr. Brothers; More

The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen: HIDE THESE FROZEN TREATS FROM THE KIDDIES!: Sangria pops; Irish cream pudding pops; mango Lassi pops

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 29, 2011 / 29 Menachem-Av, 5771

Socialist Realism on the Mall

By Paul Greenberg




http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Martin Luther King Jr., now has his Washington memorial just where it should be: on the National Mall.

But that's about all that's good about it. Because everything else about it raises misgivings. The deepest misgivings.

To judge by the photographs, any resemblance between this monolith and Martin Luther King is purely coincidental. It fails even to hint, let alone capture, the essence of the man -- his Southern, his American, his Christian core.

The arms of the figure are folded, its pose unnatural, its features severe, with its closed lips, its eyes deadened. Most unconvincing of all are those arms folded across the chest, instead of outstretched as if to save. Everything about the great image seems strained, nothing about it natural. It is not at all like the black Southern Baptist preacher we remember -- imploring, loving, prophetic, calling for the justice, justice that thou shalt pursue.

What a contrast with Daniel Chester French's enduring Lincoln in that president's Memorial -- so sorrowful, so feeling, so compassionate, so sad-eyed, so wise. Made wise by suffering. For unearned suffering, said Martin Luther King Jr., is redemptive.

You can see the truth of that assertion, that belief, that truth in the furrowed features of French's Lincoln, who never so looked the part of Father Abraham. It would not surprise if those stone eyes were to weep for his country, dismembered before those eyes, reunited in a terrible war and a new birth of freedom.

Sorrowful as that Lincoln is, it elevates. Like true tragedy. But the new King Memorial depresses. As a failure to understand always does. This monument does not have the feel of tragedy but of travesty. It does neither Martin Luther King Jr. nor the history he made justice. It fails to capture the man who carved a stone of hope out of the mountain of despair. There is nothing here of the living man whose words illuminated the American Dream for his generation and, God willing, many more.

Maybe what makes this stone-faced figure so wrong, so monumentally wrong, are those folded arms. As if this prophet were resisting change rather than urging it. This pharaonic image (30 feet high) looks down at the multitudes rather than speaking to us one-to-one as Dr. King did, "black and white together," in the words of the old civil-rights anthem.

This towering figure emerges from the stone silent, its jaws clenched, its mouth sealed rather than full of praise for the Lord. The people walking by are dwarfed, not raised. It is hard to imagine Dr. King's unceasing biblical allusions issuing forth from this great graven image --

We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

And when this happens, . . . we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last!

But the quotations chosen for the memorial seem one big mass and mess of what Dr. King called "pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities" in his immortal Letter From a Birmingham Jail.

Most of the phrases around the statue seem to have been chosen solely on the basis of their universal triteness. Who in the world picked these platitudes out of the treasure that is Martin Luther King's rich legacy of words? Some tone-deaf editor who leaves every vapid generality in a speech while crossing out any sign of real insight or daring truth?

Did Joe Biden have anything to do with this? Anybody who made some of the comments he did on his recent visit to mainland China, which amounted to one long kowtow to its Communist masters, would be perfectly capable of misunderstanding Dr, King and his times, too. The vice-president of the United States of America expressed the greatest sympathy for Communist China's rulers, their coercive one-child policy and anti-life decrees in general, little for its people, and even less for its courageous political dissenters and bravely practicing Christians. He dared not even call them by name. He had come not to challenge injustice but to praise it.

In the end, what is to be said of this monumental mistake on the National Mall, standing there in the company of Lincoln and Jefferson? It is in its way perfectly indicative of today's popular culture -- grandiose without being eloquent. It is the very opposite of the elegant, of the simple, of the true greatness of Martin Luther King Jr. and his dream. The killers of the dream have done their work again.

This much the new memorial on the mall makes clear: It takes more than a chisel to make a great piece of sculpture; it takes understanding. It comes as no surprise to learn that the sculptor who did this thing is a veteran of the Maoist school of memorabilia in Communist China, having been commissioned to produce some 150 public monuments in the People's Republic (which is neither), including more than a few to Chairman Mao himself.

Who is this Svengali who can take a living, breathing dreamer and all his dreams, and reduce them to unfeeling stone?

Socialist Realism, thy name is Lei Yixin. And what you clearly don't understand about Martin Luther King Jr., or about America and the American Dream for that matter, is a lot.

Paul Greenberg Archives

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