Florida

The Museum of Modern Art’s new retrospective of the work of the South African artist William Kentridge is organized around five themes. “Themes” is something of a misnomer, though, since the five sections of the show coalesce around what might more accurately be described as “distinct bodies of work.” Either way, several themes (and certainly more than five) recur in many sections, with at least one being very hard to ignore: Jewishness, an omnipresent feature throughout Kentridge’s oeuvre.

The pushke, or charity box, may well be a relic of the past to many members of the younger generation of Jews. In fact, promotional materials for eCharityBox paint the small tin can as a PC in a world of Macs — not only old school, but also a barrier to giving for those who want to give on the go, with just a click of their BlackBerry or iPhone.

In the March 5 edition of The Jewish Week, Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America, is quoted in two separate articles.
The first instance is in Jonathan Mark’s “The Edge Of Town” column, “Sympathy for the Devil?” Rabbi Shafran is quoted regarding the case of a brutal murderer condemned to death in Florida for his “heinous” crime but who was a “sincere baal teshuvah” who managed to ignite support from certain right-wing Orthodox organizations like the Agudah.

The last time I saw my father we were sitting together on a South Florida beach. It was the winter of 1982, a few weeks before he died, and perhaps sensing his days were numbered, he said something that seemed out of the blue, as he was not given to such pronouncements.

“The most important thing in life,” he said, “is to put yourself last. When you get married, you put your wife first; when you have kids, you put them first; when you have grandkids, you put them first.”

Long after a murder leaves the front page, it lingers in a kitchen grown quiet, or when dialing a phone forever unanswered, when private jokes stay private, and you say “all right” when people ask, but your seders aren’t the same, and Christmas isn’t Christmas, for mourners all share the same pew in pre-dawn sleeplessness.

The last time I saw my father we were sitting together on a South Florida beach. It was the winter of 1982, a few weeks before he died, and perhaps sensing his days were numbered, he said something that seemed out of the blue, as he was not given to such pronouncements.

“The most important thing in life,” he said, “is to put yourself last. When you get married, you put your wife first; when you have kids, you put them first; when you have grandkids, you put them first.”