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What Jewish voters need to know about Ron DeSantis, the Florida Republican running for president
(JTA) – In late April, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited Jerusalem, voicing support for Israeli West Bank settlements, touting a law he had just signed giving families thousands of dollars per year in private school tuition vouchers and signing a bill that increased penalties for antisemitic harassment.
Two weeks later, his education department rejected two new textbooks on the Holocaust as part of a clampdown on what he has called “woke indoctrination.”
Those two developments may anchor the Jewish arguments for and against DeSantis as he stands on the cusp of announcing a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Supporters paint him as a steadfast ally of Israel who speaks to the pocketbook concerns of Jewish families. In the years since he became Florida’s governor in 2019, the state has seen an influx of Orthodox Jews, drawn both by lax pandemic policies and the promise of discounted day school tuition.
But DeSantis’ opponents portray him as a cultural reactionary whose anti-“woke” politics are inhibiting education on the Holocaust and antisemitism — along with teaching about race, gender and sexuality. He has repeatedly condemned George Soros, the progressive megadonor who is an avatar of right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theories. Surveys show that his near-total restriction of abortion rights is unpopular with Jews nationally.
And hanging over the campaign is the candidacy of former President Donald Trump, who is running for a second term, is leading in the polls — and shares much in common with DeSantis even as he has attacked him.
While DeSantis’ allies have played up some of their differences (such as DeSantis’ youth and military service), when it comes to their respective records on issues of interest to Jewish voters, Trump and DeSantis are less distinct.
Each has sought to cultivate Jewish support by focusing on Israel and erasing church-state separations that, Orthodox Jewish leaders argue, inhibit religious freedoms. And both have attracted white nationalist supporters while leaning into the culture wars.
DeSantis is set to officially announce his campaign in a chat with Elon Musk, who was just condemned by a wide range of Jewish figures (and defended by a handful of others) for tweeting that Soros “hates humanity.”
Here’s what you need to know about DeSantis’s Jewish record:
He has been an outspoken booster of Israel.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a Jerusalem Post conference at the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem on April 27, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
DeSantis, a Catholic, has a visceral affinity for Israel, and has framed his support for the country in religious terms.
“When I took office, I promised to make Florida the most pro-Israel state in the United States, and we have been able to deliver on that promise,” he said this week, addressing evangelical Christians at the National Religious Broadcasting Convention in Orlando, The Jerusalem Post reported.
He likes to tell audiences that on his first visit to Israel as a U.S. congressman, his wife Casey scooped up water from the Sea of Galilee into an empty bottle to save for baptisms. The couple had yet to have children.
The water came in handy for the baptisms of their first and second children, but after DeSantis was elected governor, staff at his residence cleared away the unremarkable bottle (which was still half full) after their second child was baptized in 2019. Not long afterward, DeSantis mentioned the minor fiasco in passing at a synagogue in Boca Raton, and before he knew it people were sending him bottles of water from Israel.
The gesture still moves him. “I was sent, all the way from Israel, this beautiful big glass jar filled with water from the Sea of Galilee that sat on my desk in the governor’s office in Tallahassee until our third child was born and baptized, and we used that water to do it,” DeSantis said last month when he visited Israel.
DeSantis made Israel a focus when he was congressman, taking a leading role in advocating for moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He was among a group of lawmakers who toured Jerusalem in March 2017 and was bold enough to pick out what he said would be the likeliest site.
In November of that year, as chairman of the House national security subcommittee, he convened a hearing on what he called the necessity of moving the embassy. The following month, Trump announced the move, and the site the Trump administration chose was the one DeSantis had identified.
In May 2019, just months after becoming governor, DeSantis convened his state cabinet in Jerusalem and gave a definition of antisemitism favored by the pro-Israel community the force of law. The same year, he banned government officials from using Airbnb after the vacation rental broker removed listings in West Bank settlements. DeSantis’ blacklisting of the company was seen was key to Airbnb reversing the decision.
He’s garnered allies — and enemies — among Florida’s Jews.
DeSantis has done much to cultivate support in Florida’s growing Orthodox community, which shares his enthusiasm for bringing faith into government.
In 2021, DeSantis came to a Chabad synagogue in Surfside to sign two bills, one affording state recognition to Hatzalah, the Jewish ambulance service, and the other tasking all Florida public schools with setting aside a daily moment of silence, long a key initiative of the Chabad movement.
In his first gubernatorial campaign in 2018, DeSantis campaigned on steering state money to religious day schools. This year he made good on the promise, signing a law that makes $7,800 in scholarship funds available annually to schoolchildren across the state, regardless of income, and to be used at their school of choice.
DeSantis also has plenty of Jewish enemies in a state where the majority of the Jewish community votes for Democrats.
In his first term, he had a contentious relationship with Nikki Fried, a Democrat who, as agriculture commissioner, was one of the four ministers in the Cabinet who had a vote. DeSantis maneuvered to freeze her out of the decision-making process.
Fried, who describes herself as a “good Jewish girl from Miami,” now chairs the state’s Democratic Party. She routinely calls DeSantis a fascist. In April, she was arrested at an abortion rights protest outside Tallahassee’s City Hall.
Under DeSantis, Florida has prohibited abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. That stance has set him up for clashes with other prominent Jews in the state as well. Last year, he suspended Andrew Warren, a Jewish state attorney, because Warren pledged not to prosecute individuals who seek or provide abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
L’Dor Va-Dor, a synagogue in Boynton Beach, spearheaded the first lawsuit filed against Florida’s abortion ban in 2022, citing religious freedom arguments. Daniel Uhlfelder, a Jewish lawyer who drew attention when he dressed as the Grim Reaper to protest DeSantis’s reopening of the beaches during the pandemic, signed on as an attorney for the synagogue.
His “war on woke” has had implications on Holocaust education.
Recently, much of DeSantis’ tenure has been defined by what he calls the “war on woke,” a term originated by Black Americans to describe awareness of racial inequity but now more often functions as shorthand for conservative criticism of progressive values. DeSantis has enacted multiple pieces of legislation restricting what can be taught in schools and has also limited transgender rights, banning gender-affirming medical care for children.
While most of the books challenged under DeSantis’ education laws have focused on race and gender, the study of the Holocaust has been affected as well. In addition to the education department’s rejection of the Holocaust textbooks this month, Florida laws that make teachers liable for teaching inappropriate content to students have led multiple school districts to take Holocaust novels off the shelves, including a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary.
DeSantis calls claims that he’s chilling Holocaust education “fake narratives.” He and his defenders point to his requiring all Florida public schools to certify that they teach about the Holocaust.
Neo-Nazi and white supremacist activity has increased under his watch.
A recent report from the Anti-Defamation League described an upward trend of extremist and antisemitic activity in the Sunshine State, driven in part by emerging white supremacist groups — some of whom have gone to bat for DeSantis in the past.
DeSantis has been dogged by accusations that he caters to the far right. One of the most stinging exchanges in the 2018 election season came when Andrew Gillum, DeSantis’s Democratic opponent in the race, accused DeSantis of not being forceful enough in renouncing the white nationalists who expressed support for him in robocalls.
“First of all, he’s got neo-Nazis helping him out in this state,” Gillum said. “Now, I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist, I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.” DeSantis flinched.
DeSantis eked out a victory a few weeks later, and was soundly reelected last year, but he remains sensitive on the issue. Last year, when neo-Nazis intimidated Orlando’s Jews with signs and shouts at an overpass, politicians in the state reflexively condemned them. A reporter asked DeSantis why he had not done so, and after calling the neo-Nazis “jackasses,” the governor said the question was a “smear” and added, “We’re not playing that game.” (Several months later, the leader of the antisemitic propaganda group Goyim Defense League moved from California to Florida, saying he thought the Sunshine State would be more hospitable to his efforts.)
DeSantis has also called liberal prosecutors “Soros-funded”. It’s not an unusual political gambit — the billionaire Jewish liberal donor does fund progressives running for prosecutor. But Soros has also been the focus of multiple conspiracy theories that antisemitism watchdogs say are antisemitic, casting the Holocaust survivor as a malign influence with excessive power.
Some Jewish donors are already supporting him.
DeSantis appeared last year at a conference in New York of Jewish conservatives, where he talked to a friendly audience about his war against the “woke” and was also conveniently in the room with some of the most generous Republican donors.
He is reportedly working some of those donors, who gave generously to his gubernatorial runs. He was a star last November at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual Las Vegas confab, and Axios reported that he met with Miriam Adelson, the widow of GOP kingmaker Sheldon Adelson, as well as other Jewish donors when he was in Jerusalem last month.
A number of them are hanging back, not wanting to alienate Trump while he remains influential in the party. (Adelson has said she does not want to weigh in on the primaries.)
Among the Jewish donors and fundraisers said to be in DeSantis’s camp: Jay Zeidman, a onetime Jewish White House liaison who is now a Houston based businessman; Gabriel Groisman, a lawyer who is the former mayor of Bal Harbor; and Fred Karlinsky, a leading insurance lawyer.
Last week, Jewish conservative political commentator Dave Rubin tweeted that DeSantis would bring “Freedom, sanity and competency” to the country. Groisman shared the tweet with the word “This.”
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The post What Jewish voters need to know about Ron DeSantis, the Florida Republican running for president appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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A last-ditch effort to dismantle Israeli democracy
As Israelis prepare for what may be the most consequential election in the country’s history on Oct. 27, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition has launched an extraordinary legislative blitz before the Knesset’s coming summer recess, which begins at the end of this week. Already the coalition has passed a pair of laws legitimizing Haredi draft evasion; the plan also includes a series of bills weakening democratic oversight.
Viewed individually, these initiatives appear to be about technical legal questions that might appear arcane to anyone not steeped in Israeli constitutional law. Viewed together, they’re clearly a coordinated attempt to weaken nearly every independent institution capable of restraining executive power.
That includes the civil service and the office of the attorney general, as well as independent regulators and the mechanism by which the greatest governmental failure in Israeli history, the Oct. 7 massacre, will eventually be investigated.
The legislative package is, in other words, a constitutional project meant to entrench elected autocracy.
The comparison many Israelis now invoke is Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did not abolish elections. Instead, he gradually weakened the institutions capable of constraining executive power while maintaining democratic forms. Today Turkey ranks 163rd out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index.
Critics don’t fear that Israel will become Turkey overnight. But they understand that democracies can erode incrementally through legal mechanisms enacted by elected governments.
The Basic Law: Torah Study
The cornerstone of the legislative effort recognizes long-term Torah study as a meaningful service to the state and the Jewish people. This is critical for entrenching the support of the Haredi community for Netanyahu; without them, he has no hope of a majority.
It was passed into law late Monday, despite wall-to-wall opposition by parties not in Netanyahu’s coalition.
Few Jewish Israelis dispute the historic importance of Torah study. Critics object instead to the law’s practical purpose, which is to provide constitutional protection for the continued exemption of huge numbers of Haredi yeshiva students from military service, making future judicial intervention far more difficult.
The law also aims to ensure such students will receive the same amount of financial support as military veterans.
In nearly three years of war, reservists have repeatedly returned to the front — sometimes for hundreds of days a year — while tens of thousands of Haredi youth have remained exempt. In that context, it’s no surprise that the vast majority of Israelis oppose the exemptions. Only about a fifth support them — just slightly more than the country’s Haredi population.
A linked proposal blocking arrests of Haredi draft evaders passed Tuesday, again in the face of massive mobilization by the opposition and howls of protest from chiefs of the security establishment. Israel Defense Forces chief Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir warned that the move would encourage evasion and, in a rare direct rebuke to the government, said it was “clearly and unequivocally inconsistent with the IDF’s needs.”
The government’s argument is that criminal law cannot resolve a social dispute decades in the making. But the practical consequence is to create two classes of citizens: those who face legal consequences for refusing military service, and those who do not. During the Israeli military’s gravest manpower crisis in generations, that distinction is both morally and constitutionally corrosive.
Weakening legal safeguards
Another proposal would split the Attorney General’s dual function as legal adviser to the government and chief public prosecutor.
Supporters note that several democracies separate those roles. But Israel’s institutional structure is unusual, and that the Attorney General has long served as one of the principal safeguards against executive abuse. This office, critics contend, is essential in a country that has no constitution, no bicameral parliament, no federal structure, and no legislators beholden to voters directly instead of party leadership.
Weakening that office becomes especially troubling when the sitting prime minister remains on trial.
At the same time, the coalition has advanced legislation that would weaken legal advisers to cabinet ministers. Right now, those advisers must answer primarily to professional legal standards. The coalition wants them to become substantially more accountable to the ministers themselves — transforming lawyers whose job is to prevent unlawful government action into political employees expected to facilitate it.
All these bills are related to Netanyahu’s wider effort to weaken Israel’s judiciary in 2023, which sparked a spasm of protests that ended only with the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion and massacre. If Netanyahu wins another term in office in October, expect the most contentious parts of that overhaul to be revived, including a massive politicization of judicial appointments, and an “override” allowing parliament to overrule judicial decisions.
The Oct. 7 inquiry
Also related to the judicial overhaul — although it may not appear to be — is the inquiry over Israel’s security and intelligence failures on Oct. 7.
Rather than establishing the traditional independent state commission chaired by a retired Supreme Court justice, the coalition has promoted a political alternative — which is part and parcel of its efforts to undermine the Supreme Court by painting it as a tool of the liberal opposition.
Under the government’s proposal, which last week passed the first of three required readings, the inquiry would be made up equally by coalition and opposition supporters, but controlled by the coalition. That is meant to sound fair, but it politicizes the procedure by definition, and guarantees that findings would be disputed.
The principle is simple: A government should not exercise decisive influence over investigations into their own failures. The very purpose of an independent inquiry is to establish facts without interference by political interests. That is what happened in the wake of previous government failures, including the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon.
This trick comes after years in which Netanyahu insisted that no commission could exist while warfare continued, which raised concerns that this incentivized a forever war. At the same time, the Netanyahu social media machine has promoted the so-called “internal betrayal” conspiracy theory, claiming Israel’s security establishment purposely allowed the massacre in order to harm Netanyahu — a baseless claim that about a third of Israelis now actually believe. This, too, factors into Netanyahu’s culture war. Inciting against the security establishment, set up by Israel’s founding generations to be apolitical, is key to his plan to establish an autocracy.
In the background is the precedent set by the government last week when the cabinet announced that it would refuse to recognize the practical consequences of a binding Supreme Court ruling involving the Second Authority for Television and Radio. The move — again seemingly arcane — created a shocking precedent for future refusals to heed court challenges of all the above reforms and decisions.
That’s the real point of this plan: to set up the coming election as a battle between elected politicians and the court. If the Supreme Court strikes down any of this legislation while Netanyahu remains in power, he will spin their rulings to try and further delegitimize them, and entrench his own rule.
The good news is that Israel’s democratic traditions run deep. During the 2023 protests, millions of Israelis demonstrated that they are prepared to defend liberal democratic institutions with extraordinary persistence. And opposition leaders have vowed to repeal all these laws should they win the October election.
Netanyahu’s coalition has devoted enormous political capital not to rebuilding shattered public confidence, but rather to reshaping the institutions designed to hold them accountable. That is why Israelis must understand that what’s at stake isn’t one or two offputting laws. It’s about nothing less than whether Israel will remain a democracy.
The post A last-ditch effort to dismantle Israeli democracy appeared first on The Forward.
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The past engagement of Yiddish with Communism and its legacy today
דער „אינטערנאַציאָנאַלער אַרבעטער אָרדן“ איז געװען אַ מין יוצא־דופֿן צװישן אַמעריקאַנער עפֿנטלעכע און פּאָליטישע אָרגאַניזאַציעס, צום גרויסן טייל — צוליב זײַן פֿילשפּראַכיקײט. ער האָט געהאַט ניט ווייניקער ווי זעכצן שפּראַך־בראַנזשעס פֿאַר פֿאַרשײדענע אמיגראַנטישע עדות. זײַן הױפּטצװעק איז געװען צו באַזאָרגן אַרבעטער מיט פֿינאַנציעלער פֿאַרזיכערונג און העלפֿן זײ אין זײער קאַמף פֿאַר בירגערלעכע און פּאָליטישע רעכט.
דער אָרדן האָט אויך געהאַט אַ ספּעציעלע בראַנזשע פֿאַר אַפֿריקאַנער אַמעריקאַנער ווײַל דער ענין פֿון ראַסע־יושרדיקײט איז געװען פּונקט אַזױ חשובֿ װי אַלע אַנדערע באַוועגונגען פֿאַר גערעכטיקייט.
די מחברים פֿונעם זאַמלבוך „פֿונעם פֿאָלקספֿראָנט צו דער קאַלטער מלחמה“, רעדאַקטירט פֿון עליסאַ סאַמפּסאָן און ראָבערט זעקער, באַהאַנדלען די טעטיקײט פֿון צוויי בראַנזשעס אינעם „אָרדן“: דער ייִדישער און דער אַפֿריקאַנער־אַמעריקאַנער. דאָס רובֿ פֿאָרשונגען אינעם בוך שעפּן מאַטעריאַל פֿון דער אַרכיװאַלער זאַמלונג בײַם קאָרנעל־אוניװערסיטעט.
דער אָרדן איז געגרינדט געוואָרן אין 1930. נאָך דער פּאָליטישער שפּאַלטונג אינעם ייִדישן „אַרבעטער רינג“, האָבן אַרום 500 מיטגלידער פֿאַרלאָזט די אָרגאַניזאַציע און געשאַפֿן אַן אײגענע פּאָליטישע גרופּע, באַקאַנט ווי „די לינקע“. די דאָזיקע גרופּע איז געװאָרן די ייִדישע בראַנזשע אינעם נײַעם „אינטערנאַציאָנאַלן אַרבעטער אָרדן“.
פֿון סאַמע אָנהײב איז דער אָרדן געװען נאָענט פֿאַרבונדן מיט דער אַמעריקאַנער קאָמוניסטישער פּאַרטײ, און די פּאָליטישע ליניע פֿון דער דאָזיקער פּאַרטײ איז דיקטירט געװאָרן פֿונעם קאָמוניסטישן אינטערנאַציאָנאַל אין מאָסקװע.
אין די 1930ער יאָרן האָט סטאַלין בדעה געהאַט צו שאַפֿן אַ ברײטן פֿאָלקספֿראָנט (פּאָפּולערן פֿראָנט), װאָס זאָל אַרײַננעמען כּלערלײ פּראָגרעסיװע אָבער ניט אױסגעשפּראָכן קאָמוניסטישע קולטורעלע, עפֿנטלעכע און פּראָפֿעסיאָנעלע אָרגאַניזאַציעס, כּלומרשט ניט קײן קאָמוניסטישע, אָבער סימפּאַטעטישע פֿאַרן סאָװעטן פֿאַרבאַנד.
דער אָרדן איז געװען אַזאַ מין אָרגאַניזאַציע. ער האָט צוגעצױגן מאַסן אַרבעטער, דער עיקר אימיגראַנטן, צוליב צוטריטלעכע פֿאַרזיכערונגען און פֿאַרשײדענע אַקטיװיטעטן אױף זײערע שפּראַכן.
לרובֿ זײַנען די מיטגלידער ניט געװען קײן קאָמוניסטן און האָבן געהאַט אַ קנאַפּן אינטערעס אין דער קאָמוניסטישער אידעאָלאָגיע, הגם די אָנפֿירער פֿונעם אָרדן, אַזעלכע װי משה אָלגין, זײַנען טאַקע יאָ געװען פּאַרטײ־מיטגלידער.
דערבײַ האָט די אַמעריקאַנער קאָמוניסטישע פּאַרטײ ניט געװאָלט שאַפֿן אַן אײַנדרוק, אַז זי איז אַן אָרגאַניזאַציע פֿון אימיגראַנטן. דערפֿאַר האָט די פּאַרטײ ניט אונטערגעהאַלטן נאָענטע באַציִונגען מיטן אָרדן.
אָפֿיציעל האָט די פּאַרטײ באַװיליקט די קולטורעלע און לינגװיסטישע אַמעריקאַניזאַציע פֿון אימיגראַנטן, בעת דער אָרדן האָט געפֿירט די אַרבעט אױף די שפּראַכן פֿון זײַנע מיטגלידער: ייִדיש, איטאַליעניש, פֿיניש, סלאָװאַקיש, פּױליש און אַנדערע, און דערבײַ אַ ביסל אָפּגעשוואַכט זײער אַסימילאַציע.
די פּראָ־סאָװעטישע פּאָליטיק פֿונעם אָרדן אין די 1930ער יאָרן האָט ניט דערלאָזט זײַנע ייִדישע מיטגלידער מיטאַרבעטן מיט אַנדערע ייִדישע אָרגאַניזאַציעס, בפֿרט ציוניסטישע. דאָס האָט זיך אָבער געביטן בעת דער צװײטער װעלט־מלחמה, שרײַבט סאַמפּסאָן. אַ היפּשע ראָלע האָט דערבײַ געשפּילט דער באַזוך פֿון די אָנפֿירער פֿונעם מאָסקװער ייִדישן אַנטי־פֿאַשיסטישן קאָמיטעט שלמה מיכאָעלס און איציק פֿעפֿער אין אַמעריקע אין 1943. פֿעפֿער האָט ספּעציעל באַזוכט דעם קעמפּ „קינדערלאַנד“.
צוליב דער נײַער „אַחדות“־פּאָליטיק איז די ייִדישע בראַנזשע פֿונעם אָרדן אַרײַנגענומען געװאָרן אין דער הױפּטשטראָמיקער „אַמעריקאַנער ייִדישער קאָנפֿערענץ“, װוּ זי האָט מיטגעאַרבעט אַפֿילו מיט די ציוניסטן.
אין 1944 איז די ייִדישע בראַנזשע געװאָרן אַ מין אומאָפּהענגיקע אָרגאַניזאַציע — דער „ייִדישער פֿראַטערנאַלער פֿאָלקס־אָרדן“. דער נײַער אָרדן האָט זיך דערװײַטערט פֿון זײַן קאָמוניסטישן עיזבֿון און זיך אָפּגעגעבן, דער עיקר, מיט ייִדישע ענינים. נאָך 1945 האָבן זײ זיך אָפּגעגעבן מיט דער הילף פֿאַר דער שארית־הפּליטה אין אײראָפּע.
די קאַלטע מלחמה איז געװען אַ טאָפּלטע מפּלה. אין אַמעריקע האָבן זיך אָנגעהױבן רדיפֿות אױף קאָמוניסטן, בעת אינעם סאָװעטן־פֿאַרבאַנד האָט סטאַלין צו נישט געמאַכט די גאַנצע ייִדישע קולטור. סוף־כּל־סוף איז דער אַמעריקאַנער „פֿאָלקס־אָרדן“ ליקװידירט געװאָרן אין 1955.
בילדונג איז געװען אַ װיכטיקער טײל פֿון זייער פּאָליטישער אַרבעט. אין 1926 האָבן די לינקע ייִדישיסטן אין ניו־יאָרק געשאַפֿן דעם „ייִדישן אַרבעטער אוניװערסיטעט“, װאָסער ציל איז געװען צו דערציִען אַ נײַעם דור פּאָליטישע אַקטיװיסטן, װאָס זאָלן זײַן באַהאַװנט סײַ אין דער ייִדישער קולטור און סײַ אין דער מאַרקסיסטישער טעאָריע.
דאָס איז געװען „אײנע פֿון די אַנשטאַלטן אינעם גערעם פֿונעם ברײטערן פּראָיעקט פֿון ייִדישע קאָמוניסטן צו שאַפֿן אַן אײגענע קולטור־װעלט“, שרײַבט דילאַן קאַופֿמאַן־אָבסטלער. צו דעם דאָזיקן פּראָיעקט האָבן געהערט אױך קעמפּ „קינדערלאַנד“, דער װױנונג־קאָאָפּעראַטיװ אין דער בראָנקס — די „אַמאַלגאַמייטעד“ — און די קאָמוניסטישע צײַטונג „מאָרגן־פֿרײַהײט“.
אַלע ייִדישע קאָמוניסטישע פּראָיעקטן, און דער אוניװערסיטעט בתוכם, האָבן געהאַט אַן אינערלעכע סתּירה אין זײער תּוך. פֿון אײן זײַט איז זײער ציל געװען אָפּצוהיטן ייִדיש און די װעלטלעכע ייִדישע קולטור אינעם אַמעריקאַנער „שמעלצטאָפּ“. פֿון דער אַנדערער זײַט האָט מען געגלױבט אינעם אַלװעלטלעכן קאָמוניסטישן אינטערנאַציאָנאַל אָן קײן שום נאַציאָנאַלע גרענעצן.
די דאָזיקע סתּירה האָט גורם געװען שפּאַנונגען אין דער ייִדישער קאָמוניסטישער סבֿיבֿה. אין די 1930ער יאָרן זײַנען זײ נאָך געװען ביכולת צו געפֿינען אַ פּשרה. מען האָט געטענהט, אַז ייִדיש איז געװען דער סאַמע פּאַסיקסטער מיטל צו פֿאַרשפּרײטן קאָמוניסטישע אידעען בײַ די ייִדישע אימיגראַנטן.
אָבער די דאָזיקע סתּירה איז געװאָרן נאָך שאַרפֿער בעת דער צװײטער װעלט־מלחמה, װען די טראַגעדיע פֿונעם ייִדישן חורבן איז געװאָרן װיכטיקער פֿאַר אַמעריקאַנער ייִדן אײדער דער קאָמוניסטישער חלום.
װי אַקטועל איז די דאָזיקע געשיכטע װעגן דעם שידוך צװישן ייִדישקײט און קאָמוניזם פֿאַרן הײַנטיקן פּאָליטישן סדר־היום? אין די 1930ער יאָרן האָבן ייִדישע אימיגראַנטן פֿון מזרח־אײראָפּע לרובֿ געהערט צו דעם אַרבעטער־קלאַס. זײ האָבן נאָך געהאַט זײער שפּראַך, ייִדיש, און פֿאַרמאָגט אַ שטאַרקע עטנישע אידענטיטעט. דערצו האָבן זײ געליטן פֿון אַנטיסעמיטיזם, װאָס איז געװען פֿאַרשפּרײט, דער עיקר, צװישן װײַסע אַמעריקאַנער נאַציאָנאַליסטן. אױף דעם דאָזיקן יסוד האָט מען געקענט בױען אַ ברײטע מאַסן־באַװעגונג, װאָס זאָל פֿאַראײניקן אימיגראַנטן און די אַפֿריקאַנער אַמעריקאַנער.
דער איצטיקער מצבֿ איז אַנדערש. הײַנט געהערן ייִדן אין אַמעריקע לרובֿ צו דעם מיטלשטאַנד, און זײער עטנישער אָפּשטאַם איז אַן ענין פֿאַר נאָסטאַלגישע מעשׂיות. אָבער זײער סאָציאַלער אױפֿקום האָט ניט בטל געמאַכט דעם אַנטיסעמיטיזם.
נאָך מער, הײַנט איז אַנטיסעמיטיזם פֿאַרשפּרײט אי בײַ די רעכטע „מאַגאַ“־נאַצינאַליסטן אי בײַ די ראַדילאַקע לינקע. כּדי צו װערן אַן „אײגענער“ בײַ די לינקע, מוז אַ ייִדישער אַקטיװיסט זיך אָפּלײקענען פֿון ציוניזם און מדינת־ישׂראל.
דאָ קומט צו נוץ די אַלטע ירושה פֿונעם ייִדישיסטישן קאָמוניזם. מען זעט דערין אַ מין אַלטערנאַטיװע ייִדישקײט, װאָס איז אי פּראָגרעסיװ אי אַנטי־ציוניסטיש. אָבער װי אַזױ קען מען מחיה־מתים זײַן די לעבעדיקע ייִדישע סבֿיבֿה פֿון יענער תּקופֿה? אין יענע יאָרן האָבן די ייִדן — ניט געקוקט אױף זייערע טיפֿע פּאָליטישע חילוקי־דעות —פֿאָרט געהאַט אַ וויכטיקע זאַך בשותּפֿות: די אײגענע שפּראַך און קולטור.
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‘The Winter’s Tale’ is one of Shakespeare’s most confounding plays; was it also his most Jewish?
We all know about Shakespeare’s anti-Jewish play. But did he also write a Jewish play? Well, not explicitly or consciously, but The Winter’s Tale, which begins performances July 25 at the Public Theater’s Delacorte Theater in Central Park, appears to be full of Jewish motifs — themes from the Hebrew Bible (filtered through the Christian Bible, of course).
The play is a tale of exile, the abandonment of a child, years in the wilderness, repentance, homecoming and redemption. It is reminiscent at least in part of the stories of Moses in Egypt and the Exodus, as well as Joseph and his brothers.
Daniel Sullivan, the play’s director at the Delacorte, told me over the phone that he thought the biblical connection was an interesting idea — “certainly a possibility,” he said. Sullivan, 86, was less certain whether Shakespeare had explored these biblical themes “knowledgeably or whether it was something he simply shared” with the time. A version of those themes can be found, for example, in the source of the play’s plot, the 1588 tragic pastoral romance novella Pandosto: The Triumph of Time by Robert Greene.
Scholars have written about these biblical allusions. But The Winter’s Tale is of course about much more than that. “I’ve always been amazed by it,” Sullivan said. “It’s a play that’s sort of impossible. It’s a difficult piece in terms of both its tragic and comic elements. But it’s also one of the most moving of all of Shakespeare’s plays and one of the most human.”
The play’s first half lurches into utter Shakespearean tragedy, then miraculously changes direction and turns into Shakespearean comedy. Leontes, king of Sicilia, becomes insanely jealous, believing his pregnant wife, Hermione, has been unfaithful with his longtime and childhood friend, the king of Bohemia. He imprisons her, she gives birth in prison, she is tried and collapses in court and it is announced that she has died.
Leontes and Hermione’s young son, Mamillius, dies of grief. Leontes exiles his newborn daughter, who is taken to the kingdom of Bohemia, where she is abandoned and discovered by a shepherd, who raises her as his own. Sixteen years pass before she returns to Sicilia, as the play begins its surprising metamorphosis. Hermione — magically — reappears and there is an (almost) happy denouement.
The opening part of the play is an intensely detailed —especially for the time it was written — example of irrational psychology, of Leontes’ jealousy and delusion — it is, Sullivan said, “very challenging” to direct.
And then, when you think all will be lost, as in King Lear, or Hamlet, or Othello, the playwright reverses the course of his tragic source material. (Things do not end happily for King Pandosto of Pandosto.)
Why does Sullivan think Shakespeare decided to veer away from his play’s, and Pandosto’s, disastrous path? One possibility, he said, is that Shakespeare could see that he could create “a fantastical element in it — that for 16 years Hermione has been hiding somewhere.” (In Pandosto the queen just dies.) “It’s sort of wonderfully out there in terms of a plot device. And I think that Shakespeare gloried in that. It goes from extremely tragic to very charming, and there aren’t a lot of Shakespeare’s plays that are like that,” Sullivan said.
But there’s something else. The play is, after all, a tale of redemption and forgiveness. It’s a late play, written around 1609-1611 — Shakespeare died in 1616 — and, Sullivan said, the play’s late birth perhaps had something to with its theme. “I think whether he knew the end was coming or not, certainly the idea of redemption is sort of the undergirding of this play.”
Even so, the ending is not a completely happy one. Mamillius, the royal family’s son, does not return. “That’s one of the elements of the play that Shakespeare buries a little bit,” Sullivan said.
Could Shakespeare have been thinking of his own young son, Hamnet, who died of the plague at age 11? “I think that’s probably true,” said Sullivan.
Still, Sullivan has managed in a way to bring back the king’s son. “One of the things we do with this,” he said, “is when the character of Time comes out to tell us what’s happened,” that 16 years have passed in the story, “we actually use the character of Mamillius as a sort of angel to tell us.”
Sullivan has been directing professionally for more than a half-century and has helmed more than 30 plays on Broadway. He won the directing Tony Award for David Auburn’s Proof in 2001, and has received seven other Tony nominations. He is also very much a Shakespeare maven. This is his 12th production for Free Shakespeare in the Park.
Directing Shakespeare has long been, and remains, special for Sullivan. “ I just love being around it more than anything else,” he said. “I love getting deeply into it, and researching it as much as I possibly can. I’ve done a lot of the plays more than once, and every time I come back to them they always seem completely different to me. I think about my own life and, in the way that I see things differently than I did 20 years ago, I see these plays differently.”
The Winter’s Tale contains perhaps the most famous stage direction in all of Shakespeare — “Exit, pursued by a bear.” This summer, will the Delacorte, long a home to scene-stealing raccoons, bear witness to a much larger stage creature?
“The one thing I really didn’t want to do was have a man in a bear suit chasing the actor across the stage. It’s just too funny. It’s possible that Shakespeare wanted it to be rather comic. But we find it rather tragic. So we’re doing it in a way that I think will be somewhat surprising. I’m not going to tell you. People will have to come and see.”
Performances of The Winter’s Tale run through Aug. 23 at the Delacorte.
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