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Jewish drag performers inspire a history of the art form in New York
(New York Jewish Week) — In the 1960s, a drag queen named Flawless Sabrina arrived in New York City during a time when drag performances were not only stigmatized in mainstream society, but within LGBTQ circles as well.
But Flawless Sabrina had a plan: Her welcoming demeanor — which she described as a “bar mitzvah mother” — helped her popularize the art form, and over the next few decades she became one of the country’s first well-known drag performers, a prominent LGBTQ activist and a mentor to young queer New Yorkers.
The person behind the drag, the activism and the inspiration was Jack Doroshow, a Jewish boy from Philadelphia who organized his first drag pageant in 1959 as a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania.
Doroshow’s death in late 2017, at age 78, prompted writer Elyssa Maxx Goodman to think seriously about how to document the history of drag in New York City, a lifelong passion of hers. After more than five years of work, her debut book, “Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City,” is out this week.
Goodman told the New York Jewish Week that it was her Jewish upbringing that made her particularly attuned to recording the stories of these artists and performers over the last 150 years.
“One of the things we learn about as Jews from very young is how our stories either were destroyed or faced many attempts at destruction. That’s something that I kind of took with me throughout my life,” Goodman, 34, told the New York Jewish Week. “I wanted to preserve the stories that aren’t being preserved, which is how I approached my relationship to drag history.”
The New York Jewish Week caught up with Goodman ahead of her book’s launch to talk about how her childhood, New York City and her cultural Jewish identity inspired the book.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
The 2021 Drag March at Tompkins Square Park, 27 years after its first iteration in 1994. (Elyssa Maxx Goodman)
What inspired you to write this book?
What pushed me to write this book was that it didn’t exist and it was a book I wanted to read. When the very famous New York drag queen Flawless Sabrina, who was also Jewish, passed away in November 2017, I wanted to make sure that there were no stories that got lost. I started to think about what other books had been written that chronicle the life of drag artists in New York City. There wasn’t a book that was really a written-through history. I knew that these artists deserve that and I wanted to make sure that their stories are remembered. That was definitely the driving force in wanting to do the book.
I first was exposed to drag when I was about 7 years old. I saw the movie “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar” and I was taken with it ever since then. I had grown up watching 1950s movie musicals with my mother, which were these very vibrant technicolor explosions with lots of swirling dresses and beautiful costumes. Drag is a natural extension of that. So for me, at first, it was just another phase of that interest in costume design and glamor. As I got older, I learned more about the very powerful, rebellious nature of drag and how it is a force to be reckoned with on its own, as an art form and as a life force. What can draw you in is the glamour, but as you get older what keeps you there — at least what kept me there — is the appreciation for its spirit of “Glamour as Resistance,” as the artist Justin Vivian Bond says.
How is your Jewish identity or upbringing connected to your interest in drag?
My relationship to Judaism is deeply cultural — that’s the way that I connect to it most strongly. The first people who brought me to a drag show in real life were my parents and throughout my life, they encouraged my interest in drag.
Everything that we learn about ourselves as a culture, whether it is intentional or not, comes through in creating a book like this, or at least it did for me. We’re taught to question — I arrived at this place because I questioned why the book didn’t exist. Then I just kept asking questions: Where did this come from? Why don’t people know about it? How can I teach it to them? The desire for knowledge and desire for education are all things that I took from Judaism.
The Jewish drag artists I encountered in the book, among them Jack Doroshow, aka Flawless Sabrina, as well as Harvey Fierstein and a drag king named Buddy Kent all came from backgrounds where, in some way or another, they had to fight to be themselves. In some ways, that was fighting to take up space as a Jewish person and in other ways as a queer person. For all of them, it was both. The book contains selections of stories about making space for yourself in the world and the way that you want to live in it — I think that that is something that a lot of Jews had to reckon with as they came to this country in a multitude of ways.
Why did you choose to focus only on the drag history in New York?
New York is one of the cultural epicenters of the world. Because it holds all these different kinds of cultures, it draws the people who are drawn to that. That includes drag artists. There’s amazing drag in other cities, but New York is the city that I know best and it has a history all its own.
It’s also the place that I have the most personal connection to. I’m from South Florida originally and I went to my first drag shows in South Florida, but the drag histories that I learned growing up came from New York. So I moved to New York in July 2010. My primary motivation for moving to New York was to be a writer and to be able to easily access all of the things that I wanted to write about, and drag certainly was one of them. There were these deep-seated histories that had been a passion of mine for a very long time and I wanted to keep telling those stories and learning those stories. New York was a place where I wanted to make myself a student as well as to share my knowledge.
Drag performing has been a major target of right-wing circles this year — as someone who has been involved with and written about the community, how do you respond to the backlash?
I do see it as an opportunity for people to learn more about it. Like I mentioned, drag has been an art form for thousands of years. It’s at least as old as the history of theater. The people who do it are artists and deserve to be respected in such a way. My hope is that with a book that can show the breadth of drag’s involvement in our culture, it can help show that this is an art form with an extended history that can’t just be suppressed and isn’t going anywhere. The struggles the drag is facing are not new, but that doesn’t mean that it should be devalued as an art form, or as a form of self-expression at all.
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The post Jewish drag performers inspire a history of the art form in New York appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.