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A Missouri school district could ban ‘Maus,’ citing concerns about whether it is ‘explicit sexual material’
(JTA) – A Missouri school board is preparing to vote next week on whether to ban Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust graphic memoir “Maus” — even though no parent in the district has challenged it.
Spiegelman himself is among those exhorting the board of Nixa Public Schools, a district of about 6,000 students in Christian County just south of the state capital of Springfield, not to remove his book and several others.
“We haven’t learned much from the past, but there’s some things you should be able to figure out,” Spiegelman said in an interview with the literary free-speech advocacy group PEN America published as part of a campaign directed at the Nixa school board. “Book burning leads to people burning. So it’s something that needs to be fought against.”
Nixa is at least the third district in Missouri to seriously question whether current state laws allow it to stock “Maus” in schools. Its board will meet Tuesday to determine the fate of “Maus,” along with six other books including an illustrated adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which portrays a dystopian society in which the United States has been placed under a fundamentalist theocratic rule.
Spiegelman’s book was an early, visible casualty of the nationwide conservative-led movement to remove or restrict books from school libraries for perceived inappropriate content when a Tennessee district voted to remove “Maus” from its middle school curriculum last year. There, school board members cited profanity in the book and a drawing of a naked mouse, which represented the author’s mother after she died by suicide.
Books with LGBTQ content and books about race have been the primary targets of the movement, with graphic novels in particular facing frequent challenges. Over the past year, several other Jewish books have been caught up in purges across multiple states, including an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, a novel about the Holocaust by Jodi Picoult, and a children’s picture book about a Jewish family with two dads.
Unlike in many of these cases, no parent in Nixa challenged the appropriateness of “Maus” or several of the other books facing removal. Instead, the district is concerned that the book could risk violating a state law that establishes a criminal penalty and possible jail time for educators found to have provided children with access to “explicit sexual material.”
“Maus is pending review by the school district due to a recently passed Missouri state law making it a crime to provide materials of visual depiction of sexual act or genitalia to students. Any material that could potentially violate the law are being presented to the board,” Zac Rantz, a district spokesperson, said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Rantz emphasized that “Maus” was not being targeted because of its subject matter.
“These actions should not be viewed as an attempt to limit students’ access to information about the Holocaust or be viewed as antisemitic,” he said in the statement. “The district does not tolerate hate speech of any kind and has the teaching of the Holocaust as a part of various classes. The material is being reviewed solely on the basis of the new state law in order to help protect the staff from legal action and place the decision on the board of education.”
Nixa school board president Josh Roberts told the Washington Post the book was “potentially violative” of laws and policies but did not provide further detail. Roberts did not return a JTA request for comment.
Some other Missouri school districts have interpreted the law broadly to mean that comic books and graphic novels, in particular, could expose staff to legal liability. One district near St. Louis ordered staff to temporarily pull not only “Maus,” but also hundreds of other illustrated books, including several Holocaust history books for young readers and art history books featuring Jewish artists.
An email the Nixa school district sent to staff after the law passed instructs its staff to have all materials in their classrooms approved by the district.
“The law defines sexual material as a visual depiction of a sexual act or genitalia,” the email said in part. “There are exceptions for works of art that have serious artistic significance, or works of anthropological significance, or materials used in science courses like biology or anatomy.”
At the time of the Tennessee district’s initial removal of “Maus,” Spiegelman spoke to a local Jewish federation about the controversy, saying it was “about controlling.” He has since appeared on CBS and in other media outlets as a leading voice for authors opposing restrictions on their books in schools.
Now the Pulitzer Prize-winning comics artist is partnering with PEN America to decry attempts to remove the book. PEN has also launched a petition in an effort to convince the Nixa board not to remove the book.
Attacks on “Maus” and other books are “a real warning sign of a country that’s yearning for a return of authoritarianism,” Spiegelman told the Washington Post. Reflecting on the wide array of books that have faced bans, he said, channeling the view of the bans’ proponents, “It’s one more book — just throw it on the bonfire.”
At the Nixa board meeting, the seven-member board will vote individually on each book brought before them. Its vote for “Maus” will not consider questions of appropriateness, only whether the book could conceivably be found in violation of state law.
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The post A Missouri school district could ban ‘Maus,’ citing concerns about whether it is ‘explicit sexual material’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Loved ones remember two Jewish women killed in Midtown Manhattan mass shooting one year ago
One year after Blackstone executive and Jewish community leader Wesley LePatner was killed in a mass shooting in the lobby of her Midtown Manhattan office, her family is marking the yahrtzeit by launching a foundation in her name.
“What we are officially launching today is not just the start of a love letter to my amazing wife,” her husband, Evan LePatner, said in a statement. “We are building programs and a community that she would have led, nurtured, and inspired many others to join.”
The Wesley Mittman LePatner Foundation aims to cultivate 1,000 leaders in the coming decades through a mentorship program. The two-year leadership accelerator will connect fellows with mentors to hone their skills supporting nonprofit organizations and civic institutions, according to a press release. Sheryl Sandberg, the former COO of Facebook, is among the foundation’s supporters.
LePatner was shot and killed at age 43, along with Julia Hyman, a 27-year-old associate at the real estate company Rudin Management, who was also Jewish.
The gunman, identified as 27-year-old Shane Tamura, opened fire at a Park Avenue office building, killing four people before turning the gun on himself. Investigators said Tamura — who claimed in a note to suffer from CTE, the brain disease associated with repeated head trauma — had intended to target the office of the National Football League, but took the wrong elevator.
The foundation is one of several initiatives to honor the victims of the shooting. Earlier this year, UJA-Federation of New York — where LePatner was on the board — created the Wesley M. LePatner Emerging Leadership Award, which will honor a rising star on Wall Street who strives to make a positive difference.
Hyman’s friends organized a fundraiser for March Fourth, a nonprofit that aims to end mass shootings.
“Her smile lit up every room and her hugs could brighten even the worst days,” Megan Arden, a friend of Hyman’s who ran the New York City marathon in her honor, wrote in a statement. “There will be a hole in my heart forever.”
On Tuesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch led a memorial service for NYPD Detective Didarul Islam, who was off-duty working as a security guard when he was shot and killed.
A new law, raising the minimum wage for private security officers to $22.20 an hour, also took effect on Tuesday in honor of security officer Aland Etienne, who was killed while trying to shut down the building’s elevators during the attack.
Jewish legacies
Both Hyman and LePatner were active members of the Jewish community.
LePatner was a board member of UJA-Federation of New York and the Abraham Joshua Heschel School. She won a Youth Enrichment Center Award from Park East Synagogue, and was involved in the founding of the Orthodox Altneu congregation on the Upper East Side.
She also received the Alan C. Greenberg Young Leadership Award at UJA’s annual Wall Street Dinner in 2023. In her acceptance speech, LePatner shared how, growing up, her parents always reminded her that she “was an American, but first and foremost Jewish.”
At LePatner’s funeral, her father, Lawrence Mittman, recalled how her passion for Judaism began early, studying Talmud the summer before starting college at Yale University.
Others recalled her love for the state of Israel, including a “solidarity mission” she led to the country in the wake of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.
“Israel is Wesley, and Wesley was Israel,” her husband, Evan LePatner, said at the funeral. “Small in size, insanely productive, wrangling with being religious and pragmatic all at once, inclusive of all who want to be inside the tent, fierce in the defense of its people.”
Hyman grew up in Manhattan and attended the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx. She went on to study hotel and restaurant administration at the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2020.
At Hyman’s funeral, former classmates of Hyman from Riverdale sang “Shalom Rav,” a song that a friend recalled the two had sung together at her bat mitzvah.
Rabbi Maurice Salth of Central spoke at the funeral about how Hyman “took a stand for Israel, and continued to do so during what has been a deeply challenging and demanding time.”
“Let us be careful about trying to make this tragedy feel better by saying such things as, ‘At least she went quickly,’ or, ‘At least we had her for 27 years,’” Salth added. “There is nothing that can make this tragedy better or logical.”
The post Loved ones remember two Jewish women killed in Midtown Manhattan mass shooting one year ago appeared first on The Forward.
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Shmuel Plavnik: A classic example of Jewish-Belarusian identity
מיט צוויי חדשים צוריק האָב איך געשריבן אינעם פֿאָרווערטס, אַז איך האָב צופֿעליק אַנטדעקט מאַגישע כּתבֿ־ידן אויף ווײַסרוסיש, אָנגעשריבן מיט ייִדישע אותיות. דאָס געפֿינס איז ממש אויף אַ מיסטישן אופֿן צונויפֿגעפֿאַלן מיטן 160־יאָריקן געבורט־יוביליי פֿונעם ייִדישן שרײַבער שמואל־נחום פּלאַווניק, באַקאַנט אויף רײַסיש ווי זמיטראָק ביאַדוליאַ.
פֿאַר וואָס איז דאָס אַ חידוש? אין 1921 האָט פּלאַווניק פֿאַרעפֿנטלעכט אַ קורצן אַרטיקל וועגן אַ ייִדישן כּתבֿ־יד, וווּ צווישן עטלעכע סגולות אויף לשון־קודש און ייִדיש טרעפֿט זיך אויך רײַסיש. ביז איצט האָבן די פֿאָרשער געמיינט, אַז יענער אַרטיקל איז פֿאַרלוירן געגאַנגען, און נאַט אײַך – אָט האָט ער זיך אָפּגעפֿונען, פּונקט צו פּלאַווניקס יוביליי!
סיאַרהיי שופּאַ, אַ ווײַסרוסישער שפּראַך־אַקטיוויסט, וועלכער קען גוט ייִדיש און האָט איבערגעזעצט אַ סך ווערק פֿון משה קולבאַקן אויף רײַסיש, האָט געלייענט וועגן מײַנע געפֿינסן, און האָט פֿאַרגליכן איינס פֿון זיי מיט יענעם, וואָס ס׳האָט אָנגעהויבן פֿאָרשן ביאַדוליאַ. ער האָט באַמערקט, אַז ער שטימט אין אַלע פּרטים מיט איינעם פֿון מײַנע. כ׳האָב צוערשט געמיינט, אַז דער כּתבֿ־יד איז טאַקע פֿאַרלוירן געגאַנגען; נישט געוווּסט, אַז ער געפֿינט זיך שוין לאַנג דיגיטאַליזירט, אָפֿענערהייט אין דער אינטערנעץ. באַקומט זיך, אַז איך בין פּלוצעם געוואָרן זמיטראָק ביאַדוליאַס אַ ממשיך־דרך.
אַ געבוירענער דעם 23סטן אַפּריל אינעם דערפֿל פּאַסאַדזעץ אויף צפֿון פֿון מינסק (הײַנט וווינען דאָרט אַרום 150 תּושבֿים), האָט זיך שמואל פּלאַווניק פֿון קינדווײַז אָן געפֿילט היימיש סײַ אין דער ייִדישער קולטור פֿון זײַן היים, סײַ אין דער אַרומיקער קולטור פֿון די רײַסישע פּויערים. אין זײַנע ווערק באַטאָנט ער, אַז אַזוי איז געווען דער דורות־לאַנגער שטייגער פֿון אַ סך ייִדן אין רײַסן.
ס׳איז כּדאַי דאָ צו באַמערקן, אַז ווי באַלד דער אַלטער ייִדישער נאָמען פֿון בעלאַרוס איז רײַסן, להיפּוך צום פֿאַרעלטערטן דײַטשישן וואָרט „ווײַסרוסלאַנד‟, איז בעסער הײַנט אויף ייִדיש צו רופֿן די שפּראַך רײַסיש, הגם אין דער סאָוועטישער נאָמענקלאַטור איז אָנגענומען „ווײַסרוסיש‟. „בעלאַרוסיש‟ קלינגט, דאַכט זיך מיר, איבעריק, ווײַל בײַ ייִדן איז שוין במשך פֿון דורות פֿאַראַן אַן אייגן וואָרט פֿאַרן דאָזיקן סלאַווישן לשון.
פּלאַווניק האָט געלערנט אין אַ חדר און אַ ישיבֿה; בײַ זײַן זיידן, דעם אָרטיקן אײַזן־ און קופּער־שמיד, איז געווען די איינציקע ביבליאָטעק אינעם דאָרף, וווּ לעבן דער גמרא זענען אויף דער פּאָליצע געשטאַנען ביכער וועגן מאַטעמאַטיק און מעטאַלורגיע.
מיט זײַן טאַטן האָט ער זיך אָפֿט פֿאַרנומען מיט געהילץ־אַרבעט אין וועלדער. דערפֿאַר איז פֿאַר אים די וואַלדישע נאַטור פֿון רײַסן אויך געווען פֿון קינדווײַז אָן היימיש. זײַנע ערשטע דערציילונגען אויף ייִדיש און העברעיִש זענען געווען געווידמעט דער שווערער מי פֿון געהילץ־אַרבעטער. דערנאָך האָט ער זיך באַקענט מיט דער רײַסיש־שפּראַכיקער פּרעסע, וועלכער האָט דעמאָלט ערשט אָנגעהויבן זיך אַנטוויקלען. פֿון 1910 אָן האָט ער זיך כּמעט אין גאַנצן אָפּגעגעבן מיט רײַסיש אונטערן פּסעוודאָנים זמיטראָק ביאַדוליאַ. אַ ייִד און אַ ווײַסרוס מיט אַ טאָפּלטער עטנישער אידענטיטעט, האָט ער איבערגעזעצט פֿון ייִדיש אויף רײַסיש שלום־עליכמס ראָמאַן „מאָטל פּייסי דעם חזנס‟ און שמואל גאָדינערס ראָמאַן „דער מענטש מיט דער ביקס‟. גאָדינער איז געווען זײַנער אַ לאַנדסמאַן, אַ ווײַסרוסישער ייִד.
ווען די נאַציס זענען אָנגעפֿאַלן אויפֿן ראַטן־פֿאַרבאַנד, האָט דער שרײַבער זיך עוואַקויִרט פֿון מינסק. דעם 3טן נאָוועמבער 1941, איז ער געשטאָרבן פֿון אַ האַרץ־אַטאַק צו 55 יאָר.
ביאַדוליאַ האָט איבערגעלאָזט אַ גרויסע ליטעראַרישע ירושה: לידער, דערציילונגען, בתוכם גאַנץ לאַנגע און דעם ראָמאַן „יאַזעפּ קרושינסקי‟. אין 1932 האָט ער בשותּפֿות מיט נחום רובינשטיינען אַרויסגעגעבן אונטער זײַן אמתן נאָמען, שמואל־נחום פּלאַווניק, דאָס ערשטע ווײַסרוסיש־ייִדישע ווערטערבוך, וואָס מע קען הײַנט געפֿינען אין דער אינטערנעץ.
זײַן מיינונג וועגן די באַציִונגען צווישן ייִדן און ווײַסרוסן אין רײַסן האָט ער אויסגעדריקט אין זײַן אַרטיקל וועגן דעם מאַגישן כּתבֿ־יד, ווי אויך אין אַ צאָל שפּעטערדיקע עסייען. ער האָט געהאַלטן, אַז אין פֿאַרגלײַך מיט די אַנדערע פֿעלקער פֿון מיזרח־אייראָפּע, האָבן די רײַסישע ייִדן געלעבט באַזונדערס נאָענט צו זייערע סלאַווישע שכנים, אָנגעהאַלטן מיט זיי פֿרײַנדלעכע באַציִונגען, גערעדט אויף זייער שפּראַך, געזונגען אייגענע לידער אויף רײַסיש. ממילא, האָבן זיי אויך אָפּגעלערנט אַזעלכע ענינים, ווי שפּרוכן קעגן וועלף און שלאַנגען.
ס׳זענען פֿאַראַן אַ סך אַנדערע סימנים, אַז אַזוי איז טאַקע געווען. בײַ די ליובאַוויטשער חסידים זענען פֿאַראַן עטלעכע ניגונים אויף רײַסיש, און אין די זכרונות פֿונעם זעקסטן ליובאַוויטשער רבין, יוסף־יצחק שניאורסאָן, ווערן דערמאָנט סלאַוויש־שפּראַכיקע דאָרפֿישע ייִדן, וואָס האָבן קוים געקענט ייִדיש. אין דער אמתן, שטעלן זײַנע „זכרונות‟ מיט זיך פֿאָר חסידישע מעשׂיות, ליטעראַריש באַאַרבעטע דורכן שרײַבער און זשורנאַליסט דוד־לייב מעקלער. פֿון דעסט וועגן, איז דאָס גאָר אַן אוצר. נאָך פֿריִער האָט דער פֿילאָסאָף שלמה מײַמון דערמאָנט אַזעלכע טיפּן ייִדן אין זײַנע טיף פּערזענלעכע, מײַסטעריש אָנגעשריבענע דײַטשיש־שפּראַכיקע מעמואַרן.
בײַ רײַסישע ייִדן איז פֿאַראַן אַן אויסדרוק: „האַלב טײַטש, פּאָלאָווינאַ רײַסיש‟. פּאָלאָווינאַ מיינט אויף רײַסיש און רוסיש אַ האַלב. ער טרעפֿט זיך בײַם דיכטער יהודה־לייב גאָרדאָן, בײַ מענדעלע, אין שלום־עליכמס אַ קריטישן עסיי וועגן ייִדן אין אַמעריקע, אין נחום סטוטשקאָפֿס „אוצר‟ און אַנדערע קוואַלן. אַזוי רופֿט מען דאָס שפּראַך־געמישעכץ, וואָס איז געווען פֿאַרשפּרייט בײַ שטעלטדיקע און בפֿרט בײַ דאָרפֿישע ייִדן און רײַסן.
עס קאָן זײַן, אַז דווקא צוליב אַזאַ פֿאַרשפּרייטער צוויי־שפּראַכיקייט האָבן געוויסע ייִדן געפֿירט גאַנצע זשורנאַלן פֿון סלאַווישע שפּרוכן, פֿאַרשרײַבנדיק זיי מיטן ייִדישן אַלף־בית. פֿון אַנ־סקיס עקספּעדיציעס ווייסן מיר, אַז אין אוקראַיִנע פֿלעגן ייִדישע פֿאָלקס־רופֿאים, געוויינטלעך פֿרויען, אָפּשפּרעכן אויף אוקראַיִניש, נאָר קיין אַלטע שריפֿטלעכע באַווײַזן דערפֿון האָב איך דערווײַל נישט געפֿונען. שאַפֿט זיך דער אײַנדרוק, אַז בײַ אַ סך ווײַסרוסישע ייִדן איז די שפּראַך פֿון זייערע שכנים טאַקע געווען זייער צווייט מאַמע־לשון.
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Our greatest folksinger wrote about America, Dust Bowl refugees and Jewish identity
Woody Guthrie is best known as one of the giants of 20th-century American folk music. From the late 1930s through the early 1950s, he wrote thousands of songs, many of which became modern-day standards, including “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh,” “I Ain’t Got No Home,” “Tom Joad,” “Hard Travelin’,” “Pastures of Plenty,” and, of course, “This Land Is Your Land.” His songs gave voice to working people and Dust Bowl refugees. He wrote playful children’s songs and songs that railed against fascism and greed. He even wrote a protest song called “Old Man Trump,” about developer Fred Trump, the father of the current president of the United States, decrying the strict racial segregation he enforced in his housing projects.
Guthrie’s influence on generations of singer-songwriters cannot be overstated. His songs have been recorded by hundreds of singers around the world, including Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, Ani DiFranco, Lou Reed, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Lila Downs, and Susan McKeown. The desire to meet Woody Guthrie, who was his hero, is what led Robert Allen Zimmerman to hitchhike from Minneapolis to New York City, where he subsequently fell upon the thriving Greenwich Village folk scene and reinvented himself as a rootsy singer-songwriter named Bob Dylan. The latter’s eponymous first album included an original song entitled “Song to Woody.”
As Steven Pressman makes clear in his new documentary film, Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie, there was another side to Guthrie and his songs. As his son, Arlo Guthrie, explains in the film: “My father studied Judaism and he knew something about it. He never exchanged his faith for something else; he added to his faith. And that something else he added … was a Jewish identity. He understood what that meant traditionally, historically, culturally. And he knew more about Judaism than my zeyde. And so, my bubbe was thrilled.”
It just so happens that Arlo’s bubbe — his grandmother — was acclaimed Yiddish poet and lyricist Aliza Greenblatt. When Guthrie married Aliza’s daughter, Marjorie Mazia (née Greenblatt), the two chose to raise their children in Coney Island, and Marjorie’s parents, Aliza and Isadore Greenblatt, moved from Philadelphia to be close to their expanding brood. And it was primarily through his close relationship with his mother-in-law that Guthrie became knowledgeable about and enamored of Jewish history and culture. Says Arlo, “My father saw something inside the Jewish tradition that inspired him.”
Pressman’s documentary traces the close links between Aliza Greenblatt and Woody Guthrie. “My father and my bubbe had a respect for each other as writers, as thinkers, as people of the heart,” says Arlo. Arlo’s sister, Nora Guthrie, echoes her brother’s comments: “Bubbe would share ideas and lyrics with Woody. So, they were able to form a relationship.” Nora’s daughter, Anna Canoni — seen in the film at the Guthrie family plot in a cemetery in Woody’s hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma — elaborates on the special relationship between her grandfather and great-grandmother: “Aliza and Woody were actually interestingly similar in terms of a hardship and displacement that happens at a young age. There were so many interesting parallels between the two of them, which is why there was so much understanding, empathy and love between the two of them.”
While Aliza Greenblatt took to Woody right away, her husband Isadore was not thrilled about his daughter marrying a Gentile. He did, however, give Guthrie a gift of a Hebrew-English version of the rabbinical text called Pirkei Avot (The Ethics of the Fathers). In the film, Nora Guthrie displays the book, which is filled with Woody’s notes and annotations — even drawings. Woody provided the cover illustration for one of Aliza’s poetry volumes.
The film includes interviews with dozens of people who either knew Woody Guthrie and Aliza Greenblatt or who became familiar with their story. Among them are Guthrie biographer Will Kaufman, who has written three books about the folksinger. Kaufman suggests that Woody and Aliza bonded over being artists and socialists. “[Woody] would have seen in Aliza and Isadore kindred spirits politically,” says Kaufman. “[As refugees], Woody would have seen in them a real fellowship with the Dust Bowl refugees that he had been championing….”
A who’s who of contemporary Yiddish musicians, including vocalist Eleanor Reissa, singer-songwriter Daniel Kahn, and Lorin Sklamberg, cofounder and lead vocalist of the Klezmatics, are among those who pay tribute to them and are heard performing Guthrie and Greenblatt songs. Kahn says, “[Woody] was a staunch anti-Nazi, which makes him Jewish in the most important ways to me.” When the U.S. became involved in the Second World War, Guthrie signed on with the Merchant Marine, and he was overseas for nearly two years. What he experienced there found its way into songs like “You Fascists Bound to Lose,” “Mister Hitler,” and “Ilsa Koch,” about the so-called beast of Buchenwald. In it he sang,
I’m here in Buchenwald.
My number’s on my skin….
The guards have shot a man.
Some more have starved to death.
Here comes the prisoner’s car.
They dump them in the pen.
They load them down the chute.
The trooper cracks their skulls.
He steals their teeth of gold.
He shoves them on the belt.
He swings that furnace door.
He slides their corpses in.
I see the chimney smoke.
I see their ashes hauled.
I see their bones in piles.
Lamp shades are made from skins.
Old Ilsy Koch was jailed.
Old Ilsy Koch went free.
The song was brought to life when Nora Guthrie, president of the Woody Guthrie Foundation, gave the Klezmatics a sheaf of lyrics with Jewish themes that Guthrie never put to music or recorded. The modern klezmer group released two albums worth of these songs in 2006, including “Wonder Wheel,” which garnered the group a Grammy Award, the only klezmer group ever to have received such honor. The album also included their version of the song “Mermaid’s Avenue,” a tribute to the very Jewish Coney Island neighborhood where the Guthries lived. The song even includes the Yiddish word meydele:
Mermaid Avenue that’s the street
Where the lox and bagels meet…
Where the prettiest of the meydeles
Leave their legprints in that sand….
Where the smokefish meets the pretzel
Where the borscht sounds like the seas….
The film also recounts the relationship between Guthrie and Moses “Moe” Asch, a Jewish-Polish immigrant whose father was Sholem Asch, the great Yiddish novelist and playwright. Moe Asch had a recording studio and record label based in New York City. In addition to recording and releasing many Guthrie songs, Asch encouraged Guthrie’s Jewish education and helped steer him to write songs with Jewish content, such as “The Many and the Few,” which retold the story of the Jews. The song was “basically the entire story of Hanukkah set up as an Appalachian ballad,” says Lorin Sklamberg, who recorded it with the Klezmatics on their album “Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanukkah.”
Woody Guthrie died in 1967. His ashes were scattered at the beach in Coney Island. “For a guy from Oklahoma, that was pretty unique,” says Arlo Guthrie. Aliza Greenblatt died in 1975 at the age of 87. With Pressman’s Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie, their common legacy is now cemented for all time.
Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie will screen at the Nashville Jewish Film Festival (Aug. 18), Circle Cinema in Tulsa (Aug. 20) and the Yiddish Book Center — where Marjorie Mazia Guthrie was a board member — in Amherst, Mass., on Sept. 27.
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