The Surprising Jewish Message Behind ‘Into the Woods’

Alina Adams for Kveller

It’s earned over $100 million at the box office so far, charting the best debut of a Broadway-inspired musical ever, so Disney’s Christmas Day release of “Into the Woods” looks on track to become a record-breaking hit. As a Stephen Sondheim fan, I would agree that “Into the Woods” is a terrific musical (and for those concerned, fine for kids; mine had the soundtrack memorized in preschool, and they’ve seen the Broadway production, the Shakespeare in the Park version, and now the movie). As someone with a Masters degree in Media Analysis who writes on Jewish topics, I also see “Into the Woods” as quietly, subversively Jewish. Here’s why.

Stephen Sondheim is Jewish. Wealthy, assimilated, grew up on the Upper West Side of New York City Jewish. (Sondheim’s first Broadway job was writing the lyrics to “West Side Story.” When offered the assignment, he reportedly responded, “But I don’t know any Puerto Ricans. I don’t even know any poor people.”) In the book, “Stars of David” by Abigail Pogrebin, Sondheim confessed he also didn’t know how to pronounce “Yom Kippur” until his “West Side Story” collaborator, Leonard Bernstein, set him straight.

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Saving Jewish Graves

Salvaging a Pakistani-Jewish Identity

by Erica Lyons for AsianJewishLife.org
Karachi’s Magen Shalom Synagogue was demolished in July 1988, to make way for
the Madiha Square shopping mall. The majority of Pakistan’s Jewish community had already dwindled and left this now hostile environment and the remaining Jews there live in virtual
anonymity. While the history of the
community has been documented, there are few remaining monuments. There is perhaps though one seemingly unlikely champion for this lost community, Faisal Benkhal. He now chooses to be identified by the adopted name Fishel and he has taken on the task of attempting to preserve, clean and restore the Jewish cemetery in Mewah Shah Karachi.

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Testing Positive for Judaism: Unlocking a Family’s Genetic Secret

A genetic test for Tay-Sachs revealed surprising results—and helped my husband and me discover what Judaism means to us

By Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy for Tablet Magazine

Being tested for a genetic disorder is usually not a laughing matter, but that’s exactly what we were doing when my husband had his blood drawn to see if he, like me, was a carrier for Tay-Sachs. His being tested was a formality for us as Jewish prospective parents. We didn’t take it seriously because we didn’t have anything to worry about: Matt had been born and raised Catholic in a rural town in northeastern Pennsylvania. He converted to Judaism before we got married two and a half years before. He had told me that loving me meant loving everything about me, including my Judaism. He had told my parents that he felt a resonance in Judaism that he had never found in Catholicism. He had told our rabbi that he felt personally committed to helping ensure that there would be future generations of Jews in the world, to parent and raise Jewish children of his own. And yet Matt’s commitment to his new faith didn’t alter the statistical improbability of his being a Tay-Sachs carrier.

Which is why we were shocked, stunned, speechless when we learned that he was a carrier. Not just because of what that test result meant for our efforts to have children, but because of what it meant beyond that: My husband, the Jew-by-choice, had been Jewish all along. Genes don’t lie; a genetic counselor told us that Matt had, without a doubt, a specifically Ashkenazic version of the mutation that causes Tay-Sachs.

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If Chabad becomes more dominant, American Judaism will change

by Shmuel Rosner for jewishjournal.com

I was planning to write a post about Chabad way before the stabbing in NY last week, and without even remembering that last week was the "new year" of Chasidism according to Chabad calendar. I was planning to write about Chabad following my article on why the Jews of Miami are doing so great. The article was based on a study by Prof. Ira Sheskin in which one finding stood out as remarkable: 26% of Miami Jews have "participated in Chabad activity". That’s a lot. And it becomes even more impressive as one examines in more detail how Chabad got to this impressive percentage. Sheskin kindly shared with me some of the numbers.

For example, the following nugget: Chabad participants in Miami are not "Israeli" or "Orthodox". In other words: do not fall for the common prejudice about Chabad's constituency. According to Sheskin's study, 25% of them are indeed Orthodox, but 32% are Conservative, and 19% are Reform (23% are "Just Jewish" – more in line with common thinking). This means that more than half of the participants in Chabad activities come from a progressive Jewish background (you can add to that the 1% Reconstructionist). Think about it this way: a movement that is in many ways a part of the ultra-Orthodox world is able to attract Jews that are supposedly the arch-rivals of ultra-Orthodoxy. Of course, that is the genius of Chabad – without giving up on being ultra-Orthodox, it is able to convince other Jews that it is not really ultra-Orthodox. There is "haredi" – a term many Jews associate with groups that they find quite difficult to understand and work with – and there is "Chabad" – a brand with a positive image.

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