Zeji Ozeri: Rising celebrity in Jewish and Hispanic communities

COMMERCIAL BREAK—Zeji Ozeri, left, pauses with microphone in hand during
filming of a commercial of I-Chamba, owned by Vic and Lea Sefler, seated at right. Telemundo videographer is Nancy Castro
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By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO – Zeji Ozeri is a man of three cultures—Mexican, Israeli, and now American—and as a singer, song leader, comedian, documentary film maker and an entertainer on the local Telemundo station, he has developed strong followings among Jews and Hispanic citizens of this city.

“What you have to understand about Zeji is that there are probably more than 1,000 Jewish kids in San Diego who have fallen in love with Jewish songs through him,” commented Todd Salovey, director of the Lipinsky Family Jewish Arts Festival at the San Diego Rep.

“My kids have been taught by Zeji—and whenever Zeji comes to my synagogue (Adat Yeshurun) to pray, I feel as if a celebrity has come in—that’s the effect he has on so many people,” he said.

Rabbi Simcha Weiser, headmaster of Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, has a similar opinion:  “He communicates beautifully with children,” he said. “He is able to inspire kids to sing – and that is not as simple as it sounds.  He puts so much heart, feeling and emotion into it.”

Although Ozeri had learned his prayers at the Yavneh school in Mexico City, which he attended from kindergarten through high school graduation, he did not really learn the Jewish liturgy until after he came to San Diego.  His first job in San Diego as a song leader and later as a  shaliach at the Ken Jewish Community were not permanent, and while he was in the process of becoming a resident alien with a green card, other organizations—although they admired his work—were reluctant to hire him, lest they run afoul of immigration laws.

Rabbi Arnold Kopikis, who was then the spiritual leader of Congregation Adat Ami – the forerunner of Ohr Shalom Synagogue – told Ozeri he wanted him to lead songs, and help with the services, at Adat Ami, where a large percentage of the membership was Spanish speaking.  Kopikis, an Argentinian rabbi, had served previously in Mexico City, where he had met Ozeri as a youngster.

Although Ozeri had friends who let him stay at their homes during this period of his life in the 1990s, he never wanted to stay with anyone too long—he was so embarrassed by his financial situation.  Occasionally, money was so tight, he had to sleep in his car.  So, while recalling in an interview how Kopikis had reached out to him in his time of need, Ozeri’s voice started to quiver, and he had to stop for a moment to regain his composure.  Rabbi Kopikis, now head of the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity, is one man to whom Ozeri says he he will be eternally grateful.

“I always like to call him ‘Broza,’”  Kopikis later told me, “because his singing style reminds me so much of (popular Israeli singer) David Broza.”

Besides as a singer, Ozeri became known to Salovey as an actor and a director—appearing at the Lipinsky Family Jewish Arts Festival as a member of the Spanish-language repertory group, Teatro Punto y Coma, for several years.

A friend from Mexico City and the Ken Jewish Community also in the group was Robert Moutal, who then was head of production for the Telemundo television outlet in San Diego.  Moutal, a member of Congregation Beth El, subsequently was promoted to general manager.

When a position opened for a local morning host on Telemundo,  Moutal recommended Ozeri, but a woman from Texas got the coveted job.  Forty-five minutes after telling Ozeri the sad news, Moutal phoned him back.  The woman apparently had changed her mind.  “The job’s yours.”

For the last six years, on Monday through Fridays, Ozeri has prepared three 150-second segments per day—each of which typically is broadcast twice.  The segment may be a commercial, or a comedy sketch, a brief interview with a visiting celebrity, or whatever else Ozeri may dream up.

On a recent morning, Ozeri was doing a commercial in the studio for I-Chamba— a company whose name means ‘Got Work?’  Owned by Vic and Lea Sefler, whose children go to Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, I-Chamba is a web-based employment service for blue-collar workers.  As Ozeri ad-libbed a commercial, Lea Sefler couldn’t help but laugh off-camera.

“His personality is amazing,” she said. “He really has fun.  We tried to find some way to explain our service with the right slang word in Spanish, and he just picked the right one.  He is very funny, with his choice of words, and his energy.  He has a following in the Spanish market, and when he does the commercials, we get phone calls right away.”

Pitching products is just one part of his job.  Videographer Nancy Castro remembers that he “had a chimpanzee with one of his segments, and  the chimp kept on hitting his head like a coconut.  Zeji was playing off it.”

On another occasion, cameras whirled as Ozeri waited for his Telemundo-arranged blind date, zooming in as he realized that he had been “stood up,” Castro recalled.

Although Moutal is Ozeri’s boss, he says there is nothing he likes better than when his star asks him to appear in a sketch with him. “We do a segment in which he plays an Argentinian professor and I play a Spaniard, who says fallacies, and he corrects me,” Moutal said.  “It is a very light segment.”

Ozeri is physically recognizable – “slender, bald, with big eyebrows, he is easy to cartoon,” says Moutal.  “At the very beginning, we tried to dress him up, but it didn’t fly, so now he dresses casually and the clients like that.  They like his approachability.”

Viewers often recognize Ozeri as he goes about town, Moutal said. “They approach him as a friend.  ‘Hey, you’re Zeji.  How’s it going?’ like he’s their friend, and he is very nonchalant about it.  Sometimes they will ask for his autograph.”

Ozeri and Moutal traveled together to Israel to make a documentary film about the popular Hebrew song,  Erev Zavat Chalav U’Devash (The Land of Milk and Honey), and its composer, Eliyahu Gamliel, whom Ozeri describes as “our grandfather, everybody’s grandfather.”

The song, which almost everyone in Israel knows, has become something of a trademark for Ozeri, who will get requests for it if he fails to sing it at performances.  “He  personally brought the tradition of that song to San Diego,” Salovey says.

The documentary won three local Emmy awards for Telemundo; so far, Ozeri has won or has contributed to winning six such television awards.

He also has recorded two CD’s of Jewish music and that’s just the beginning—or perhaps the middle—of Ozeri’s story.  He says he has some other documentaries planned, is working on some English-language theatre productions, and expects to be recording more music.

So what is the background of this San Diego personality, who came to this city about 20 years ago?

Zeji is short for Zejaria in Spanish, or Zachariah in Hebrew and English.  His father, Aharon, was from a Yemenite Jewish family that ferried across the Red Sea from Yemen to Egypt and walked to Israel, where Zeji was born the eldest of four children.  His mother, Raquel Sefchovich, was a Mexican Jew who visited Israel on a year-long program, where she met and fell in love with Aharon, a soldier in a Nahal unit assigned to helping build a new kibbutz.

Coincidentally,  Kibbutz Erez, where his parents met, is one of the 10 kibbutzim of Sha’ar Hanegev, which became the partnership region of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County more than a generation later.

Ozeri’s parents settled in Mexico City, to which his mother had returned to help in her family’s business.  After Aharon came to visit, they were married.  Born and raised in Mexico City, Zeji attended the Yavneh Hebrew School from kindergarten through graduation—and remembers the school as being similar to Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, where today he teaches Hebrew songs, only Yavneh was staffed  by “fewer rabbis.”

The Yavneh School—named for the community in Israel where Torah learning was continued, even after the fall of the Second Temple—was an Orthodox institution, but many of its teachers and students were either secular or less observant, Ozeri remembers.

He recalled that while he was a student, a new headmaster came to the school – a rabbi who felt that morning  prayers for the students should be mandatory rather than optional.  Ozeri was among the children who rebelled over this change in schedule, hiding in the school bathroom with his legs above the toilet seat so he could not be spotted under the stall door.  It was no use; the rabbi would open the door of the bathroom and call out, “Okay, Ozeri, I know you’re in there, go to Tefilah (prayers)”

Insistent as the headmaster was, he also was tolerant, treating Ozeri’s rebelliousness as simply a youthful phase rather than outright disobedience. After a while, Ozeri started enjoying the morning sessions in which he learned his Hebrew prayers, and says, today, all these years later, he is glad that he had such grounding, because he can pray in fellowship with other Jews anywhere in the world.

The school was small, and students were regularly pressed into service for various school activities.  Ozeri found himself in the school choir, and in the Israeli folkdance troupe.  These experiences and active participation in the youth organization, Maccabi Hatzair, were important factors leading to Ozeri’s career.

Rising through Maccabi Hatzair from a camper to a counselor, he was chosen to spend nine months in Israel to learn to become a Jewish community leader.  Again coincidentally, he was sent to Kibbutz Or Haner for three months – it is also a kibbutz in the Sha’ar Hanegev municipality — and was surprised that kibbutzniks living in that section of Israel adjacent to the Gaza border still remembered his father. Ozeri spent three months on the kibbutz, another six months in Jerusalem at a school for leaders from abroad, and rounded out the tour with a stay in Ramat Gan for seminars at the headquarters for the Maccabi World Union.

At first, he admitted, he had a negative impression of Americans, thinking them hopelessly uninformed about other countries – Americans were surprised, for example, that there even was such a phenomenon as a Mexican Jew.  Furthermore, he said, Americans seemed to be more one-dimensional in their interests than his fellow Mexicans.  It was his impression that Americans picked one subject or activity—whatever it may be– to do very well, but didn’t try to distinguish themselves at anything else.  Mexicans, by contrast, did a lot of things well, but perhaps did not achieve the level of expertise that  Americans attained in their singular fields, he reflected.

Notwithstanding these differences, he made friends with the English speakers—and is particularly grateful to one American and one young Englishman with whom he went on an excursion to Mahane Yehuda market place in Jerusalem, where they began to play their guitars and sing Simon and Garfunkel songs, quickly drawing an admiring crowd.   Impressed, Ozeri decided he would learn to play the guitar at the first available opportunity.  It was a way to have fun, get in front of a crowd, “and, okay, it was also a great way to get girls” grinned Ozeri, who after two long-term relationships is still a bachelor.

In the Maccabi Hatzair program, there was an all-in-fun rivalry school boy rivalry between the Mexican and Americans, which took the form of water fights in which the Mexicans would spray the Americans with a hose, and yell “We want Texas back!  We want California!”

Ozeri was becoming hooked on Israel, but he didn’t know it yet.  He went home, graduated from Yavneh School, and started to enroll at Universidad de las Americas in Mexico City. After he told officials there he did not plan to attend the morning masses, he learned that the classes he wanted to enroll in somehow already had been filled.  ‘You know what,” he told his parents, “I’d rather go back to Israel  and go to school there.”

His father, in particular, agreed, and Ozeri was off to Tel Aviv University, where he majored in theatre and minored in Jewish Studies.  Ozeri came from a working class family—and as he tells the story, his folks gave him $500 and wished him luck in Israel.  Any expenses over and above that, he’d have to earn.

His previous certification as a Maccabi World Union counselor served him in good stead; he was chosen to be a counselor for students from foreign countries, many of them Americans.  Ozeri remembers meeting groups of them at Ben Gurion Airport and quietly shepherding them to the bus.  Then he would count them—loudly, enthusiastically, in Spanish!—and the startled students would wonder if they somehow had landed in the wrong country.

As counselor for the overseas students, he arranged trips to various parts of Israel as well as volunteer projects for them to participate in.  As their residence adviser, he offered a shoulder to cry on when students felt homesick or, in the case of some of the young women, mistakenly believed themselves to be pregnant.

One community service project he helped organize was the donation of old clothing to people living in the poorer sections of Tel Aviv and Jaffa.  Given his own economically needy condition, he became a recipient of some of the clothing himself.  In particular, he remembers obtaining his first-ever pair of Levi jeans.

Because his Hebrew was not good enough to merit parts on stage, Ozeri’s focused his theatre studies on backstage work—lighting, costumes, props, curtain.  All the while, his academic minor of Jewish Studies was becoming increasingly important to him, especially lectures by Survivors about the Holocaust and by pioneers about the establishment of Israel.  In Mexico, history had been something that happened long ago, to people he could not necessarily relate to, but hearing Survivors tell their stories in the new Jewish state—where never again would Jews face such humiliation and degradation—reinforced his parents’ teaching: “Zeji, always remember who and what you are.”

In Mexico, he reflected, people thought of him as a “Jew,” whereas in Israel, where everybody was Jewish, people thought of him as a “Mexican.”   At Tel Aviv University, one of the buildings in which he studied was called the Mexico Building, as money for its construction was donated by Mexican Jews.  Ozeri remembers looking at the Mexican sculptures associated with that building and thinking “I’m in a Mexican bubble.”

Graduation burst the bubble, and not long after visiting his family at home, he was off to Los Angeles at the invitation of his uncle to make movies for the Mexican market.  But his uncle got very sick with cancer, and Ozeri had to sell the movies the uncle already had made.  In Los Angeles, Moises Edid told him that his brother Abraham—whom Ozeri had known at Maccabi Hatzair—was living in San Diego County, so Ozeri decided to come down for a visit.

Edid took Ozeri to a party in the Eastlake area of Chula Vista, and “I opened the door, and it was filled with Mexicans.  I knew there were (Jewish) Mexicans in San Diego, but I had no idea there were so many.  I saw people who went to school with me—Joel and David Chayet – and there were even two first cousins who I hadn’t seen in maybe twelve or thirteen years.  One of them, the face looked familiar—the last time I saw her she was seven or eight, but now she was grown up—and I said, ‘is your name Sharon?’  And when she said it was, I said ‘I’m your cousin Zeji.’”

With his guitar, he led some singing at the party, prompting David Chait, who was working as a shaliach at the Ken Jewish Community (the Spanish-language JCC) to invite him to become a song leader at the Ken’s camp.

In turn that led to Ozeri eventually becoming the shaliach at the Ken, as well as to other jobs as a song leader at  San Diego Jewish Academy, at Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, and at Ohr Shalom Synagogue, among others.

“I had a double identity as a Mexican and a Jew,” Ozeri reflected.  “Now as a San Diegan, I have a triple identity.”

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World

Block named to Joint Committee on Master Plan for Higher Education

SAN DIEGO- Assemblymember Marty Block (Democrat, San Diego) announced on Monday  that he has been appointed to the Joint Committee on the Master Plan for Higher Education.

“My appointment allows for San Diego, and Chula Vista in particular, to have a critical voice in how the Master Plan for Higher Education can be improved and those improvements better implemented,” commented Assemblymember Block.

“While suggestions from the Joint Committee will ultimately benefit all Californians, San Diego is already dealing with educational issues that may have devastating effects for local students hoping to matriculate to a University.”

Some issues of particular concern to San Diegans include the recent veto of AB 24, sponsored by Assemblymember Block. AB 24 would have called for a study of a much needed university campus for the South County of San Diego. That along with the recent decision by the president of San Diego State University to change the admissions policy thereby denying potential admissions for many local students has been met with consternation and concern from students, teachers and community leaders alike.

“Even though California is facing challenging economic times, we know a well educated populace is the solution to our state’s most challenging issues,” continued the Assemblymember, “we have to work more diligently than ever to ensure that those hoping to get the most from public education are afforded that opportunity, and I am committed to making that process as accessible as possible.”

Block is a former president of the San Diego regional chapter of the American Jewish Committee in San Diego.

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Preceding based on material provided by Assemblyman Marty Block.

Boxer bill for S.D. gang and drug crime unit advances

WASHINGTON, D.C (Press Release)—Senator Barbara Boxer (Democrat-San Diego) is alerting California constituents that the U.S. Senate recently passed the Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Bill, “which includes several of my priority projects for California.”

Boxer, a member of the Jewish community, stated that “as part of the bill, I requested funding for the San Diego DA Gang and Drug Crime Investigation and Prosecution.  I am pleased to let you know that funding in the amount of $200,000 was included in the Senate version of this bill.  Funds will be used to support San Diego County’s District Attorney  to investigate and prosecute gang-related and drug crimes.”

This bill still has several steps before becoming law, but inclusion of the San Diego DA Gang and Drug Crime Investigation and Prosecution is a crucial step for funding.

“I am pleased that this project was included and that the Senate passed this bill which will help make Californians safer,” Boxer said. ” It includes crucial investments to fight drugs, combat gang violence and support our first responders.  You can count on me to work for its final passage.”

Boxer and Dumanis, coincidentally, are both members of our Jewish community.

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Preceding provided by U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer

JFS issues urgent appeal for Thanksgiving

SAN DIEGO (Press Release)–Jill Borg Spitzer, chief executive officer of Jewish Family Service, reports that the agency is falling short of its goal of raising sufficient money to distribute 760 special Thanksgiving baskets to the needy.

“With times as tough as they are, missing our goal would be devastating for too many people,” she wrote in a fundraising appeal to the community.  In urging Jewish community members to make immediate contributions to JFS,  Spitzer said:

“It’s never been more important for you to help. In fact, a new study issued by the USDA reports that more than 49 million Americans, including nearly 17 million children, don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Nobody should have an empty plate on Thanksgiving—nobody should have to face hunger. “

Contributions to JFS may be made on line by visiting this JFs website.

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Preceding provided by Jewish  Family Service

 



ADL urges Supreme Court to maintain prohibition on aid to terrorist organizations

NEW YORK (Press Release)— The Anti-Defamation League (ADL)  on Monday urged the nation’s highest court to uphold laws prohibiting the supply of material support or resources to foreign terrorist organizations.

 

The League submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Holder, et al. v. Humanitarian Law Project, et al. arguing that all activities of terrorist organizations are inextricably linked, and that a prohibition on material support for these organizations is constitutional.

 

“Any material support lent to terrorist organizations — whether in the form of monetary funding or expert training — helps enable those groups to maximize their assets and potentially grants them undeserved legitimacy and credibility,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “There is no inalienable right to provide resources to a foreign terrorist organization. Those that knowingly do so are facilitating terrorism and must be held accountable.”

Holder, et al. v. Humanitarian Law Project, et al. analyzes whether prohibitions in the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 on providing “training,” “expert advice or assistance” and/or “service” to foreign terrorist organizations, are unconstitutionally vague.

 

ADL’s friend-of-the-court brief was prepared by Chadbourne & Parke LLP, and is available here.

 

ADL previously appeared as Amicus Curiae in a 1998 proceeding before the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Humanitarian Law Project v. Reno, asserting that resources proffered by U.S. donors to foreign terrorist organizations facilitate terrorism even when the donations are directed to the humanitarian efforts of those organizations.
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Preceding provided by Anti-Defamation League

Thin lines between genius and craziness on display in ‘As White As O’

By Cynthia Citron

NORTH HOLLYWOOD - To be an artist is to be an outsider.  A loner.  A person overwhelmed by his passions.  And more than a little insane.

That’s the premise of Stacy Sims’ play As White As O, now having its world premiere at the Road Theatre in North Hollywood.

In sympathy and fascination we watch as a group of artists, swamped by their unique perspectives, explore and grapple with the vicissitudes of their world.  And we follow the emergence of Jack (an endearing Vince Tula), whose history has rendered him numb and fearful, as he returns to life, to love, and to hope.

Jack’s problems include a schizophrenic and delusional mother (a frighteningly crazy Elizabeth Sampson), dead to him since his childhood, and a bipolar father (Mark St. Amant), an artist whose most remarkable creation is his home, which he has transformed with “found” art, much like Simon Rodia’s tower in Watts.  In addition, Jack has a physical condition called synesthesia, which involves a jumbling of his senses so that the letters of the alphabet are seen in colors (“A is red, B is blue, and O is white”) and “hope smells like a foggy morning.”

As the play begins, Jack, who had spent his childhood helping the father whom he adored “decorate” their home in Rabbit HHHash, Kentucky, has come to New York to see it installed as an objet d’art in a show called “The Innocents: 30 Years of Outsider Art in America.”  And there it stands, in a corner of the gallery, glowing in its radiant colors, adorned with buttons and discs and decapitated dolls’ heads and coins in a garish and oddly beautiful display.

The house has been brought to New York by Clara (Lauren Clark), a canny entrepreneur who had “discovered” Jack and his father and had made a documentary film about them and their work.

Another artist whose work she has included in the show is Ed (Ramon de Ocampo), whose art consists of a stark, black-painted wall of nails draped with a panel of bright red rose petals.  Ed is also constructing what he calls Jack’s “anti-history” on a blackboard as he interviews him and tracks his emotional wanderings from the present to the past and back again.

Meanwhile, downstage left, the lunatic who is Jack’s mother rants and raves in a discomfiting frenzy, shaking with fretful spasms, reliving the trauma of giving birth again and again, and, in calmer moments fantasizing that she is a goddess, the wife of Zeus.  “See my crown,” she coos.  A wildly disturbing presence at first, Elizabeth Sampson, in her consummate artistry, makes the mother a gripping and sadly appealing character.

Also arriving at the gallery to view Jack’s house is Lily (Kate Mines), an old girlfriend whom Jack defines as “a zealot with A.D.D.,” and Eva (Keelia Flinn), the girl he loved and abandoned back in Rabbit Hash.  Rounding out the ensemble are Joe Calarco, Jennings Turner, and TJ Marchbank as gallery roustabouts, Heather Williams as Ed’s very pregnant wife, and Jewish community member Bryna Weiss as the patient and caring nurse/attendant at the insane asylum.

In the end, it is Ed, patiently cataloguing Jack’s feelings of numbness, who manages to break through to the maturing man inside.  “There are degrees of paralysis,” he tells Jack.  “People stir things up in order to feel something, but you don’t have to move to feel anything.”   And he persists: “We all come from some kind of crazy,” until finally, Jack is able to acknowledge that “desire tastes great.”

There is much to admire in this unusual play.  The actors are superb, thanks to Sam Anderson’s tight direction, and the small stage is illuminated by Desma Murphy’s incredible set design.  Jeremy Pivnick has provided his always-impeccable lighting design, and Mary Jane Miller, David Marling, and Adam Flemming have enhanced the production with their costumes, sound, and video design, respectively.

As White As O is not an easy play.  Starting off slowly, it barrages the viewer with a confusing jumble of unidentified characters and lots of esoteric jabber, so as to leave you thinking, “Omigod, it’s going to be one of those plays!”  But it quickly sorts itself out and becomes engrossing, thought-provoking, and in the end, thoroughly satisfying.  All due to good writing, tight direction, and a fine and talented group of actors.

As White As O will continue at The Road Theatre in the Lankershim Arts Center, 5108 Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 through December 12^th.   Call (866) 811-4111 for tickets.

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Citron is Los Angeles bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World. She may be contacted at citron@sandiegojewishworld.com

 

Sha’ar Hanegev students protest power plant plans

 

By Ulla Hadar

SHA’AR HANEGEV, Israel–Many ecologically-motivated students from the Sha’ar Hanegev High School demonstrated last week against plans to build an additional coal power station in Ashkelon. The demonstration took place at Sapir College where a conference was going on to examine social relationships in the neighboring city of Sderot.

Attending the conference and symphatizing with the demonstraters were several delegates from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.  These delegates were: Nitzan Horowitz, Arie Bibi, Eitan Chevel and Shai Hermesh (former mayor of Shaar Hanegev municipality).

Racheli Feinstein, director of environmental studies at the Shaar Hanegev High School, said “As part of our environmental studies at the High School, it is extremely important that our students are exposed to the planning going on in our area, plans that will have an impact on their  future as well as ours.We want our students to become motivated, active, caring and responsible citizens in their future lives.”

The coal power stations are the major pollution factors in Israel today. The addition of the coal power station in Ashkelon will raise the level of pollution for another quarter of a million citizens situated in the Northern Negev, the area surrounding Gaza and Ashkelon.
 
Joint studies executed by the Brazilai hospital and the Ministry of Health have shown a significant increase in citizens arriving at the ER with breathing difficulties.

The decision to build the coal power station was taken by the government in 2002 as an attempt to cover the future demand for electricity.

Although technology has advanced and more ecological and clean solutions exist to create electricity, the government has taken no steps in reevaluating its decision to build the power station.

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Hadar is Sha’ar Hanegev bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World

Shimerman shines in The Rep’s Seafarer

DEVIL AND DRUNK–Sam Woodhouse (left) and Armin Shimerman converse in The Seafarer, now at San Diego Rep. (Photo: Erin Bigley)

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By Carol Davis

SAN DIEGO–I’m sorry to say I’m not much of a Trekkie so I’m not up on all the  Star Trek comings and goings. Armin Shimerman was a regular for seven years on the Television hit show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. According to my findings his fictional character, Quark owned a bar on the Promenade of Deep Space Nine. I do admit to watching the original Sci Fi TV show when it debuted in 1966 and I did visit the Star Trek museum in Las Vegas several years ago (There was a simulated ride into space, I believe.), which I found to be interesting, but no cigars just a rumbly tummy and shaky legs.  

I am however a theatre person and I do know a bit about good performances and ho hum performances. Armin Shimerman’s portrayal of the perpetual drunk, blind and belligerent rascal Richard Harkin in Connor McPherson’s The Seafarer is top notch. If I didn’t know he was Jewish and born in Lakewood, New Jersey, I would have vouched he was Irish, his accent seems so natural, and he’s so damned genuine in this role. That’s what good actors do; they make us believers. 

The Seafarer at The San Diego Repertory Theatre downtown, in the Lyceum Theatre, under the deft direction of Decilia Turner Sonnenberg will be entertaining crowds with this not so laugh out loud (or maybe so) holiday treat through Dec. 13. It is the Rep’s 34th season and what a way to kick off a season with an Irish, black humor view (according to McPherson) of the joys of Christmas. I must say the differences between Jewish humor and Irish humor are seas apart according to Davis, Carol that is. 

The Seafarer made its National Theatre debut in 2006 almost ten years after his first play The Weir (seen at the Old Globe some years ago) was mounted and premiered. Several years ago I happened to catch a production at the Rubicon Theatre in Venture of McPherson’s The Good Thief performed by Conor Lovett. At the time they were staging a series of monologues running in repertory and one such reading was McPherson’s The Good Thief. It was written in 1994.  At the time I saw The Good Thief I was non-plussed by the piece but taken with the performance. So it goes with live theatre.

The play opens in the disheveled (littered with beer and whiskey bottles scattered all over in the living room) basement flat at the childhood home, somewhere off the coast in Northern Dublin, of Richard Harkin and his brother Sharky (an effective, downtrodden but truly credible Ron Choularton). The Leprechaun looking Richard, who recently fell, hit his head on a dumpster on Halloween and lost his eyesight lives in the home alone. But he’s not alone for long. (Robin Sanford Roberts set is one of the best seen in some time on that stage with detail upon detail to give the feel of a well lived in slovenly bashed pad of a bachelor who spends his Euros on whiskey rather than a housekeeper.)

Sharky, who is without a job, cash or prospects of either, has come to help his brother out and be his eyes. The night before we meet the brothers some heavy drinking took place with Richard and Ivan Curry (Paul James Kruse is a wonderfully disheveled and willing participant), a good friend of the Harkin brothers. Sharky has been on the wagon for the last three days and is still a bit unsteady, tense and short of temper yet he is left to pick up the pieces of the morning after remains.

Ivan, we learn, had to spend the night in one of the rooms sleeping it off on a rug on the floor (no bed in the room) for several reasons, the most important is that he could barely see how to get home because he couldn’t find his glasses (he’s not too much better off than Richard in the eye department) nor could he walk the straight line to find to his house (his wife would have killed him anyway for losing his glasses) and he couldn’t remember where or if he left his car. 

Over the course of the day, two more visitors come to the Harkin homestead, Nicky Giblin (handsome and winning Robert J. Townsend) a long time friend and adversary of Sharky’s (he’s thick with Sharky’s ex girlfriend and continues to rub it in, to Sharky’s chagrin) and a mysterious stranger, Mr. Lockhart (Artistic Director Sam Woodhouse looks imposing dressed to the nines in a camel hair top coat, black fedora and three piece suit with blinding white hair and eyebrows) who was invited by his new friend Nicky to come along for the annual Christmas eve card game. One has to wonder though as we learn more, who invited whom. (Jennifer Brawn Gittings is on spot with her costume designs.)

And now there were five. Compared to Richard and Ivan, who look like they had slept in their clothes for days (Richard had) Lockhart looks and acts oddly out of place. Could it be because he was? You see Lockhart (nice play on words) is the Devil/Lucifer himself comin’ round to collect on Sharky’s soul because some twenty-five years after their first meeting in some jail on charges that were later dismissed, Lockhart supposedly arranged for him to be released rather than spend jail time for the crime.

The only thing that can save Sharky from losing his soul to the Devil, a deal they made long ago in exchange for Sharky’s release, is to beat Lockhart in a game of winner-take-all, high stakes poker. Lockhart is back and in a sinister no prisoners taken speech to a confused and shaken Sharky, he spells out the rules. And, oh by the way, Happy Christmas.

It is Christmas Eve day and between the drinking, hostile and familial wrangling between the brothers we learn more about the characters, their weaknesses and strengths and how their lives will be changed, unbeknownst to them, by the time Christmas Day rolls around. We may even learn more than we want to know.

We are also are left to ponder what we just saw at plays end and in a not so funny, dark and somber sort of way. There is an abundance of talk, drink and philosophy about heaven and hell and some funny exchanges about drinking, Irish style that is, that might tickle some. 

It might also appeal to some senses if you enjoy watching grown men drunk, falling, tripping and stumbling all over themselves while functioning through the haze and blur of an alcoholic stupor. What is intriguing is the menacing spell Lockhart has over them all, though. Forget the fact that they don’t know why he’s there, that he towers head and shoulders above any of them and his deep resonant voice and menacing smile is enough to frighten any one of them to sobriety, he just has that mesmerizing effect. (With the exception of a tentative and somewhat weird accent, Woodhouse is most effective.) 

Adding to the mystery of his being is that his character is real to them and feeds into the Satanic leanings and deep mystical teachings of those so inclined to believe in Heaven and Hell while conversely the sometimes lighted picture of Jesus hanging askew on the wall blinks off and on, they sing/shout out Christmas songs to their own delight as the scrawny little Christmas tree at the foot of the stairs winks randomly at them throughout. (Eric Lotze’s lighting is amazing and effective as sparks of lightning flash when Lockhart raises his arms to prove his powers which in turn outlines the stones that make up the walls of the Harkin home as he does so.) 

Finally, the poker game gives way as the tension mounts and hands are bet, won and lost by everyone but Lockhart who plans to win the BIG one, the last hand that comes down to himself and Sharky. We never know until the very end, how it will go, but we do have an idea. For you the reader, to see is to believe and in an astonishingly surprise turn of events…well.

The Seafarer’s holiday theme is a dark journey into a no man’s land dressed up with some Irish comic relief that makes the rest of the play at least palatable with The Rep’s ensemble pretty much up to the task pretty much most of the time. On opening night, though a little more group cohesion and work on those on again off again Irish accents was needed. By now it should be easily flowing so let the games begin!

The Seafarer is a poem that comes from a collection of Old English Poetry kept in the Exeter Cathedral, England, written anonymously about a “wretched sailor driven to roam the frozen seas”.

He knows not

Who lives most easily on land, how I

Have spent my winter on the ice-cold sea

Wretched and anxious, in the paths of exile

Lacking dear friends, hung round by icicles

While hail flew past in showers,”

(Guess who?)

Take comfort. It is billed as holiday play. It’s a Wonderful Life can also be seen later on at the Cygnet if you prefer traditional fare. The North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach is also mounting a holiday show, How Do You Spell Chanukah? It opens Dec. 5th. See them one see them all.

For more information visit www.sdrep.org

See you at the theater.

Davis is a San Diego-based theatre critic.  She may be contacted at davisc@sandiegojewishworld.com

ADL welcomes Hannah Rosenthal as State Department’s envoy to combat Anti-Semitism

NEW YORK (Press Release)–The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Monday welcomed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s appointment of Hannah Rosenthal to serve as the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.  
           

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:

           
“This appointment signals the continued seriousness of America’s resolve to fight the anti-Semitism that we have seen gaining legitimacy in too many countries and to institutionalize that fight as an American foreign policy priority.

           
“We look forward to working with Hannah Rosenthal to mobilize the significant political will and resources of the United States to broaden understanding abroad about the new forms of anti-Semitism permeating public discourse.  Working with Secretary Clinton, and Assistant Secretary Michael Posner, we have no doubt that the Special Envoy will play an important role in encouraging countries to make the hard choices and to implement policy, legislative, judicial and educational measures to counter anti-Semitism.

           
The Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism and the position of Special Envoy were established by the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004, sponsored by the late Rep. Tom Lantos (Democrat, California), Rep. Chris Smith (Republican, New Jersey) and Sen. George Voinovich (Republican, Ohio) to enhance State Department monitoring of and action against anti-Semitism. 

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Preceding provided by Anti-Defamation League

 

Nation’s deteriorating transit should concern Jewish community

By Bruce S. Ticker

PHILADELPHIA–With plans to visit two vibrant Jewish communities, I had jarring reminders of the condition of public transit in early November, simultaneously: the week-long strike in Philadelphia and the shocker that Boston is faced with imminent safety hazards which might cost $500 million to repair.

Not to mention news elsewhere of potential fare hikes in New York City; a renewed attempt to save South Florida’s 70-mile rail link between Palm Beach and Miami; and a $144 million deficit in Washington, D.C., that has only one way to go – up, that is.

Preserving public transit and improving upon it is crucial. It is no less important than health care and education. A system needs to be established to guarantee that transportation continues as the vital service it is. Long before the economic meltdown, fares continued to rise, services were threatened and safety was compromised. Many Jewish communities are connected by public transit, and substantial Jewish populations even comprise a large share of metropolitan areas with the more advanced systems.

I was lucky during the Philadelphia strike, when the two subway lines and city bus routes ceased running; still operating were suburban buses and commuter rail trains. During my first day vacationing in Boston on Tuesday, Nov. 3, I learned that the strike began hours after the Phillies played their last World Series home game against the Yankees. When I returned to Philly by Amtrak at 30th Street station on Nov. 7, I still escaped the strike’s consequences because I transferred to a commuter line for the 10-minute ride downtown.

I was relieved to be spared of most of the strike, especially since I endured the cruelty of past walkouts. I walk to work, but I still rely on public transit for many reasons. With the strike still going strong, I had planned to attend a Kristallnacht commemoration on Wednesday, Nov. 11, at the Germantown Jewish Centre in West Mount Airy, in the evening. The bus would drop me off a half-block away, but if necessary a train station was located further away in a more isolated spot. I did not feel safe walking to the station and waiting there in the dark. The strike ended beforehand as the workers settled, and I was unable to attend the synagogue event, anyway.

While buses and subways were idled back home, I received my first clue as to why riding Boston’s commuter trains could be hazardous to one’s health. I rode a westbound commuter train from Boston’s South Station (Boston’s mini-version of Penn Station in Manhattan) to the West Newton station in the town of Newton, which is comprised of one of the largest Jewish populations in the metropolitan area.

I learned abruptly that riders do not detrain, so to speak, onto solid ground. When the conductor directed me to leave the train for West Newton, I peered out the exit door and spotted a narrow platform separated from the train by a pair of railroad tracks.

To reach the platform, I jumped from the train’s stairwell three feet onto the gravel separating the tracks, and I could have slipped on oil covering parts of the tracks I needed to cross to reach the platform. Maybe an eastbound train might rumble by just as I was crossing the tracks. Hopefully, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which oversees the system, knows enough to schedule the trains to prevent accidents.

The West Newton hazard is among a massive amount of maintenance risks. A report commissioned by Gov. Deval Patrick revealed that the MBTA has a maintenance backlog on its hands that could cost $3 billion to remedy, and it will take $500 million of that to fix critical threats.

The study projected spending up to $80 million to remove and replace rail ties damaged by flooding along the northern end of the Red Line subway immediately after the Harvard University stop. Otherwise, corrosion and damage could destabilize track alignment and lead to a train derailment, The Boston Globe reported. A new state board approved a $2.5 million contract for an engineering firm to design a longterm correction for a track repair project.

By chance, I waited for a Red Line train at the underground Porter Square stop, the first station north of Harvard, and noticed that a pond of ice had formed on the other side of the tracks.

While Boston has a good system overall, the state is intent on expanding both subways, which serve the city and immediate suburbs, and commuter trains that extend to the outer suburbs – despite the expensive maintenance backlog. Most commuter trains run sporadically; off-peak, many run a maximum of every two hours apart. Trains in New York and Philadelphia typically run every hour.

Transit systems that I have patronized elsewhere continue to struggle; my personal experience with West Coast systems is limited. A $144 million deficit for Washington’s Metro operation that was announced a few months ago could be the start of its troubles, according to a Washington Post editorial. The Nov. 12 editorial predicted significant fare hikes and service reductions because of declining ridership and a recent arbitration ruling to raise the salaries of unionized employees.

The Tri-Rail train line that passes through Florida’s three most populous counties is in danger of extinction. Officials in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties have been seeking a $2 tax on rental cars to finance the continued operation of Tri-Rail, but the state legislature has refused to approve it. Lawmakers may reconvene in December to consider funding of Tri-Rail and creation of a rail line in the Orlando area.

On Saturday, Nov. 21, I bought a “fun-day pass” for $8.25 to ride New York City’s buses and subways, the same amount I spent during my last visit in October. Earlier in the week, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority introduced a budget that is actually balanced after the state allowed new revenue sources. No fare increases or cuts in services, according to The New York Daily News.

But among his first words as MTA chairman, Jay Walder declared: “The MTA remains in a very fragile financial situation…There is no more money for us in Albany, and we will learn to do more with the funding we have.”

If, that is, the state does not plug its unsettled deficit with cuts in transportation subsidies. Besides, a four-year fiscal plan projects 7.5 percent fare and toll increases in 2011 and 2013.

Fare hikes in New York in two years? Maybe Philadelphians are fated to pay more after the post-World Series strike. This pattern has been ongoing for years and getting worse as more low- and middle-income people who can afford less are the ones being victimized.

The variety of reasons for these problems – neglect of cities, loss of tax revenues, political rivalries, corruption and so on – have never been sufficiently addressed. I wish I can be optimistic that significant measures will be taken to remedy these problems. It is a train wreck ready to happen.

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Ticker is a Philadelphia-based freelance journalist.  He may be contacted at 
BTicker@comcast.net.