Life is a Narrow Bridge

  Ten years ago, the world lost Jerry DeFina. I often give thanks to my mentors, those people who made me “me”. All of you have heard me talk about Mr. De or Uncle Jerry, and many of you were lucky to know him. Perhaps you remember his laugh, or his bellow, or his passion. A decade is both a long time and a mere moment. Just as I still talk to Grandma-in-my-head each day, I am forever connected to Jerry. It may be a stretch or an act of hubris, but I feel like his protégée. Nobody besides Amin and I had him as a teacher for five years— Talent Pool 2nd through 5th and a full day classroom teacher in 6th. He and his partner Frank taught me to direct and music direct. He taught me to teach children to question… all while teaching me to believe in myself. Many people have special teachers but most people don’t know what it is and was to have a Jerry. From him, I learned the art of eavesdropping: he and my mother would talk together til the wee hours of the night, and I remember sitting...

I'v e been thinking a lot lately about my relationship with Spanish, and realize there are a few key unexpected moments that had such a profound impact on my life…and on people I help….. First, there was an Easter basket. I like to giggle that Jewish Easter baskets are filled with books— but it isn’t a real joke in my family. It’s a reality. When I was in 7th grade, the Easter Bunny (aka Mom, Barbara Bengels ) gave me a copy of a 1950s or 1960s Spanish textbook, El Camino Real. It had every stereotype in the world— la criada, el burro, and more. But I could read it and teach myself a language. Second, there was a photo. You know how there are memories that you probably don’t remember for real, but you remember because you have a photo and a family story? It was one of those photos. In it, there are a few “big kids” in a Mexican playground, and little 3-year-old me, replete with the Medusa hair pulled up into a whale spout of a pony tail. I didn’t speak their language and they didn’...

  Today's post is about theater life, because some of my non-theater friends have been asking me questions lately about terms and traditions I used to take for granted. I'm going to do this as a Q&A, like my Chanukah post...and I hope it will not only be informative but also its own Emilesque Ode to Theatre. 1. What is "tech" and why are you so tired during it? Back in high school, we would call Tech Week "Hell Week" because it is the intense week before a show goes up. The cast (ostensibly) knows what to do, now, and it is time for lights, sound, costumes, pit and all the other magical elements to come into play. 2. You mentioned "sitzprobe." Is that some kind of rectal exam? No! It's a long rehearsal. First, let's clarify that the "s" is pronounced as a Z, (Zits Probe) and it refers to the first rehearsal where the pit orchestra joins the singers. It is a long rehearsal dedicated to getting the music all in sync. I am alway...

I’m thinking about my grandfather today, in a different way from before. Last night, I finally found his Ellis Island ship manifest from the Aquitania. Because of name changes, misspellings, and a wrong year, it has taken this long for me to track it down. Finding the manifest makes a key moment in his history— and thus, mine— so much more real. It was 1924, not 1926. This is an important detail because it was the year of the Johnson Reed act, famous for rigid ethnic quotas curtailing much immigration from southern and Eastern Europe and all but ceasing it from Asia. My grandfather’s father had come ahead to the US, leaving a mother and four children in Poland. I can only imagine their anxiety of separation as the gates seemed to be closing. Papa often spoke about his arrival in the US— the excitement, yes, but also the sorrow. It turns out he was younger than we thought— not quite five years old, and his brother Jack was about two. Papa held a loving sorrow for most of his life, that ...

  Mom threw down the gauntlet and I'm going to take it: my response to the Whoopi Goldberg race scandal. My views are mine alone, and they may not be popular with everyone. But, well, since when has that stopped me from sharing? Race. It's a social construct. Different times and different places define "race" differently. Just look at past censuses or at modern-day international ones. If you ever feel like jumping into a cultural landmine, look at the Wikipedia page on "Race and Ethnicity in Brazil"; at one point, they had legal designations for over 30 different delineations of races. Even if they are not based on science, however, social constructs have a real effect. Think about money (why are those greenish papers valuable?); even if we establish that money's value isn't in the material tokens, but rather in the exchange they allow, we still know how much power money has in our lives. Race has had all too much of a detrimental effect on too man...

  It was thirty-six years ago. I wanted to be an astronaut…. In retrospect, probably not the best career for a girl who isn’t afraid of heights but who is like a cow when it comes to her fear of coming down from said heights. We were in the auditorium at Stewart School. I knew my science… and I knew something was wrong. I stood up and told my teacher to turn off the tv in the front of the auditorium, that we were watching people die. It’s not that he didn’t believe me— it’s that it was too much to take in. He held my hand while I shaked, I remember. I didn’t want to be an astronaut after that. But my desire to learn about the cosmos, my quest to reach new heights, my hope to inspire others—these still remain. The Challenger was my coming-of-age moment… along with Chernobyl. From that year on, I became a newspaper reader. It wasn’t just outer space that mattered for learning— it was also the people and systems here on the earth.

  My post for Holocaust Remembrance Day: I am glad to see many people speaking out for this day of the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz. I am grateful to the brave and wise souls who have I met in person and in reading on my journey to becoming the Holocaust and Genocide scholar I am today. However, there is a need for more than just a day to honor the people and cultures that have been brutally annihilated. There is a need for honoring more than just the victims of the Holocaust; there were many genocides in the Nazi era, and many people of other minority statuses also killed in Auschwitz and the other extermination camps, or in their own towns and surrounding forests. There is a need for honoring more than just those who were slain at the hands of the Nazis. We should not overlook the horrors of Stalin. We cannot overlook the horrors of hatred wherever it is planted. We cannot turn a blind eye to the prejudices, inequities, and violence in our own world today, in o...

  In the wake of the Texas synagogue hostage situation, I thought today would be a good time to write about safety. Some people are lucky not to not have physical security on the forefront of their mind most of the time; others are constantly in legitimate fear. It may be hard to understand what it’s like to be grateful that your building has a security guard… or how terrifying it might be to fear security personnel because of historical brutality. It used to be hard for me, and though I miss that innocence, my impact can be stronger because I understand more than before. I remember not really thinking about safety in my early days...the glow of my earliest memories is filled with family and music and animals. It's filled with spinning helicopter dances in the living room with the greatest worry being the swirling colors of a turning world when I fell down. But life isn't limited to a living room with a cozy fire and lots of pillows. Growing up, we all learn that the world is n...

  I was just going through the piano bench I inherited along with my Nana's piano, and I smiled while looking at all the brilliant piano pieces she used (and sometimes created) to motivate small fingers and young souls to play. From "Little River Flowing" to "The King of France Went Up the Hill", I read her gentle pencil writing and remembered watching my sisters and then my toddler niblings play each of the songs and then turn around, eager for applause. My grandparents' living room was filled with applause...not just for us Bengels but for decades of piano students. I have always felt like piano was my birthright, and with it comes the joy and responsibility to pass music on, generously, lovingly, wherever I can. However, there among Nana's notes were lyrics to some songs that would be grounds for firing a teacher nowadays. I am uncomfortable writing (or even thinking) some of the cultural stereotypes that became unnecessary lyrics for the beginning pi...