a Jewish foreign minister in the Weimar Republic Top right: Stars of David in a tiled floor at Villa Kérylos on the French Riviera who founded the first Reform synagogue in France Bottom right: Drapery at Strawberry Hill House All photos by Hélène Binet/Jewish Country Houses Abigail Green is nervous about Jewish Country Houses And her concern is understandable: At first glance the book could be perceived as an ode to wealthy Jews in a bygone European era fancy furnishings and manicured landscapes Jews were denied the right to own land and live where they pleased When those rights were finally granted — in 1831 in Britain; with the revolution in France later — Jews who could afford it manifested their newfound privileges by buying and building lavish homes across Europe Yet these houses were not merely symbols of material success They also cemented the social and political status of Jews who had until then been excluded from the upper classes even when they were wealthy enough to belong there all that changed when the Nazis took power and World War II began Which is why Jewish Country Houses is also “a book about the fate of Jews in Europe,” Green said in a phone interview from London with chapters and other material contributed by researchers and experts across Europe It was published by the National Trust and Profile Books in the United Kingdom and Brandeis University Press in the U.S detailed photography by Hélène Binet – showcasing Stars of David in a ceiling or floor or an architectural style reflecting an owner’s particular tastes – was particularly important Green said: “Photos of country houses where it’s always a sunny day with jolly flowers and a green lawn are not appropriate for these stories.” one of Europe’s best-known Jewish families along with the Rothschilds “So it wasn’t news to me that Jews lived in the country and went hunting,” Green said because they are part and parcel of a Christian feudal system that ran through rural Europe and rural society when they were regarded as so alien that they couldn’t own land And the idea of a Jewish aristocracy is a very subversive thing.” Jewish country houses have also been criticized as “sites of assimilation The families are viewed as sellouts who became distanced from Jewish society.” Not only were the owners’ social circles and neighbors acutely aware of their Jewishness but often these wealthy Jews were major philanthropists supporting Jewish charities in their own countries as well as funds for Jews in Palestine and elsewhere who built homes for local woodworkers in a model village near her country home outside Kilkenny became the first Jew to serve as a senator in the Irish Free State their properties were seized and sometimes destroyed either intentionally or as the result of warfare Even homes that survived the war were often emptied of all traces of their owners or simply deemed unworthy of preservation because their aesthetics did not match prevailing tastes Among the many wartime tragedies is the story of renowned painter Max Liebermann whose success allowed him to build a retreat and villa in Wannsee Liebermann was kicked out of the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1933 and died two years later His widow was forced to sell the villa to the Third Reich When told she’d be deported to a concentration camp “It’s very beautiful and the volunteers are very keen on the garden and that kind of thing but it belies the terrible experience of the Liebermanns,” said Green “It’s empty; there’s a few paintings but no furniture And that’s a common fate of these houses.” Jews recovered their estates and even used them to help survivors the Warburgs used their German villa to house Jewish children liberated from concentration camps was the site of lavish parties in the 1920s and ‘30s attended by Winston Churchill as well as a love nest for the future King Edward VII and his American mistress Wallis Simpson Trent Park became a genteel prison for 100 German officers who were encouraged to stroll in the garden and play billiards They had no idea their conversations about Nazi weapons technology and concentration camps were being monitored by German-fluent Jewish refugees via tiny hidden microphones and a museum related to the war effort is being planned “most people don’t meet many Jews,” Green said “They just don’t know much about any of this.” So she and her colleagues have been pleased by positive reactions to a traveling exhibition related to the book along with presentations and training sessions for National Trust staff and volunteers about the homes’ Jewish history Even an exhibition about the houses in a National Trust garden was “completely unproblematic” despite fears of vandalism after the Oct Green hopes the book will also get a positive reception — and that it will help people see the properties as more than repositories of material wealth symbolize “the dream of belonging” held by European Jews But the houses also represent something that is irreparably gone as “sites of teaching about antisemitism.” Beth Harpaz worked at the Forward as a reporter and now manages the Bintel Brief advice column. She previously covered politics and breaking news for The Associated Press. Email: [email protected].[email protected]@literarydj I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward American Jews need independent news they can trust At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S rising antisemitism and polarized discourse This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up Copyright © 2025 The Forward Association View all partners those iron-toothed rodents with a talent for hydraulic engineering can legally return to English river catchments after an absence of 500 years Castor fiber has been on the way back for the last two decades thanks to unauthorised reintroductions an enclosure was the only home these semi-aquatic mammals could legally find in the UK Successive governments have hesitated to issue release licenses for beavers given their ability to transform the environment in unpredictable ways When it comes to mitigating and adapting to climate change When the reign of Tyrannosaurus rex abruptly ended 66 million years ago a “prehistoric beaver” was on the ascendancy according to Stephen Brusatte a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh “It wasn’t a good time to be alive,” he says An asteroid had smashed into Earth with the equivalent fury of several million nuclear bombs with its buck-toothed incisors and appetite for leaves and branches Filling the vacant niches left by vanished dinosaurs were mammals like Kimbetopsalis which eventually led to us,” Brusatte says Beaver-like ancestors braved a mass extinction event to help mammals rise from the ashes What could modern beavers do during another era of planetary crisis Legal protections and synthetic materials that reduced demand for warm fur have allowed beavers to regain their former haunts in Europe and North America The famously industrious rodents have wasted no time in picking up where they left off: damming streams to create ponds in which they build their dome-like lodges safe from predators that might prowl the banks opposite This behaviour has a stunning effect on the surrounding environment – perhaps even the climate That’s because beaver dams trap vast quantities of sediment rich in carbon that might otherwise heat the atmosphere a professor of geosciences at UMass Amherst You should take this good news with a pinch of silt, however. CO₂ emissions from human activity were probably well over 40 billion tonnes last year – another annual high Expecting beavers to offset our emissions is unrealistic Beavers may be skilled at stowing carbon in the wetlands they create, but this advantage is being undone by feedback mechanisms kickstarted by climate change. For example, the warming Arctic is inviting beavers to expand northwards their antics threaten to speed up the thawing of permafrost that has kept world-warming methane locked up says Helen Wheeler a lecturer in wildlife ecology at Anglia Ruskin University Where beavers really shine is in their knack for soothing damaged landscapes building structures with logs and mud that can flood large areas,” Hatch says “As climate change causes extreme storms in some areas and intense drought in others scientists are finding that beavers’ small-scale natural interventions are valuable.” The changes beavers make can help land hold onto water and release it slowly Compare this with human design innovations like tarmac which radiates heat and allows storm water to slough off in torrents While the concrete dams that people construct bar the way for migratory freshwater fish “One reason may be that the fish can rest in slow pools and cool pond complexes after navigating the tallest parts of the dams,” Hatch says Beaver wetlands do excel in blocking one thing “Recent studies in the western US have found that vegetation in beaver-dammed river corridors is more fire-resistant than in areas without beavers because it is well watered and lush All of these qualities make beaver wetlands a fantastic refuge for a range of wildlife particularly as ecosystems nearby are wracked and warped by rising temperatures and extreme weather Even our towns and cities could be made more liveable with their help as water evaporating from these ponds cools the air during heatwaves and absorbs flood water during a deluge Geographers Joshua Larsen (University of Birmingham) Annegret Larsen (Wageningen University) and Matthew Dennis (University of Manchester) are slightly more cautious “Unless the water bodies are very large, or high in number, this [effect] tends to diminish rapidly with distance from the water. This would make it difficult to rely upon beaver ponds for cooling benefits for human settlements,” they say allowing beavers to recover a fraction of their former abundance will make the effects of global heating less severe “Beavers are showing that their impacts can offer added levels of ecosystem resilience to a changing climate that we would be wise to embrace,” they add Assassinated by Far Right AntisemitesTargeted by lethal antisemitism accused of being an 'Elder of Zion' and largely forgotten by history Walther Rathenau was Germany's first and only Jewish foreign minister 2022Get email notification for articles from Abigail Green FollowJun 23 Walther Rathenau – Germany's first and only Jewish foreign minister – was assassinated by far-right nationalists who believed him to be one of the 300 Elders of Zion Abigail Green is Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford Abigail Green Walther Rathenau — Germany’s first and only Jewish Foreign Minister — fell victim to an assassin’s bullet His murder heralded the rise of the violently antisemitic German nationalism that would tear the continent apart “Republican and monarchist Germany met at the crossroads today” “Between them lay the body of Walther Rathenau… torn to bits of hand-grenade and bullets which tomorrow will lie in the Reichstag… will become a symbol for a coming war to the death between those who follow the Kaiser and those who follow democracy.” as portrayed by an Italian magazine (Picture: Alamy) A wealthy industrialist whose father founded AEG Rathenau was a patriot who played a leading role in the German war effort — and called on his country to fight on as late as November 1918 he was a prominent member of Weimar Germany’s new government personally responsible for negotiating the Rapallo Pact with Bolshevik Russia which many saw as a betrayal His assassins chose to commit suicide rather than hand themselves over to the police His fear of “Judeo-Bolshevism” — and belief that Rathenau was one of the “three hundred Elders of Zion” featured in the infamous Protocols — underlined the role of antisemitic conspiracy theories in Germany’s most infamous political crime was one of many journalists who came to Berlin for the trial He marked the second anniversary of Rathenau’s assassination with a visit to his home in the plush suburb of Grunewald — by then a museum amid beautiful paintings and colours… surrounded by the evidence of the human past and human suffering; by the breath of the eternal human.. in peaceful and significant proximity I found the wise old Shulchan Aruch …and the old [Lutheran] Weissenfelsische Songbook Pervading the house and the being of this man was the spirit of conciliation.” Not every murder to be neither forgotten nor revenged.” The truth would be more complicated they tore down Rathenau’s official Weimar memorial and turned his murderers into national heroes The memory of their victim was resurrected in 1946 when “the liberal-democratic parties of Germany” unveiled a new memorial at the site of his death “The health of a people is determined by its inner life — the life of its soul and its spirit” invoking both Rathenau’s qualities and the horror of Germany’s recent past Yet those who would truly remember Walther Rathenau might do better to take the train from Berlin to Bad Freienwalde a picturesque historic town deep in rural Brandenburg with an architecturally remarkable Schloss built in 1798/9 for Queen Friederike Luise Like many early 20th-century Jewish millionaires Rathenau had a country house and this little palace was a place he loved Rathenau bought Schloss Freienwalde and everything that remained of its contents with a view to restoring this neglected gem in the spirit of the Prussian 18th century For Rathenau was an intellectual and aesthete as well as a politician who saw the overblown architecture of Wilhelmine Germany as a symptom of its political overreach designed by the great Prussian architect David Gilly symbolised for him a now forgotten but better Prussia: both politically — through its association with the Prussian Reform Era — and aesthetically So it was that the Prussian queen’s summerhouse rapidly acquired a new face through a series of subtle architectural refinements — refinements that gestured towards the needs of the present while remaining imbued with the spirit of the past the political symbolism of this undertaking was clear; for contemporaries Here — only here —he found the peace to paint in a style reflecting the influence of his cousin and teacher Max Liebermann There was something transgressive about all this This was a man once deemed unfit to serve as a Prussian reserve officer simply because he was Jewish Small wonder that he insisted on keeping the Prussian royal crown atop the flagpole at Schloss Freienwalde and on maintaining its formal appellation as a “royal castle” was inclined to lump him in with other so-called Kaiserjuden — men who used their wealth and taste to curry favour in court circles the trope of the rich Jewish businessman who sought to buy his way into the Prussian elite by aping (and displacing) the Hohenzollerns would become a central element of the antisemitic critiques levelled at Rathenau It hardly behoved a man who spoke so readily of “equal rights” and “social community” to vaunt his wealth so publicly amid the poverty and suffering that characterised the last years of the war Yet the vitriol aimed at Rathenau’s appropriation of Schloss Freienwalde amounted to more than class envy To assert (as völkisch agitators did) that he had set a sculpture above the palace gate featuring the heads of European dynasties in a sacrificial bowl was to articulate — in brutally graphic form — the calumny that Rathenau and his Jewish co-conspirators had been plotting to overthrow the Hohenzollern monarchy from the start of the war his heirs gave Schloss Freienwalde to the local authority as a memorial to its Jewish owner and the “old-Prussian” culture of the late 18th century The house suffered terribly during the Russian invasion at the end of the Second World War it finally became possible to resurrect Rathenau’s memory here but the excellent small museum is over an hour from Berlin: too far from the tourist trail to receive many visitors Rathenau is a martyred icon of German democracy and remains the country’s most successful Jewish politician — a man whose fate heralded the destruction of his world and all he represented This has long been a space characterised by loss: Rathenau’s assassination and ongoing efforts to fill the gaps with artefacts and furniture with the help of the University of Oxford’s Jewish Country Houses Project and Berlin-based curator Ruth Ur museum director Dr Reinhard Schmook is staking out a more dynamic future the leading British German painter Sophie von Hellermann has been invited to use the Schloss as a studio in which to paint scenes from Rathenau’s life in her characteristic expressive style and to breathe new life into this sleeping beauty of a house by painting directly on its walls Sophie von Hellermann's art installation at Schloss Freienwalde Combining historicism and modernity in a way absolutely in keeping with Rathenau’s life this intervention promises to revive his legacy at Schloss Freienwalde and — perhaps — establish its importance as a site of German time to visit and contemplate the tragic life of its owner Abigail Green is Professor of Modern European History at the University of Oxford and directs the Jewish Country Houses Project Sophie von Hellermann at Schloss Freienwalde from June 26 2022 and Galerie Wentrup Berlin from July 22 Curated by Ruth Ur for the Jewish Country Houses Project Opening times: Thursday to Sunday apart from public holidays Germany History Art Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker was one of two novels by Keilson published in English last year to rave reviews propelling Francine Prose in the New York Times to call him one of "the world's very greatest writers" Having fought with the Dutch resistance and undertaken psychiatric work with children traumatised by war Keilson was taken aback at the acclaim he received for The Death of the Adversary (first published in German as Der Tod des Widersachers in 1959) and Comedy in a Minor Key (Komödie in Moll The latter is an unsettling story of persecution that explores the dark humour that can co-exist alongside the most harrowing fear In an interview with the Guardian last October Keilson said with typical self-effacing modesty: "I am just happy to witness all this." Talking to the Observer he said: "I'm not even a proper writer!" He did concede that maybe he had produced "something which goes beyond the everyday" Both books drew on a life shaped by experience as a German Jew in the 1930s never got over the pain of his parents' murder in Auschwitz had refused to go into hiding because he assumed that being decorated with the Iron Cross in the first world war would protect him Keilson once said that "sadness is the basis of my life" saying: "Hatred might have been a natural reaction to my parents' death but I have learnt that hatred only leads to self-destruction." He trained as a doctor and also wrote a novel the book became the last novel by a Jewish writer to be published by S Fischer Verlag before Hitler's antisemitic Nuremberg laws came into force He finished his training at medical school but was forbidden to practise Heeding a warning from his editor to escape from Germany as quickly as possible, Keilson fled to the Netherlands in 1936 with Gertrud Manz A false Dutch passport gave him a new identity as a physician enabling him to travel and visit Jewish children separated from their parents To protect their daughter, born in 1941, his wife pretended the child's father was a German soldier. In protest at Pope Pius XII's failure to stand up to Hitler, she later converted to Judaism later dedicating Comedy in a Minor Key to Leo and Suus Rientsma the couple who hid him and who had brought him into the resistance The novel tells the story of a young Dutch couple who shelter an elderly Jew in their attic who then dies of natural causes leaving the couple with the problem of how to dispose of the body It deals with the psychological relationships between those who risk their lives and the people they are hiding Keilson trained and practised as a psychiatrist He used his experiences in a groundbreaking clinical study Sequential Traumatisation in Children (1979) which explored the repeated trauma suffered by Jewish war orphans in the occupation he published Komödie in Moll in the Netherlands He also retrieved his manuscript of Der Tod des Widersachers which he had buried in his garden during the war wide interest in Keilson as a novelist was sparked only after Damion Searls stumbled across an old copy of Komödie in a bookstore's "bargain bin" Searls was struck by its qualities and translated it into English Comedy in a Minor Key was published last year by Hesperus Press in Britain and Farrar along with a reissue of The Death of the Adversary which had been originally translated by Ivo Jarosy in 1961 Kielson was a lively man who loved quoting poetry He told Searls that he had not continued writing fiction because he did not feel he had an audience Roy Cohn and Donald Trump Image by Getty/Sonia Moskowitz/Contributor Everyone was afraid of Roy Cohn — until no one was a self-loathing Jew and viciously homophobic homosexual he seized on the Big Lie advanced by Adolf Hitler to advocate for his clients smear his opponents and shield himself from a mountain of indictments His first case to gain national attention sent Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to their deaths pushing the young real estate scion to countersue the government in a housing discrimination case A physical and moral grotesque, called, in an extensive 1978 Esquire profile by Ken Auletta “the personification of evil,” he relished his reputation as a prince of darkness A scar on his nose — courtesy of a pediatric surgery that his image-conscious mother insisted on — would be joined by gill-like scars from a botched facelift in his middle age While he maintained a 144-pound frame from a strict regime of sit-ups performed in his home office facing a mirrored ceiling his vanity couldn’t hide the ugliness that issued forth from his thin-lipped mouth which was occupied at the tender age of 26 by smearing Communists and gay men as the chief counsel for Senator Joseph McCarthy had a habit of peeking out in a reptilian fashion While one might expect that Cohn’s involvement with McCarthy would have ruined his social life when he returned to New York from DC scandalous — and largely erroneous — news items to columnists George Sokolsky and Leonard Lyons establishing his relevance in Manhattan society Top tier clients like his childhood friend and Conde Nast chair S.I the Catholic Archdiocese and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner got him past velvet ropes and kept his social invitations coming CBS News President Fred Friendly (who was instrumental in exposing the evils of McCarthyism on the March 9 Democratic mayor Abe Beame and Studio 54 regulars like Andy Warhol While working on his 2018 documentary “Studio 54” in 2016 filmmaker and journalist Matt Tyrnauer spotted Cohn in the archival footage Cohn “threw himself in front of the camera,” Tyrnauer recalled in a phone interview with the Forward I believe the scientific word for it is ‘Media Whore.’ I kept thinking to myself Tyrnauer soon dismissed the idea of a film about Cohn who seemed primed for a historic loss in the 2016 presidential election How Cohn’s playbook failed to win Trump the presidency wouldn’t make for compelling storytelling as much as it might signal a win for America’s better angels “Where’s My Roy Cohn?,” which takes its title from a reported quote from Trump distraught that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions failed to meet Cohn’s standard of loyalty Trump’s unprecedented win marks Cohn’s greatest achievement in my opinion would have been a bold footnote to American history if it weren’t for the electoral college victory of Donald Trump when he is transformed into a modern Machiavelli who did the impossible: Created a president from beyond the grave.” “He would have been so much more a subtle inside player He would not have had this chaos that was going on,” Brenner told the Forward the quid pro quo system on which the city ran who came from a wealthy and well-connected family “They had every major politician around their dinner table,” Brenner said “Roy was transactional from the age of 10.” The origin story goes that Cohn’s first dalliance with bribery came when he fixed a parking ticket for his high school teacher — while he was still in high school At home he received lessons in backroom dealing; on the streets working as a runner for gossip columnist and right-wing demagogue Walter Winchell Aware of how the law was flexible and public opinion was another court available to lawyers It was a conventional career path for the son of a jurist but one taken for an unconventional reason “I very early in my life broke with tradition and left my Jewish upper-class-oriented life in New York and became a contradiction of everything I was supposed to stand for,” Cohn told Ken Auletta in a recording featured in the film The case that made him — the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg — was a prime example of Cohn’s law-skirting tactics Cohn saw the case as an opportunity to make his name as a ruthless prosecutor and recoup the status his family had lost was president of the Bank of the United States when the stock market crashed whose clientele was primarily Jewish immigrants was blamed for sparking the financial crisis — some believe the attribution was due to anti-Semitism — and Marcus was sent to Sing Sing His uncle’s treatment became one of Cohn’s early obsessions “The family had been absolutely shamed when Bernard Marcus went to prison,” Brenner said “Roy kept a scrapbook as a little boy of all the pictures of his uncle Bernie Marcus his mother saw him doing this and she yelled and took the scrapbook away.” When Cohn was vicious in pushing for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg’s execution — illegally communicating with Judge Irving Kaufman (who called Cohn from a phone booth outside the Park Avenue Synagogue) — he may have been trying to lift the stigma of family shame but to its inevitable link to Jews like him “He was the definition of a self-hating Jew,” Cohn’s cousin Dave Marcus says in the film “He wanted to show the world that he wasn’t Jewish.” His work on the Rosenbergs got the attention of FBI chief J who Tyrnauer identifies as a prototype for what Cohn would become and Cohn learned something of Hoover’s brand of red-baiting and soon the FBI director introduced the young lawyer to McCarthy with whom Cohn had a chance to hound more Communists — many of them Jews — and gays He was the voice in the senator’s ear as the witch trials mounted The quotable moment that sent McCarthyism crashing down comes from the televised Army-McCarthy hearings when US Army Counsel Joseph Welch asked the senator Those hearings came about due to a personal vendetta — Cohn’s desire to “wreck the Army” for not favoring his friend Brenner believes Schine returned to Cohn’s life in another form decades later “I was looking one day at pictures of young David Schine and young Donald Trump,” Brenner said They were the same sort of physical type: Uber gentile according to Trump biographer and Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett Both Trump and Cohn were Outer Borough boys — Cohn from the Bronx being Trump’s entree into a world his father’s real estate empire had yet to reach “Roy gave him a sense of who he could meet and how he could meet them,” Brenner said He introduced him to Barbara Walters and all of their friends.” securing himself a Cadillac with “DJT” vanity plates likely inspired by Cohn’s “RMC”-plated Rolls-Royce telling Auletta “The mere sending of a letter from Roy Cohn has saved us a lot of money.” who served simultaneously as Ed Koch’s Deputy Mayor fast-tracked Trump’s plans to remodel the Commodore Hotel The deal made Trump’s reputation and taught him how to grasp the levers of power in Manhattan knowing success was only as good as its publicity also secured Trump puffy press coverage through The New York Post a new-to-the-city Australian expat named Rupert Murdoch he was spinning his Rolodex and offering her Yankees tickets or a car to take her back to her apartment “I was surprised at how absolutely shameless he was about who he was He had almost a kind of delight in being Roy Cohn,” Brenner said “Underneath this social persona of needing to be liked There was also something puerile about the man Cohn shared his townhouse with his mother until she died; he had a Disneyland sign reading “Roy’s Room” on his bedroom door; he liked exotic pets like llamas and dressing up for revels at Studio 54 who claimed to be engaged for some time to Barbara Walters male companions and players featured on Page Six he would go to the same great lengths to take advantage of them Cohn was indicted in 1964 for obstructing justice in trying to get clients off for stock fraud and in 1970 for violating Illinois banking laws in an attempt to gain major shares in two Illinois banks he was brought in for bribing a city appraiser his lawyer suffered a heart attack and he provided his own defense — with no notes — for seven hours over two days “He was a natural monologist of his own corruption,” Brenner said who arranged his treatment at the National Institute of Health for what might have been Cohn’s biggest lie: The AIDS that was killing him This period of Cohn’s life has been immortalized in a work of drama: Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer-winning two-part play “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” In the play haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg and unable to accept himself for who he was even as he deteriorated as a result of that identity Until Trump’s presidency went from pipe dream to reality Kushner’s play might well have been the last word on Cohn’s legacy “Angels,” set during the tail end of the Cold War is perhaps more timely than when it premiered Trump’s desperate cry of “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” was used in advertising for Marianne Elliott’s 2017 revival of the play The truth of where Roy Cohn is is well-known to Trump and within a few weeks of losing his law license Cohn is reported to have said of Trump’s distance,”I can’t believe he’s doing this to me the inimitable architect of his brand of Fake News who attributed Cohn’s eagerness to help Trump to his resemblance to David Schine PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture fellow. He can be reached at [email protected] PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.[email protected]@pjgrisar American Jewish fashion designer Zac Posen appeared with Betty in a commercial for the Pantone Color Institute Posen had agreed to design a new dress for Betty in a color dubbed Betty Boop Red On a humbler scale, there are endless tchotchkes available that include Betty, some expressing a popular urge to make her seem more Jewish. A Betty Boop Tin Menorah Vintage Lunchpail is on sale on Etsy. It is a children’s lunchbox repurposed as a menorah by adding rhinestones and aluminum candle cups It is described by the vendor as a “sparkly addition to your Hanukkah table whatever your heart desires,” this hybrid object recuperates Betty in a Jewish celebratory context demonstrates a close identification with Betty: “Here I am — Old Betty Boop whoopsing behind the skull-microphone wondering what Idiot soap opera horror show we broadcast by Mistake — full of communists and frankenstein cops and mature capitalists running the State Department and the Daily News Editorial hypnotizing millions of legional-eyed detectives to commit mass murder on the Invisible/ which is only a bunch of women weeping hidden behind newspapers in the Andes Surely Max Fleischer would have expressed his feelings about Betty differently but he might have approved of Ginsberg’s assimilation of the cartoon character into social the poem captures the multi-facetedness and extensive impact of Betty and her protean character with a Jewish perspective in the forefront may be due to her irrepressible curvaceousness Betty’s cute essence is imitative and mimetic Mae Questel got her start in showbiz as an imitator of Helen Kane “I Wanna Be Loved by You” (1928) included the gentle Questel’s approach to this material was more brassy and caricatural, suitable for a series of cartoon films. In 1932, Kane sued Max Fleischer for appropriating her image and her act as it turned out Kane had lifted the boop-oop-a-doop routine from songs by Baby Esther a 1920s African American mainstay at Harlem’s Cotton Club who presented an infantilized onstage character The imitations and appropriations continued in the Betty Boop short “Stopping the Show” (1932) in which Betty imitates, among others, Fanny Brice (born Fania Borach (1891–1951) and immortalized in the musical “Funny Girl” In “Stopping the Show,” Betty sings “I’m An Indian,” a comic speciality number made popular by Brice with a thick Yiddish accent. The lyrics to “I’m An Indian” were written in 1920 by Blanche Merrill (born Blanche Dreyfoos; 1883-1966) for Brice to perform in the Ziegfeld Follies. Merrill’s other song texts for Brice include “The Yiddish Bride” and “Becky Is Back in the Ballet.” Yet “I’m an Indian” remains unique for its message about a young Jewish woman who claims to have changed ethnicity: “And now oy oy my people/ How can I tell them how/ Their little Rosie Rosenstein/ Is a terrible Indian now?” Betty Boop’s version alters the original lyrics I’m a terrible squaw,” becomes “Oy oy oy oy I’m an Indian boy,” as an Indian blanket clinging to Betty’s curves transforms into a tepee and her hairstyle changes to a more masculine cut Max Fleischer and his artists created a melting pot of cultural references in which African Americans and Jews were closely associated as she was first presented in the short film “Dizzy Dishes” (1930) as a dog the Fleischer Studio’s canine reply to Mickey Mouse some Betty fans claim that in the mealtime scene of “Minnie the Moocher,” her father is wearing a kippah since a single hair emerges from the center of his scalp which could not happen were he sporting a yarmulke In still another metamorphosis, in “A Language All My Own,” (1935), a short made for the audiences in Japan Betty travels to Tokyo and sings in Japanese to a public which is not depicted grotesquely despite the usual standard of racial mockery in cartoon films of the era Unlike Betty’s mercurial variety and ambiguity, her main voice artist Mae Questel aged into an overtly Jewish mother onscreen. Questel was featured in Jerry Lewis’s “It’s Only Money” (1962); alongside Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl” (1968); and Woody Allen’s “New York Stories” (1989). Less remembered, although even more acute, was Questel’s 1969 comedy record “Mrs. Portnoy’s Retort,” a maternal reply to Philip Roth’s novel “Portnoy’s Complaint.” Mocking pop references of the day with such cuts as “Sayings of The Chairlady Portnoy,” a take-off on the maxims of Chairman Mao, and “Private Parts and the Jewish Mystique,” this retort to blame from Jewish sons for their neuroses may be Questel’s definitive contribution to comic Yiddishkeit By contrast, Betty’s elusive identity continues to inspire Jewish fans and creators in the arts. One of the latter is the American Jewish experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs, whose “Ulysses in the Subway” (2016) a subterranean New York voyage through space and time In heightened imaginings of Jewish poets and directors such as Ginsberg and Jacobs Betty remains an indelible cultural presence Benjamin Ivry is a frequent contributor to The Forward Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor Israel?s ?Best Female singer of All Time?: Rita gets inti- mate Iranian nuclear power is causing Israel concern an Iranian-born Israeli pop powerhouse has been causing Israelis nothing but pleasure Israel’s most successful and renowned female vocalist is known by all as Rita Being known by her first name is only one of the reasons the sensual diva has been hailed as the “Israeli Madonna,” though she could just as easily be compared with a wide range of talented singers: some say Christina Aguilera Rita’s warm and sultry voice has sold more than 1 million records and she was even voted “Best Female Singer of All Time” by the Israeli public during the country’s 60th anniversary celebrations Rita was little known in America until she released her single in English “Love Has Begun.” The single has been heavily featured on American radio playlists earning her the belated “Breakthrough Artist for 2009” title by New Music Weekly magazine In the wave of interest after her American single topped the charts Rita began her latest American tour March 13 at Town Hall in New York City Rita explained her own eclectic and personal and musical influences: “I can’t say that my music is one thing or the other which is really a cultural and musical melting pot and later I married someone who was born in the U.S her longtime collaborator and a successful singer in his own right.] And then I was trained at Beit Tzvi [one of Israel’s leading acting schools] All of these styles and songs grew roots — I always try new genres learn that what truly guides me is the written word I learned that if the words mean something and come from deep inside For a singer who didn’t shy away from extravagant tours featuring hosts of dancers and gaudy spectacles “Then we found out it was our most successful record My songs always come from the deepest place inside me it was important for me to feel like my audience was sitting here in my living room and that I was singing to them Rita spoke about the success of “Love Has Begun”: “A friend kept trying to persuade me to do something in English for years and all of a sudden I hear we’re on charts and 40 radio stations have been playing it and the breakthrough performance of the year — it was strange When it was pointed out that she is an Iranian-born Israeli singer on her way to America but mostly this: I was an immigrant from Iran It was such a terrible feeling of powerlessness and dislocation especially watching my parents go through it all that I ended up participating in some of Israel’s most important ceremonies I always return to that helpless 8-year-old “I’m always motivated by my love of singing is my love of people and the need to make real connections,” she said Which leads one to think that if only Iranian Israeli and American exchanges were based on the same sentiment we might be able to start beating centrifuges into plowshares