Comments on: On Location http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2008/06/27/on-location/ A Journal of Jewish Thought and Opinion Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:03:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Baruch Horowitz http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2008/06/27/on-location/#comment-368198 Baruch Horowitz Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:43:32 +0000 http://www.cross-currents.com/?p=1535#comment-368198 "Here we were, two Jews walking between trailers in a Hollywood studio lot, arguably the epicenter of all that is fake and phony in the world (although Washington’s another candidate), a place where deception is the local currency and tinsel the stand-in for precious metals – having a discussion about an aspect of Truth itself" I also have had opportunities to pass where movie scenes were being filmed(interestingly, some in religious NYC neighborhoods), with trailers, film crews, etc., and can relate to the contrast here. My reactions were similar, to look from the outside and appreciate who and what one's own community venerates—“reu mah bein b’nee l'vein chami”. I think that an additional point in education(not a contradiction to the points in this essay), is also to get across that there is good in the world at large, as Rabbi A.H Fried mentions in his Hakirah article. “Here we were, two Jews walking between trailers in a Hollywood studio lot, arguably the epicenter of all that is fake and phony in the world (although Washington’s another candidate), a place where deception is the local currency and tinsel the stand-in for precious metals – having a discussion about an aspect of Truth itself”

I also have had opportunities to pass where movie scenes were being filmed(interestingly, some in religious NYC neighborhoods), with trailers, film crews, etc., and can relate to the contrast here. My reactions were similar, to look from the outside and appreciate who and what one’s own community venerates—“reu mah bein b’nee l’vein chami”. I think that an additional point in education(not a contradiction to the points in this essay), is also to get across that there is good in the world at large, as Rabbi A.H Fried mentions in his Hakirah article.

]]> By: ClooJew http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2008/06/27/on-location/#comment-368187 ClooJew Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:16:31 +0000 http://www.cross-currents.com/?p=1535#comment-368187 Great minds. I too get a special feeling, lulei demistafina, when pulling out a sefer in a place where, perhaps, no words of Torah had ever before been studied. Great minds. I too get a special feeling, lulei demistafina, when pulling out a sefer in a place where, perhaps, no words of Torah had ever before been studied.

]]> By: Charles B. Hall, PhD http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2008/06/27/on-location/#comment-368157 Charles B. Hall, PhD Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:42:24 +0000 http://www.cross-currents.com/?p=1535#comment-368157 While it is true that motion picture studios specialize in fantasy (with the exception of the occasional well-produced documentary), the gratuitous comment about Washington was totally uncalled for. In fact, it is totalitarian states that specialized in unreality. George Orwell's famous novel, *1984*, about a Stalinist state's reinvention of truth, while technically fiction, showed how this works. This is particularly important today as Jews face an implacable enemy in fundamentalist Islam, whose historical distortions include the denial that Jews had a Temple in Jerusalem or have any connection to the Land of Israel. American politicians do spin the truth, distort science, and often don't keep their word. But to say that Washington is a candidate for the epicenter of "all that is fake and phony in the world" is to minimize the very serious threat from the historical falsifications coming from segments of the Muslim world today. While it is true that motion picture studios specialize in fantasy (with the exception of the occasional well-produced documentary), the gratuitous comment about Washington was totally uncalled for. In fact, it is totalitarian states that specialized in unreality. George Orwell’s famous novel, *1984*, about a Stalinist state’s reinvention of truth, while technically fiction, showed how this works. This is particularly important today as Jews face an implacable enemy in fundamentalist Islam, whose historical distortions include the denial that Jews had a Temple in Jerusalem or have any connection to the Land of Israel. American politicians do spin the truth, distort science, and often don’t keep their word. But to say that Washington is a candidate for the epicenter of “all that is fake and phony in the world” is to minimize the very serious threat from the historical falsifications coming from segments of the Muslim world today.

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