Jeffrey Fiskin
By Jeffrey Fiskin
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News Making It Our Own
A fine day in Hollywood. Two white-robed and bearded gentlemen enjoy luncheon on the terrace of a movie studio commissary, when a third similarly dressed fellow in a fright wig stands on a nearby table and begins to rant about what evils will befall our errant kind. Malachi: Well, look who’s here. Ezekiel. Moses: Naw,…
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News Nobody Ever Hearkens!
Three gentlemen have gathered on the terrace of an outdoor café. Two enjoy thimble-size cups of thick, sweet coffee. The third, a wild-eyed, raggedy-bearded fellow, stalks around among the tables, barely limiting his exhortations to his companions, which may explain why the café across the boulevard is having a particularly busy afternoon. Nachmanides: Please, my…
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News Weaned on a Pickle?
And these are the rules that you shall set before them. (Exodus 21:1) The ghosts of two gentlemen walk together through an olive grove near the Temple. One, Hillel, takes a deep breath of the fresh air and smiles for that reason, or for no reason at all. The other, Shammai, walks with hunched shoulders,…
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News Prophet and Loss Statement
“…Pharaoh dreamed… And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled.” (Genesis 41:1-80) A small consulting room. The Nile is visible through the window. A gentleman in white pleated skirt, khepresh headdress with cobra, and lapis collar lies on the couch as he recounts a dream. He punctuates the conversation with…
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News Friendly Persuasion
‘And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” (Genesis 2:15) Rashi comments: “He ‘took’ him with kind words and persuaded him to enter.” Two gentlemen walk among the clouds, philosophers obviously. Martin: I really think you need to lighten up. It’s…
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Culture Clothes Maketh the Man?
In a great metropolis, two gentlemen meet outside a large store that specializes in photographic and video equipment. They are both dressed soberly, one in the familiar navy-blue business suit, the other in a black caftan and a round cap with a thick fur brim and old-fashioned shoes, as well. Yehuda: Naftali! How are you?…
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Culture Heart-to-Heart Talk
Moishe, a man of indeterminate age in doctor’s garb, stands before the massive statues of a pharaoh’s mortuary temple on the west bank at Luxor. As Amelia Edwards noted at Abu Simbel (“A Thousand Miles Up the Nile”), there is an instant at dawn as light flushes the temple that transforms the great stone colossi….
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Culture Rehearsing for Reconciliation
Two men approach each other from across a field. You would be surprised to learn they are twins, so different are they now. But even before their paths diverged, they were not alike. One strides purposefully forward with the confidence in his own element, at home. Well he might, as he is surrounded by 400…
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