Where The Week Went: Christians, Muslims, Museums

Eliza Griswold A week ago today, I had a chance to speak with journalist, poet and author of the recently published book The Tenth Parallel, Eliza Griswold. Deftly balancing on-the-ground reporting with a very broad understanding of the religious and political landscapes of some of the least-understood regions of the world, Griswold’s book follows the eponymous line of latitude (the tenth parallel is ten degrees north of the Equator) from Nigeria eastward, making trips to Sudan, Somalia, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Griswold tells her story from the inside -- at one point, her father’s role as the head of the American Episcopal church becomes very relevant -- but The Tenth Parallel is not a memoir, and people are paying close attention. (My interview with Griswold ended when the camera crew from ABC’s 20/20 was ready to shoot a segment for their recent show about Islam.) And even though Griswold’s story focuses on Islam and Christianity, the book has major implications for members of the third Abrahamic faith, Jews. Look for a forthcoming article in the Jewish Journal about our conversation.

Holocaust Museums
Speaking of my employers, the Journal ran my piece about the history and significance of some of the world’s best-known Holocaust memorial architecture. I tried to put the soon-to-open Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, designed by Hagy Belzberg, into the context of museums and memorials in Washington and Berlin. I could’ve mentioned other building projects -- the ones in New York City and in Israel are of equal interest and exhibit some of the same built themes.

MOT
And having just visited the Museum of Tolerance for the above-mentioned article, I found it hilarious that one of the characters on Modern Family -- the nerdy daughter, Alex -- is obsessed with going to the MOT. I can only imagine what they’re thinking over there in the offices on Pico Blvd. I guess they’re probably just happy that the shout-out they got this time around was better than the one they got from South Park a few years back.

"Israel is on the verge of losing Turkey's friendship"

That's what Turkish Consul General R. Hakan Tekin told me in our conversation last week. Check out more from him here.

Disaster is the mother of comic invention

This is absolutely amazing.

Published: Q&A with Peter Beinart in Jewish Journal

I recently had the chance to talk with Peter Beinart, the writer whose recent essay in The New York Review of Books ("The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment") has taken the Jewish blogosphere by storm. My conversation was published in the most recent issue of the Jewish Journal. (And, since good things come in threes, I had two other articles in the same issue--though these were decidedly more community-based stories.)

With the promise of more to come.

Those Confusing Yellow Flags...

Every time I see a car approaching flying one of these:

I actually expect it to turn out to be one of these:


And then I remember...I live in Los Angeles.

Published: Not my Grandmothers' Chicken Soup in Remedy Quarterly

Sometime last year, friends of mine Ari and Jillian Bergman started Remedy Quarterly, a journal of writings about food. This week, the second issue arrived in mailboxes across the country.

The issue's theme is "Cravings," and the book includes a short story about my learning to make chicken soup from scratch in Argentina. It's only available in print, but copies and subscriptions are available here.

Remembering Kent State

Many news pieces about the 40th anniversary of the shootings at Kent State University have been popping up lately; I wanted to draw your attention to my own contribution to this public remembering of a particularly dark day in our country's history.

It made the front page of The Forward this week, and I was happy to be able to help tell part of this story that's been overlooked thus far.