He wants to fit into the artistic world and is worried that the earlocks might prevent him from doing that. Yet, he does not have the conviction to simply chop them off. He still bears an attachment to them. The summer after his parents have returned from their years in Vienna, Asher is far more mature. A college student and a much more accomplished artist, he feels much more confident of himself and his decisions.
He expresses his independence by cutting off his earlocks. He also expresses disregard for tradition and distance form his father. After all, Asher has noted that his father wore earlocks because his father did. For Asher, this is not sufficient reason to perpetuate the hairstyle. The Rebbe, the spiritual leader of the Ladover community, takes on an almost divine status. To the people in the Ladover community, he is an omniscient leader, to be listened to in all circumstances. It's the kind of inner struggle that can play out marvelously in a novel, but is tricky to translate to the stage.
Posner's compact adaptation at 90 minutes is largely successful, though. It relies heavily on narration from Asher played here by David Reale , sometimes falling back on it as a crutch to cram in exposition, but more often using it to delve deeply into Asher's inner world. It's hard not to draw a comparison to the other show which opened in Winnipeg this week — The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble — where I felt the monologue often seemed an interruption to the story.
Here, largely, it enhances it, because it digs so deeply and pointedly into the questions at the core of Asher as a character, and of the play. Click here for a downloadable Word document of this Discussion Guide. For those of us who consider Easter the most central and essential part of the Christian calendar, the decision to suspend Sunday services one year ago was the strangest of Lenten resolutions.
Personally, I had attended church every Easter of my life—except once. A few years earlier I took my family rafting on Easter morning. Biography writing is a fascinating study in itself. Sometimes biographies are simply histories of the times in which a person lived.
The first movie I want to review I went to see twice, partially because of the lack of any other interesting films, but at least partially because it begged for multiple viewings. I would suggest you do the same; doing so certainly […]. Christians go to the movies for a number of different reasons.
In its active engagement with the broader Jewish world, Potok's fictional Ladover community is reminiscent of the real-life Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement, whose headquarters is in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where Potok places the Ladover Hasidim.
In reading My Name Is Asher Lev , it is helpful to consider what the characters say and do in the context of what they value, what problems confront them, and what options are available. A good author such as Chaim Potok will present this to the reader, and the best way to discover the relevant context is to read the text closely. For Christian readers, it is important not to miss the distinctive elements of the Jewish context.
First, the artistic heritage of western civilization is closely entwined with Christianity. European Jews experienced severe persecution at the hands of Christians. But the whole tradition of Christian hostility toward Jews including the Holocaust is relevant for understanding the outlook of Jews in the novel who disapprove of Asher Lev's Brooklyn Crucifixion.
Whereas many American Christians today would not recognize those who persecute Jews as truly Christian, Jews are often not in a position to make such a distinction. The crucifix has been a symbol of western Christendom, and therefore belongs to a world that is dangerous for Jews. In this context, the need for Jewish leaders to keep the community together and safe is deeply felt.
Second, because of Christianity's influence on American culture, assimilation into American life is easier for practicing Christians than for Jews.
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