The Zeitgeist

Joe Lhota (left) and Bill de Blasio mix it up on WABC debate

Lhota Dead on Arrival for Televised Mayoral Debate;

Historic GOP Loss in the Offing.

On Tuesday evening October 15^th Bill de Blasio hammered in the nails on Joe Lhota’s coffin. In a televised debate on WABC Channel 7, de Blasio was animated, forceful and forthright while continually tarring Lhota with the brush of “Republican trickle-down economics,” “Tea Party extremism,” “Giuliani Administration divisiveness” and as a shill for “Bloombergian corporate welfare.” De Blasio continually rebutted anything Lhota had to say even if de Blasio wasn’t supposed to be speaking. Lhota was so painfully polite that de Blasio always got in the last word and the last jab.

Joe Lhota, the Republican candidate for Mayor of New York never once turned to look de Blasio in the eye, allowed all charges, slights and insults to go un-refuted and unchallenged and never went on the offensive calling de Blasio a continuation of the David Dinkins administration since de Blasio’s City Hall experience was working for that former mayor. Lhota never raised the ominous specter of a return to those crime-filled days nor did he ridicule any of de Blasio’s proposals.

Lhota went out of his way to portray himself as the candidate of change while de Blasio successfully boxed him in as the candidate of continuity. Instead of vigorously defending the last 20 years of Republican control of City Hall, Lhota was trying to have his cake and eat it too, distancing himself while gingerly embracing a few GOP policies. A lot of New Yorkers are happy with how things have gone since 1993 but the only way you’d know Lhota was the Republican standard-bearer was hearing it from de Blasio.

Back in 2009, 1,550,000 of the more than eight million residents of New York City came out to vote in that year’s mayoral contest between the incumbent Michael Bloomberg and his Democratic challenger Bill Thompson.  The Board of Elections shows 4,366,746 registered voters in the city limits as of April 1, 2012.    Not a particularly high turnout last time around. Back in 1993 in the supercharged race between the incumbent David Dinkins and his challenger Rudy Giuliani nearly 1.9 million people voted. Voter apathy tends to breed low turnouts as in 2009. Turnout has been declining steadily for decades. From 1932 until 1969 well over 2.2 million people voted each time.

Thanks to the perception that the 2013 race is a fait accompli it is fair to assume that New Yorkers won’t be streaming to the voting booths. By “fait accompli,” I mean all the recent polls showing GOP candidate Joe Lhota getting trounced by the Democratic nominee Bill de Blasio. In the last Quinnipiac poll conducted at the end of September int margin that points to a mauling of historic proportions. If we take the 2009 voter turnout as an estimate for 2013 that would mean more than 1.1 million votes for de Blasio and a mere 325,000 for Lhota. For Lhota that would be fewer votes than there are registered Republicans, a rare feat given how few admitted Republicans there are in Gotham.

You’d have to go back all the way to the Koch years where Ed slaughtered the placeholder GOP candidates to find a more dismal looking picture for the GOP. In 1977 Roy Goodman only garnered 59,000 votes (Mario Cuomo got 588,000 on the Liberal Party line). In 1981 Koch ran as both a Democrat and Republican and in 1985 his Republican challenger only took 102,000 votes. That Joe Lhota seems to be OK with doing little better than Roy Goodman in ’77 rather than winning is a big part of the problem. No fight. No passion. Lhota just wants to be loved and cuddled. His pushing of himself so far away from the embrace and legacy of Rudy Giuliani is reminiscent of Al Gore’s similar strategy vis-à-vis Bill Clinton in 2000. We know how well that worked out for Gore.

The Lhota people are running a “sunny day in the Emerald City” type of ad campaign. There’s nothing to fear, nothing to worry about because like de Blasio, Lhota is pro-Choice. De Blasio is for Gay marriage, so is Joe; lo and behold, like de Blasio, Lhota supports decriminalizing marijuana. Candidate differentiation? Lhota wants to cut spending and not raise taxes but in the Lhota TV spot that got ridiculed by media critics everywhere, this one policy difference comes more than halfway into the commercial. At the end of his spots it’s all about “Democrats agree that Joe is New York.” The problem here is that you can really be a bona fide New Yorker and even be liked for it but yet give the voters no reason to support you. That you’re portraying yourself as a moderate Democrat? There already is a candidate from that party. That you “are New York”? So what, so are eight million other people. Is de Blasio not a New Yorker? Who cares?

Being pro-choice or pro-marijuana are not even issues that might mean something to Democrats and Independents to help sway their votes. The issues that matter are first and foremost public safety, then schools, then jobs. In the safety sphere, two cases in point are that of retaining Ray Kelly as Police Commissioner and Stop and Frisk. Lhota would keep Kelly, de Blasio would dump him but there’s nary a peep from the Lhota people about it. Stop and Frisk? Again on different sides of that issue but you’d never know it. Charter Schools? Lhota wants to keep them, de Blasio is opposed to them as elitist and diverting resources away from the general school population. Jobs? De Blasio wants to stop subsidizing businesses that locate or agree to stay here via tax breaks and subsidies. Lhota is on the other side of this, but, again, Lhota makes no forceful case for its necessity in attracting and retaining jobs. Is there any campaign targeted to public school parents? Nope. In Lhota-land the predominantly Democratic electorate can’t handle the tough issues. It’s more important that “Joe is New York,” whatever that means.

A kid-glove campaign without being in the least bit pugnacious won’t work in a tough town like New York. For the last 20 years New Yorkers elected Republican mayors, but Guiliani and Bloomberg were alpha dogs (although different stylistically). Absent a campaign that portends a return to the 1989-1993 chaos when New York was careening towards becoming Detroit if a “Democrat with a capital D” is put in Gracie Mansion, there is nothing to motivate “Democrats with a lower-case D” to vote GOP. And make no mistake, fear is a powerful motivator. New Yorkers also respect attitude, not passivity and Mr. Lhota’s full court press of passivity was on full display in Tuesday evening’s debate which is why the candidate with more passion, a clearer sense of who he is and a bigger vision will undoubtedly triumph on November 5^th and right now that isn’t Mr. Lhota.

The Zeitgeist

The New Shiddach Crisis: Over-40 Orthodox Singles

Note: An abridged version of this story appeared in The 5 Towns Jewish Times on June 21st, This is the unedited version. This article also contains many Hebrew words.

Much has been made of the alleged “shiddach crisis” in the Orthodox community where girls of 22 and 23 feel as though they’re consigned to eternal spinsterhood if they’ve not gotten married by that point. Not to denigrate the very real anxiety of these young ladies and their parents but at 22 a person has no end of personal possibilities and opportunities. At 42 or 50, not so much.

While some may bemoan that every single young man and woman in their early 20s is not married by their 21^st birthday, nevertheless there are no end of weddings filling up the calendar on any given Thursday or Sunday night and on many other afternoons and evenings as well. Go to any large quality kosher restaurant on almost any night and you’re sure to find a sheva brachot meal in progress. In shul, a barrage of aufrufs hog the bima and bring elaborate hot kiddushim to the masses. Fifty year-old grandmothers are quite ubiquitous in most Orthodox neighborhoods. There’s a whole lot of marriage activity going on, even if not every last living soul finds their bashert by 22.

Contrasting the blizzard of twenty-something weddings is the near total dearth of nuptials for anyone Orthodox who is over 40. When was the last time you were at a wedding of some forty-somethings? I thought so. There is a palpable personal and communal mania to get married in one’s early 20s which is contrasted by the equally palpable apathy about doing the same when one is over 40. Combine this with the relatively recent divorce boom in the Modern and centrist Orthodox communities and you have the makings of a midlife shiddach crisis.

The over-40 frum single population is not nearly as homogeneous as those in their early 20s. There are two main subgroups, the first being the never-marrieds and the second being the divorced. The never-marrieds comprise several subdivisions of their own. You have those who concentrated on their education and careers to the near exclusion of all else and/or concentrated on having a lot of fun dating a lot of people a lot of the time with not one serious thought in mind. This is an imitation of the secular and general population’s mores.

Included in this group is the closeted Orthodox gay population. Yes, if gay people exist in noticeable numbers across every population group in America they exist in the Orthodox community as well. Because of close family ties and 12-plus years of Jewish education (along with a genuine affinity for many aspects of Orthodox life) there is a segment of the over-40 single population that is just passing for heterosexual and always uses the excuse that they’ve just not met the right person yet. It is socio-culturally and halachically impossible for someone to declare themselves both Orthodox and gay, so they either stifle it or live in shadows and closets which has to be an almost unbearable burden. As a community we deny the existence of a gay population, but it’s there.

Also in the never-marrieds are those who are phobic to a point of paralysis – be it fear of commitment, emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, “settling,” or any combination of the above. There are some who did manage to get engaged once or twice but pre-marital jitters or last-minute revelations scotched the wedding, sometimes at the eleventh hour and they’re scarred or damaged from this in some fashion. There are also some never-marrieds who are confirmed bachelors and bachelorettes who actually revel in the superficially fun lifestyle of dating someone new all the time. These people will also tell you they’re still looking for “the one,” because it’s just socially unacceptable in the Orthodox world to say you don’t want to get married, but they really don’t.

Lastly, some never-marrieds are just a little bit odd or off – a condition that is often exacerbated over many years residing in microscopic Manhattan studio apartments talking to the walls and their cats. A lot of the over-40’s have given-up on internet dating and going to singles events out of a sense of futility and ennui. Many have resigned themselves to their lifestyle and created communities of likeminded Orthodox singles (particularly on the Upper West Side) to share shabbatot and yom tovim together where there is zero (often parental) pressure to get married. Shabbat and three-day yontiffs require peer support because Orthodoxy is essentially a group or family activity. Because of that, on the flip side of the coin are singles who go off the derech. Due to the rigors of observant life and what can be the oppressive solitude of being alone, some people lose their kavanah and slowly, incrementally join the secular population as a means towards assuaging the deadening effect of shabbatot and holidays alone or spent with families that can inadvertently make them feel worse about their single status.

Study after study has shown that never-married women over 40 have the same odds of getting married as being struck by lightning (which is why parents are correct in pushing their young daughters to marry early) and even if they do manage to get hitched, having a child or two is fraught with huge expense (for medical intervention) and anxiety. Manhattan has a large population of Orthodox women who will never have children. To remedy this, some Modern Orthodox women of a certain age have opted to go the route of artificial insemination and be single moms. There are about 12-25 of these women annually. Having a child with a “ghost father” does nothing to enhance a single woman’s marketability vis-à-vis marriage as many guys find the whole process off-putting.

For men, 50 is the new 40. If a man is financially successful and perhaps reasonably attractive he can get married for the first time in his 40s but if by 50 he hasn’t tied the knot, women under 40 generally won’t consider him and he probably has a reputation of being commitment phobic, which earns him the sobriquet of “toxic bachelor.”

The Divorced

The escalating divorce rate in the Orthodox community apes the behavior of American society as a whole where there is a perception that quick and simple solutions exist to complex problems. There’s nothing simple about divorce (especially with children) and it usually results in the swapping of one set of problems for another. Sometimes people are so frantic to change their lives that they’ve no real idea of how difficult it may be to ever get remarried.

The divorced population also has sub-categories. People who divorced young, under 30 and with no kids or with one or two have a high probability of getting remarried if they’re marriage-minded. For women over 35 it is trickier especially as the more children a divorced woman has goes right to the heart of her eligibility and chances for remarriage but you still see a bunch of second marriages in one’s 30s. When the big four-oh hits, everything changes and marriages practically stop cold.

A lot of over-40 frum female divorcees quite frankly have had it with marriage. They may have gotten married in their early or mid 20s and had a number of kids with their ex and they’re burnt out and exhausted from the experience. Often, their former husbands did unpleasant things either during the marriage or the divorce (or both) and so a lot of these ladies really don’t want another man padding around the house scratching himself, watching sports on TV and making all the male bodily noises that they now find repugnant after a decade or two of living with their often now-hated ex. They would make an exception for a hedge fund guy bringing in seven figures a year and who looks like Brad Pitt, but these fellows are few and far between.

Many of these girls just want to have fun, so they will have liaisons with men from outside the community (so their modesty is preserved within it) and run out to parties and clubs. A lot of these ladies look at themselves in the mirror and (in a state of delusion) see a 23 year-old in their reflection and so sometimes behave accordingly even though they may be the mother of several children. These women are not interested in or able to have any more children so they don’t see the need to be married, especially to balding, aging guys evincing various degrees of emerging corpulence and lacking wads of flash cash with which to enable Prada shopping sprees or fancy vacations.

In the over-40 Modern Orthodox divorced population, marriage has come to be seen by both sexes as something exclusively for procreation. If no procreating, no need to tie the knot. Companionship and intimacy are increasingly seen as commodities that can be leased, not purchased.

Among the divorced men, a lot of them had a harrowing divorce experience themselves where they lost their families (or any least their family life), daily access to their kids and their homes (as in their physical residences, often necessitating an involuntary downsizing in accommodation). The divorce itself probably cost a small fortune and the men still have to pay yeshiva tuition, camp tuition, child support and sometimes even the mortgages on their former homes. They might have three or four kids and are crushed by the burden of supporting two households even if they earn $200,000 a year. The last thing a lot of these guys want to do is take on a whole new raft of financial responsibilities (i.e., a woman and their several kids or have more kids with a new woman) when they can barely make ends meet as it is. For them “The Brady Bunch” blended family is a fantasy TV show from the 70s. These guys feel they did their duty to Klal Yisrael (and their parents) by having several kids and now they, too, want to have some fun.

Numerous studies of the general population conclusively show that women initiate nearly two-thirds of all divorces over 30. It’s a myth that mostly men are breaking up their homes. Having been on the receiving end of the devastating emotional and financial experience of divorce, the guys are often also disgusted with the institution of marriage and understandably gun shy as well. Also, the last thing they’re looking for is a replica of their now ex-wife in the form of a 40-something divorced woman with several kids in tow. If they have no interest in more children they also see no need to get married. Freed of the marriage chiuv (in their minds) they proceed to have flings far and wide (again, often outside the confines of the community) and look to enjoy themselves.

The toughest time of the week for the over-40 divorced is typically Shabbat because the nuclear Shabbat family table has been broken apart. It is typically during those 25 hours and on holidays that one’s divorced status is made most acutely aware and it can be tough, especially in the suburbs if one lacks extended family or many good friends in close proximity. It can be harder if one’s kids have left the nest.

A Solution?

Generally the rabbis and organized Orthodoxy are as apathetic towards the over-40 singles as are most of the singles themselves towards the imperative of being married. The sense among communal leaders is “you had your chance when you were young and we have to focus on the next generation” and “you’re grown ups, fend for yourselves.” So fend they do. There are several promoters who organize parties for the over-40 Modern observant crowd. Some of these events can draw upwards of 500 people or more. The general theme of these events is “party like its 1999,” in that nearly all of these parties are frantic near-deafening dance music fests of the kind they used to attend when they were 25. Now that they’re 45 and burned and burnt from divorce or happy being never-married they want to imagine themselves as their former 25 year-old selves if only for a few hours.

The problem with these kinds of events is that it’s nearly impossible to talk to anyone new let alone even hear oneself think. So people go and drink and scope one another out, pretend to have a good time and only very rarely make a meaningful connection with someone from the opposite sex, but the partiers party on in a cacophony of quiet desperation.

The world of Modern and centrist Orthodox over-40 singles is the very definition of a demimonde – a micro-world. The right-wing, yeshivish and haredi people consider us to be near apikorsim especially because Moderns dress like regular Americans and even watch TV and movies and don’t spend nearly enough time studying and in shul in their estimation. The Moderns and centrists often see those on the right as being either socio-culturally uncool and/or stiflingly religious. The shadchans of the world tend towards the more right wing and towards the young, so the over-40 Moderns don’t get a lot of shiddach action. In defense of many shadchans, they see that many Moderns are not marriage-minded, so it’s a waste of time for them.

There used to be a time 30 and 40-plus years ago when places like Grossinger’s and The Concord would attract Jews from all walks of life and Modern Orthodox singles in particular would meet their counterparts from traditional or less-observant homes. This greatly expanded the dating pool. Those days are long gone. Most Conservative, Reform and unaffiliated (secular) Jewish singles today of whatever age generally are loathe to date or even consider marriage to any kind of Orthodox person, no matter how culturally American they may be. They see us as “Amish,” envisioning Shabbat as a Satmar-like experience that creeps them out. They have more in common with secular Christians than with Modern Orthodox Jews, which is why the non-Orthodox intermarriage rate is stratospheric. They’d rather deal with Christmas and Easter than Shabbat, kashrut and the holidays. But that’s another story. What it means in practicality is that the over-40 Orthodox single has a very small pond to swim and fish in and the water is evaporating with each and every passing year.

I don’t know what the overall prescription is for this dilemma other than that a paradigm shift needs to take place, aided by the community, to say that to be Orthodox means to be married and that marriage is not just for making babies (which is vital) but also to give you the fulfillment that comes with a richer life made possible by companionship and that life ought not to be lived alone or in random hookups of dubious emotional satisfaction. Until Modern and centrist Orthodox over-40 singles shed the secularist notions of marriage just for procreation, the ranks of the legion of the lonely will only continue to swell.

The Zeitgeist

James Gandolfini: As Important as Brando in the Fermament of Fictional Mafia Bosses

Note: This appeared originally on June 20, 2013 in The Huffington Post.

We now know how The Sopranos really ends -- Tony is taken out by the celestial capo di tutti capi. The series finale was left ambiguous but the boss of bosses up above doesn't go for unresolved endings, so ascending to heaven is New Jersey native James Gandolfini, who at 51 definitely went way before his time.

Gandolfini generally played heavies in film and television not because he was a big guy but because he was a heavyweight actor. The hugeness of his screen presence was most significantly manifested in his eight-year portrayal of Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano. The Sopranos created a new paradigm for dramatic television and made HBO must-see TV. Gandolfini's work was recognized by his peers by repeatedly winning the prime-time Emmy award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series along with similar honors from the Screen Actors Guild. He also took home awards from the Golden Globes and the American Film Institute, and was nominated just about every year that he didn't win.

The Sopranos, and Gandolfini's role as Tony, was every bit as important to the oeuvre of American mafia celluloid fiction as were Marlon Brando's Don Corleone and Al Pacino as Michael in The Godfather. Aside from that Coppola epic, The Sopranos probably had the most impact on American popular culture as it relates to Italian-American gangsters. Gandolfini was brilliant as Tony Soprano precisely because he seemed to embody and then channel his New Jersey Italian ethnicity thoroughly and completely.

Millions would tune in on Sundays at 9:00 p.m. to learn sage advice on how to run a complex business organization, how to manage recalcitrant personnel, how to fend-off federal regulators (in the form of law enforcement) and how to deal with high levels of stress. It was the quintessential primer on executive management tips for the new millennium. On the home front, Tony faced all the same frustrations and temptations as most middle-aged, upper-middle class men with the caveat that he acted upon the deeply repressed impulses of so many guys living lives of quiet desperation and in so doing served as a vicarious release for male frustration and aggression no less important than that offered by professional football earlier on any given Sunday. That Tony got away with most of it was part of the allure of his character. Gandolfini brought infinite layers of complexity and nuance to a role that is most often either played overly simplistically or for laughs.

Gandolfini's untimely departure is like that of John Lennon or Jim Morrison. There would never be a Beatles reunion after December 1980 or any real performances by The Doors after July 1971 and so The Sopranos can never rise again without the anchoring presence of the Sopranos' paterfamilias.

For those of us born between 1957 and 1963, Gandolfini's tragic early death is a loud knock on our late-40s and early-50-something doors. It is a signal that our lives, no matter how accomplished, are not infinite and our youth fleeting. To Gandolfini's family, friends and colleagues, a big-hearted guy will now leave a gaping hole by his disappearance.

Even in reruns, The Sopranos is one of the best shows on TV. It always seems fresh and vibrant even if you've seen that particular episode a half dozen times. That's partly a testament to James Gandofini who gave a performance for the ages on a par with Brando. Thanks, Mr. Gandofini, for making many a Sunday night so meaningful. We wish you Godspeed and a great seat in heaven's Bada-Bing.