{"id":107180,"date":"2016-09-19T12:52:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T20:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=107180"},"modified":"2016-09-19T12:52:43","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T20:52:43","slug":"km-sm-transgenderism-and-jewish-holidays-transparent-is-the-most-jewish-show-on-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=107180","title":{"rendered":"KM: S&M, transgenderism and Jewish holidays: Transparent is “the most Jewish show on television.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amy Klein writes for Hadassah Magazine<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a scene in the upcoming third season of Transparent\u2014Jill Soloway\u2019s hit show on Amazon about a father\u2019s transgender transition and its effect on his family\u2014where daughter Sarah Pfefferman is bound and getting flogged by a dominatrix. But Sarah is bored, distracted by her own neurotic train of thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know there\u2019s this whole Jewish concept that if you do charity work you\u2019re not supposed to tell anyone about it cuz if you tell anyone it voids the work,\u201d Sarah says, the camera on her face in the vise, a whipping sound in the background. \u201cIt\u2019s more about ego than charity\u2026. If that\u2019s true I haven\u2019t done a single charitable action in my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s typical Soloway: so, so irreverent and so, so Jewish at the same time.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s Transparent, for you\u2014\u201dThe most Jewish show on television,\u201d says Soloway, the show\u2019s writer and director. On September 18, Soloway, who based the series on her own experience\u2014her father had transitioned to a woman, was awarded the 2016 Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for Transparent. Actor Jeffrey Tambor, who plays father Mort Pfefferman, now Maura, also won an Emmy, for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. And the show\u2014its third season premieres on September 23\u2014won a 2016 Golden Globe award for best television series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to be part of a movement,\u201d said Soloway in her Emmy-acceptance speech. \u201cThis TV show allows me to take my dreams about unlikable Jewish people, queer folk, trans folk and make them heroes. Thank you to the trans community for your lived lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

This season Sarah\u2014played by Amy Landecker\u2014gets kicked off the synagogue board and starts an organization called Hineni with brother Joshie\u2019s ex-fianc\u00e9e, Rabbi Raquel Fein. \u201cHilarity ensues: They gather in their kids\u2019 school gymnasium and try to reinvent havdalah,\u201d Soloway, 50, says in a recent interview with Hadassah Magazine. \u201cJust like \u2018East Side Jews,\u2019\u201d she adds, referring to the community of L.A. Jews\u2014\u201cAn irreverent, upstart, nondenominational collective\u201d Soloway founded 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

The new season also has Rabbi Raquel jogging in the woods, with her voiceover discussing themes of redemption. \u201cEach season has one big Jewish holiday in the center,\u201d Soloway explains. The first was Shabbat, the second was the High Holidays and, this time, it revolves around Passover\u2014\u201cSeder stuff, liberation\u2026the whole season\u2019s a Hagaddah, if you will.\u201d Soloway can\u2019t help but joke: \u201cSeason 4 will be about Succot, by Season 8 we\u2019ll be big into Lag B\u2019omer, I guess, and season 11, Shemini Atzeret.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where does she get all her Jewish knowledge?<\/p>\n

Soloway has three rabbinical advisors. Rabbi Susan Goldberg of Wilshire Boulevard Temple serves as a consultant for the show. \u201cShe comes in and sometimes we do Torah study,\u201d Soloway says.<\/p>\n

She also speaks daily to New York-based Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, \u201ca God-optional patriarchy-toppling Jewish modern mind. There\u2019s a mandate among religious and spiritual thinkers to be thinking about the binary, the gendered, the feminist, the goddess, and Amichai reminds me of that every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her own personal rabbi, Mordecai Finley, of Ohr HaTorah synagogue in Los Angeles, \u201cuses Torah as a way to understand brokenness,\u201d she says. \u201cHe defines God as an energy hovering between love, justice, truth and beauty\u2014somewhere between those four qualities is our search for spirituality.\u201d That exact quote is also uttered by the new charismatic cantor working with Rabbi Raquel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amy Klein writes for Hadassah Magazine: There\u2019s a scene in the upcoming third season of Transparent\u2014Jill Soloway\u2019s hit show on Amazon about a father\u2019s transgender transition and its effect on his family\u2014where daughter Sarah Pfefferman is bound and getting flogged … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,29,29664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hollywood","category-jews","category-trannies"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t