RESIDING ELSEWHERE - The New School

‘neW JeW’
Lecture
By emiLy scHumAcHer
Rabbi and scholar Menachem
Posner visited Lang to share a
brief history of Judaism in Soviet
Russia, in an event hosted by the
New Jew, Lang’s Jewish student
union. The intimate meeting
served as a lesson not only in
history, but also in perseverance
and common good.
Rabbi Posner shared his research
and knowledge of the Judean
situation in the early 20th Century,
from both Europe and Asia,
dotting the history with touching
narratives passed down from
his grandmother. The lecture
detailed how the Jewish identity
was threatened during the time,
as the soviet government made
it nearly impossible, and in many
cases illegal, for Jewish culture
to thrive.
“Imagine if someone was to
tell you, ‘From now on, you are
not allowed to go to the school
you go to, speak your language,
or read the book that you’ve been
reading for your entire life,’”
Rabbi Posner began. From there
he unfolded the reactions and
struggles of the Jewish people
as they were sent to schools
indoctrinating Communism.
Rabbi Posner spoke the most
about the individuals who kept
their Jewish faith alive in the face
of imprisonment, destitution,
or death. These individuals,
Posner said, helped maintain
a collective Jewish awareness,
remaining true to their beliefs
against all odds.
JOyce cArOL
OAtes
By ALmie rOse vAzzAnO
On February 6, Joyce Carol
Oates, prolific author of novels,
plays and poetry, came to visit
the New School to read from her
latest collection of short stories,
“The Female of the Species: Tales
of Mystery and Suspense,” and
to answer questions from the
audience.
“It’s really a disgusting story,”
Oates warned about her new book.
“Where else could I read it but
in New York at the New School,
with this sophisticated audience?”
True to her word, the story begins
with a Mrs. G shopping down
Madison Avenue and ends with
her hanging from a hook in a
store warehouse. Oates’ book is
out now on Harcourt Press.
citizensHiP &
security
By sAmAntHA scHLAifer
The World Policy Institute’s
Program on Citizenship and
Security organizes strategy sessions
where people who make, and are
affected by the policies, all sit in
the same room.
From March 23-25, the program
is holding a conference in Berlin
entitled “Immigration and
Security: European Challenges and
International Perspectives.”
The group formed because of a
lack of communication between
groups working on immigration
issues and groups working on post
9/11 national security.
PeOPLe &
WOrLd POLicy
By sAmAntHA scHLAifer
At the first panel discussion
of the spring season, “The End
of the Bush Era: Refinding Our
Way on Foreign Policy,” World
Policy Institute Senior Fellow Eric
Alterman spoke about the timidity
of the media in reporting foreign
policy issues.
Alterman discussed how The
New York Times waited to publish
their story on domestic spying until
after the election.
“People are dependent on the
media, yet they haven’t done a
very good job,” Alterman said.
“Our problem is not a lack
information, but a lack of seeking
the information.”
tim Gunn
By stePHAnie nOLAscO
Timothy Gunn, chairman of the
Department of Fashion in Parsons
and host of “Project Runway,” was
awarded PETA’s “Humanitarian
Award” for introducing cruelty
free options. PETA’s curriculum
shows how animals are mutilated
and electrocuted for fur, leather
and wool. The program, taught
by animal friendly designers,
teaches students how to create
a fabulous wardrobe without
animal skin. Dan Mathews, vice
president of PETA, states, “Tim
is a hero as he is unwavering in
his commitment for students to
learn about these issues. It’s the
industry they have chosen so
they need to know all aspects
of it, even the unpleasant ones,
for them to make true informed
decisions about how they pursue
their fashion careers.”
HArry
BeLAfOnte
By LizA minnO
Activist, singer and actor
Harry Belafonte and author
Walter Mosley spoke at Cooper
Union’s Great Hall on February
17th in an event sponsored by
The Nation. The conversation’s
topics ranged from voter apathy,
to the need for a separate black
political party, to the war in Iraq
to the de facto segregation in
the United States. Belafonte
repeatedly urged the audience to
change America for the better by
“thinking and speaking outside
the box.”
Liza Minno
Alexander Porter
Grassroots Continued
A student breakdances at a conference workshop.
secure.
Earlier that morning, bloggers talked with each
other at the, “NYC Blogging Caucus.”
Different blogging technology influences the
way a community interacts with bloggers, said Liza
Sabate, publisher and owner of the Daily Gotham,
a grassroots news and political activism website
for New Yorkers, and other online publications.
Sabate emphasized the importance of connecting
a blog to the community. “Do you want to make
a network or a personal soap-box?” she asked
the group.
Many in the room said programs like RSS Feeds,
which operate like search engines exclusive to
blogs, and Frappr, making it possible to locate
other bloggers geographically, help create more
of a blogging community. But the consensus was
that the “Blogosphere” needs to move further
A Photographic Look at new
Orleans, Post-Katrina
away from internet communities and closer to local
communities.
Dan Jacoby, a blogger planning to run for New
York State Senate for Queens, had some reservations
about blogging. “The problem is that most [bloggers]
don’t have anything to say, or don’t say it very well,”
Jacoby said after the workshop. Many blog websites
are also difficult to navigate, he added.
“The blogosphere is the
ultimate anarchy, and it’s
great,” one blogger said.
But Jacoby, like others in attendance, were still
confident in the blogging movement. “The blogosphere
is the ultimate anarchy, and it’s great,” Jacoby said
during the workshop. With patience, Jacoby felt
that talented bloggers will always be successful.
“The cream will rise to the top,” he said.
The conference finished smoothly, but some were
left disappointed.
Hans Steiner and Laura Garcia, a software engineer
and a recent graduate from NYU respectively,
attended the event to meet others and to see how
groups are inspired to create change.
But Steiner and Garcia felt that the workshops could
have been better. Some workshops seemed elitist,
Garcia said. Their organizers were more interested
in advancing their agendas than discussing ways to
get involved with the greater activist community.
Regardless, in one way or another, the event
identified the internet as the battleground between
corporate and non-corporate interests for democracy
in the 21st century.
The view of New Orleans today: This flooded and destroyed region was once a residential street in St. Bernard’s Parish.
student Housing, Continued from page one
Damitz’s least favorite aspect of the Ten-Eyck was the fact that elderly residents commonly died of
old age.
“The woman next door to me died right after I met her,” Damitz recalled. “We only talked once. I
hated seeing them pack up her room after she died, box up her stuff—that was hard.”
Other New School residents also had complaints about the building.
“It was a depressing transition—deciding to go to school 3,000 miles away from home only to find I
would be living in an elderly woman’s home where I saw pictures of the women who’d died that month
on the bulletin board,” said Taylor King Hedequist, a former Lang student from Seattle. “I laugh about
it now, but it was really depressing to be there. And the old women made you feel like a suspect.”
Hedequist and Langer both left before the first semester ended.
But Damitz enjoyed her time there—especially because of the other tenants. “I got to know this
one woman, Marion, because she couldn’t operate the microwave. I’d help her and we’d talk. Once
she saw a picture of Gertie from ET on my laptop and asked if she was my kid. And one time I was
in the common room at two in the morning and there was a woman there, probably in her seventies,
who told me how she had been living at The Ten-Eyck since she was my age. That got me. Things like
that just made it a unique experience,” she says.
Even though University Housing attempted to relocate the New School residents from the Ten-Eyck
after the first semester, Damitz ended up staying for the entire school year. “A lot of things there
were surreal,” Damitz says. “The strangest thing was that I ended up liking it, that I actually fought
to stay.”
The New School no longer rents Ten-Eyck rooms for students. This year, the Ten-Eyck and the St.
George Hotel in Brooklyn Heights were cut from New School’s “mixed dorms” list. Now there are
only three: Marlton House on 8th Street, the Union Square Residence Hall and Polytechnic University’s
Othmer Residence in Brooklyn Heights.
“Living in student housing is a unique experience,” Smith says. “You’re never in a building with 15
floors of people the same age as you except in college.” Evidently, the Ten-Eyck was the exception.