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Golden Age Travel
What if Hebrew poet Yehuda HaLevi, born 1075, Spain, came to Toronto in 2019? “Golden Age Travel” is a play of time travel, in which HaLevi, at a crisis in his life, accepts the invite of 21st C. Jew, Izzy Zimmerman. In Toronto, HaLevi grapples with the great changes in Jewish history, especially Israel’s establishment. What a contrast to his time, when Crusader Christians and Muslims fought over Jerusalem. But when HaLevi attempts to board a plane for Israel (paralleling the pilgrimage to Jerusalem HaLevi undertook in 1140) he is arrested for travelling under false identity. Court refers him to a psychiatrist to determine his sanity (he claims to be a famous 12th century poet - sounds crazy!) So the second grappling is in dialogue between HaLevi and Dr. Miri Maimenbaum, court psychiatrist. This parallels the dialogue of HaLevi’s philosophical work, The Kuzari, between the Khazar King and a learned Jew. Dialog explores issues of identity: who we are based on what we believe; and our narratives - the stories we tell ourselves, personally and collectively.
Zoom teleplay. 50 minutes
Previously presented at: Limmud Toronto, Nov. 2019 (Live); Limmud Boston, Nov. 2020 (Live on Zoom)
What if Yehuda HaLevi, born 1075, Hebrew poet of Golden Age Islamic Spain, was participating in real time, in 2020 Zoom calls, with members of a college rock band that played together at Brandeis University? HaLevi, invited to time travel by 21st century Toronto Jew Izzy Zimmerman, finds himself trapped by Coronavirus in Izzy’s bubble. Forty years ago, Izzy was one of four members of a college rock band. After graduation, each went their way. But during 2020's Corona lockdown, there blossoms an intense Zoom reunion among the former band-mates, inspired by HaLevi’s time travel insights into his own “Golden Age”, and poetic vision. Memory, imagination and music interweaving, the band reunites, and travels back in time to their personal Golden Age: Freshman Spring, Brandeis University, 1976. Their reunion tour is a chance to “try it again for the first time”, and acquire grandparent-age insight into their youthful life and loves.
Recorded Zoom teleplay. 50-minutes
Previously presented at: Limmud Toronto, November 2020; Limmud Seattle, January 2021
Amusingly combines 12th century Mission Impossible, 1920s Winnipeg Yiddish theatre, and music, in an exploration of who we are and where we come from. Toronto’s Izzy Zimmerman, a Bob Dylan wannabe on a self-knowledge quest, convinces his old Brandeis University rock band to travel back to Winnipeg 1924, when his mother was born. Led by time travel spy, 12th century Hebrew poet Yehuda HaLevi, and the Baal Shem Tov’s grandson’s jester, they investigate the mysteries and histories - personal and collective - of Izzy’s grandfather and of North End Winnipeg 1924, the Golden Age of Yiddish Canada
Watch the movie on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Sq47WzNmLI4
50-minute Zoom teleplay film.
Previously Presented at: Limmud Winnipeg, March 2021; Canadian Society for Jewish Studies, Annual Conference, May 2021
Yehuda HaLevi, 12th century Hebrew poet and Arabic philosopher, is a spy for Rambam Maimonides' “Future Prophets” project, Cairo 1199. Keen to recruit German Jews to his team, Rambam sends Halevi on a mission to Weimar Jewry’s Golden Age, at its peak, Berlin 1928; in Paris exile, 1938; and in Jerusalem, 1961. The two star candidates are friends: literary critic, Walter Benjamin (who, in September 1940, fails to escape France and the Nazis, and commits suicide); and political philosopher and first-wave feminist, Hannah Arendt, who does escape France to New York, where she has a long, productive, controversial career. • Since the German Jews for this recruitment expedition are in Unknown Future, time-travel cultural spy HaLevi engages historian Izzy Zimmerman from Toronto 2021 to help. Izzy convinces his old alumni Brandeis University rock-bandmates to assume the identities of Benjamin, Arendt and company, to conduct in-depth character assessments in this Future Prophets history mission. But it’s also a mission to bring dejected Walter Benjamin consolation, since his work only achieves fame long after his death. Arendt is on trial, in the Court of History's Public Opinion, for her judgment, in “Eichmann in Jerusalem”, and for forgiving Martin Heidegger, her ex-lover German philosophy Prof turned Nazi. • 12th century “Then” explores unknown futures; 21st century “Now” reconsiders a famous past in light of the present.
Watch the movie on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/lwYOFVUpqAc
Feature-length Zoom teleplay film
Premiered at: Limmud Toronto, November 2021