Social Diary 7/30/03 - Book party for Phyllis Chesler's The New Anti-Semitism; the Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It, Screening of Seabiscuit at Lighthouse International


	*Tuesday in the city*

Portraitists in Central Park.

Warm, sunny days in New York, with low – thankfully – humidity, the very occasional passing rainclouds, sometimes spritzing, sometimes not. It’s been a beautiful summer in New York and it has been remarkably quiet, and peaceful.

A lot of New Yorkers who can get away – be it by bus, train, plane or car – leave town as often as possible. My neighborhood which has lots of children and two (private) girls schools within a block of each other is quiet, traffic-wise, compared to the rest of the year. There are often moments in the middle of the day when there isn’t a vehicle moving north or south. And at night there are fewer lights in the windows of the big apartment towers running along the avenue.

This has been a beautiful summer thus far, and I’ve spent more weekends in the City than I have since I first returned to New York eleven years ago.

For several years, I was lent a cottage in the Hamptons. When that opportunity was no longer made available, I decided to just stay put. I feel naïve in saying it, but I love Manhattan on the weekends.

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I do miss the occasional swim in the pool. I will always miss the sound of the night near the ocean. Or the sound of the night anyplace away from the city’s din. And I always miss taking sun/getting a tan, one of the reasons I love southern California so much. Those things I miss. But otherwise the City is fabulous in the summertime.

It was still quite warm tonight when I went out to go to a book party at the apartment of Eric Jong and Ken Burrows for Phyllis Chesler who has just published The New Anti-Semitism; the Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It (Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint).

Jong and Burrows live high up above the town in a sprawling but cozy apartment with magnificent golden hued views of the metropolis at sundown. There must have been fifty or sixty men and women congregated. Phyllis Chesler was speaking when I arrived. I couldn’t see her, because she is on the short side, probably five-four or six, and I was on the outside of the crowd by the front door.

She was speaking about what she considers the “new anti-Semitism” that has sprung up since 9/11. This is a very dicey subject. People cannot talk about it. People will not talk about it – without losing it at one point or another. And blame, hybrid virus that it is on our consciousness, is always waiting to infect.

Prejudice is trouble. Trouble for one, trouble for all. This simple maxim remains obscure in the workings of the human mind. Many human minds, excepted of course, although not enough to make things different.

The Jewish cultural influence on New York City and America and the world is omnipresent. The African cultural influence on New York City and America (and therefore probably the world) is omnipresent. It is what we know as Western culture. We are one. This simple statement is also obscure, or so it would seem, in the workings of the human mind.

Phyllis Chesler is one of those dynamic women you find in New York. They lead big, active lives full of work and intellectual exchanges. She’s an emerita professor of psychology and women’s studies, a psychotherapist, expert courtroom witness and the author of twelve books. See what I mean? She wrote a book called “Women and Madness” that became an international bestseller.

You may have seen her on MSNBC, or CNN, or the O’Reilly Factor, Nightline, Washington Jouranl, the Today Show, the Judith Regan Show, Good Morning America and NPR.

Her web site, if you really want to know, is www.phyllischesler.com. And I’m sure she’d love to hear from you because you can tell on meeting that she’s one of those women who revels in it all. They’re teachers and workers, moving the process along.

So she’s written this book, about the recurrence of deep anti-Semitism. The problem with this book is that those who really should consider Ms. Chesler’s point of view, won’t. Because they are the perpetrators. Many of us love our prejudices, adore them, embrace them, claim them as our own as if it were authority. “That’s the way I am and I can’t help it.” The final (and pathetic) defense when the sheer stupidity has been exposed. Because prejudice is sheer stupidity, the father of all intolerance.

“A Man believes what he wants to believe and disregards the rest ...” Paul Simon wrote and sang.

Ms. Chesler’s book is a look at that, and within it are the implications that we all face – all of us, every single one of us human beings – the implications that New Yorkers truly became aware of on that morning in September.

It was that morning in September that continues to frame the consciousness of us city dwellers whether we’re aware of it or not. The recent hot sunny summer afternoons and the beautiful quiet weekends of peace in the city have a certain poignancy and delicacy now, a kind of spiritual imprimatur of 9/11.

Everyone should read Phyllis Chesler’s book.


	*A private screening of* Seabiscuit last night at Lighthouse International. Barbara Silverstone, President and CEO, William B. Follett, Chair and Lighthouse Directors on the Fund Development Committee held its President's Circle screening of Seabiscuit*. Click here to learn more about Lighthouse International.*