Where the Wild Things Are

I was able to hear a segment of an NPR interview with Maurice Sendak a few days ago. I overheard Sendak describing a book he illustrated a few years ago called Brundibar. The only work I know Sendak for is Where the Wild Things Are--one of my favorite stories as a kid.

I was surprised to hear that Maurice Sendak is Jewish. I don't know why. After hearing it, I thought, "Well, yeah, that makes sense." But then I thought, "WHY does that make sense?" Because his book deals with escapism? Because it has a dark feel to it? Because the story is full of monsters? (Sendak was born in 1927 and lived during WWII)

I love Jewish culture. I love what they've given to the world. Their art. Their literature. Their philosophy. Their humor. The culture intrigues me even even more because I am not part of it and can never be in a way more intrinsic than other cultures.

A Jewish author, Daniel Goldhagen, once claimed that there is no such thing as a philo-semite...only anti-semites that love Jews. I disagree. His reasoning was that philos and antis both, in the end, do the same thing: treat Jewish people as a race apart. I think that to love or hate anything, you must treat it as something apart. But, anyway, I'm still wrestling with the idea.

One thing is certain, I feel sorry for them. Brundibár was a children's opera written by a Jewish Czech composer, Hans Krása. The opera was originally performed in a concentration camp by Jewish children performers--many of whom would end up being killed in Auschwitz. The character Brundibár is the antagonist in the story, an evil organ grinder who symbolized Hitler and was ultimately chased away.

The irony writes itself.