Jill Lawson: Yoga Studios Across America are Embracing FreeFlow: a Unique Path to Freedom of Expression Through Music

[unable to retrieve full-text content]It is certain, that by expressing ourselves through music we will grow, we will heal, we will transform. This is a path to freedom.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jill-lawson/the-hang-instrument_b_2680646.html

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Perceptions of health improve with pension receipt, researcher says

Public release date: 20-Feb-2013
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Contact: Jesslyn Chew
ChewJ@missouri.edu
573-882-8353
University of Missouri-Columbia

Personal assessments of well-being vary by gender and fade over time

COLUMBIA, Mo. After retirement, pensions provide consistent income to aging individuals. Although the details of pension eligibility and implementation vary by country, receiving pensions can represent a new life stage for individuals. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has studied how older men and women view their health before and after receiving fixed incomes. South African men and women in the study viewed their health more positively when they began receiving their pensions, but the heightened sense of well-being faded over time.

"We looked at individuals' perceptions of their own health. Did they worry less? Were they less sad and more satisfied with life now that they were receiving pensions?" said Enid Schatz, associate professor of health science in the School of Health Professions. "People perceive their lives and well-being as better after they start receiving their pensions because they're getting money that they didn't used to get, so they're able to do more for others and more for themselves. When they are first able to do that, it feels good. Ten years later, their feelings of progress are not as great."

Schatz, who also teaches women's and gender studies in the MU College of Arts and Science, analyzed data previously collected as part of the WHO-INDEPTH Study of Global Ageing (sic) and Adult Health Survey of men and women in rural South Africa. Women reported poorer well-being than men, although women reported feeling less worried and more satisfied after they started receiving their pensions. Conversely, men reported lower well-being in the years leading up to receiving their pensions and, after receiving the pensions, men's well-being improved for five years and then declined.

"Women get a greater benefit in those first five years from having the money in their households," Schatz said. "Women are doing more of the caregiving, and pensions give them the comfort that they have a resource to do so. South Africa is a society where, traditionally, men have been the wage earners while women have stayed at home. For some women, the pensions might be their first incomes or their first consistent incomes."

The pension system in South Africa differs from Social Security in the United States. In South Africa, individuals do not need to have worked to receive pensions. Men and women qualify for pensions if they earn less than a certain amount and are age 60 or older. When Schatz conducted the study, men qualified at age 65 and women qualified at age 60. Although Schatz studied individuals from rural South Africa, she said her study may give researchers and policymakers an idea of how aging adults in the U.S. might feel about receiving fixed incomes after retirement, particularly in the current tough economic climate.

"Pensions and government assistance more generally are important sources of income for households and a way of making individuals feel better about themselves and their abilities to take care of themselves and their families," Schatz said. "Many people complain about social safety nets because they don't think they do what they're supposed to do. The data from my study indicate that people who do not have access to other sources of income because they are too old or sick to work, or they have retired are still supporting other people. Pensions affect the economic well-being of entire households."

Social Science & Medicine published the article, "The impact of pensions on health and wellbeing in rural South Africa: Does gender matter?" Schatz's co-authors included Margaret Ralston, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology in the MU College of Arts and Science, and researchers from the University of Colorado and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 20-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jesslyn Chew
ChewJ@missouri.edu
573-882-8353
University of Missouri-Columbia

Personal assessments of well-being vary by gender and fade over time

COLUMBIA, Mo. After retirement, pensions provide consistent income to aging individuals. Although the details of pension eligibility and implementation vary by country, receiving pensions can represent a new life stage for individuals. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has studied how older men and women view their health before and after receiving fixed incomes. South African men and women in the study viewed their health more positively when they began receiving their pensions, but the heightened sense of well-being faded over time.

"We looked at individuals' perceptions of their own health. Did they worry less? Were they less sad and more satisfied with life now that they were receiving pensions?" said Enid Schatz, associate professor of health science in the School of Health Professions. "People perceive their lives and well-being as better after they start receiving their pensions because they're getting money that they didn't used to get, so they're able to do more for others and more for themselves. When they are first able to do that, it feels good. Ten years later, their feelings of progress are not as great."

Schatz, who also teaches women's and gender studies in the MU College of Arts and Science, analyzed data previously collected as part of the WHO-INDEPTH Study of Global Ageing (sic) and Adult Health Survey of men and women in rural South Africa. Women reported poorer well-being than men, although women reported feeling less worried and more satisfied after they started receiving their pensions. Conversely, men reported lower well-being in the years leading up to receiving their pensions and, after receiving the pensions, men's well-being improved for five years and then declined.

"Women get a greater benefit in those first five years from having the money in their households," Schatz said. "Women are doing more of the caregiving, and pensions give them the comfort that they have a resource to do so. South Africa is a society where, traditionally, men have been the wage earners while women have stayed at home. For some women, the pensions might be their first incomes or their first consistent incomes."

The pension system in South Africa differs from Social Security in the United States. In South Africa, individuals do not need to have worked to receive pensions. Men and women qualify for pensions if they earn less than a certain amount and are age 60 or older. When Schatz conducted the study, men qualified at age 65 and women qualified at age 60. Although Schatz studied individuals from rural South Africa, she said her study may give researchers and policymakers an idea of how aging adults in the U.S. might feel about receiving fixed incomes after retirement, particularly in the current tough economic climate.

"Pensions and government assistance more generally are important sources of income for households and a way of making individuals feel better about themselves and their abilities to take care of themselves and their families," Schatz said. "Many people complain about social safety nets because they don't think they do what they're supposed to do. The data from my study indicate that people who do not have access to other sources of income because they are too old or sick to work, or they have retired are still supporting other people. Pensions affect the economic well-being of entire households."

Social Science & Medicine published the article, "The impact of pensions on health and wellbeing in rural South Africa: Does gender matter?" Schatz's co-authors included Margaret Ralston, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology in the MU College of Arts and Science, and researchers from the University of Colorado and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

###

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[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/uom-po022013.php

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Thieves Target Family's Home, Identities During Vacation - 8 News ...

LAS VEGAS - Cruising the Caribbean was a dream trip for the Ray family last August.

"We had a great time up to three days into it," Susan Ray said. "Then, we heard some pretty bad news."

While at port, they checked their e-mail and noticed an unusual activity warning from Bank of America.

"That kind of sent us into a tailspin," Chris Ray said.

Concerned, Chris called the bank and his in-laws, asking them to check on the house. That's when things turned from bad to worse.

The Rays discovered thieves ransacked their home and took everything. Even the cars parked in the garage were stolen. The family cut their trip short and came home to more problems.

"Online bank accounts being opened up under my wife's name, people trying to use my kids' Social Security numbers to open bank accounts," Chris said.

The thieves stole their Social Security cards, which were stored in a simple filing cabinet. The brazen criminals started pulling cash out of the Rays' accounts. Metro Police even caught some of the thieves on camera.

Police are still looking for the suspects, but did find the stolen cars and other items. The Rays, meanwhile, are urging others to protect themselves when leaving for vacation.

You can do that by putting your personal information in a safe or safety deposit box. File cabinets, even locked ones, are no match for a thief. Also, don't leave your itinerary lying around. That gives thieves more information.

If you have a consumer issue you would like 8 on Your Side to investigate, call us Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 702-650-1907 or e-mail us.

Source: http://www.8newsnow.com/story/21240069/thieves-target-familys-home-identities-during-vacation

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Departing South Korean leader warns North Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? South Korea's outgoing president warns North Korea has pushed itself further into a corner with its recent nuclear test.

President Lee Myung-bak said Tuesday in his farewell address that North Korea will only face international sanctions and isolation if it hangs on to its nuclear and missile programs.

South Korea has pressed for tighter U.N. sanctions on North Korea since Pyongyang conducted its third nuclear test last week. North Korea defends the underground blast as an act of deterrence against U.S. hostility.

Lee leaves office next Monday. The relations between the two Koreas have frayed badly during his single, five-year tenure.

His successor, Park Geun-hye, has called for reopening dialogue with Pyongyang but also remains firmly opposed to North Korea's nuclear program.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/departing-south-korean-leader-warns-north-korea-063307862.html

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Supreme Court limits police conduct during searches

By Pete Williams, Chief Justice Correspondent, NBC News

A warrant allowing police to search a house does not give them the authority to detain someone who is away from home at the time the search is being conducted, the U.S Supreme Court said on Tuesday.

Police investigating a drug case got a search warrant for an apartment on Long Island, New York, in 2005, after an informant claimed to have seen guns when he went there to buy drugs from a man known as "Polo."? While detectives watched the apartment, waiting for the time of the search, they saw a man matching Polo's description drive away.

They followed the car for almost a mile, then pulled it over. In the man's pocket, they found a set of keys.? They drove him back to the apartment, where officers found a gun and drugs in plain view.? It was later discovered that one of the keys opened the door of the apartment.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court on Tuesday said that the general power police have to detain someone at home during a search doesn't apply beyond the immediate area.? Police can, the court has ruled, detain someone at the place being searched for the sake of officer safety and to prevent a person from interfering with the effectiveness of the search.

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But, said Justice Anthony Kennedy for the court, "Once an occupant is beyond the immediate vicinity of the premises to be searched, the search-related law enforcement interests are diminished."

Justice Stephen Breyer dissented, joined by Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.? Detaining "Polo" away from the apartment, he wrote, was justified "in light of the risks of flight, of evidence destruction, and of human injury present in this and similar cases."

Related:?Supreme Court to hear challenge to campaign donation limits

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/19/17017875-supreme-court-search-warrants-dont-give-police-the-power-to-detain-someone-away-from-home?lite

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Content Marketing Skills: 50 Things Every Content Marketer Should ...

By Elisa Gabbert February 19, 2013 Posted In: Copywriting Comments: 6

Fancy yourself a content marketer, or want to become one? Here?s a big fat list of the content marketing skills and tactics you should know before you apply for that content marketer job or update the title on your business cards.

1. Good grammar and proper use of punctuation ? Hopefully you learned this in school. If you weren?t paying any attention, it?s not too late. You can pick up a lot just from reading voraciously ? like how the mermaid in Splash learned English from watching TV. I also recommend picking up a basic writing manual, because it would be very difficult to intuit all the finer points of grammar and punctuation through intuition. You?ll feel nice and superior once you know the difference between a hyphen, an en-dash, and an em-dash.
2. The difference between grammar and style ? A lot of choices you make when writing aren?t technically about grammar but what editors call ?style? ? and I don?t mean whether your shoes match your belt. A ?style guide? is a set of conventions that publishers agree to use for consistency?s sake. Most newspapers adhere to AP style while most book publishers adhere to Chicago style. Unfortunately, a lot of web publishers skip this step, part of the reason why many websites and blogs appear less than completely professional. If you?re serious about content marketing, make sure there?s someone on your team who understands the grammar/style distinction. Ideally, you?ll create your own style guide for internal use. An example of a style choice is whether you hyphenate ?email? ? for years, ?e-mail? was the usual standard, but it?s now most commonly written without the hyphen.
3. How to create an outline ? Good fences make good neighbors, and good outlines make good papers. It?s one of the secrets of good writers. Start with structure and build out from there.
4. How to write concisely ? A new book called How to Not Write Bad (see what he did there?) by Ben Yagoda shows an example of a needless circumlocution: ?The criteria that made this site able to be nominated are because of the uniqueness of the content it possesses.? Yagoda rewrites this statement as: ?The site has excellent content.? Fluffing up your point with extra and longer words is a classic student paper move. It only has the effect of making you appear underconfident in your opinions. State what you mean as clearly and simply as possible (which is not to say there?s no room for personality in your content ? see #4).
5. How to write in your own voice ? Everyone talks in their own voice without thinking, but many people find it difficult to write in that voice. Though some types of content require a sort of generic, professional uber-voice, your blogging and social media efforts will benefit from showing some of your real personality. Don?t write sentences you would be embarrassed to say out loud.
6. The difference between concision and saying too little ? There?s a persistent myth that web readers are lazy and won?t read long content. We?ve found the opposite to be true ? the longer our content, the better our engagement metrics across the board (page views, shares, time on page, comments, etc.). So don?t use ?concision? as an excuse for dull writing that lacks detail and analysis.
7. How to write scannable content ? That said, not everyone will want to read every word on the page, so use lists, bullet points, subheads, boldface, highlighting, pop-out quotes and other formatting tricks that make your content easy to scan for high-level takeaways. Another good trick for long-form content: Create a table of contents with jump links so readers can skip right to the part they?re interested in and ignore the rest.
8. HTML ? Most content management platforms have a WYSIWYG editor ? i.e., ?what you see is what you get.? That means they work like a Word document, with buttons to help you format your text, insert images, etc. But no WYSIWYG editor works perfectly every time, and you?ll find it incredibly useful to be able to look at the source code and fiddle around to get your formatting right. Bonus points if you can hand-code a table.
9. How to do keyword research ? SEO keywords are still the cornerstone of content marketing. Familiarize yourself with some basic keyword tools and start using them regularly. I use Google?s tool and our own Free Keyword Tool as basic starting points, then delve into others for special circumstances.
10. How to find and use long-tail keywords ? Keyword tools won?t always provide you with a lot of long-tail keyword options. Here are nine ways to find those longer, more specific niche terms.

    
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11. The three types of search queries ? Different types of search queries reveal different intent and demand different types of content. Know the three main types: informational, navigational, and transactional.
12. How to align content types with marketing goals ? Some types of content drive lots of traffic. Others may get fewer views, but be better at converting new leads or customers. Know what types of content are more likely to help you meet your business goals.
13. On-page optimization basics ? I.e., where to put those keywords. Title and URL are no brainers. Then there?s subheads, images, your meta description, etc. ? and obviously your keyword should be peppered throughout the body of the text if it?s actually relevant to the content. SEOmoz has a good analysis of on-page optimization factors to help you aim for the perfectly optimized page.
14. The anatomy of a SERP ? You should know what a basic Google SERP looks like depending on search query type and be able to recognize anomalies, changes, and possible tests. What queries trigger universal results or the 7-result SERP? How much real estate is given to ads ? above the organic results, on the right-hand side or even below the results? Are there product listing ads or just text ads? What queries trigger the Knowledge Graph?
15. The difference between page title and H1 ? Each page on your site can effectively have two titles. You can choose to make these the same or vary them.
16. How to write a super clickable, shareable title ? The viral marketing experts at Upworthy recommend writing 25 titles (you read that right, 25) for each piece of content to help you hit upon true title genius. Because the first 24 might suck.
17. How to write formulaic titles ? Not every page on your site needs to be hyper-shareable. Product pages, for example, should stick to the basics, conveying maximum information while still being SEO-friendly. By hitting upon a title tag formula, you can optimize this high-volume pages in a scalable way.
18. The character/pixel limits for titles and meta descriptions ? Up until recently, the thinking was that titles could be no longer than 70 characters, or Google will truncate them or, on occasion, substitute a completely different title (yay). Recent experiments suggest that characters per se are not the limiting factor, but pixels. (If you don't feel like counting pixels, 70 chars is still a good rough guideline.) Your meta description should be between 150 and 160 characters.
19. How to write a meta description ? Aside from knowing the character limit, know the purpose of this text. Google says it can?t and won?t affect your rankings, but since it might show up in the search results, it should accurately describe your content as well as ?sell? it to convince them to click. It should be as relevant and compelling as a PPC ad. Also: Don?t use quotation marks in your meta description ? a quote will make Google think your description is over before it is.
20. How to optimize images ? Image search traffic, the other white meat! Know how to use keywords in your image file names and alt text in order to rank in Google image search.

    
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21. When to link ? and when not to ? Links are a beautifully subtle, gently suggestive way to point readers to more information on related topics within your content. Use internal linking to keep readers on your site and foster flow among your various pages. Use external linking when it makes more sense to reference an outside source. Don?t overuse either or you?ll sacrifice readability, and piss Google off in the process.
22. The importance of inbound links ? Links still matter, yes they do, we like links and you should too. Even if your team separates the content marketing and SEO roles, every web marketer should understand why links matter ? and the kind of content that earns them.
23. How to write an outreach email ? If your content marketing mojo is strong, you?ll get links without even asking for them. But it takes a while to get into that upper echelon. Initially, you?ll need to go out and seek the links. One way to do this is by writing an outreach email to potentially interested linking parties. After all, people can?t link to your content if they don?t know it exists. And the goal here is actually twofold ? you?ll be building relationships at the same time.
24. How to use Google Alerts ? Set up a Google Alert so you?ll know when people talk about you, your company, or your products, etc. on the web. You can also use Google Alerts to follow a ?beat? ? for example if you plan to cover some industry news announcement, you can keep up with the evolving story and the coverage elsewhere. (Note that in my experience, Google Alerts don?t work very well for low-volume queries.)
25. How to turn citations into links ? If a site mentions your brand or cites your content without linking, reach out and ask them to provide a link. It?s one of the easiest forms of link building.
26. How to make your content easily shareable ? You?ll get more social shares (on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, what-have-you) if you make it very easy for readers to share your stuff. Install social buttons and widgets that minimize the work for your visitors.
27. How to monitor brand mentions on social media ? Don?t sign in to Twitter to tweet out your new content, then promptly sign out and never look at it again. Ugh! If you?re going to use social platforms to promote your content, make sure you?re also keeping up with conversations there, responding to questions and feedback, and occasionally promoting other people, content, and brands as well. In other words, be human.
28. How to respond to a complaint ? If someone leaves a nasty review or flames you on social media, don?t get mad and don?t get defensive (at least not publicly).
29. How to moderate and respond to blog comments ? This seems more basic than basic but a lot of content marketers get this wrong. If you never respond to comments, it gives the impression that you don?t care whether people leave them or not. And please don?t leave obvious spam comments under your posts. Major turnoff.
30. When to update old content ? If you?re still getting search traffic to an old piece of content that is no longer accurate or up-to-date, take the time to update the content, or you?re wasting that traffic.
31. The importance of anchor text ? Anchor text ? the text that you make clickable when hyperlinking ? is powerful stuff. You can even see it in action with less competitive queries. But tread carefully ? many experts believe that anchor text is getting less valuable as a signal, and over-optimized anchor text could even get you flagged as a web spammer.
32. The importance of information architecture ? It may not be part of your job to define the structure of your website, but at the very least you should understand why a well-organized information architecture is key for good SEO and usability.
33. How to use Google Analytics ? When Larry interviews SEO candidates, he asks them to sign into their Google Analytics account and poke around. This shows two things: a) how their site or blog is doing (which demonstrates if they can apply SEO) and b) if they know their way around the application (which demonstrates how much time they spend in Analytics). Don?t just create content; track and measure so you know what works and what you should do more/less of in the future.
34. How and when to leverage rich snippets ? Rich snippets are the organic SEO equivalent of ad extensions in AdWords. They benefit some types of businesses more than others. For example, e-commerce companies should make use of the reviews and ratings snippets. Here is a list of the types of rich snippets that Google offers.
35. How to set up author markup ? Specifically, as a content marketer, you should know how to take advantage of the author markup snippet so that your author photo shows up in the SERPs, which builds authority and can have a big effect on your click-through rate. Unfortunately (IMO) you?ll need a Google+ account to do this.
36. How to use the structured data testing tool ? Use this tool to test how your snippets/microdata appear in search results.

    
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37. How to set up an A/B test ? A/B testing isn?t just for ads and subject lines. You can test titles, layouts, images, all kinds of marvelous things that could affect the way people interact with your content. There are some pretty robust software options out there for A/B and multivariate testing, but the easiest (and free-est) way to get started is with Google Analytics Content Experiments (formerly Website Optimizer).
38. How to write a press release ? These are usually pretty boring and formulaic, to tell you the truth, but nonetheless you should know how to write professionally about a corporate news announcement. Know what information to include in a press release and how to set the right tone.
39. How to ?spin? an article from different angles ? There?s always more than one way to skin a cat and spin a story. I?m not talkin? about old-school, spammy-crappy, no-value article spinning. I?m talking about re-writing an article or other piece of content with a different focus, so it has broader appeal to more audiences. Just make sure the different articles are truly unique with minimal overlap.
40. How to repurpose content in other formats ? Similarly, know how to change the format of a piece of content to get more leverage out of it, without changing the ?angle? per se. Turn a long blog post or series of blog posts into an e-book or guide that users can download as a PDF. Or turn the data in an infographic (visual content) into a written, readable article.
41. How to pitch a story ? You?ll occasionally want to publish content somewhere other than your own site, to build your audience, expand reach as well as grow your link profile. Learn how to write a tactful pitch letter that demonstrates the value you can provide with a contributed piece of content.
42. How to build a slide deck ? As far as I?m concerned, PowerPoint and Excel are necessary evils. As a writer, I?d always rather work in a good ol? Word doc, but there are situations where you?ll need to present information in a different way. Webinars and online courses, for example, require slide decks. This presentation has some ideas for making better-looking slides:
43. How to find questions to answer with your content ? Common questions make great starting points for content. Here are three ways to find questions to answer.
44. How to do an interview ? It?s hard to get good answers if you don?t know how to ask good questions. Once you learn that skill, interviewing experts with a higher profile and larger network than you can be a great way to drive traffic and links and attract some attention. Another smart tactic is the group interview (AKA crowdsourcing).
45. What makes a good infographic ? Like them or not, infographics are a type of content and as a content marketer, you should know your way around one. Not every kind of information lends itself to a visual presentation, but some data does, and when executed well, infographics make awesome linkbait.
46. What makes a good video ? It?s often easier to rank for a competitive keyword with a video than with traditional written content, because fewer people are doing video. ?How to? keywords often lend themselves to videos, for example.
47. When to outsource content creation ? Your time is worth something, and it won?t always be cost-effective for you to handle every aspect of a content marketing project. Consider outsourcing when you want to create a type of content that?s not in your area of expertise. For example, I don?t know how to edit a video or execute complex design work ? but I can write the script or do the research.
48. How to do a competitive content analysis ? Before tackling a competitive keyword space, see who and what is already ranking. What do their backlink profiles look like? Do you have a hope and prayer of competing? How can your content be more awesome?
49. How to create and maintain an editorial calendar ? The bigger your site, goals, and team, the more likely it is that you?ll need an editorial calendar to keep things running smoothly and on schedule. Here are some of the pros and cons plus mistakes to avoid when creating an editorial calendar.
50. How to troubleshoot a traffic loss ? If a previously reliable piece of content suddenly falls off a Google cliff due to algorithmic changes, know how to troubleshoot and recover.

What did I miss? Content marketers, let me know in the comments!

Source: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/02/19/content-marketing-skills

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Hannah Arendt and Yiddish ? Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and ...

?German Jewry, like Western European Jewry in general, never understood that the simple person is the true center of politics in all democratically governed countries.

And this is also the reason why German Jews often do not understand the just national aspirations of the Jewish people [folk]. Most do not know at all what a people [folk] really is and what it wants. The most beautiful Hebrew in the world will not teach them that. Let the German Jews learn to respect simple person [poshete mentshn], in general, and the simple Jew [yiddishe folks-mentsh], in particular ? and then you will be able to speak to them about Jewish politics in all the languages of the world.?

These are the closing words of an op-ed written by Hannah Arendt in November 1942 for the New York Yiddish daily Morgen Zshurnal. The short piece is a response to an account of recent conflicts between German and Hebrew speakers in the Jewish settlement in Palestine (the Yishuv) written by Aaron Zeitlin, a Yiddish author and regular contributor to the newspaper.

Children in the Yishuv, 1941

It is, by all evidence, Arendt?s only Yiddish-language publication. (A year earlier, in December 1941, the News Bulletin of the ?Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs? published a Yiddish translation of Arendt?s first Aufbau op-ed, ?The Jewish Army ? The Beginning of Jewish Politics?? But the Morgen Zshurnal piece seems to be the only one that Arendt published exclusively in Yiddish.) Arendt?s Yiddish voice is both familiar and surprising, and, as I shall sketch very briefly here, her exchange with Zeitlin fascinatingly prefigures significant moments in Arendt?s thinking and her dialogue with others later in life, for example her exchange with Gershom Scholem about Eichmann in Jerusalem.

In the fall of 1942, tensions between immigrants from Nazi Germany and the veteran Zionist community of the Yishuv had reached a violent peak with the bombing of a press in Jerusalem, which had been printing a German-language newspaper. Zeitlin bases his account of the event, and of the political atmosphere that led up to it, on a report by Menachem Ben Eliezer, which appeared in October in the Hebrew newspaper Hadoar, published in New York by the Hebrew Federation of America. The Hebrew reporter and the Yiddish commentator both blame the German Jews, known as ?Yekkes,? for failing to assimilate into the society of the Yishuv and, especially, for obstinately refusing to learn Hebrew. In Zeitlin?s words, the German Jews are not patriotic because they lack a love of Israel (?ahavat Israel? or, in Yiddish, ?ahaves Yisroel?).

Arendt, described in the byline as ?a well-known German-Jewish writer and Zionist activist? who, ?in 1935, visited the Land of Israel, where she spent three months and had the opportunity to get to know the Yishuv and the new immigration (Aliyah),? responds to the accusations ambivalently. Outraged by the violent act of the Hebrew purists of the Yishuv, she nevertheless concedes that the failure of German Jews to understand the simple Jews of Eastern Europe and their justified national aspirations is a problem.

The brief op-ed piece thus reveals a fascinating moment in the development of Arendt?s identity and her political affinities. Having recently arrived as a refugee from Europe, Arendt was writing for the German-language Aufbau and would soon start publishing in English-language publications such as Partisan Review and Nation. But her attention was evidently also devoted to publications such as Morgen Zshurnal and their Yiddish-speaking readership. As Thomas Wild has recently argued on this website, Arendt?s career would continue to move productively between German and English, for example when she substantially revised the English The Human Condition to produce the German Vita Activa.

And even after this brief stint, the Yiddish language did not disappear from her writing entirely, as I briefly mention below. She would also find opportunities to reflect publicly on issues of language choice, for example in her 1948 dedication of the German book Sechs Essays to her friend and mentor Karl Jaspers, where she explains the difficulty and the necessity of writing and publishing in her native language. But this Yiddish op-ed ? written in a language that she had studied as an adult and that was rapidly moving aside to make space for English, not only in her mind but also in the American-Jewish public sphere ? is probably the only statement that Arendt made about Jewish language politics.

Interestingly, at this juncture in her own linguistic affiliations, Arendt insists that the battle over languages is a political red herring. ?Unlike Herr Zeitlin,? she writes, ?I am of the opinion that the entire education and psychology of the world could not successfully separate people from their mother tongue [?]. It is a process of a generation or two, and in America we have the best proof of that.? Instead of focusing on the struggle between the languages, Arendt points her readers in two different directions. The piece opens, in a familiarly sarcastic tone, with an expression of Arendt?s interest in Jewish militancy as a form of political response to the current crisis (an interest that was expressed in her contemporary writing for Aufbau): ?I am of the opinion that it would be better for the Yishuv to boycott German merchandise rather than the German language, and that the hotheads would do better to save the bombs for Rommel?s soldiers rather than to use them against the Jews for their German language.? But it ends on a different note, with a vision of a post-Babelian politics that grows out of solidarity with the simple people. If the German Jews only understood what a true Jewish ?folks-mentsh? is, the conversation could transcend linguistic divisions and one would be ?able to speak to them about Jewish politics in all the languages of the world.?

As Elizabeth Young-Bruehl describes in her biography and as evidenced also in the early correspondence with Heinrich Bl?cher, Arendt had studied Yiddish with her friend Chanan Klenbort in Paris. But in the absence of further information about the composition process ? was the piece written in German and translated into Yiddish? Or did a native speaker aid Arendt, in the way that friends such as Randall Jarrell and Alfred Kazin later helped her with her English? ? one can only speculate about the significance of the highly Germanic style of the Yiddish in which the piece is written or of word choices such as ?folks-mentsh? and ?posheter mentsh.? Reading Arendt in Yiddish can feel like a glimpse through a door to an alternative history. What would have been the circumstances ? in Arendt?s own intellectual development, in the history of the Jews ? that would have compelled her to keep writing in Yiddish? Would the Yiddish version of The Human Condition have placed the ?posheter mentsh? at the center of politics? In other words, the Yiddish op-ed focuses our view on Arendt?s preoccupations and her transformation during her early years in the United States. It also sharpens questions that have already been raised in relation to her writing for Aufbau: Does the writing of this period prepare the ground for her later philosophical and political work? And if it does, how should we describe this ground? Or does the shift of her positions on Zionism rather constitute a break in her thinking?

It is easy to see the continuity between the criticism Arendt expresses here and her sharp critique of German Jewry in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem. But there are other, far more uncanny, linguistic continuities, not only in Arendt?s own writing but also in her dialogues and polemics with others. In his famous response to the Eichmann book, Gershom Scholem echoes Zeitlin ? most probably unwittingly ? when he laments Arendt?s lack of ?Ahabath Israel? (as Scholem rather Germanically transcribes the Hebrew expression). Arendt seems to hear that echo when she inserts in her reply to Scholem?s letter a parenthetical inquiry about the history of the term: ?I would, by the way, be very thankful if you could tell me since when this concept plays a role in the Hebrew language and scripture, when it first appears, etc.? Indeed, the echo seems to conjure up in Arendt elements of her original response to Zeitlin, and so she returns to the same simple person she had once hoped that German Jewry could listen to, in Yiddish or in ?all the languages of the world.? Thus, when she attempts to defend her (to many readers indefensible) position on Jewish collaboration with the Nazis, she explains to Scholem: ?There was no possibility of resistance, but there was a possibility of doing nothing. And in order to do nothing, one need not have been a saint, but rather one needed simply to say: I am a simple Jew (ein poscheter Jude) and I do not want to be more than that.?

The Yiddish was excised from the German version that was published by the Neue Z?rcher Zeitung in October 1963 (where it was replaced by ?einfacher Jude?) and from the English translation published in?Encounter?in December 1964 (which refers to ?a Simple Jew?). The act of self-censorship is probably as revealing as Arendt?s use of the term itself.

Arendt?s brief foray into Yiddish journalism also has a fascinating postscript on the pages of the Morgen Zshurnal (or rather its continuation Der Tog Morgen Zshurnal). As Richard I. Cohen has described, in 1965 the newspaper carried Aaron Zeitlin?s raging response to Arendt?s Eichmann book, a response in which he described her as the agent of the devil. Zeitlin does not explicitly mention his previous disagreement with Arendt, indeed, he conspicuously avoids mentioning her by name. But, in its emphasis on Arendt?s misnaming of Eichmann when she describes him as a ?grey, simple (posheter) average person,? his vitriolic attack can be read as a response to Arendt?s polemic twenty-three years earlier

-Na?ama Rokem

Based on research and translation conducted in collaboration with Sunny Yudkoff. Many thanks to Barbara Hahn and Thomas Wild, who uncovered the Yiddish piece in the Hannah Arendt archive.?

NOTE: This Saturday, February 23, 2013 marks the launch of the Hananh Arendt Center three part series, "Music in the Holocaust: Jewish Identity and Cosmopolitanism". The series is made possible through the generosity of?grant from the Bertha Effron Fund of the Community Foundation of the Hudson Valley. Learn more here.

February 23

COERCION, COLLUSION & CREATIVITY -?Music of the Terezin Ghetto & the Central European Experience

April 20

NATIONALISM, CONTINUITY & SYNTHESIS -?Music of Warsaw, Lodz, & other Eastern ghettos

April 27

KURT WEILL & THE MODERNIST MIGRATION -?Music of Weill & Other ?migr?s

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Source: http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=9463

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