2008 Woodie Awards
From the Closet of the Senior Editor Menachem Wecker: My Goodbye
Menachem Wecker
Issue date: 5/16/05 Section: Editorials/Op-Ed
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It is with a heavy heart, a conscience that is missing in action and a throat full of nostalgia that I sit to compose this column. Some Jewish music that I am delighted to be unable to identify blares in the background of the Israeli Independence Day barbeque, and I have just been rejected in my efforts to plan a chavrusah with an SCW celebrity (who recently called an article of mine "outside of Torah Judaism"). Typical of my YU tenure.
This column, dear YU, is far too ambitious. It wants to be an apology of sorts and an artist's statement as well, but it may turn towards a J'accuse or a memoir if it has to. It must be a culmination to our relationship, which I modeled - with measured success of course - upon my rebbe, Alfred Jarry.
Oh YU, we had some good times though. The Commentator office was our shrine and our study hall, our romantic dinners for 250 in the cafeteria made my stomach churn in funny ways and we even developed our own language of love in broken Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic. And yet, before I bestow upon myself an honorary doctorate of Pataphysique, there is one (only one!) unsolved issue that I must put to bed, lest my dybbuk haunt the hollow halls of YU forever. It dates back to November 2002, my first semester on campus, and no, it's not a Judaic studies incomplete.
It's a quaint little article that got me temporarily kicked off the paper, a botched experiment if you will.
I rehash old wounds only because fate - that stunning, yet prickly goddess - came rapping upon my chamber door. I received two Emails in my mailbox this past week, and the mysterious, downright absurdity of the content demands immediate and unilateral response. The first email arrived at 12:55 AM and read as follows:
"Menachem, I am at the computer looking up the article you wrote about the 'Church of Barron'...will Deborah find true love in the arms of her driving instructor? As I recall I did find that article's mention of the Church of Barron rather shocking - yes shocking, I tell you. I was shocked. I dare say no Yeshiva student who wakes up early enough to be in time for shacharit would have the wool pulled over his/her sleepy eyes and fall prey to the machinations of this beknighted, besotted and most probably bedraggled, yes I said it, bedraggled author's transparent ravings. Not since the unspeakable calumny against the celebrated Dr. R. J. Papoopnik was such dubious information taken out of context and used to such evil end. Even the Princess P could not be moved from her tears. I was made aware of this article several years ago. I thought it would all go away. Fade - Vanish the way so much else has in the past. But no. You wouldn't do that. No. You kept at it. You just kept pushing and pushing and pushing till now It's just gotten in so deep that there is nothing left to do but cast about aimlessly for some wayward sand to fold. Do you even like Schmaltz Herring?"
This column, dear YU, is far too ambitious. It wants to be an apology of sorts and an artist's statement as well, but it may turn towards a J'accuse or a memoir if it has to. It must be a culmination to our relationship, which I modeled - with measured success of course - upon my rebbe, Alfred Jarry.
Oh YU, we had some good times though. The Commentator office was our shrine and our study hall, our romantic dinners for 250 in the cafeteria made my stomach churn in funny ways and we even developed our own language of love in broken Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic. And yet, before I bestow upon myself an honorary doctorate of Pataphysique, there is one (only one!) unsolved issue that I must put to bed, lest my dybbuk haunt the hollow halls of YU forever. It dates back to November 2002, my first semester on campus, and no, it's not a Judaic studies incomplete.
It's a quaint little article that got me temporarily kicked off the paper, a botched experiment if you will.
I rehash old wounds only because fate - that stunning, yet prickly goddess - came rapping upon my chamber door. I received two Emails in my mailbox this past week, and the mysterious, downright absurdity of the content demands immediate and unilateral response. The first email arrived at 12:55 AM and read as follows:
"Menachem, I am at the computer looking up the article you wrote about the 'Church of Barron'...will Deborah find true love in the arms of her driving instructor? As I recall I did find that article's mention of the Church of Barron rather shocking - yes shocking, I tell you. I was shocked. I dare say no Yeshiva student who wakes up early enough to be in time for shacharit would have the wool pulled over his/her sleepy eyes and fall prey to the machinations of this beknighted, besotted and most probably bedraggled, yes I said it, bedraggled author's transparent ravings. Not since the unspeakable calumny against the celebrated Dr. R. J. Papoopnik was such dubious information taken out of context and used to such evil end. Even the Princess P could not be moved from her tears. I was made aware of this article several years ago. I thought it would all go away. Fade - Vanish the way so much else has in the past. But no. You wouldn't do that. No. You kept at it. You just kept pushing and pushing and pushing till now It's just gotten in so deep that there is nothing left to do but cast about aimlessly for some wayward sand to fold. Do you even like Schmaltz Herring?"
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