6676 Orchard Lake Rd.
West Bloomfield Plaza
West Bloomfield
TEL 248-851-8782
FAX 248-851-7685
Fiddler
INTERNATIONALDININ
At The Movies
FOOD AND
SPIRITS
`Keep The River
On Your Right'
WE ARE NOW OPEN FOR
DINNER ON MONDAYS
The DFT screens David and Laurie Shapiros documentary
portrait of Tobias Schneebaum, a Jewish artist who
lived with a tribe of Peruvian cannibals in the 1950s.
LIVE VIOLIN MUSIC
TUESDAY & SUNDAY
BANQUET FACILITIES
FOR 'ALL EVENTS:-
851-8782
Great Nome-Cooked
Ttadition Since the 20's
ANN SAYLES
DINING ROOM
Artist/anthropologist
Tobias Schneebaum
returns to the site
of his former-
adventures in
"Follow the River-
on Your Right:
A Modern
Cannibal Tale."
Classic ;\inerican I lams'-Cooked Cuisine
at Very Reasonable Prices
Nome-Cooked Food Like
grandma llged to Make!
• Sauteed Chicken Livers
• Broiled Whitefish
• Lake Perch • Meat Loaf
• Broiled Salmon • Grilled Beef Liver
And So Much More!
FRESH ROASTED TURKEY
CUT IROM THE BIRD!
Lunch & Dinner Entrees Include:
Appetizer or Soup, potato, vegetable,
dessert & beverage.
Open 6 Days • Closed Mon. • Carry-Out & Group Parties
4313 W. 13 Mile Rd.
2 Blocks East of Greenfield • Royal Oak
(248) 288-6020 • Fax (248) 288-6020
SAPPORO
Japanese Restaurant
"An authentic dining adventure
with preparation of fresh sushi
and top quality Japanese
delights."
- Danny Raskin
Enjoy
THE FINEST FRESH SUSHI
AND AUTHENTIC
JAPANESE SPECIALTIES
LUNCH SPECIAL BENT°,
$6.75
SUSHI LUNCH SPECIAL
$7.75
6635 Orchard Lake Rd., West Bloomfield, M148322
8/24
2001
84
(at Old Orchard Mall, Farmer Jack Center)
(248) 626-8111
NAOMI PF EFF ER_MAN
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
T
he documentary Keep the
River on Your Right: A
Modern Cannibal Tale
began when artist David
Shapiro found a box of old books jut-
ting out of a pile of garbage on
Avenue B in Manhattan's East Village.
The year was 1994, and Shapiro
and his sister, author Laurie Gwen
Shapiro, now in their 30s, had long
been arguing about the subject of a
proposed film project. They didn't
have to look any further. Inside the
box, along with dog-eared copies of
The Tofu Cookbook and Zen and the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, there
was an intriguing memoir, Keep the
River on Your Right.
Its yellowed pages told of a gay,
Jewish painter, Tobias Schneebaum, a
onetime rabbinical student who disap-
peared into the Amazon in 1955 to live
(and eventually dine) with cannibals.
The filmmakers, the grandchildren
of Jewish union activists, figured
Schneebaum was probably dead. But
on a lark, they checked the Manhattan
white pages — and found a listing.
Before long, they were sitting oppo-
site the Heart of Darkness-style adven-
turer in his Greenwich Village effi-
ciency apartment. "We had been
expecting Indiana Jones-meets-
Hannibal Lecter," said David Shapiro.
"Instead, we met a witty, mild-man-
nered Jewish man who looked just like
our grandfather."
Amid shelves of real human skulls,
gifts from his headhunting friends,
Schneebaum regaled the Shapiros with
tales of his remarkable life.
He was born on the Lower East Side
— several blocks from the filmmakers'
childhood home — the son of an
Orthodox Polish immigrant grocer
who imposed punishments for infrac-
tions of Halachah, Jewish law.
Schneebaum loved the Jewish holi-
days, the rituals of his "tribe," but
longed to escape from the abuse.
"I was preoccupied with drawing
and with my need to lose myself in
another world, where my father could
not wallop me," he said in a telephone
interview.
The quiet, shy boy first glimpsed
anoth;r world during a family trip to
Coney Island, where he was riveted by
a poster promoting a sideshow featur-
ing "The Wild Man of Borneo." Years
later, he remembered the image when
the New York art scene left him feel-
ing "hollow" — and when his homo-
sexuality made him feel like the ulti-
mate outsider.
Searching for a place-where he could
feel he belonged, Schneebaum hitch-
hiked all the way to South America,
riding from the Andes to the Amazon
in a rickety, open-air truck.
After hearing rumors of a remote
mission serving the Harakhambut
Indians, a people virtually unknown
in the West, he headed off alone into
the uncharted Madre de Dios rainfor-
est, without maps, equipment or
footwear except his sneakers.
He chanted the Shema or Adir Hu
(a Passover song) when he felt lost or
lonely. His only instructions were to
"keep the river on your right."
Eventually, Schneebaum was adopt-
ed by the Stone-Age Harakhambut.
They decorated his body with red pig-
ment and allowed him to sleep in the
men's communal but (where, to his
delight, the activities sometimes
turned amorous).
But under a bright moon one sum-
mer night in 1956, Schneebaum's idyl-