to be in the minority of the minority,
keeping kosher in a world where few
know the difference between a split
and unsplit hoof.
The two oldest of Apple's four chil-
dren, often the subjects in Free Agents,
also are writers. Both grew up watch-
ing their father at work; that is, when
he wasn't teaching, he'd often be at
home, lying on the couch, daydream-
ing, concocting tales.
Sam Apple, who lives
in Brooklyn, is the author
\
of Schlepping Through
the Alps: My Search for
Austria's Jewish Past
With Its Last Wandering
Shepherd, and Jessica
Apple is a journalist
and fiction writer in
Jerusalem.
"How can you figure
anyone would be a writ-
er?" he says of his kids' career choices.
About his influence, he says, "I think
it all comes from storytelling at bed-
time. I never read them stories; I made
them up." He adds, "I should have fig-
ured that Sam would be a writer. He'd
give me directions about what he'd
want to happen."
Among American Jewish writers
who are often asked about their duali-
ties, Apple seems the most comfort-
able. In an autobiographical essay,
"The Jew as Writer/ The Writer as Jew:
Reflections on Literature and Identity,"
Apple notes that "identity is someone
else's problem," that he's always been
at home being both Max and Mottele,
American and Jew, educated professor
and son of Yiddish-speaking immi-
grants.
He writes that with his formal
education behind him, "Max began
to write stories, which wanted to
sound like the stories he had read in
the anthologies. He hoped
for British characters who
would experience epiphanies,
those obscure but luminous
moments that reveal the
human condition. But all
of his people turned out to
be Americans, and none of
them even knew what an
epiphany was. They were
good-natured folks, clowns
in every shop and office."
Now, after decades of coexistence,
Max and Mottele are still very much a
pair and "understand how much they
need one another. Without Mottele,
Max knows that he would be a pale
imitator, a John Updike without
Protestants. And Mottele alone would
be exactly that — Mottele alone. Born
into Yiddish at the exact moment that
murderers were extinguishing it, he
would have the language without the
people. He needs Americans to popu-
late his shtetl."
Grand Rapids Ballet
DETROIT
Home of Michigan Opera Theatre
David DiChiera. General Director
Participate in the Peter Pan Parade on stage
following the matin:i: performance!
FREE Dance Talk
one hour prior
to performance
Audience members are invited onstage to greet the cast
Saturday March 1, 2008 at 2:00PM
Saturday March 1, 2008 at 7:30PM
The Chrysler Foundation
Jeep
2007-08 Dance Series
FOR TICKETS CALL 313 -237- SING
or visit www.michiganopera.org
EA
me'
11171
1359960
SHUTTLE SERVICE
c itteriudi
TO ALL MAJOR VENUES
Since
❑
1948
RESTAURANT OF DETROIT AND TROY
famous director Ivan Reitman
(Ghostbusters), whose own Czech
Jewish parents amazingly sur-
vived the Holocaust. After the
war, with the toddler Ivan in their
arms, Ivan's parents evaded Czech
Communist border guards and
fled to Austria, eventually set-
tling in Canada. Ivan moved to Los
Angeles for his career, and he and
his wife have long been members
of a Conservative synagogue.
Jason, 30, recently recalled that
when he was 12, his father told
him that he didn't like to attend
the Oscars but would go if he were
nominated. Jason asked Ivan,
"Would you go if I was nominat-
ed?" Ivan said that he would go
if Jason was nominated, and this
(very proud) father will be at this
year's Oscar ceremony.
Ronald Harwood, who won
an Oscar for his script for The
Pianist, was born in South Africa
and moved to England as a young
man, planning to be an actor. In a
recent interview, Harwood admit-
ted being almost obsessed with
the moral dilemmas thrown up
by the Jewish experience in the
1930s and '40s. He says, "It's a
world I'm haunted by. What can
you do?"
Two of his recent plays con-
cern, respectively, how the
famous German conductor William
Furtwangler and the famous
German composer Richard Strauss
coped with the Nazi regime and
the Jews in their lives. About
to premiere in London is a new
Harwood play about John Amery,
a British fascist who went to Nazi
Germany and was hanged as a
traitor after the war. Amery's
father was a British cabinet min-
ister who hid his own mother's
Jewish origins lest it interfere
with his career.
❑
Mama Mia Show, Dinner and Transportation
Packages available Feb 12-26, 2008
Package Includes
Two TICKETS TO SHOW
TWO DINNERS
TRANSPORTATION TO SHOW
Main Floor
WEEKDAYS $200 :-
WEEKENDS $210"
Balcony
WEEKDAYS $150 -:
WEEKENDS $160
Call Marios of Detroit
for more details
Detroit
''Excludes Tax and Tip
Upon Availability
LOBSTER TUESDAYS
$11.95
LOBSTER, CORN ON THE COB
AND RED SKIN POTATOES
313.832.1616
248.588.6000 Troy
4222 Second St. • Detroit
1477 John R at Maple • Troy
MARIOSDETROIT.COM
February 21 • 2008
C5