Fjallkonunni sem var fargað

   

Sendisveinn Fornleifs hefur dvalið á Íslandi í nokkra daga. Eins og gengur, þarf maðurinn að bregða sér í sund. 

Í afgreiðslu Laugardagslaugarinnar var boðin billeg Fjallkona eins og pylsa með öllu, en hún var heldur nakin og rýr, enda graðís.

Ég er hér að ræða um bókina sem var brennd vegna þess Katrín Jakobsdóttir vildi á Bessastaði og Bjarni Ben hélt upp á það með bálför á fyrstu útgáfu. Bókin er ekkert betri þó Bjarni Ben hafi skrifað innganginn, eftir að fyrsta upplaginu hafði verið fargað á báli hégómans.

Það var fyrst og fremst illa skrifuð grein Godds (Guðmundar Odds Magnússonar) sem fer fyrir brjóstin á mér.

Goddur, sem er heimsfrægur á Íslandi fyrir gáfur, fer rangt með, er hann segir sögu Fjallkonunnar. Líklegast veit hann bara ekki nóg um það sem hann er að skrifa um. Á blaðsíðu 33 birtir hann mynd af fjallkonu Sigurðar Málara (sem sumir kölluðu Sigga sjení). Myndin var af teikningu í  skissubók Sigurðar.         

Nú er bara sá galli á gjöf Njarðar, að Sigurður leitaði í hús til annarra. Fjallkonan hans er nefnilega frönsk. Sigurður varð fyrir áhrifum frá ballettsýningu í París, sem sagt var frá í myndablöðum víða í Evrópu. Fornleifur hefur einnig greint frá því hér efir að allir voru búnir að gleyma. Lítill krókfaldur Fjallkonu Sigurðar sver sig í ætt við "skautbúninga" kvennanna í ballettsyningunni í París. Greinilegt er, að Goddur les ekki Fornleif. Hann Goddur veit allt betur en aðrir. 

Fjallkonan er ekki aðeins útlend og allrahanda á okkar tímum. Vonandi verður annarri útgáfu Fjallkonunnar ekki fargað, þótt grein Godds sé verri en bæði formáli Katrínar Jak. ellegar gormæli Bjarna bakara, sem olli dýrri bókabrennu. 

Líklega verður maður einnig að spyrja sig, hvort Fjallkona eigi yfirleitt erindi til nútímafólks árið 2024? Fjallkonan er líkast til ekki nógu mikil öfgakona. Alþjóð má ekki einu sinni nálgast leikarafjallkonuna á Austurvelli, þar sem hún treður jafnan upp með leikurum og trúbadorum úr Alþingishúsinu. Nú er það orðin eins konar einkasýning og er það vegna öfga í þessu annars svo friðsama landi. 

Copenhagen Jewish Cultural Festival 2024 : 3

Copenhagen Jewish Cultural Festival 2024:3

Meet the Ostrynskis

One of the afternoons (4 June 2024) during the Jewish Cultural Week in Copenhagen, I listened to a very good interview Michael Rachlin had with Nathalie Ostrynski, the author of a new book entitle De Mørke Bånd (The Dark Ties,) published in 2024 by small publishing house Grønningen 1. I finally bought her book, which I have started to read. I like it very much. It is a very special book, which I want to recommend for all those who work with refugees.

1980

I moved from Iceland in 1980 to Denmark to study archaeology. 1980 was also the year Nathalie Ostrynksi was born. In the Århus suburb of Brabrand, were I ended up living in some great students´accommodations, after some problems finding a permanent place to live (see here in Danish), I ran into many elderly Jewish refugees in and around the City West shopping precinct in Brabrand. I became good friends with a few of them, who could speak English or German and some even a little Danish. I drank coffee with them in the "mall" and was invited to their cultural afternoons in the Brabrand local library, more often than I could attend.

One thing I remember clearly, was some of the elderly men´s bitterness. Not only that towards Poland they had to leave due to antisemitism. More stressing to some of the elderly in the group, seemed to be the attitude of some Danish Jews they encountered after they had arrived in Denmark in the late 1960s. I never got the full explanation of what that attitude really was all about. But it definitely resulted in some of the Jews moving to Århus  away from Jewish life in Copenhagen.

I tried to find out by asking Nathalie Ostrinsky a very frank question, where I described what my impression of the Polish Jews was in the 1980s suburb of Århus. My question has since resulted in five non-Polish Jewish members of the Jewish community in Copenhagen approaching me, to tell me with a stiff pointy finger, "That it was not like I think it was.". They all told me that they have visited the refugee ship St. Lawrence in the Copenhagen, to help the newcomers from Poland - and some assured me that everyone aboard that ship had been happy - and that those who were not content were probably just some sour and miserable Communists, "who didn´t want anything to do with Jewish life anyway".

Well, imagine some of the Jews who headed for Århus reading professor Isi Foighel´s very negative assessments of them in a report he wrote for a Danish Refugee agency in Danmark. Why was a professor of Economics, a conservative politician and himself a child-refugee from Nazi Germany so negative towards newcomers in need. Prof. Foighel phoned me. when my book Medaljens Bagside (The other Side of the Coin) was about to be published, flushing out gallons of sour wine from his grapes of wrath, telling me that he would do everything in his power to stop my book, because "some things were better forgotten than mentioned" like he put it. His brave opponent in the once upon a time Copenhagen Kehilla-Conflict (best forgotten), Rabbi Bent Melchior,  had also learned about a detail in my book. He was much more civilized about me digging into the past than professor Foighel was, when he commented on an application he had made for an Aliyah to Israel, which I had discovered in an Israeli archive. Young Melchior wanted to move to Israel because of Anti-Semitism in post-WWII Denmark.

Bent Melchior´s appplication for an aliyah due to Antisemitism in Danmark. Fig. 134, page 334 in my book Medaljens Bagside (Forlaget Vandkunsten 2004).

Possibly some of the Jewish gentlemen in Brabrand, a few of them possibly disillusioned Communists, might also have heard how their "ideological brother" in Denmark, editor Carl Madsen, described the Jewish refugees from Poland in his book Flygtning 33 (Refugee 33, published in 1972) about the political Refugees of the 30s. Madsen wrote: In 1969 the stream of so-called "refugees", ca. 1900 of them, came to Denmark. Jews from Poland dominated. Nowadays, no one speaks about them any more. They have been utilized. Now forgotten. Back than they could be used, and allowed themselves to be used in an excessive campaign of defamation against Socialist Poland."  

Welcome to Denmark, Rødgrød med fløde og én over nakken. ... ... ... Denmark is what Denmark is, what Denmark is, what Denmark has always been: A very flat Country.

Copenhagen Jewish Cultural Festival 2024:2

Copenhagen Jewish Cultural Festival 2024:2

Mr. Potato-Man was Jewish. The Inventor of a Most Famous Potato-Dish and his Danish Descendants

More Jewish Culture - straight from Copenhagen. Friday (noon), when I had been cleared at the security gate of the Copenhagen synagogue, which is unfortunately totally necessary in our time and age), I met some of my elderly lady friends (who are little bit older than I am - which nobody would ever guess).

They had just listened to editor of Danish daily Politiken´s talk - and were still in distress. Anders Jerichow had chocked some of the nice ladies with his comments. For many years Jerihow has been pacifying the readers of Politiken, telling them what most of them want to hear.

Jerichow, who is a descendant of German clergy and psalm-poet (which explain the non Jewish Jericho sounding name), also has Jewish roots. Jerichow has once written that his Jewish background gives him more legitimacy to judge Israel than other Danes.

I have once taken the liberty to ask him about his Jewish background, but he didn´t want to tell me his family story, which gives him the power to satisfy the many readers of Politiken.

Some while ago, the secret was finally revealed by A. Jerichow´s son, who yesterday was accompanying his dad at shul. Jerichow jr. was dressed in a striped white & green mistral jacket, which in my opinion was the bravest fashion statement at this year´s Copenhagen Jewish Culture Festival.

The Jewish ancestor, who gives editor Jerichow of daily Politiken his permit, to occasionally take somewhat incomprehensible stands towards Israel, was Swedish restaurateur Jacob Wilhelm Davidsson, who converted to Christianity in the 19th Century. Davidsson is supposed to have "invented" the the world famous Hasselback-potato (see above photo) at the Pavilion Restaurant Hasselbacken in merry Stockholm´s Djurgården-park (For more information on this "Jewish" invention here).

The alleged creator of this world famous potato-dish, has possibly given his 21st Century-Editor-Descendant a card blanch potato dish to criticise Israel extraordinarily to the satisfaction of all of his his Hasselback-Potato-Loving-Readers.

With the Danish Lurpak-butter melted on top of these potatoes, this dish is probably not kosher for others than some hard-core Politiken readers, when they serve it with pork dishes and Scandinavian-style Antisemetic Pickles on the side. B´te´avon!!

Copenhagen Jewish Cultural Festival 2024:1

Copenhagen Jewish Cultural Festival 2024:1

Ladino Music in Klezmer Mode

Monday last (3 June), I went to sjoel to listen to Ladino-music pereformed at the Jewish Cultural Festival 2024.

Unfortunately, the musicians, who were really 1t class - and even from W-Jutland -, were far too infiltrated in their Klezmer-"oumpaoumpa"-background to click into the "real" Ladino gear of amor y corazones. 

That specific Monday nightm I might actually have attended a Klezmer concert with some Arabic-music undertones, which might be of Jewish origin.

However, singer Ayala Zimbler Hertz (of the Danish Royal Opera) was the highlighting Star - but the music was too fusioned to give me the genuine Andaluz feeling - whatever that is?. ... Who knows? I don´t, but it was probably never as Klezhmatic as it was last Monday.

Hallað á Katrínu

Ég óska nýjum forseta til hamingju með sigurinn í forsetakjörinu. Hana kaus ég þó ekki, og hefði aldrei kosið.

Mér fannst hallað óeðlilega á minn mann, hana Katrínu, í þessum kosningum. Orðræðan gegn henni var á stundum yfirgengileg. Forsetakjör á Íslandi hefur nú orðið fengið á sig hálfamerískan brag.

Kjafturinn og áróðurssnakkið gegn Katrínu meðal sumra aðdáenda Höllu Tómasar, en helst þó í liði Höllu Hrundar, var yfirgengilegt. Helst mátti halda að einhver óeðlis-Trumpur væri í innsta kjarna íslensku þjóðarinnar. Maður hefur svo sem séð hann.

Almennt þykir mér ljóst, að flestir þeirra sem fóru fram í þetta framboð, hafa aldrei tekið sér tíma til að lesa starfslýsingu embættisins. Mig grunar einnig, að nýkosinn forseti muni reyna að snúa embættinu upp í eitthvað Kana-fyrirbæri. En það verður örugglega ekki þolað af meirihluta þjóðarinnar. Forseti Íslands er EKKI embætti sem hægt er að nota að vild og plotta með.

Nú verður gaman að sjá, hvort ógeðstvískinnungurinn í samtökum þeim (The B Team) sem Halla T. hefur unnið fyrir, verði boðaður frá Bessastöðum. Mun Halla T. krefjast stríðs við Rússa, svo nýríka og "betra" fólkið geti fengið glás af ódýru Litíum í rafbílana sína og þannig brunað inn í Skammtímaútópíu sína? Slík Kanaherferð mun að mínu mati skapa miklu stærri B, C, D, E, og F Teams en nokkru sinni áður. 

Mikið vill Meira, mun væntanlega standa yfir dyrum á Bessastöðum næstu fjögur árin og helst sem neonskilti. En þið kusuð það yfir ykkur, kjánaprikin ykkar. Myndin efst er þegar Halla forseti varð bakkalárus í MONTGOMERY Alabam forðum, þegar hún var ekki framkvæmdastjóri knattspyrnuliðs (Soccer-mom), en þau afköst virðast vera afar illa undirbyggð, enda skipta þau ekki rassgats máli fyrir forseta íslenska lýðveldisins, þó þeirri stöðu hafi verið skellt á afrekaskrána. 

Vreeswijk og augun hans

Ég sá í gær seinni hluta tvíþáttungs í sjónvarpinu hér í Danmörku, sem fjallaði um líf og sorgir sænsk-hollenska trúbadorsins Cornelis Vreeswijks. Þetta voru frábærir þættir um stórskáld sem þjáðist á ýmsan hátt, en gaf heiminum samt svo mikið, og meira en flestir. En eins og allir var hann langt frá því að vera fullkominn, og sá því ekki að aðrir liðu mjög vegna óútreiknanlegrar hegðunar hans. 

Hann kippti sér greinilega ekki upp við að Svíar báru aldrei nafn hans rétt fram. En í seinni þættinum gerði einn maður það rétt, og fát kom greinilega á Vreeswijk (Freysvík) í beinni útsendingu.

Ég hef ávallt haft miklar mætur á rödd og textum Vreeswijks. Í hinni miklu súpu þjóðarbrota sem sest hefur að í Niðurlöndum síðan á 16. öld, hefur mér líka þótt gaman að líta inn í stór vot möndluaugu meistarans, þar sem ég hef séð fólk sem kom með fyrstu gyðingunum sem flýðu frá Portúgal til Hollands og sumir með "millilendingu" í Bayonne eða með smástoppi í Antwerpen.

Nú getur Vreeswijk einnig hæglega hafa fengið möndluaugun sín frá forfeðrum sem voru Baskar, Armenar eða ítalskir gyðingar, og kannski er til erfðaefni sem hægt væri að rannsaka. Gæti hugsast að einhver forfeðra hans hafi verið frá Freysvík í V-Húnaþingi. En sjaldan hef ég séð karla eins og hann af þeim slóðum og til er þorp sem kallast Vreeswijk ekki langt frá Utrecht. En eftirnafnið var nú einnig þekkt á meðal gyðinga, m.a. í den Haag. Hér fyrir neðan er brot úr málverki Rembrandts af lækninum Ephraim Bueno (sem m.a. sat á skólabekk i Leyden nokkru á undan Íslendingum, sem þar voru í námi sjá hér). Hann kom frá Portúgal. Undanfarið birtast æ fleiri rannóknir, þar sem genatýpan (genamengið) er sögð meira samhliða phenótýpunni (útlitinu). Slíkar yfirlýsingar voru vitaskuld hættulegar, þegar nasistar náriðluðust á líkamsmannfræðinni, enda hlustuðu þeir ekki á rök - og DNA-ið var sem betur fór ekki komið inn í umræðuna.