The Justice, October 24, 2017

ARTS Page 19

SPORTS Men’s soccer crushes Clark 5-1 16 FORUM Reform sentencing for drug charges 11 The Independent Student Newspaper

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Justice

Volume LXX, Number 7

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Tuesday, October 24, 2017

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS

CAMPUS speaker

Biographer reviews Nixon’s relationship with TV and the press ■ Biographer and journalist

John Farrell spoke to students about Nixon’s relationship with the press.

By ELIANA PADWA JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

Chak De performed for community members at Diwali: The Festival of the Lights, an evening of ceremony and celebration at the Charles River Apartments on Friday.

FACULTY

Faculty votes on Gen Ed and divestment resolution ■ Faculty members passed

a divestment resolution and round one of general education changes.

By MICHELLE DANG JUSTICE EDITOR

The University’s faculty convened for their monthly assembly on Friday afternoon and passed both a resolution to divest from fossil fuels and the first of two votes on the general curriculum changes.

The resolution states, “We pledge to support the president and his team as Brandeis adopts increasingly ambitious climate action plans to help fulfill the [Paris Agreement’s] commitment to ‘take forceful action’ in support of ‘the global effort to hold warming to under 2°C.’" Senate Chair Susan Curnan (Heller) said that the Faculty Senate unanimously supported the resolution and that the resolution aims to put more commitment on the part of the faculty in supporting

ambitious action planning.

Several faculty members voiced concern about the final sentence of the resolution, which described the Trustees’ responsibility “to develop and implement a strategy for ending our university’s investments in fossil fuels at the fastest pace.” One faculty member asked how much wiggle room it leaves the trustees and wondered how the resolution would keep trustees accountable for taking action.

The resolution commends President Ron Liebowitz’s signatory support of the Paris Agreement on June 1. Liebowitz gave a speech on his experience at Middlebury to push for divestment and the reduction of the college’s carbon footprint.

During his time at Middlebury College, the college was successful in reducing its carbon footprint by 52 percent, as well as spawning a socially responsible investing fund to pursue sustainable actions. “Those that want to address the consequences of climate change can do far more with what’s in their control,” said Liebowitz.

While Middlebury was not able

to convince its board of trustees to commit to divestment, Liebowitz said that he would take the resolution, if approved by the faculty, to the University’s trustees and engage the issue with them.

Prof. Daniel Bergstresser (ECON) said that with approving the resolution, “There is an element of risk involved.” He does believe, however, that “it has the potential, if other universities join us, to create a larger context of change. Someone has to jump in first.”

After discussion, the faculty voted on and approved the resolution.

Dean of Arts and Sciences Susan Birren moderated the discussion on the General Education Task Force’s proposal for general education curriculum changes.

“We did our last revision more than 23 years ago. The Task Force was appointed to better serve our students in today’s world, and [it was] also part of our goals to consider diversity and the issues of race at Ford Hall, and the agreements that we reached in 2014,” said Birren.

The Task Force has worked on

See FACULTY, 7 ☛

Five decades ago, President Richard Nixon began a political comeback which culminated in his presidential election in 1968.

It wasn’t an easy feat: Nixon had an antagonistic relationship with both the press and himself, as journalist and biographer John Farrell discussed in a presentation on Tuesday.

Nixon’s political career involved extreme highs and lows, Farrell explained. Nixon went from political glory during the Red Scare in the 1950s to a crushing electoral defeat in 1960, and then around again with his victory in 1968 and the subsequent Watergate Scandal.

Nixon knew his career was driven by the press, Farrell said: “He had gone from House freshman to vice president of the United States in six years, basically because of exceptionally favorable notices.”

Farrell claimed that throughout every major event in Nixon’s career — both good and bad — the press became so excited at times that they didn’t maintain their “professed standards of objectivity.”

Nixon’s successful Congressional campaign in 1946 was due to favorable coverage by the conservative New York Herald and the Los Angeles Times, according to Farrell. He was “the darling” of the family who owned the latter paper, and his campaign took out expensive ads in other local papers. Farrell said Nixon learned from this experience that “the game was rigged—” favorable articles could be bought.

Nixon’s relationship with the

See NIXON, 7 ☛

OBITUARY

Friends remember distinguished biologist ■ Community to honor Prof.

John Lisman ’s (BIOL) life and influential contributions to national brain research.

By KIRBY KOCHANOWSKI JUSTICE EDITOR

Prof. John Lisman (BIOL) may have been a scientist by trade, but by all accounts he was an ardent supporter of the arts, a talented lecturer and a dedicated researcher.

In an email on Monday, University Provost Lisa Lynch informed the campus community that Lisman had passed away on Friday from a lung infection. He was 73.

Lisman taught at Brandeis for 43 years, returning to the school after graduating with a B.A. in Physics in 1966. During his brief period away from the school he received his Ph.D. in physiology from the Mas-

sachusetts Institute of Technology and pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.

During his extensive career, Lisman made important strides in understanding the brain. His research lab specifically focused on the formation of memories and on the abnormalities that underlie schizophrenia, according to Lisman’s website. His research significantly influences new studies on neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and ALS, according to Lynch’s email.

In 2013, Lisman was elected to the rank of fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2014, Lisman and his team were awarded $1.95 million to advance their research by the National Institutes of Health under former President Barack Obama’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Ini-

See LISMAN, 7 ☛

Oh, Deer

Soccer Survival

Millenium Campus

 A panel evaluated the fight against Lyme Disease.

 The women’s soccer team earned a win and a tie despite its recent injury setback.

 Sam Vaghar ’08 returned to talk about youth leadership in nonprofits.

FEATURES 8 For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org

Waltham, Mass.

Let your voice be heard!

Submit letters to the editor online at www.thejustice.org

INDEX

SPORTS 16 ARTS SPORTS

17 13

EDITORIAL FEATURES

10 OPINION 8 POLICE LOG

10 2

News 3 COPYRIGHT 2017 FREE AT BRANDEIS.

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2017

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the justice

NEWS SENATE LOG

Senate approves clubs and reports on committee projects The Senate voted on two clubs and discussed new initiatives this Sunday. The Senate voted in favor of chartering the Veg Club. Erin Gawronski ’18 and Siwar Mansour ’19 presented to the Senate on behalf of the Swim Club. The Swim Club seeks to provide an outlet for students to swim in a non-competitive environment.

Gawronski, a former varsity swimmer and senior member of the Swim Club, said that the hardships of maintaining a student-athlete balance cause many people to quit the varsity swimming team. Class of 2019 Senator Benedikt Reynolds was concerned that the club would turn away people who did not know how to swim, to which Class of 2020 Senator Tal Richtman replied that the University already has an instruction program for those who do not know how to swim. Gawronski added that the club needs funding to hire lifeguards so it can increase the pool’s hours and hold practices. The Senate unanimously voted to provide the club with probationary club accreditation.

Vice President Hannah Brown ’19 reported that the Sunday Alumni Board meeting had involved discussion on developing alumni relationships with faculty and alumni engagement at the Hiatt Career Center. Brown also reminded the Senate of the Free Speech Forum meeting next Monday and thanked the Senators who attended the “Meet the Union” event.

Services and Outreach Committee Chair Aaron Finkel ’20 said that one of the Turkey Shuttles is already sold out and that another is almost sold out. Finkel stated that the Senate was able to lower the price by $5 and that the committee may be adding additional shuttles, should sales continue to be successful.

Dining Committee Chair Jonathan Chen ’20 reported that the committee’s dining survey received 170 responses. Health and Safety Committee Chair Samantha Barrett ’20 stated that the committee discussed the problem of smoking on campus. The University has a policy that people must stay 30 feet away from buildings when smoking, but many do not follow that policy. Barrett emailed Ed Callahan about the possibility of the University investing in more signs.

Reynolds, who also chairs the Sustainability Committee, stated that the committee is working with the orientation team on creating a sustainability event during orientation. Reynolds also announced that the faculty have introduced an initiative to the committee to divest from fossil fuel corporations.

Richtman, who chairs the Club Support Committee, stated that the committee had a meeting regarding clubs that have a “duality of purpose” with other clubs. Richtman said he is still searching for a speaker for the Club Support workshop on Nov 9.

Brown and Barrett stated that they attended a meeting for the Student Health Advisory Committee, which works to create a dialogue between students and the Health Center on ways to improve the Health Center.

Richtman inquired about the ratio of washing machines and dryers to students to find out how many were needed. He also proposed that the Department of Community Living clean restrooms and kitchens at least once a week.

Class of 2021 Senator Rachel McAllister reported that in her poll, many people complained about the shortage of therapists at the Brandeis Counseling Center. Brown replied that the Executive Board is making an effort to rectify that this year. McAllister also requested more therapy dogs for finals. Myra Kraft Transitional Year Senator Agnes Nkansah ’21 spoke about the dining survey introduced by Chen, saying that she wanted to create postcards reminding students to take the survey so that their voices can be heard.

Racial Minority Senator Hangil Ryu ’20 stated that he attended a meeting of the Brandeis Asian-American Task Force and scheduled a meeting for next Monday with Senator at Large Shaquan McDowell ’18 and Elias Rosenfeld ’20 to discuss their support statement for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act. Class of 2021 Senator Noah Nguyen requested that different payment methods be allowed in the Game Room. Brown attended a seminar about revamping the UWS program.

POLICE LOG

Medical Emergency

Oct. 17—A party in East Quad reported that they were feeling ill. BEMCo staff treated the party with a signed refusal for further care.

Oct. 18—A party reported that they had almost fainted.

BEMCo staff treated the party, who was transported to an urgent care facility.

Oct. 18—BEMCo staff treated a party in 567 South Street who had injured their hand.

Oct. 18—A party in the Charles River Apartments reported that they were feeling ill. BEMCo staff treated the party with a signed refusal for further care.

Oct. 19—BEMCo staff treated a party with a shoulder injury on the soccer field. The party was transported to NewtonWellesley Hospital for further care.

Oct. 20—University Police received a report of an intoxicated party in Gordon Hall.

The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for

further care.

Oct. 20—BEMCo staff treated an intoxicated party in Deroy Hall. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.

Oct. 21—A motorist on Loop Road reported that there was an intoxicated party laying on the side of the road. BEMCo staff treated the party, who was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.

Oct. 21—University Police received a report that a party at the Brandeis Counseling Center was threatening to kill themselves. Cataldo Ambulance staff assisted with a psychiatric transport to NewtonWellesley Hospital.

Oct. 21—BEMCo staff treated an ill party in the Berlin Chapel.

Oct. 21—Standby BEMCo staff on the scene at a concert in Gosman Sports and Convocation Center treated an intoxicated party with a signed refusal for further care.

Oct. 21—BEMCo staff at that

same concert treated another intoxicated party with a signed refusal for further care.

Oct. 22—University Police and BEMCo staff responded to a report of an intoxicated party in Ziv Quad. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.

fiscated drug contraband. DCL will file a CSR.

Drugs

Oct. 18—University Police compiled a report on credit card fraud. The affected party notified their bank about the incident.

Oct. 18—Charity money was stolen after it was left unattended in a community box in the Berlin Chapel. University Police compiled a report on the theft.

Oct. 19—University Police received a report that two flags were taken from the Shapiro Campus Center. University Police compiled a report on the theft, but were unable to see the area of the theft on closed circuit television footage.

Oct. 16—Department of Community Living staff found drug contraband during a health and safety check in Ziv Quad.

DCL will compile a Community Standards Report on the incident.

Oct. 16—DCL staff found drug contraband in the Charles River Apartments during a health and safety check. DCL will compile a CSR on the incident.

Oct. 18—DCL staff confiscated drug contraband during a health and safety check in East Quad. DCL will file a CSR on the incident.

Oct. 19—While performing a health and safety check in Rosenthal Quad, DCL staff con-

LAN KWAN FONG NIGHT

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

At Lan Kwan Fong Night on Saturday evening, students from five Intercultural Center clubs presented teas, snacks and fun activities.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. Email editor@

Exercises for the Quiet Eye

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The Justice is the independent student newspaper of Brandeis University. The Justice is published every Tuesday of the academic year with the exception of examination and vacation periods.

Editor News Forum Features Sports Arts Ads Photos Managing Copy Layout

editor@thejustice.org news@thejustice.org forum@thejustice.org features@thejustice.org sports@thejustice.org arts@thejustice.org ads@thejustice.org photos@thejustice.org managing@thejustice.org copy@thejustice.org layout@thejustice.org

The Justice Brandeis University Mailstop 214 P.O. Box 549110 Waltham, MA 02454-9110 Phone: (781) 736-3750 The Managing Editor holds office hours on Mondays from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Women’s Studies Research Center scholar, art historian and museum educator Annie Storr will lead art experiencing exercises through the Kniznick Gallery exhibition Sachiko Akiyama: Long Hand Poem. Storr developed Exercises for the Quiet Eye to encourage patient reflection, appreciation and an attempt to avoid the rush to understand, or determine a set interpretation for what we see.

Today from 2:30 to 4 p.m. in the Kiznick Gallery, Epstein.

Executive Insights: Self-Marketing

A career conversation with Andrew Shulman. A competitive job market values students who know how to promote themselves effectively. Join Shulman to review how to differentiate yourself from the competition and market your skills. Open to all students exploring post-graduation opportunities and looking to capitalize on their experiences. Come by yourself or

Larceny

See POLOG, 5 ☛

Graduate students win first place in HUBweek’s Beantown Throwdown

ABBY GRINBERG/the Justice

n The Justice has no corrections of clarifications to report this week.

Oct. 17—A party in Ziv Quad reported that they have received harassing emails. University Police compiled a report on the incident.

BRIEF

—Emily Blumenthal Editor’s note: Elias Rosenfeld ’20 is a columnist for the Justice.

Harassment

with friends, this will be an interactive conversation with Andy.

Today from 5 to 5:30 p.m. at the Hiatt Career Center.

Fafali: Music and Dance from Ghana

The Brandeis Department of Music and the Mandel Center for the Humanities present six to seven free noontime concerts throughout the year. These concerts take place in the Mandel Center for the Humanities Atrium, include a light lunch following the 45- to 60-min performance, and are free and open to the public.

Wenesday from noon to 1 p.m. in the Atrium, Mandel Center for Humanities.

Gittler Prize Award: Kimberlé Crenshaw

Intersectionality has become a ubiquitous rallying cry both for those who denounce “identity politics” and for those who seek to rally diverse constituencies into a formidable coalition to oppose Trumpism. This Left-Right frame obscures

Competing against 11 other teams across the Boston area, Wafaa Arbash M.A. ’17 and Jennie Kelly M.A. ’17 of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management took home first place in HUBweek’s entrepreneurial Beantown Throwdown on Oct. 13.

The competition featured student startups from local colleges and universities.

The first-place prize is $12,500 of legal services from Morse Barnes-Brown & Pendleton and a meeting with public relations firm CHEN PR, according to the competition’s host, the MIT Enterprise Forum.

WorkAround, in service since April 2017, connects refugees from around the world with U.S. employers who have micro-task employment opportunities, including data entry, translation, image tagging and audio transcription, according to an Oct. 10 Justice article.

In that Oct. 10 Justice article, Arbash said that her company seeks to connect easily-accomplished work with a population of “talented, educated and highly motivated” individuals who “don’t have access to the local economy.”

Refugees can have a hard time connecting to their communities, and often “they stay this kind of ‘Other,’” Kelly asserted, according to the Justice article, adding, “If they don’t have any money, they aren’t going to the corner store and meeting new people in this new community and becoming integrated.”

WorkAround’s mission is to “restore dignity to refugees through economic empowerment by connecting them to online work, allowing businesses to maximize their internal human potential while contributing to a more socially just and productive world,” according to the company’s website.

As winners, WorkAround will receive a place in MIT Enterprise’s 2018 Startup Spotlight showcase, according to an Oct. 16 press release.

—Michelle Dang

the contentious debates within race and gender justice discourses that gave rise to the inception of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw will revisit the emergence of critical thinking about race during the institutional struggles of the post-civil rights era, and resituate intersectionality as a prism to understand the risks of postracialism in the age of Trump.

Wednesday from 4 to 6 p.m. in Rappaporte Treasure Hall.

Loi Krathong

Presented by Southeast Asia Club, Loi Krathong (to float a basket / lantern festival) is an annual festival in Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia to make a wish or predict a good future. Tea lights and crayons will be used to decorate a lantern and food will be served to enjoy Loi Krathong.

Wednesday from from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Intercultural Center Lounge.

the justice

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2017

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SOCIAL IMPACT

AWARDS Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center awards Gabbay Award to biologist James J. Collins Recognizing his work in synthetic biology, the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center awarded the annual Jacob and Louise Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine to Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor James J. Collins, on Wednesday afternoon.

Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science at MIT, received the award “for his inventive work in synthetic biology that created a new area of research, enabling multiple biomedical applications and launching a new sector of the biotechnology industry.”

At the award ceremony, Collins presented his talk, “Synthetic Biology: Life Redesigned,” in which he highlighted his research group’s studies in synthetic biology and systems biology. The research group focuses particularly on how to use network biology approaches in understanding antibiotic action, bacterial defense mechanisms and the emergence of immune resistance.

Collins helped launch com-

panies Sample6 Technologies, Synlogic and EnBiotix, and his research and patented technologies have been licensed across 25 different biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, according to his MIT profile.

Established in 1998 by the Jacob and Louise Gabbay Foundation, the award serves to recognize scientists early in their career who have contributed “outstanding scientific content and significant practical consequences” in basic and applied biomedical sciences, according to the research center’s website.

The Foundation has sought to fill a gap in scientific awards.

While most honors are given to well-recognized scholars with primary impact in basic research fields, the Gabbay award selects scientists at earlier stages in their careers, with a focus on research instrumentation and techniques. The annual winner receives a $15,000 cash prize and a medallion.

—Michelle Dang

CLEMENTS PARK/the Justice

Students, faculty and staff met with service and volunteer organizations to discover opportunities in internships, volunteering and post-graduate employment on Thursday.

CAMPUS SPEAKER

Celebrities and authors and celebrities — oh my!

Join

Alum returns to talk about leadership and nonprofit endeavors ■ Sam Vaghar ’08 spoke about

Features!

Contact Victor Feldman at features@thejustice.org

his work with the White House and the United Nations to support youth leadership.

By Jake Rong and Will HODgkinson Justice CONTRIBUTING WRITERs

Sam Vaghar ’08 visited campus last Tuesday to share his story of being an agent of social change and youth leadership in the fight against poverty, work that has taken him to the White House, the United Nations and, most recently, the Vatican.

Vaghar related some of his experiences after founding the Millennium Campus Network, a Bostonbased nonprofit, in his dorm room at the University. His work recently brought him to an international youth symposium at the Vatican on Oct. 15.

Vaghar said two books he read in college, “Mountains Beyond Mountains” and “The End of Poverty,” were the impetus for founding MCN. “Reading these books,” he said, “helped me realize that the world is so much bigger than Brandeis, that Brandeis is one piece of a global community and that we have an opportunity to connect those dots.”

After his initial success in organizing students at Brandeis, Vaghar’s initiative grew exponentially from a handful of friends to 5,500 college students across 30 countries. Today, MCN organizes student-led fellowships, campaigns and an annual conference bringing together students and speakers from around the globe. This year’s ninth annual conference will take place in Rabat, Morocco, from Nov. 16 to Nov. 19.

According to Vaghar, the key to

his success lies in direct engagement and interaction between activists. “Our whole model is predicated on the belief that students have agency,” he said. “It’s not about directing.” By emphasizing cooperation and constructive dialogue among social change organizations while preserving their individual autonomy, his approach transcends partisan politics, Vaghar said.

Drawing on the example of Nelson Mandela’s protest against South Africa’s Apartheid regime, Vaghar said he believes in the potential of realizing impactful change in society through this spirit of mutual respect and open engagement. “We may not have the same label … but does that really mean we don’t share a community and solve problems together?” he asked. “I think we can.” He encourages students to form their own relationships and work together to focus on the issues that matter most to them.

One goal of MCN is to help students turn their ambitions into reality. Vaghar hopes that his organization, taking advantage of the interconnectedness of social media and the internet, will be able to provide aspiring social entrepreneurs like himself with the resources to launch their own campaigns and get more people involved.

Through this outreach, Vaghar intends for students to have the resources and opportunities to address both specific societal inequalities and their underlying causes.

“What we really try to help students do is not just treat symptoms, but understand systems,” he said.

“Even if we had 20,000 students … [by] treating a symptom we will never actually shift society in the way it needs to shift … So I think that’s the opportunity — to help students actually understand systems,” he explained.

Vaghar credits Brandeis with helping him understand the importance of addressing social disparity. “This is an institution rooted in social justice … Brandeis taught me that the world is unfair, unequal.

But there is also justice here in this world,” he said.

Even though Brandeis is familiar to him, Vaghar said he learns something new whenever he returns to campus. During this visit, a conversation with a writer for the Brandeis International Journal, which was established after he graduated, prompted him to consider sponsoring new initiatives to incorporate student journalism at MCN. “A lot of student organizations struggle to tell their story; journalists are great at telling stories. So I think there’s an opportunity that I got right out of this meeting,” Vaghar said.

Keeping in mind that every college has something new to contribute, Vaghar has made a commitment to every Millennium Campus — every university that adopts the MCN model — to visit its campus at least once and engage with students.

“The opportunity to hear their challenges with student organizing, trying to address those and learn new ideas ... that we can take back to apply to our global network — that’s a win-win-win,” he said.

Vaghar also highlighted the role of students in bringing about lasting societal improvement. “If we’re an institution committed to social justice, how do we ensure that that ethos … becomes realized right here in Brandeis so we can do work in Waltham and Boston and halfway around the world?” he asked.

“I think that’s a question students have a major responsibility to help address and answer.”

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POLICE LOG CONTINUED FROM 2 Other

Oct. 20—DCL staff found a bow and arrow in a Shapiro Hall room while conducting health and safety checks. DCL confiscated the device and turned it over to University Police, who will submit a CSR on the incident.

Oct. 22—University Police found parties within the Usen Castle construction zone, which was secured with “No Trespassing” signs.

The parties jumped the fence into the area, and University Police will file CSRs against the parties.

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TUESDAY, OCTOBEr 24, 2017

5

MEDICINE IN THE WARSAW GHETTO

—Compiled by Abby Patkin

CAMPUS SAFETY University Police advises nighttime safety for commuting students after South Street harassment incident A Brandeis student was chased along South Street by an unidentified male on Monday morning, according to an email from Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan.

Shortly after 1 a.m. on Monday morning, the student was walking down South Street

by William F. Stanley Elementary School when they were chased by a tall man in dark jeans and a dark hooded sweatshirt, according to Callahan’s email.

The student arrived home safely and had no contact with the individual, and University Police will be working with the Waltham Police Department to investigate the incident, the email said. The Waltham Police blotter shows that officers checked the area around Stanley at approximately 1:15 a.m. on Monday morning.

“In communicating with University Police, the student pointed out that this is a re-

minder to all members of our community that they should avoid walking alone on or off campus after dark,” Callahan wrote, reminding community members that the BranVan shuttle operates on weekdays and weekends.

He also invited any students with safety concerns to get in touch with University or Waltham Police.

This is not the first time there have been incidents near South Street involving Brandeis students.

In April, two students were stopped and asked to get into strangers’ cars near the Charles River Apartments, Callahan wrote in an April 29 email.

Another student was the victim of indecent exposure on South Street in 2016, the sixth in a string of such incidents between November 2015 and March 2016.

—Abby Patkin

NATALIA WIATER/the Justice

HANDS ON: Miriam Offer gave her lecture on the central role women played in aiding Warsaw Ghetto residents during World War II.

Scholar highlights Warsaw’s women healthcare workers ■ Miriam Offer spoke about

the overlooked role of women healthcare professionals during World War II.

By ELIANA PADWA Justice STAFF WRITER

Women played a vital role in Jewish medicine during the Holocaust, but their contributions are often overlooked by scholars and historians, Miriam Offer of Western Galilee College asserted in a presentation on Thursday.

Offer, a scholar-in-residence at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, calls attention to these women’s narratives. Her presentation focused on her research of female doctors and nurses in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. “A Jewish underground medical network existed under the occupation,” Offer explained. Increased anti-Semitism and advances in secular Jewish education had led to a strong network of Jewish doctors in Poland between the wars, and organizations begun during this period remained in operation during the war.

Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia Ludnosci Zydowskiej — the Society for Safeguarding the Health of the Jewish Population — serviced refugees and worked to prevent epidemics, while the Czyste Hospital maintained the Jewish School of Nursing in the Warsaw Ghetto and the Bersohn and Bauman Children’s Hospital, also in the ghetto,

DIWALI

continued its pre-war work and research.

Women were central to these operations, Offer said. She told the story of Dr. Anna Braude Heller, who had been the lead physician of Bersohn and Bauman during the interwar period and became the hospital’s director during the war. Heller had studied medicine in Switzerland and Berlin, and in the ghetto, she contributed a chapter on children to a study on “the physiology and pathology of hunger.” The research was done to professional standards, according to Offer, and the majority of the study was smuggled out.

Heller remained in the ghetto after mass deportations began in 1942 and refused to leave during the 1943 uprising.

Offer quoted the testimony of one nurse, who said, “The children were hungry and had been abandoned by the staff. The only person I saw there was Dr. Anna Braude Heller. She tried to persuade me to hide, because I was young and deserved to live. I refused. … I felt in my heart that if a person such as Anna Braude Heller … would not leave the children and is risking their life, then how could I … leave those helpless children?”

The nurse’s testimony claimed that Heller died in the bunkers of the ghetto.

Offer also presented on Luba Bielicka Blum, deputy principal of the Jewish School of Nursing. The school was the first of its kind in Poland; Offer called it “the vanguard of the modern medical profession.”

Follow

Bielicka relocated the school to the ghetto and maintained it as an “island of sanity,” with clean rooms, starched uniforms and an organized curriculum.

Bielicka had connections with Aryan nurses and used them to smuggle children and nurses out of the ghetto, Offer said. Bielicka eventually escaped and went on to found a Jewish orphanage and reopen the nursing school. “Despite the event of the war… she saw the re-establishment of the School of Nursing, this time for Polish nurses as the continuation of her mission,” said Offer.

In 1966, Bielicka received the Florence Nightingale Medal for her work as a nurse in the ghetto.

Bielicka Blum and Heller are only two of the many women Offer discussed. She also mentioned Dr. Sara-Zofia Syrkin Binsztejn, who managed the anti-epidemics department in the ghetto; nurse Ala Golomb Grynberg, who rescued Jewish children; Sabine Garfunkel Glocer, who worked at the Czyste Hospital; Dr. Adina Blady Szwajger, who euthanized children to save them from the Nazis; and Dr. Feigin Bronislawa, who did bacterial research in the ghetto.

In a question-and-answer session, Offer said there isn’t a lack of documentation on women in Jewish medicine: They were there, and there are records.

Rather, the problem is a lack of research and recognition. “What better place [for this research],” she asked, “than the HadassahBrandeis Institute?”

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MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

Students and staff celebrated Diwali with a night of ceremony, performances, fun activities and Indian cuisine.

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THE JUSTICE

FACULTY: Faculty votes to divest from fossil fuels and approves curriculum changes CONTINUED FROM 1 this proposal for the last 18 months, with engagement from faculty and students through discussion and survey, said Birren. The final draft received unanimous support from the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, as well as “great praise” from the Faculty Senate, she said. Curnan presented a letter from the University’s Student Union that was also in general support of the proposals.

Birren added, “I really want to emphasize that this is a proposal that comes from a committee mostly made of faculty.” She additionally noted that the task force has yet to finalize the budget that will come with the changes. There will be financial implications for developing administrative support and faculty development.

In open forum, Prof. Dan Perlman (ENVS), director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, thanked the Task Force for their work.

However, he said, “I’m quite disappointed — deeply disappointed — about the document that came out of this. … In my opinion, this represents minor tweaks to a system I have not heard a great deal of support for … I don’t think this is major changes, and I don’t think this will provide students with the skills they need to thrive.”

Perlman said he sees that the resolution focuses on inputs rather than competencies or outputs, citing, for example, that “taking a writing intensive course is not the same as learning to write,” and that cutting the writing intensive requirement “is not going to help our students write better” when they already “do not write well.”

“I would have preferred some bold changes. I would have preferred something that put Brandeis on the map,” Perlman said. “I think we could have served our students much better, and I think we could have placed Brandeis as a national leader, rather than filling

our students’ time with things that I don’t think are truly effective,” he concluded.

Prof. Derron Wallace (AAAS), a member of the Task Force, responded, “We wrestled greatly on the committee to ensure that this would be a proposal that represents the interest and concerns of the entire University, but also be something that would put the University on the map.”

Wallace said he believes the proposal is innovative in three ways.

The digital literacy requirement is unprecedented, said Wallace, explaining that his colleagues from other universities have never heard of such a thing. Second, Wallace highlighted the broadened reformative health and life skills approach, adding that other universities are still focused solely on physical education requirements.

Third, the global engagement requirement “helps us to respond to the ever-changing terrain, but also lends us the room to open contemporary and historical issues as they are relevant to the U.S. and around the world,” he said.

Prof. Jordan Pollack (COSI) asked whether there will be a committee to decide what will count as digital literacy, as there is for the current quantitative reasoning and writing intensive requirements.

Senior Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences for Undergraduate Education Elaine Wong responded that there will be an oversight committee with a similar structure that will work with each of the major departments.

Birren said that departments will have a large role in considering which type of digital literacy skills fit their field of study.

Several faculty voiced concern that the proposal needed more discussion before approval.

However, the faculty passed step one in majority vote, with voices in favor of further discussion during the next faculty meeting before offically establishing the proposal.

Do you enjoy museums, music or movies?

Write for Arts!

Contact Hannah Kressel at arts@thejustice.org

●

NEWS

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TUESDAY, October 24, 2017

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NIXON AND THE MEDIA

MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

“SOURPUSS”: John Farrell spoke to journalism, media and film students about his new book and research on Nixon and the press.

NIXON: Author looks at Nixon’s press complex CONTINUED FROM 1 press was further complicated by his role in exposing Alger Hiss as a communist spy in 1948. Hiss was a government official beloved by liberals, and Nixon led the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in investigating him. Liberal papers such as the New York Times had supported Hiss against HUAC, and they published scathing opinions of the affair.

Nixon was angry at the liberal press for their treatment of him, and Farrell said that anger “stayed with him and never went away.”

Even years later, Nixon saw himself as a hero for exposing Hiss and harbored a deep resentment that some papers didn’t portray him that way — even though many conservative ones did.

Nixon’s resentment at the press’ portrayal of him was compounded by his own insecurities, Farrell said.

According to Farrell, Nixon referred to himself as “the sourpuss brother.” He’d had a difficult childhood, with a distant mother and an emotionally abusive father. He came to see himself as unlovable, and was constantly telling himself, “You’re no good. They don’t like you.”

Farrell explained that he sees Nixon’s antagonistic relationship with the press as intricately linked to his insecurities; Nixon’s social awkwardness combined with his

paranoia and his personal experiences with the media until, to him, “The press [was] the enemy.”

In 1952, a political opponent accused Nixon of having a secret slush fund, and the liberal press jumped on it. To save his reputation — and his spot as vice president on the Republican ticket — Nixon delivered a speech on television. Farrell said that his infamous “Checkers Speech” showed Nixon how far TV could reach: He could reach an audience without talking to any reporters. And Nixon was in awe.

Farrell believes that Nixon used television as a way of evading the press. After the successful speech — which took its name from Nixon’s dog, a gift from a supporter — Nixon didn’t worry about reporters not showing up for press conferences. “Fuck it,” he’d say, “We don’t need them.”

In 1960, Nixon had to compete with John F. Kennedy for the press’ attention, and Kennedy easily won reporters’ adulation. Farrell explained that some reporters viewed assignments to cover Kennedy as an honor, while reporting on Nixon was a hated chore.

Their preference wasn’t a secret, and Farrell cites the 1960 election cycle as the beginning of “the conservative lament that right-wing candidates face the bias of the liberal media.”

After losing the race for California governor in 1962, Nixon held what he claimed would be his fi-

nal press conference. Bitter that the LA Times’ new editor wouldn’t use the paper as a conservative mouthpiece, Nixon told the press they would miss having him to kick around.

Farrell cited a few events which enabled Nixon’s triumphant return on the 1968 Republican ticket: Barry Goldwater’s disastrous 1964 presidential bid, Robert Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King’s assassinations, and the ongoing Vietnam War. Nixon attempted to portray himself as a new man in 1968, but “Tricky Dick was still Tricky Dick,” Farrell said. Decades after his first clashes with the media, Nixon was still paranoid, evasive and self-deprecating. In the spring of 1973 a former publisher of the LA Times, Norman Chandler, was dying. Nixon’s staff twice told Chandler that Nixon was coming to pay his respects, and Nixon twice declined to show up. His resentment ran deep.

Farrell compared Nixon to President Trump, another president who “[based] his campaign on resentment … and [declared] over and over again, ‘The bankrupt New York Times,’ and … ‘The press is your enemy.’”

Farrell concluded by telling students to understand the dual forces of ire and retaliation.

They go back and forth over a period of years, he said, and end in an American tragedy.

LISMAN: Community remembers Prof’s legacy CONTINUED FROM 1 tiative, according to an Oct. 14, 2014 Justice article.

His commitment to science was unwavering. While in the intensive care unit shortly before his death, Lisman delivered a remote talk to the Volen Center retreat, an annual conference which facilitates conver-

sations between Brandeis University and the Volen National Center for Complex Systems scientific communities. He began his presentation: “It’s really exciting for me to give this talk because it’s a quest of over 30 years; I don’t think that’s very common these days, to have such a long quest. In any case, that’s how long it took to almost settle this ques-

tion: what is the molecular basis of memory?”

Beyond his scientific achievements, Lisman was a great supporter of the arts, particularly at Brandeis.

He served on the faculty advisory committee for the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts and was part of the search committee that recruited Chris Bedford as director of

the Rose Art Museum, according to a Oct. 11, 2011 Justice article. Bedford left the Rose in 2016.

As a teacher, Lisman was a favorite with Brandeis students. He brought his first-hand research experience into the classroom in an engaging way.

“We are, and still will be, so influenced by your stunning thoughts

and ideas. Will never forget the discussions we had,” colleague Kei Igarashi tweeted.

Lynch promised that Lisman’s legacy will be celebrated later this week; details will be included in a forthcoming email according to Lynch’s original email.

Lisman is survived by his wife Natasha and their two children.

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features

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2017 ● Features ● The Justice

just

VERBATIM | HUNTER S. THOMPSON Truth is weirder than any fiction I’ve seen.

ON THIS DAY…

FUN FACT

In 1938, child labor in U.S. factories became illegal.

The first alam clock only rang at 4 a.m.

MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

MONEY PROBLEMS: “I adore superhighways, but money is the route of all evil in America,” said Alicia Ostriker ’59 during her poetry reading.

Poetry for a Country in Crisis Alicia Ostriker ’59 tackles immigration and the American dream through poetry By hannah shumel JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

It was an unusually warm afternoon on Oct. 19. The sun beamed in through the windows of Bethlehem Chapel, casting everything from the carvings of the cross adorned on the white walls to the various people, ranging from teenagers to seniors, in a golden hue. This scene was broken by applause as Alicia Suskin Ostriker stepped up to the podium.

Ostriker is an American poet and literary critic who has won countless awards and accolades for her work.

She has been a finalist for the National Book Award twice and was elected as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2015.

She was born in Brooklyn in 1937 and received her undergraduate degree from Brandeis in 1959. She has written a variety of works,

including poetry collections and academic texts, the latter of which include analyses and criticisms of other poets’ works and the Bible.

Ostriker’s poetry is designed to be accessible. She uses everyday language that does not require an extensive vocabulary to understand. Drawing upon images both mundane and ethereal, many of her poems aim to illuminate what it means to be human. In the first poem she read, “August Morning, Upper Broadway,” a man selling avocados at the side of a city street, tired from the heat and reading the newspaper because he has nothing better to do, becomes a window through which a light so radiant and otherworldly shines that it “[stabs] tourists with malicious abundant joy.”

Despite the raw emotion that this image conveys, Ostriker claims that she wasn’t satisfied with the poem. However, she was inspired by the

idea of cities, in particular how they are largely made up of — and even defined by — immigrants. These are recurring themes throughout a lot of her poems, but one poem in particular that conveys these subjects is “The Light.”

In this poem, she notes the various cultures that inhabit the city to the point where they are taking over.

“Porque no comprendes, you don’t own this city anymore.

This city belongs and has always belonged to its shoals of exiles,” she read. She explained that the image of “shoals of exiles” is designed to introduce the idea of the city being a shore to which immigrants, desperate to improve their lives and those of their loved ones and children, are swimming. In this way, the city is like a savior.

Ostriker believes that cities are the home of the American dream. However, she noted that this is not purely a good thing, as the

American dream itself is not inherently good. As such, cities are both good and bad.

In her poem “Manahattan,” she claimed “you [the city] digest dudes who crave to be big shots, celebrities, hedge fund managers who like to show off and be bad, who get a kick/ from champagne.”

While achieving fame and wealth is typically viewed as ideal and essential to the American dream, she puts this notion under an ominous light. In doing so, she reveals that while cities can bring fame and wealth to some, not everyone who goes to the city will receive those benefits. So while the city is a savior for some, it is also an empty promise to others.

In this way, the entirety of America is like a city. The merits and flaws of America as a whole are the main theme of her poem “Ghazal: America.” The poem opens with a list of what makes America ideal, especially

for immigrants: “When the babies starved, when the village burned, when you were flogged/ log out, ship out, there was a dream, the green breast of America.” However, as the poem progresses, its focus shifts to the negative aspects of America, such as racism, colonialism and the extreme culture surrounding the acquisition of money. As she stated, “I adore superhighways, but money is the route of all evil in America.”

As Ostriker read her poems, day turned to night. The air cooled, and all the light came from within the chapel.

While the scene was different from when she had begun the reading, it was still serene; the audience sat silent save for the occasional bouts of laughter when she made a joke. Perhaps this moment, as day transitioned to night and light mixed with darkness, was a reminder of the human experience that Ostriker conveys through her poetry.

the justice ● Features ● TUESDAY, october 24, 2017 CLEMENTS PARK/the Justice

HISTORY MATTERS: As deer populations have risen at an alarming rate in the Northeast, so have the cases of Lyme Disease.

Fighting Lyme Disease

Curbing the deer population could help, but there is a better way By emily rae foreman JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Is there a solution to the spread of Lyme Disease in the Northeast? On Thursday, Oct. 19 in the Reading Room of the Mandel Center for the Humanities, a group of professors, professionals and students gathered to discuss potential solutions to the disease. The talk was called “Deer, Ticks and Lyme Disease: A Tangled Tale of History and Ecology” and was hosted by Prof. Brian Donahue (ENVS) and Eric Olson, a senior lecturer of The Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

Donahue began by stating that both he and his son have had Lyme disease. In 2012, he was on a committee to reintroduce bowhunting to areas of Massachusetts. Bowhunting is the use of a bow instead of a gun to hunt various game, especially deer. The bowhunt was a highly contested decision and was petitioned ardently by animal rights groups, but as Donahue explained, “Lyme disease has completely changed the discussion on deer... Without deer, no ticks, no Lyme disease.”

Donahue went on to draw a chart representing the growth in deer population. He explained that over the past 10,000 years, there have been three main stages of change in deer populations. Roughly 10,000 years ago, there were estimated to be 30 million white tailed deer in what is now the U.S. This number was found by estimating the number of Native Americans at the time and multiplying that estimate by an approximated number of deer per person. Though it is not an exact number, this estimate is widely accepted by the scientific community.

In the 1600s, when Europeans arrived in North America, the deer population fell dramatically to an estimated 30,000. There was a large market for deerskins back in Europe and deer were a primary source of game meat.

Donahue noted that another era of population change occurred from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, when hunters, including people such as Teddy Roosevelt, changed hunting laws.

Hunters wanted a more authentic and challenging hunt and sought to protect the deer population so

that hunting could return as an accessible recreational activity with a “fair chase.” Due to this change, the deer population rose back to roughly 30 million. Donahue brought attention to the fact that “we hear all about deer overpopulation, but it’s something like it was before [European colonization].” What changed instead was the distribution; deer began flooding suburbs and areas populated by humans. With the cohabitation of deer and humans, Lyme Disease arrived in the Northeast.

Olson stepped up next and began by showing the room a vial containing several live tick specimens. He admitted that “these are in [his] fridge next to [his] milk.”

Ticks can live up to a year in a refrigerator without feeding. They hold onto vegetation with their back legs and wait for months until an animal passes by. The reason deer in particular pose a threat to the spread of Lyme Disease is their size; deer are likely to host many ticks, which then have a chance to breed on the deer. Olson remarked, “Deer are like a walking singles bar for ticks.” The growth in Lyme Disease in the past century has been remarkable and highly concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest. A new estimate by the Center for Disease Control, which incorporated the estimated number of unreported cases, said that there may have been as many as 30,000 new cases of Lyme Disease in the United States per year.

Olson addressed the audience directly, asking if people had been afflicted with Lyme Disease; four people, including Olson and Donahue, raised their hands, meaning that 25 percent of the audience had suffered from the disease.

Deer are not the only culprits; mice, opossums and chipmunks, as well as other animals can act as hosts to ticks and the disease those ticks carry. Olson argued that the termination of these animals or the introduction of these animals’ natural predators into forests would not help lower the percentage of infected animals.

Instead, he supported the idea that “as you add species, the number of infected ticks comes down lower and lower.” In a forest with a more diverse animal population, ticks will have a larger number of animals to feed on and will therefore be less likely to feed on

PHOTO COURTESY OF CREATIVE COMMONS

OH DEER: “Deer are like a walking singles bar for ticks,” said Eric Olson, a senior lecturer at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management. an animal with Lyme Disease.

But when it comes to fighting increasing deer populations in the suburbs, there is no simple answer. Olson and Donahue both support the reintroduction and popularization of deer hunting and, in particular, bowhunt-

ing. An audience member asked if there were safety risks, but Donahue chimed in, reassuring that bowhunts are extremely safe. The bow is only effective in short ranges, and many of the bowhunters are policemen or firemen and are extensively

trained. While the decision to reintroduce hunting as a popular pastime may be highly contested, many people support the motion as a way to fight the rise of Lyme disease, which threatens more and more people every year, especially here in the Northeast.

CLEMENTS PARK/the Justice

THE SOLUTION: A more diverse animal population could reduce the number of ticks that feed on animals that carry Lyme Disease.

9

10 TUESDAY, October 24, 2017 ● forum ● THE JUSTICE

the

Justice Established 1949

Brandeis University

Abby Patkin, Editor in Chief Amber Miles, Managing Editor Carmi Rothberg, Senior Editor Kirby Kochanowski and Sabrina Sung, Deputy Editors Michelle Banayan, Abby Grinberg, Lizzie Grossman, Noah Hessdorf, Mihir Khanna, Mira Mellman, Jerry Miller, Associate Editors Michelle Dang, News Editor, Victor Feldman, Acting Features Editor Nia Lyn, Forum Editor, Ben Katcher, Sports Editor Hannah Kressel, Arts Editor Yvette Sei, Acting Photography Editor, Natalia Wiater, Photography Editor Morgan Mayback, Acting Layout Editor, Pamela Klahr and Robbie Lurie, Ads Editors Jen Geller and Avraham Penso, Copy Editors

EDITORIALS Recognize Sodexo’s accomplishments among flaws Sodexo has taken great strides toward improving the dining experience for University students, and this board commends Sodexo on its efforts to please as many students as possible with the food served in the dining halls. However, because Sodexo has an everlasting capacity for improvement, this board has recommendations looking into the future.

On Oct. 18, the University hosted a “Battle of the Chefs!” in which chefs from Wheelock College, English First International Language Campus of Boston, Suffolk University and Brandeis University competed against each other by creating culinary street cuisine. The Facebook event created for this competition advertised Japanese, Mexican, Korean and American specialties.

In the end, Brandeis chefs were crowned victorious, and this board applauds Sodexo for their recent attempts to not only expand options for students in the dining halls but also incorporate some fun. Sodexo’s themed meals in both Sherman and Usdan dining halls are one of many ways to increase the variety of food offered on campus. Past efforts have included Harry Potter- and Halloweenthemed meals. These events are a step in the right direction and should be encouraged.

Another positive effort made by Brandeis dining services is to remove taxes on any food-related purchases on campus.

Specifically, this applies to students who are not on a meal plan and pay out-of-pocket for a meal swipe into a dining hall or items at the Hoot Market.

Relieving the extra cost that taxes can contribute to a purchase, especially for a basic necessity like food, benefits students.

Even acknowledging these attempts to enhance students’ dining experience, this board urges Sodexo to continue looking for ways to improve.

Recently, the company released a campus dining survey to assess students’ opinions of their dining experience.

This board applauds Sodexo’s initiative on this front because it is important to value students’ voices. Furthermore, with each survey response, Brandeis Dining will donate $1 to the American Red Cross to support the hurricanerelief efforts in the United States and Puerto Rico.

Some of the questions on the survey address hours of operation and pricing, which are two areas that need improvement. This semester in particular, dining locations’ hours have not consistently followed posted times. For example, the Hoot Market was closed unexpectedly on Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017 and Saturday, Oct. 21, 2017. Such last-minute alterations to the dining schedule can pose major inconveniences to students, and this is made worse by Sodexo’s failure to communicate the new, temporary hours.

Commend innovative cuisine

This board recognizes that unexpected circumstances may arise and require impromptu changes to dining locations’ hours. However, we urge Sodexo to publicize these schedule changes as much as possible by making sure the “What’s Open Now” section of the University Dining website is up to date.

Additionally, sending an email to notify students of any irregular dining hours would go a long way toward fostering good communication with the University community and ensuring that students are able to benefit from the dining options on campus.

This board also urges Sodexo to review pricing for meal plans, namely the 120- and 80- block semester meal plans offered to residents of the Charles River Apartments, Ridgewood Quad, 567 South St. and Foster Mods. Assuming one point is equal in value to one dollar, each meal swipe on these meal plans comes out to $14.80 and $17.90 for the 120-block meal plan and 80-block meal plan, respectively.

By contrast, for the faculty and staff block meal plan options, each swipe is worth $8.00 and $7.50 per meal on a 15-block meal plan and 30-block meal plan, respectively. Because many students are on financial aid and may have a hard time paying for meal plans, it is concerning that students pay almost double for a meal swipe as faculty and staff.

Along with this, it is unacceptable that Sodexo does not provide clear information about the dollar value of a single point. The above figures assume that one point is equal in value to one dollar, which may not be accurate. This board urges Sodexo to look into options for making the cost of student meal swipes more reasonable — particularly on the block plans — and encourages the University to increase transparency regarding the monetary value of dining points.

Another critical area for improvement is making sure the food scales used in the Hoot Market are accurate. Each scale is attached to the cash register so that students can be charged for that food item accurately. One scale has been inspected by the Department of Weights and Measures and is legal to use.

The scale attached to the opposite register is not certified and is deemed incorrect by the Department of Weights and Measures. This board urges Sodexo to fix the second scale or purchase a new one. Using a dysfunctional scale runs the risk of overcharging students for food.

Overall, this board commends Sodexo for its attempts to improve the student dining experience thus far. However, we encourage Sodexo to look into other areas of improvement and continue to strive to make University dining as efficient and accessible to as many students as possible.

BEN JARRETT/the Justice

Views the News on

According to an Oct. 16 New York Times article, former Marine Sergeant Major, Damien Rodriguez was charged with a felony-level hate crime and assault after he attacked employees at an Iraqi restaurant in Portland, Oregon. His friends and family, however, claim that his actions were the result of PTSD and not hatred. Do you feel that Rodriguez’s charges are appropriate?

Jack Maniscalco ’19 The standard of evidence required for successfully prosecuting a federal hate crime is relatively high, and I think the prosecution will find the task quite difficult if they pursue those charges. I’ve read the story. I don’t think the Sgt. Major’s assault was premeditated.

I think this is a case where prosecutors are trying to make an example out of individuals who commit crimes that are in any way perceived as “hate crimes.” Portland has been an epicenter for hate-motivated crimes recently, so this is understandable, but not warranted in my opinion. Were Mr. Rodriguez’s actions illegal? Of course, and I think he should be prosecuted accordingly. It is very easy for us to judge a man during a moment of anger. To ignore the four tours of combat service he undertook, and the PTSD that he still suffers from, would be to ignore the root cause of the problem.

Jack Maniscalco ’19 is majoring in History with a minor in Legal Studies.

Ravi Simon ’19 Hate crimes are particularly pernicious because of the way they essentialize people and spread fear. Yet situations in which the interests of different marginalized groups seem to cut against one another are some of the most difficult to resolve. Damien Rodriguez’s case simultaneously reflects the ugly trend of increasing violence against minorities in this country and a broken system for treating mental illness, especially for veterans. He came back from four tours in Iraq a broken man, suffering from terrible PTSD. He also assaulted a waiter in an Iraqi restaurant run by Ghaith Sahib, a refugee who had escaped Iraq after his family had been threatened and he had been put into a coma by a car bombing.

Mr. Rodriguez should not get off easy, but we should take pause at the idea of throwing a mentally ill veteran behind bars. In a culture of mass incarceration, we are wired to expect and demand lengthy prison sentences. If we want to prevent veterans from committing these sorts of crimes, they must be given the medical care they need and deserve.

Ravi Simon ’19 is the Europe Section Editor for the Brandeis International Journal and a member of the Brandeis Academic Debate and Speech Society. He is also a staff writer for the Justice.

Aaron Finkel ’20 A “court of public opinion” is not a “court of law.” While the hate crime charge against Mr. Rodriguez is certainly an understandable accusation to make, there are always two sides to a story. The court must also analyze Mr. Rodriguez’s troubled past, which includes four deployments to war zones, and all the traumatizing experiences that followed. The New York Times at one point describes his behavior as “typical behavior of veterans with PTSD.” I do not know all the facts, nor am I hearing the full arguments from both sides. Therefore, no matter what I may think of the situation, I am in no position to judge Mr. Rodriguez, nor is anyone else who isn’t in a courtroom hearing the case. I will, however, emphasize that hate crimes and untreated mental health conditions are both serious issues that must be addressed by our society.

Aaron Finkel ’20 is majoring in Politics.

Tafara Gava ’20 Regardless of Marine Sergeant Major Damien Rodriguez’s alleged PTSD, I believe the hate-crime and assault charges placed on him are appropriate. If he will not be tried for traumatizing the Iraqi employees he should be tried for not seeking medical help to work on his PTSD. Current trends in America’s ideas of individualism and identity politics are very concerning. We are condoning the precedence of individual interests over those of the community at large. It all goes back to Rousseau’s idea of the Social Contract. By virtue of living in a community, we need to compromise our degrees of independence so as to as ensure the well-being of others. Indeed, Mr. Rodriguez could be suffering from a legitimate mental health disorder that needs attention.

But this fact alone cannot exonerate him from how he was not posed as a harm to others, but also to himself. At the very least, a mature and decorated member of the Navy like him should be held accountable for not addressing his PTSD. Tafara Gava ’20 is a staff writer for the Justice.

THE JUSTICE ● fORUM ● TUESDAY, october 24, 2017

11

Urge reform in sentencing severity for drug possession Andrew

jacobson reality check

Last summer, I worked as an Intern Investigator for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where I helped represent adults and youth caught up in the criminal justice system. One thing that struck me was the number of our clients that were charged with drug offenses, convicted and then sentenced to astonishing time periods in jail.

Most were from “across the river,” the district’s euphemism for Wards 7 and 8, where income and high school graduation rates are both drastically lower than in other parts of the city. As a side note, D.C. is a sharply segregated city, both by race and class. Even today, driving less than a mile can take you from a neighborhood that is 80 percent white to one that is 80 percent Black, as shown in a 2015 Brookings report.

“Across the river” also happens to graciously host the district’s jail, where I spent much of my time interviewing clients, generally indigent D.C. residents accused of crimes. While some were charged with violent crimes — aggravated assault, sexual assault and murder, for instance — many were charged for non-violent offenses, often involving drugs. This fact is also reflected nationally: The Federal Bureau of Prisons most recently reported that 46.3 percent of all prison inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses, a startling number.

Even more startling is the sheer number of inmates currently incarcerated: 2.2 million, which is the highest number of people incarcerated in any single country in the world. According to a Feb. 28, 2008 New York Times article, this is more than one in every 100 adults. That’s right: We have just under five percent of the world’s population and yet almost a quarter of the world’s prison population, according to data from the U.S. census and the World Prison Population List.

Politicians and activists across the political spectrum have come to designate this “mass incarceration” as a grave civil rights issue.

In her 2010 book “The New Jim Crow,” Michelle Alexander argues that the problem arose with Nixon’s “War on Drugs” in the 1970s, a time when domestic and street crime rates were at all-time highs. Under pressure to maintain public safety, federal and state legislatures imposed “mandatory-minimum

sentencing,” an effort to reduce individual judges’ discretion in imposing sentences, she writes. These mandatory minimums and other factors — such as increased policing — drove prison rates to skyrocket. In fact, from 1975 to 2015 the U.S. prison and jail population increased by 500 percent, according to a report by the Sentencing Project.

These increased mandatory minimums have driven more and more cases to end in plea bargaining instead of trial. In fact, according to a Dec. 5, 2013 article by Human Rights Watch, 97 percent of federal drug offenders plead guilty. The article cites that this is due to their choice of either pleading and receiving 10 years in prison, or risking parole by going to jail. Oftentimes poorly represented by public defenders, people charged with drug crimes often cannot reasonably take on the risk of going to trial.

As the title of Alexander’s book implies, she also maintains that mass incarceration is an extension of slavery and Jim Crow. As the political attitudes toward the oppression of Black people evolved, she argues, the “system” designed to keep white people in a position of power changed accordingly.

When slavery became no longer acceptable, Jim Crow took its place. When Jim Crow was no longer acceptable, mass incarceration took its place. It is within this narrative of white-on-Black oppression that Alexander contextualizes mass incarceration today.

“

Perhaps for certain drug crimes, rehabilitation is a better option than jail, and this is something we must consider.

According to a report from the Sentencing Project, this disparity in our state’s prisons is no joke; African-Americans are incarcerated at 5.1 times the rate of white people. However, fully attributing this number to racism neglects other important contributing factors.

For one, in his new book “Locking Up Our Own,” Yale Law School professor James Foreman Jr. disputes this claim. Foreman Jr. worked as an attorney at the Public Defender Service in the 1990s.

He opens his book with an anecdote about a time he noticed that all the government officials involved in a particular case — from the prosecution, to the judge and bailiff — were African-American. Why? One reason, he points out, is because a vast majority of

JULIANNA SCIONTI/the Justice

African-American leaders and community members supported tough-on-crime approaches from the 1970s through the 1990s.

Many of the inner cities were replete with crime, and with the crack epidemic surging the issue only became worse.

Similarly, Eric Holder, then United States Attorney for Washington D.C., channeled his residents’ desire for safety on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in 1995 when he introduced “Operation Ceasefire,” which gave police officers greater leeway to stop cars and search them for guns. Holder argued that the responsibility for rampant crime lies primarily within the African-American community itself. “Young Black males make up one percent of the national population but account for 18 percent of the nation’s homicides,” he once said, and AfricanAmericans have the right to be safe.

A proper approach to reforming our prisons and jails would rely on appropriately attributing responsibility. There’s no doubt that our criminal justice system needs reforming, and I think a good place to start would be lowering sentences for low-level drug offenses and crimes that are nonviolent. Whether jail actually deters people from smoking a joint is up for debate, but with the decriminalization of marijuana in many states we are already moving in this direction. Perhaps for certain drug crimes rehabilitation is a better option than jail, and this is something we must consider.

The bottom line is that we need to renew the conversation of what jail is and what we, as a society, use it for.

Our approach must not be grounded in the whim of political tides but rather in hard data.

Recognize the possibly beneficial impact of celebrity status

By EMMA FECKO JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING writer

It is no secret that celebrities have won over our attention; they fill us with joy, make us weep at our television screens and run our bank accounts thin with their new releases.

Most importantly, though, they can compel us to listen. Beyoncé, for example, has a name that is almost universally known. While the icon has a slew of accolades, one of the most relevant now is her commitment to social justice. From her 2014 Video Music Awards medley performance proudly proclaiming herself as a feminist to her 2016 music video “Formation,” which brought attention to the rampant police violence in our society, Beyoncé has illustrated why it is important for celebrities to speak out.

Such importance has been demonstrated most recently; A plethora of notable figures has spoken out in condemnation of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment allegations.

George Clooney, Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain have all made public statements urging society to denounce Weinstein, according to an Oct. 13 Washington Post article. Clooney referred to the actions as “indefensible,” and Lawrence called his actions “inexcusable and absolutely upsetting.” Chastain expressed concern about allowing abuse to continue: “To deny [the stories] is to create an environment for it to

happen again.”

By shedding light on a situation that is rarely mentioned, the aforementioned stars demonstrate the need for more celebrities to use their voices for social justice. By the very nature of being in the spotlight — starring in blockbuster movies, singing in Billboard Top 100 songs, or even posting amusing videos — those who have the media’s attention simply stand out more than us regular folk. As such, they have the platform needed to make a difference and encourage change.

Emma Watson is a prime example. After collecting an abundance of devotees post“Harry Potter,” she has become an outspoken proponent of gender equality, speaking at the United Nations and continuously representing her charity HeForShe, according to a Sept. 22, 2014 article in The Telegraph.

Additionally, both Elton John and Alicia Keys have been vanguards for the fight against HIV/AIDS through their respective charities, Elton John Aids Foundation and Keep A Child Alive, according to a Nov. 11, 2015 article in Billboard. Angelina Jolie and Sean Penn have been involved in global humanitarian issues with their extensive list of accomplishments, including Jolie’s movements to open schools in the Middle East and Penn’s 2017 fundraiser “Haiti Rising,” wherein he gathered celebrities together to raise money for the Haitian relief efforts, according to a May 10 article in the New

York Times. Also, Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo have been major supporters of bettering the environment, with DiCaprio’s fundraisers bustling with famous faces (evidenced in a July 27 Vanity Fair article) and Ruffalo’s fundraisers for his foundation, Water Defense, just to name a few.

However, there are still celebrities that use their status primarily for their own benefit.

The Kardashians, for instance, have become a staple in our 21st century lives, and even though it may not be completely clear why any of them are noteworthy, where they lead we will follow. This includes buying any product that they promote.

According to a Dec. 17, 2015 Huffington Post article, Kendall Jenner and her model friends Gigi Hadid and Cara Delevigne all make $300,000 per Instagram post. Yes, $300,000. That is more than some people may earn in 10 years. Knowing the magnitude of their influence, it is no wonder then that celebrities get paid an exorbitant amount of money to promote products on their various social media accounts. These famous figures receive more money than they have use for and companies make a profit from the fans who find any and every way to replicate their idols and their lifestyles.

Of course, the dollar amount depends on the star’s rank in Hollywood, but suffice it to say even “D-listers” are rolling in what they make from sponsored content. While social media

followers may think that they are lucky enough to use the same face cream that Kim Kardashian applies to her perfect skin, more often than not, Kim K’s only experience with the product is those few seconds she spends taking a selfie with it.

This trend has inspired the Federal Trade Commission to tighten its rules on celebrities posting ambiguous ads, according to a Jun. 14 article from Bloomberg. Now, stars have to signal by hashtag or by tagging the company that the sneakers, teeth whitening kits or detox teas they are posing with pay for their Bentleys. Though this may not diminish sales, it does make it clear that celebrities are being paid for these promotions, rather than sharing their own ideas.

With this being said, there is nothing inherently wrong with celebrities using their fame to make more money with these ads, but their time is better spent raising awareness for issues that actually matter.

Considering our modern obsession with television, movies and all things pop culture, celebrities have found their way into not just our homes but our hearts as well. This makes it all the more significant that they use this popularity to inspire change from their enthusiasts. Celebrities need to recognize just how impressionable their audience is and choose to use their fame to shed light on worthy causes and uplift those without a voice.

The opinions expressed on this page are those of each article’s respective author and do not reflect the viewpoint of the Justice.

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12

TUESDAY, october 24, 2017 ● forum ● THE JUSTICE

FORUM

Condemn White House decision to revoke DACA status

By ELIAS ROSENFELD JUSTICE staff writer

On Sept. 5, the Trump administration chose to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that shielded 800,000 young immigrants from deportation and enabled them to apply for work permits and social security numbers after a series of strict background and security checks, according to a Sept. 5 New York Times article. While the decision was unnecessary and heartless, it formed a sense of urgency that mobilized action in Congress toward a bipartisan solution to protect Dreamers. The solution, according to both sides of the conversation, consisted of sensible border security — in the form of drones and advanced technology — in partnership with the DREAM Act, according to a Sept. 14 New York Times article. The president said he would still pursue the wall but would not make it a demand when signing legislation aimed at protecting Dreamers. A Sept. 28 Fox News poll showed that 86 percent of voters support legislation to give Dreamers work permits, and even more incredibly, 62 percent of voters view this issue as an extremely important matter for Congress to focus on. The support in Congress was further reflecting this support, with now 200 House members co-sponsoring the DREAM/RAC Act in the House, according to the U.S. Congress. In the Senate, a bipartisan push has resulted in several pieces of legislation to support Dreamers, with wide support from Senators from both sides.

On Oct. 5, the DACA program officially stopped accepting renewals. Thus, DACA recipients once again began to fear deportation.

However, the legislative momentum translated to over 100 Dreamers from across 25 states traveling to the District of Columbia to speak with their members of Congress on the emotional and fiscal impact of not passing legislation to protect Dreamers. I had the privilege of attending and lobbying GOP members from my home state of Florida to support Dreamers. In all of our meetings, we saw a genuine bipartisan interest to protect Dreamers and continue our contributions to our communities. This energy was felt in the joint press conferences with a bipartisan group of Senators and Speaker Paul Ryan’s willingness to create a working committee to solve this urgent issue.

However, this momentum was stopped when the Trump administration, largely influenced

by President Donald trump’s senior advisor for policy, Stephen Miller, chose to undermine the president’s previous commitment to protect Dreamers and solve this situation “with heart,” as stated earlier this year, according to a Feb. 16 Politico article.

According to an Oct. 8 New York Times article, the White House demanded that to

AARON MARKS/the Justice

pass any legislation to protect Dreamers, there must be legislation that funds a wall, decreases and completely overhauls the legal immigration system, increases immigration judges and interior enforcement, and seeks to establish a national E Verify program to prevent undocumented immigrants from receiving jobs.

“

Dreamers already know: We are American in every aspect of our life but on paper.

These demands are unrealistic, with many members of the president’s own party disagreeing with his attempts to reduce legal immigration.

Now this administration is seeking more out of bipartisan Dreamer legislation than the entirety of a whole immigration reform package.

More importantly, this is a plan by Miller to prevent and sabotage any possible deal to protect Dreamers, even with most Americans disagreeing with this opinion. Congress should pursue a clean DREAM Act, treating independent issues as such and not engaging in the political football of over 800,000 lives that are in imminent threat. Congress should rebuke these demands and pass the bipartisan DREAM Act by allowing a floor vote in the House. There is no rational reasoning to prevent the passing of the most bipartisan legislation in Congress, specifically in a period known for deep gridlock and partisanship. Americans deserve a Congress that works to protect and represent their voices; deporting Dreamers is the exact opposite.

Rhetoric is cheap, and now is the time to translate this support into action by mobilizing, advocating and demanding legislation to protect Dreamers.

This harsh rhetoric was further exceeded

when Attorney General Jeff Sessions touted the Miller-favored hardline immigration policies that a minority of the nation supports, according to an Oct. 20 article in the Huffington Post. It is important to remember that Sessions, not the president, announced the removal of the DACA program.

In fact, a wide majority of the administration officials and surrogates including Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Chief of Staff John Kelly, Dina Powell and many others were in support of extending DACA, according to an Oct. 9 Time article. This attempt to hijack the president’s intentions must be shown through the wide support of Dreamers by Trump’s own voting group.

Nearly no other issue is as urgent in the current political climate we find ourselves in. Thousands of doctors, students, teachers, nurses and soldiers are going to sleep every night without knowing their future in a couple of months. We must finally actualize what all of us 800,000 Dreamers already know: We are American in every aspect of our life but on paper.

Question standards for what US considers legitimate marriage

By SABRINA SUNG JUSTICE EDITOR

Gabrielle Zevin has been in a relationship for over 20 years, and she does not believe in marriage. She elaborates upon this concept in her essay published on Oct. 6 as a part of the New York Times Modern Love series.

The title is fitting: “The Secret to Marriage is Never Getting Married.” Heartfelt, insightful, the essay is a love letter, a record of a lasting relationship and — in my opinion — an exposé on an understated problem in contemporary American society.

The United States, more so than other countries, seems confused about marriage on a conceptual level. Despite the government’s purported separation of church and state, marriage is rewarded with the bureaucratic benefits of tax deductions and implicit visitation rights. The sanctity of marriage is something to be protected within a society in which television programs such as “The Bachelor” and “Married at First Sight” thrive. Over the years, both the meaning and the societal role of marriage in America have become inscrutable.

Although same-sex marriage was legalized by the Supreme Court on June 26, 2015, existing arguments against the ruling expose several conflicted views on what marriage means to a society. One argument on ProCon. org cites a California Supreme Court ruling from 1859, which states that “the first purpose of matrimony, by the laws of nature and society, is procreation,” and it further supports this point with quotes asserting that children are the sole purpose for the legalization of marriage.

Is marriage in modern America, then, a means of securing the future generation?

If so, the tax deductions and legal benefits certainly make sense, so as to incentivize this institution. However, not every recognized union results in children, sometimes for

medical reasons, sometimes by choice. The U.S. government does not require the birth of children for a marriage to be recognized.

Further, according to a report by the U.S. Children’s Bureau, over 400,000 children were in foster care, with 100,000 waiting to be adopted in 2014. There is no shortage of children in the United States.

Additionally, platonic parenting is on the rise in recent years. More commonly known as “co-parenting,” a Feb. 21 Washington Post article explains that it is an arrangement in which two or more individuals “join forces for the sole reason of having and raising a child,” which opens up endless possibilities. Such an arrangement, though unconventional, is one established as a result of a mutual interest in having children and allows for just as loving an environment as a more traditional union. A platonic parenting arrangement is not recognized as a marriage, and due to the strong romantic connotations that tie into the American concept of marriage, co-parents may not even desire a marriage.

According to a Sept. 26, 2014 Forbes article, the current American system of marriage is such that a couple that marries on a whim upon meeting is able to receive marital tax deductions, Social Security benefits and various other spousal package deals — commercial, capitalistic and otherwise.

According to the Department of Labor, this couple would be able to share employment, insurance and retirement plans, and according to the Human Rights Campaign this couple would have implicit visitation rights should their partner be incapacitated in a hospital and have a say in any medical decisions that happen henceforth.

However, lifelong friends who choose platonic cohabitation over romance may not. Co-parents invested in raising a child together may not. Zevin and “the man [she] is not married to,” partners of 20 years, may not. In her essay, Zevin shares an anecdote in

which she and her partner were berated by a customs agent for sharing a suitcase. Because they were not legally recognized as a family, they were meant to go through customs separately, and the shared suitcase was an anomaly in a system designed in another era.

Now, it is true that there exists a potential workaround. The United States does possess the concept of a domestic partnership, in which two cohabiting individuals can register to be considered a unit and receive all the benefits of a married partnership. However, domestic partnerships are not recognized in every state, and according to a June 3, 2016 Bustle article, can even vary from city to city. For example, California and New Jersey only allow domestic partnerships if one of the parties is over the age of 62, and private companies often do not offer benefits for these partnerships. So, for all it was posited as an equivalent alternative to marriage, it isn’t equivalent at all.

“

Marriage cannot be a matter of tradition, passion and governmental organization simultaneously.

Ultimately, the question I pose is one that we, as a society, have long forgotten to ask: What is marriage? Parts of it seem to be remnants of the past, from a time when children were scarce and mortality rates higher. Some of it seems to be a romantic achievement, a higher echelon on a scoreboard of passion for heterosexual, same-sex and polygamous relationships alike. The rest of it seems to

The opinions expressed on this page are those of each article’s respective author and do not reflect the viewpoint of the Justice.

be a way for the government to categorize units within the American populace, a structure upon which modern bureaucracy and economy is founded. It seems to me, from America’s confusion, that marriage cannot be all three at once.

Marriage cannot be a matter of tradition, passion and governmental organization simultaneously. More importantly, it does not need to be. Zevin’s essay is an explanation of why romance does not need marriage. At one point in her essay she explains, “I understand the financial and legal benefits [of marriage], but I don’t believe the government or a church or a department store registry can change the way I already feel and behave.” Her viewpoint is not a difficult one to understand, nor is it a new one by any measure.

Following two marriages, Audrey Hepburn spent nine years of her life, from 1980 to death, in a relationship with actor Robert Wolders.

In the biography, “How to Be Lovely: The Audrey Hepburn Way of Life” by Melissa Hellstern, the actress is quoted to have said that she considered Wolders and herself married and that, in not marrying, they were choosing to stay together every day. Zevin reflects this sentiment in her essay: “I choose you above any other person. I chose you 21 years ago and I choose you today.”

Co-parents and domestic partners remain examples of those who embody why a legally binding partnership, with all the benefits and long-term commitments that come with it, should not be bound to tradition and romantic feelings. A relationship does not need to be romantic to be lifelong and valued, but domestic partnerships are lacking, and marriage is too much a hallmark of romance to be a comfortable option for platonic partnerships. If the U.S. government continues to use marriage as a system to categorize life partners and domestic units, it must offer these benefits to non-romantic relationships as well.

2017

10 THE JUSTICE ● Sports ● Tuesday, OCTOBER 24, 2017

MSOCCER: Team hopes to notch its third straight victory CONTINUED FROM 16 smooth season thus far, with its only losses coming by slim margins and against quality opponents.

The key factor driving the Judges’ success on the season has been their characteristically effective defense. The team has given up more than two goals only once this season — in its first match of the year — and has shutout five opponents on the year.

With games against Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Chicago and New York University coming up, the squad will look to carry the

13

TRUE TOUGHNESS

momentum it has been building all season into the postseason.

Though the team began the year ranked higher than its current No. 18 ranking, it has proven itself as a powerhouse in Division III play all season. This is all the more impressive considering this is head coach Gabe Margolis’s first season at the reins. Margolis has been able to fill the shoes of legendary coach Mike Coven with grace and confidence. Brandeis is clearly in capable hands for years to come.

Looking ahead, the Judges hit the pitch on Friday evening to take on WashU at 5 p.m.

SWIMMING: Squads will both hope for WSOCCER: Club wants to strong outings on keep playoff dreams alive the road on Nov. 3

YDALIA COLON/the Justice

MIGHTY MIDFIELDER: Midfielder Katie Hayes ’20 shakes off her defender and muscles the ball down the pitch last Wednesday.

CONTINUED FROM 16

CONTINUED FROM 16

50-meter breaststroke with a time of 33.21 and the 100-meter breaststroke with a time of 1:12.56.

Similar to McGovern, Sheinhait had a win in the 50-meter backstroke with a time of 30.73.

Kim won the 100-meter backstroke with a time of 1:04.70. Natalya Wozab ’20 also earned gold as she was victorious in the 100-meter IM with a time of 1:05.33.

Brandeis came in first in the 200-meter freestyle relay with a

time of 1:46.04. The team consisted of two rookies in Sofia Chevez ’21 and Annie Huang ’21, as well as Sheinhait and Abby Damsky ’18.

For the diving portion of the meet, the men’s team came out on top in both events. For the 1-meter dive, Zucker placed first with a dive of 170.40. He then came in first for the 3-meter dive with a dive of 184.85. The women’s team did not place in the diving events.

The teams will be back in action on Friday, Nov. 3 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Schwartz to Sunday. The second Schwartz-Sunday connection came ten minutes later when the two perfectly executed a give-and-go, which Sunday knocked in over the Owls’ keeper. Fellow forward Julia Matson ’19 added her own standout performance, making the score 3-0 in favor of the Judges with her fourth goal of the season on an assist from Sunday. After a slow start to the second half, Sunday answered the lone goal from Westfield State with her third of the match.

This game was also the first for keeper Maura Koehler ’19, who had

a tremendous debut outing with four saves on five shots at the goal.

Koehler’s start came due to injuries to keepers Sierra Dana ’20 and Victoria Richardson ’20. These injuries forced the team to add a number of new players to the team to play keeper, including Koehler, Curnin and graduate student Pinto. Notably, Curnin and Pinto are both former Brandeis basketball players and will look to transfer those skills to help the Judges out in this unexpected tough spot.

Thinking back on the game, Sunday addressed this head on. “There has been too many injuries on our team this season, and we all intended to

play for Sierra, Vick, Kerin, Emmy, Becca and others whose seasons were ended early due to unfortunate injuries,” she said. This specifically influenced her play on Wednesday, which saw her attempt a career-high seven shots after not taking any in the previous week’s loss to Emory University. “Without Vick or Sierra in goal, our team was faced with the task of defending our new keeper and, as a forward, I saw my job as out scoring the other team.”

The Judges wind down their season with three conference games at home over the next two weeks. Next Friday, the team takes on Washington University in St. Louis.

SOCCER VOLLEYBALL SWIMMING TRACK

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THE JUSTICE ● Sports ● Tuesday, OCTOBER 24, 2017

jUDGES BY THE NUMBERS

15

VOLLEYBALL

Men’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS

Chicago JUDGES Rochester Emory Carnegie WashU Case NYU

UAA Conf.

W L D 3 1 0 3 1 0 3 1 0 3 1 0 2 2 0 1 3 0 1 3 0 0 4 0

TEAM STATS Goals

Overall W L D 13 1 0 11 3 0 9 2 2 11 4 0 10 3 1 7 5 1 5 8 2 8 5 1

Patrick Flahive ’18 leads the team with five goals.

Pct. Player Goals .929 Patrick Flahive 5 .786 Mike Lynch 4 .818 Josh Ocel 4 .733 Andrew Allen 3 .769 .583 Assists .385 Josh Ocel ’18 leads the team .615 with seven assists.

Player Assists Josh Ocel 7 Max Breiter 4 Andrew Allen 3 Jake Warren 3

EDITOR’S NOTE: Friday vs. WashU Sunday vs. University of Chicago Nov. 4 vs. New York University

WOMen’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS Goals

Chicago WashU Carnegie JUDGES NYU Emory Rochester Case

UAA Conf.

W L D 4 0 0 3 1 0 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 0 4 0 0 4 0

Overall W L D Pct. 15 0 0 1.000 12 1 1 .923 10 2 2 .833 11 2 3 .846 9 3 2 .750 9 4 1 .692 6 7 1 .462 6 9 0 .400

EDITOR’S NOTE: Friday vs. WashU Sunday vs. University of Chicago Nov. 4 vs. New York University

Samantha Schwartz ’18 is tied with a team-high eight goals.

Player Goals Samantha Schwartz 8 Sasha Sunday 8 Haliana Burhans 4 Julia Matson 4

Assists Sasha Sunday ’19 leads the team with nine assists.

Player Assists Sasha Sunday 9 Haliana Burhans 3 Katie Hayes 3 Hannah Maatallah 2

VOLLEYBALL UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS Kills

Carnegie WashU Chicago Emory Case Rochester NYU JUDGES

UAA Conf.

W L 6 1 6 1 5 2 4 3 4 3 2 5 1 6 0 7

Overall W L 25 1 19 6 19 5 21 5 16 10 15 10 7 20 12 11

Pct. .962 .760 .792 .808 .615 .600 .259 .522

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today at Rivier University Saturday at Bridgewater State Saturday at Salem State University

Marissa Borgert ’21 leads the team with 168 kills.

Player Kills Marissa Borgert 168 Emma Bartlett 155 Shea Decker-Jacoby 141 Zara Platt 106

Digs Yvette Cho ’19 leads the team with 389 digs.

Player Digs Yvette Cho 389 Shea Decker-Jacoby 180 Marissa Borgert 128 Clare Meyers 125

cross cOuntry Results from the Connecticut College Invitational on Saturday.

TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)

TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)

8-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Ryan Stender 25:31.7 Mitchell Hutton 25:57.0 Liam Garvey 26:26.3

6-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Emily Bryson 22:18.4 Julia Bryson 23:32.7 Niamh Kenney 23:55.1

EDITOR’S NOTE: Oct. 28 at UAA Championships (in New Jersey) Nov. 11 at NCAA New England Regional Championships (in Maine)

NATALIA WIATER/Justice File Photo

ROCK STAR ROOKIE: Middle hitter Belle Scott ’21 attempts to record a kill with a vicious slam over the net at home on Sept. 13.

Squad bounces back with two road wins ■ Outside hitter Shea Decker-Jacoby ’19 had 18 kills in a 3-1 win over Worcester State University.

By DONNIE WEISSE JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The women’s volleyball team capped off a great weekend at the Hall of Fame Invitational with its second win of the tournament over Connecticut’s Trinity College, improving to 12-11 — good for the most wins in a season for the team since they won 21 in 2012.

Judges 3, Trinity 0 After being swept by Hamilton College, the Judges looked to finish the weekend on a high note against the 6-12 Trinity College Bantams.

It was an all-around team effort, as four players had five or more kills in the match. However, it was All-Tournament right side hitter Marissa Borgert ’21 who led the team with eight.

Outside hitter Clare Meyers ’21 and middle hitter Emma Bartlett ’20 each added six or more kills, while outside hitter Shea Decker-Jacoby ’19 had five. Setter Marlee Nork ’19 added 19 assists, while Borgert

capped off her impressive weekend with 12. This was a solid all-around performance for the team and they will look to carry this momentum with them moving forward.

at the end of the season.

As a team, the Judges only hit .053 in the match, but their play would improve later that afternoon as they cruised past Trinity.

Judges 0, Hamilton 3 On Saturday, in the first match of a double-header, the Judges dropped three straight sets to Hamilton College in a tough match.

Nork was kept busy against Hamilton, contributing a team-high 19 assists. Borgert led the team in kills once again, tallying 10 total.

The first-year phenom is having a tremendous season in her first collegiate campaign for the Judges.

The right side hitter is leading the team in kills for the season with 168, and she is even third on the team in digs with 128 for the year. Her impact on the squad has been incredibly clear as Brandeis is having its best season in years.

Leading the team in digs for the second straight match was libero Yvette Cho ’19, who added 10. Cho is having yet another incredible season for the Judges, as she now has 389 digs for the year — 209 more than her next teammate. Cho has proven each and every match why she is one of two captains for this club. Additionally, since she is just a junior, the Judges will not be losing their fearless leader

Judges 3, Worcester State 1 The Judges finished 2-1 on the weekend, including a record-setting win over Worcester State University on Friday, who entered the game at 18-7. Five players set career-highs in kills, assists and digs in the match, carrying the Judges to a 3-1 win over the Lancers.

Decker-Jacoby led the team with 18 kills and 29 digs, while Nork also added a double-double with 36 assists and 17 digs. Borgert continued her impressive play up front with 15 kills.

It was a big win for the Judges, who broke above .500 while also taking down the first place team in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference.

After four straight seasons with 10 wins or less, the team has already shown promise and made drastic improvements. With only three regular season games remaining, all out of conference, the Judges will try to stay above .500 for the first time since 2012 and the third time since 2009. With a young core and some great wins, this team has certainly shown it has a very bright future.

PRO SPORTS BRIEF The resurging prospect of NBA superteams is not new and makes the league enjoyable to watch On July 8, 2010, the entire basketball world was watching ESPN, where superstar free agent forward LeBron James was about to announce where he would spend the next chapter of his career. Instead of returning to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers, James famously declared he would be taking his talents to South Beach, joining forces with guard Dwyane Wade and forward Chris Bosh in the hopes of bringing a title to the Miami Heat. James and Bosh each could have been paid more to play elsewhere, but they sacrificed some money in order to win a ring.

This was the creation of the first modern superteam and it took the National Basketball Association by storm. Many argue that this new fad of creating superteams in order

to win championships has “ruined” basketball. But how new is this phenomenon in reality?

Legendary forward Wilt Chamberlain was already established as one of the great players in the league when he demanded a trade from the Philadelphia 76ers following his 1967 championship season. The Sixers sent him to Los Angeles where he joined a Los Angeles Lakers team that already featured Hall of Famers guard Jerry West and forward Elgin Baylor. After losing to forward Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics in 1968 and the New York Knicks in 1969, the team reacquired a fourth hall of famer, guard Gail Goodrich, and finally won in 1972.

Since then, there have been

other superteams. Forward Charles Barkley spent time playing with guard Clyde Drexler and forward Hakeem Olajuwon later in his career. Guard Kobe Bryant spent time playing with forward Karl Malone and guard Gary Payton as Bryant was in his prime. But the teams were noticeably fewer and farther between.

After four years with Miami and a 2-2 record in the finals, James decided to return home with the sole purpose of bringing the city of Cleveland a championship — something they had not had in 52 years. Meanwhile, in Oakland, the Golden State Warriors were starting to put the pieces together on the most potent offense in recent memory. After defeating the Cavs in 2015, they posted a 72-9 record,

just beating out the 1996 Bulls for the best record in league history.

After nine years and no NBA titles, Kevin Durant wanted out of Oklahoma City. Rather than go to a middle-of-the-road team and try to make them a contender, Durant signed with the Warriors, adding to an already stellar team. Durant wanted a ring to legitimize him as one of the great players in the league and the Warriors had the ability to make that happen. To few people’s surprise, the Warriors cruised through the regular season and absolutely dominated the playoffs before beating the Cavs again in five games.

With the 2018 season approaching, NBA owners needed a way to make their teams competitive with the Warriors, so more superteams were

created. The Cavs, who had already made three straight finals, made a splash in the trade market, dealing star guard Kyrie Irving to the Celtics for guard Isaiah Thomas, forward Jae Crowder, forward Ante Zizic and a first and second round draft pick. The Houston Rockets added guard Chris Paul to create a powerhouse backcourt with guard James Harden. The Oklahoma City Thunder, with a void left by Durant, added forwards Paul George and Carmelo Anthony, who were both top-10 players in their primes.

The superteams of today are all competing against each other and it’s a blast to watch. This fad won’t last forever, but for now, it is a fun time to be a basketball fan.

—Zach Kaufman

just

Sports

Page 16

COMING BACK STRONG The women’s volleyball team improved its record to 12-11 with wins over Worcester State University and Trinity College, p. 15.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

WOMen’S SOCCER

FIGHT FOR THE BALL

Team stays alive even without Dana ■ Forward Sasha Sunday

’19 earned her first career hat-trick in a 4-1 win over Westfield State University.

By EVAN ROBINS JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The No. 21 women’s soccer team bounced back from its second loss of the season in dominating fashion with a win over Westfield State University on Wednesday before tying Elms College Sunday afternoon. This brings the Judges’ record to 11-2-3 as they enter their final three matches of the season.

Judges 2, Elms 2 The Judges’ final nonconference game of the season went into two overtimes Sunday afternoon, ending in the Judges’ third draw of the season. Down by two goals for the first 78 minutes of the match, forward Samantha Schwartz ’18 brought the team back from the jaws of defeat with two clutch scores, tying the game with seven minutes remaining in regulation. The Judges were unable to complete the comeback in regulation despite shots

Waltham, Mass.

from Schwartz and defender Hannah Maatallah ’19 in the final minute of play. Midfielder Daria Bakhtiari ’21 was extremely active throughout the match, breaking up the Blazers’ efforts down the field and protecting first-game keepers Gemma Curnin ’19 and Frankie Pinto ’18. Both performed impressively in their first games for the Judges, with Pinto in goal for the first half and Curnin taking over for the second half and overtimes. With two minutes to go in the second overtime, the Judges flipped in what was thought to be the game-winning goal, only to have it taken back by an offside call.

Schwartz’s two goals gives her eight on the season, tying her with forward Sasha Sunday ’19 for the team lead.

Judges 4, Westfield State 1 The Judges easily defeated the Westfield State University Owls last Wednesday, led by a hat-trick from Sunday. Sunday added an assist on top of her three goals, accounting for a career-high seven points. The junior came out firing early, giving the Judges the lead with a goal 10 minutes and 49 seconds into the game on the first of two assists from

See WSOCCER, 13 ☛

SWIMMING AND DIVING

Men’s team extends its undefeated start ■ While the women’s team

fell to an 0-3 mark, the men’s swimming and diving team defeated Vassar College.

By SAMANTHA PROCTOR JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams competed at Vassar College on Saturday. The men’s team came out on top with a score of 175-106, while the women’s team ended with a loss of 110.5-189.5.

For the men’s team, Richard Selznick ’21 continued to show his amazing potential still in the beginning of his first season with Brandeis. He placed in three events this meet with victories in the 1000-meter freestyle with a time of 10:12:43 — finishing 28 seconds before the next opponent — the 500-meter freestyle with a time of 5:29.33 and a third-place finish in the 200-meter IM with an outstanding time of 2:07.23.

The men’s team had many other victories throughout the meet as well. First-year Marcelo OhnoMachado ’21 brought home the gold in the 200-meter freestyle with a time of 1:51.10. Tamir Zitelny ’20 took two individual titles with a time of 2:00.81 in the 200-meter butterfly and a time of 2:03.29 in the 200-meter backstroke. Chase Chen ’21 continued to dominate within his class, winning the 100-meter freestyle with a time of 49.66.

The men’s team has also proven to be outstanding in the relay events this season. For the 400-meter freestyle relay, Brandeis came in first and second. The first-place relay team consisted of Daniel Wohl ’21, Ohno-Machado, Zitelny and Chen with a time of 3:20.80. The second-place relay team finished with a time of 3:23.63

and consisted of Daniel Haid ’20, Matt Arcemont ’20, Taku Harada ’18 and Selznick.

For the women’s team, Amy Sheinhait ’18 came in first in the 50-meter freestyle with a time of 26.69. She also added second-place finishes in both the 200-meter freestyle and the 100-meter freestyle with times of 2:08.63 and 59.16, respectively. Audrey Kim ’21 earned second-place finishes in the 100-meter backstroke and the 200-meter backstroke with times of 1:04.88 and 2:20.38, respectively.

Rachel Goldblatt ’21 showed off her amazing skills with a second-place finish in the 200-meter freestyle with a time of 2:23.86.

In the diving portion of the meet for both teams, Gemma Karp ’18 and Sam Zucker ’18 came in first with dives of 102.45 and 190.55, respectively, in the 1-meter diving event. Both divers also won the 3-meter diving event with dives of 133.35 and 185.25, respectively.

Before Saturday, the teams had their second scoring meets of the season at Hartwick College on Friday. The men’s team came out victorious with a score of 175-106 and the women’s team fell short with a score of 112.5-175.5.

For the men’s team, the firstyears were dominant. Selznick was able to pull off wins in two events this meet, earning victories in the 1000-meter freestyle with a time of 10:22.14 and the 500-meter freestyle with a time of 5:00.81. Along with Selznick, Chen was able to secure an individual win in the 100-meter freestyle with a time of 49.77. He brought home a team win as well in the 200-meter freestyle relay with teammates Oncho-Machado, Harada and Zitelny with a finishing time of 1:30.05.

For the women’s team, Emily McGovern ’21 won both the

See SWIMMING, 13 ☛

MADDOX KAY/Justice File Photo

FULL SPEED: Midfielder Joshua Handler ’19 tries to blow past his opponent and seize possesion of the ball at home on Sept. 13.

Judges earn their 11th win against the Cougars ■ Midfielder Noah Gans

’21 netted two goals in a 5-1 victory against Clark University on Wednesday.

By GABRIEL GOLDSTEIN JUSTICE SENIOR WRITER

The Judges took a leap forward in their pursuit of postseason play this past Wednesday, drop-kicking the Clark University Cougars 5-1 in their sole action of the week.

The squad has reeled off several convincing victories in recent weeks, proving their dominance against unranked Division III opponents. After dropping their first match of the season, the Judges have gone 11-2 and continue to control games with stifling defense and well-executed offense.

As the team heads into its final three-game stretch of the season, it has reason to feel confident that it will be making a deep postseason run for the second consecutive season. The Judges are looking to live up to the immense preseason hype that resulted from their exhilarating National Collegiate

Athletic Association Final Four appearance last year.

Judges 5, Clark 1 The Judges were in the driver’s seat throughout the entirety of Wednesday’s match against the Cougars, striking first in the 26th minute with a remarkable goal from rookie midfielder Noah Gans ’21.

The goal was assisted by forward Josh Ocel ’18, who continues to add to his stellar career resume. With the assist, Ocel tied his brother, Sam Ocel ’12, on Brandeis’ career scoring list with 75 points. Ocel would then take sole possession of 12th place on that list with a goal of his own in the 32nd minute.

The Judges struck again in the 40th minute when Gans and forward Andrew Allen ’19 executed a beautiful give-and-go sequence that set Gans up for his second goal of the game. The Judges were not finished there, as the squad tacked on another goal in the 42nd minute following yet another masterful offensive set facilitated again by Allen, who assisted midfielder Bernardo Ponte ’18 for a goal. The squad scored its fifth and final goal in the 56th minute, when midfielder

Max Breiter ’20 converted on a strike that was assisted by midfielder Alex Walter ’20. The Cougars spoiled the Judges’ shutout bid just after Breiter connected on his goal, as sophomore forward Sean Munroe scored a goal to put Clark on the board. The margin, however, proved too large for the outplayed Cougars to overcome.

By game’s end, the Judges had outshot Clark University 22-7, outshooting the Cougars 12-1 in the second half alone as their aggressive offense carried them to victory. Clark mustered only three shots on goal throughout the match.

Goalkeeper Greg Irwin ’20 got the win for the Judges, finishing the game with just two stops due to the squad's suffocating defense. The Cougars held a 4-3 edge in corner kicks but failed to convert on any of those four looks.

The victory brings the Judges to 11-3-0 on the season. The loss drops the Cougars to 7-5-3 on the year.

The Judges conclude their season with a three-game homestand at Gordon Field against three consecutive formidable opponents.

The squad has had an impressively

See MSOCCER, 13 ☛

Vol. LXX #7 Vol. LXX #2

October 24, 2017 September 12, 2017

X AMBASSADORS >>pg. 19 just

just

Arts

Waltham, Mass.

Images: Natalia Wiater/the Justice. Design: Yvette Sei/the Justice.

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THE TUESDAY, JUSTICEOctober | Arts | 24, TUESDAY, 2017 iJanuary Arts i THE 31,JUSTICE 2017

THEater REVIEW

Actors are poised within muddled plot

By MENDEL WEINTRAUB justice Staff writer

If you ever want to feel sobered by a seldom-pondered thought, consider the fact that, for the most part, the same degree of painstaking effort is put into making a bad production as into a great one. Thankfully, the theater department’s fall production of Maria Irene Fornes’ “Fefu and Her Friends,” directed by Prof. Adrianne Krstansky (THA), falls into the category of good productions.

However, while the production itself is finely executed, its source material weighs it down unbearably. It is an unfortunate reality, especially considering how obviously hard the entire cast and crew of this production have worked.

With that in mind, I will separate my disdain for this production’s source material from my criticism of its performed product, which, all in all, is surprisingly pristine despite lacking a good script.

Fornes’ play, which takes place during a rehearsal for a charity

event at the home of its eponymous character, Fefu (Rebecca Myers ’18), is something of an enigma; it begs for its overly present monologues to be decoded. These soliloquies are obviously intended to have meaning, but none that one would expect an actor to convey with any true clarity, nor even the most savvy of audience members to translate in the moment of performance. I found that when I wasn’t losing track of nearly every spoken line, I was losing interest altogether simply because the material is so serpentine. Even looking to the closed captions (provided on either side of the stage in the Laurie Theater) for guidance proved to be useless in helping me follow any of what was being said by characters on stage. Each succeeding line seemed unrelated to its predecessor. The fact that every last actor flawlessly managed to convey deep, believable emotions at the level that they did is, therefore, an absolute revelation. They have done the theatrical equivalent of turning rags to riches. In the case

Photo Courtesy of Mike Lovett

LANGUAGE BARRIER: Emma (Haia Bchiri ’20), who has hearing loss, signs, despite the stigma around doing so, to equally rebellious Fefu (Rebecca Myers ’18).

Photo Courtesy of Mike Lovett

GIRL TALK: Fefu and her friends sit together on a couch as Cecelia (Alex Wu ’19) stands near them.

of “Fefu and Her Friends,” just like in real life, I fail to understand the appeal of said “riches,” but remain fascinated by them all the same.

Fefu, played with poise by Myers, is a domineering woman, proud of her self-proclaimed strangeness, who hosts the fundraiser rehearsal at her home. In the play’s opening, she is accompanied by Cindy (Keturah Walker ’18) and Christina (Roopa Boodhun ’18), who participate in lively banter with Fefu.

Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Julia (Sarah Kenney ’18), a wheelchair-bound woman with a dark past, whose entrance is followed by those of Emma (Haia Bchiri ’20), Paula (Remony Perlman ’19), Sue (Emily Bisno ’19) and Cecelia (Alex Wu ’19). As the play progresses, we bear witness to intimate conversations between numerous characters, which, as I mentioned before, are ones I find to lack any and all contextual sub-

stance. The only variable in this particular production that allows these close exchanges to bear any relevance is the performances on stage. These eight actresses are magnificent and absolutely worthy of an audience, and have talent that deserves much better material than “Fefu and her Friends.” The performances of Kenney and Bchiri particularly stand out, with both actors delivering captivating physical and emotional performances that especially transcend the underwhelming source material that they are faced with interpreting.

Supporting the actors is allaround wonderful technical work.

Mary Hurd’s costumes are stunning and perfectly complement the characters who wear them.

The naturalistic set design by Cameron Anderson is minimalistic yet maximizes the stage space.

Lighting the set and players is the thematically evocative design

of Jeff Adelberg, which produces looming shadows of characters on the white background of the stage.

I think my greatest disappointment in this production is that I went in expecting to see a proudly feminist play, but left the theater having not seen one; the feminism here felt like a subtext rather than an all-encompassing theme. Feminism deserves a platform more universally comprehensible than “Fefu and Her Friends.” This unfortunate thematic misrepresentation of which I speak is likely a testament to Fornes’ script, which allows for the show’s intended feminist overtones to fall between its cracks of conceptual convolution. However, in light of nuanced technical work, dedicated performances and Krstansky’s directive choices, the show is a finished product, which is far superior to its lackluster source material and far more effective than it should be.

exhibition REVIEW

MFA gives context to masterful Murakami

By EMMA PETERS

justice contributing writer

Japanese artist Takashi Murakami is well known for his groundbreaking, colorful and graphic body of work. However, a new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, “Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics,” aims to highlight the connections between Murakami’s own unique body of work and the impressive, expansive collection of Japanese art at the MFA — giving context to Murakami’s famed works.

This exhibition was curated by Murakami, his artistic and philosophical mentor Nobuo Tsuji and MFA curator Anne Nishimura Morse. The melding of these three minds results Photo Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts

“GREEN TRUTH”: Murakami is known for his “superflat” iconic style.

in an exhibit that succeeds in tracing the eccentric history of Japanese art through Murakami’s own repertoire.

When viewers walk into the gallery space, they are immediately greeted by Murakami’s 33-foot long painting “Transcendent Attacking a Whirlwind.” Created specially for this exhibit and the MFA, this monumental piece is inspired by the 1764 folding screen by Soga Shohaku, which is in the MFA’s Japanese collection. The swirling, chaotic original composition is given a mystical revamp by Murakami, who adds a slithering dragon in a bright psychedelic color scheme. The exhibition then moves to examine Murakami’s signature “superflat” style, which

was inspired by the critical analysis of Nobuo Tsuji. The superflat manifesto aimed to blend the barriers of high and low art and to develop compositions that “flatten” the range of subjects into the piece. Alongside portraits of Murakami’s cartoonish superflat alter ego Mr. D.O.B are 18th-century paintings of birds and animals that show an earlier tendency for Japanese artists to flatten their compositions and draw a direct line between the creative visions of Murakami and artists of the past.

Aside from connecting the visual past and present of Japanese art, the exhibit also alludes to the connections between the creative process of historic and contemporary Japanese artists. The 13th-century scroll “Night Attack on the Sanjō Palace” was created by dozens of artists led by a master who created the original composition. Similarly, many of Murakami’s grand works are executed by a team of multiple people working to bring his compositions to life. Curator Nishimura Morse juxtaposed handwritten notes and directions from Murakami’s own creative process with the monumental scroll, showing the similarities between the direction of Murakami and the lead artist of the scroll. This further connects the past and present of Japanese art by showing that Murakami is inspired not only by the designs of the past but also by the process.

Once viewers step out of the dark hallway where the scroll is located, they are immediately thrown into one of the highlights of the whole exhibit. The floor is covered in Murakami’s iconic flowers, and the monumental Murakami painting “Kawaii — Vacances: Summer Vacation in the Kingdom of the Golden” hangs alongside a 17th-century Tawaraya Sotatsu school painting called “Poppies.” These pictures highlight the principle of “kazari,”

Photo Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts

DRAGON IN THE CLOUDS: Murakami painted this 60-foot long painting in a mere 24 hours after nagging from his mentor.

which has been described by Tsuji as the core principal of Japanese art.

Kazari involves the transformation of a space, with the help of art, into a transcendental space. This room of the exhibit shimmers with warm gold, overflows with smiling flowers and is adorned by rainbow stained glass Murakami chandeliers. Anyone, regardless of their background in art, will feel transported and inspired in this space, and that feeling alone is enough to warrant a visit to this exhibit.

Continuing through the gallery, two more sections of the exhibit focus on the ideas of playfulness and religion in Japanese art, once again juxtaposing works by Murakami and artists of the past. The fantastical culmination of the exhibit, however, is breathtaking, showcasing Murakami’s 60-foot long “Dragon in Clouds — Red Mutation: The version I painted myself in annoyance after Professor Tsuji told me, ‘Why don’t you paint something yourself for once?’” The long, sassy title perfectly sums up the playful relationship

between Murakami and his mentor.

Near “Red Mutation” is the original “Dragon in Clouds” by Shohaku.

This room culminates the grand exhibit by once again stressing the web of Japanese creative minds that includes Murakami, Tsuji and dozens of artists featured in the exhibition.

The true highlight of covering this event was the conference led by Murakami, Tsuji and Nishimura Morse.

They told stories of how this exhibit came to fruition — many of them humorous — and talked about the importance of the superflat manifesto as a way to establish a Japanese voice in the world of contemporary art. It was clear that these three minds share not only deep connections with Japanese art and its history, but are also inspired and influenced by each other.

Overall, “Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics” presents a beautiful and informative survey of the work of Murakami, and succeeds in connecting the artist’s groundbreaking work with traditional Japanese art.

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THE JUSTICE arts i TUESDAY, January 31, 2017 THE JUSTICE i arts i Tuesday, October 24, 2017

concert

NATALIA WIATER/the Justice

SINGING SILHOUETTE: Strong lighting choices makes Harris appear almost ethereal as he sang to a dancing crowd.

NATALIA WIATER/the Justice

HANDS IN THE AIR: Lead vocalist Sam Harris sings enthusiastically, energizing the crowd.

X Ambassadors excites and surprises

By Jerry Miller justice Editor

The Gosman Sports and Convocation Center was packed to the brim this past weekend, with the up-and-coming X Ambassadors performing live in front of a rowdy crowd of Brandeisian students. X Ambassadors, led by vocalist Sam Harris, is best known for their top10 Billboard songs from their 2015 album, “VHS,” which has sold over 500,000 copies to date. Their lineup of hit songs, including “Unsteady,” “Renegades” and “Jungle,” has vaulted the band to national fame, helping them reach a peak position of No. 7 in the U.S. Billboard 200 weekly charts, in recent years.

With the X Ambassadors’ fame in mind, Brandeisians were eager

to get their hands on tickets for the band’s Fall Flex performance, this past Saturday night. Tickets cost only $15 and were heavily subsidized by the University and the Campus Activities Board, which allowed the student population the chance to see a highquality performer without the usual expense of concert tickets.

The band’s opening act, Great Good Fine OK performed for a light crowd of students, who came in early for the band’s 8 p.m. opener.

By 9 p.m. the crowd ballooned to fill nearly half the gym. Students shuffled in to get to the front row for the main performance.

Though the X Ambassadors were scheduled to perform at 9 p.m., the band got off to a slightly late start with Great Good Fine OK

ending a few minutes past schedule. Despite the delay, the band walked onto stage with the crowd primed for their performance.

The band hit the ground running, opening with their first hit song of the night, a high-energy pump-up song called “Jungle.” The crowd went wild for the song, which had helped jumpstart the band’s career. Harris then transitioned to another upbeat track, “Loveless,” from “VHS,” exposing the crowd to some of the band’s lesser-known works. X Ambassadors kept the old-school vibe going, performing “Hang On” from “VHS.” The crowd then received a pleasant surprise, with Harris breaking out “Ahead of Myself,” one of their new singles, from their soon-to-be released 2017 album.

The crowd started to get into the performance, clapping along with Harris and the other band members to the beat of the song. The band then jumped back to a “VHS” track, “Low Life,” recorded in studio with Jamie N Commons, who was also featured in “Jungle.”

The crowd was in for more surprises when Harris broke out the debut of “Don’t Stay,” a track not yet released from the 2017 album.

Harris also brought out “Gorgeous,” kicking it back to “VHS” for another alternative rock vibe.

After these performances the crowd was itching for the band to crank out their two most famous songs, “Unsteady” and “Renegades,” and the band did not disappoint. Singing along with the crowd, Harris delivered his best

performance of the night in “Unsteady,” sobering the mood set by the previous songs. Harris then sung to “Renegades” to finish the night on a high note; his powerful voice reverberated through the gym during his second-most popular track. The crowd was wild at this point, begging X Ambassadors to continue playing after the drop of the mic. Harris obliged, coming back on stage for an encore of “Joyful,” another unreleased track from the 2017 album and rocking the crowd for the 10th track of the night.

X Ambassadors left their mark on Brandeis and set the bar high for future Fall Flex and Spring Fest performers. With X Ambassadors’ powerful lyrics and crushing vocals, this performance will surely be hard to beat.

theater REVIEW

‘Blithe Spirit’ is haunting and captivating

By Emily Blumenthal justice Staff writer

Last weekend, the Undergraduate Theatre Collective presented Noel Coward’s play “Blithe Spirit,” which was directed by Marek Haar ’20 and produced by Becca Lozinsky ’20.

The play begins when Charles (Abram Foster ’19), his second wife Ruth (Jess Cocomazzi ’21) and their friends Dr. and Mrs. Bradman (Nate Rtishchev ’21 and Alex Harrington ’21) invite the medium Madame Acarti (Blake Rosen ’21) to conduct a seance. During the seance, they accidentally summon Charles’ late first wife Elvira (Leah Nashel ’20). Elvira is dismayed to find that Charles has remarried and throughout the play makes multiple attempts to break up his new marriage with Ruth.

At first, Ruth does not believe that Elvira exists and thinks Charles has gone mad talking to nothing. She then sees a vase floating across the room, making her believe Charles and help him communicate with Elvira. Madame Acarti tries to dematerialize Elvira’s ghost and Ruth’s, after her death in a car crash, to give Charles peace of mind. During Madame Acarti’s attempts to dematerialize the ghosts, Edith (Tova Weinberger ’18), Charles and Ruth’s nervous and clumsy maid, gets a concussion.

Madame Acarti then learns that Edith was the catalyst for the materialization of the ghosts and finally succeeds in dematerializing the ghosts of Ruth and Elvira through her.

One highlight of the show was the lighting design done by Jacob

ANDREW BAXTER/the Justice

WRAITH IN WAITING: Charles’ late wife Elvira (Leah Nashel ’20) lurks behind his second wife Ruth (Jess Cocomazzi ’21).

Bers ’20. The lighting was simplistic throughout most of the show, which allowed the audience to focus on the characters and the action happening on stage.

However, at points of tension in the storyline, the lighting switched from its normal state to multiple spotlights flashing and spinning around the stage and set. This instilled fear in the audience and helped us feel as on edge as the characters were.

The set and costumes were both very basic but functional. Aislyn Fair’s ’19 set was bare-bones, with just a few pieces of furniture and multiple white curtains.

The curtains allowed for interesting shadow play, which was fitting for a story about ghosts.

At the end of the show, the ghosts of Elvira and Ruth move around

invisibly as Charles is leaving the house. The set pieces then jolt up and down, creating a sense of chaos and a knowledge that not everything is resolved at the end of the play.

Becca Rogers’ ’20 costumes, which were complementary to the characters, included a gold cocktail dress for Ruth and flowing white clothes for the ghost of Elvira. The relatively unembellished costumes allowed the acting to be the main focus of the production.

Weinberger’s acting was good, but her shy vocal style was repetitive. Her deft movements across the stage, though, made up for much of that. Nashel played Elvira with emotive acting and a varied vocal style, adding up to a spectacular performance. Cocomazzi’s portrayal of Ruth was also excellent — she brought her character to life

in all respects and often brought comic relief to tense situations during the show. Foster acted well as Charles, but his version of the character was a bit flat and could have been a little more lively. Rosen was hilarious as Madame Acarti; her over-the-top acting made the character bright and fun to watch.

The play required the actors to use British accents. All of the actors’ accents were convincing and stayed consistent throughout the show. At the beginning of the performance, most of the cast mumbled a lot, making the dialogue somewhat difficult to understand. However, as the show went on, the actors improved their vocal projection.

The show was almost three hours long, but the sudden twists in the technical production and acting kept me interested the entire time.

ANDREW BAXTER/the Justice

GHOSTLY GARMENTS: Edith (Tova Weinberger ’18), Charles and Ruth’s nervous and clumsy maid, stands next to a ghostly Elvira.

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TUESDAY, October 24, 2017 | Arts | THE JUSTIce

Brandeis TALKS

INTERVIEW

wf

If you could morph two animals into a super animal, which two would you morph?

Marek Haar ’20 Photo Courtesy of Marek Haar

This week, justArts spoke with Marek Haar ’20 who directed “Blithe Spirit.”

Max Hayes ’19

“I would morph a pterodactyl and a deer. Together they would make a deerodactyl, and it would be able to fly and run and be free.”

justArts: How did you come across the opportunity to direct “Blithe Spirit?”

MORGAN MAYBACK/the Justice

Emma Kenney ’21

“I would morph a cheetah and a turtle to see if the fast or the slow would win.”

Melanie Charwat ’19

“A giraffe and a unicorn, because a unicorn is my favorite animal, and giraffes are just cool.”

Jiana Chu ’18

“I would morph an elephant and a giraffe, because then you would have you would have a super long neck and a super long nose too!”

--Compiled by Jen Geller/the Justice and photographed by Yvette Sei/ the Justice.

STAFF’S Top Ten

Top 10 Worst Colors

By Nia Lyn

justice EDITOR

This is something that I have been thinking about for a long time and while I am no expert, I have my fair share of opinions on colors that are not visually appealing.

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 She wore a dress made of meat 5 Olympic event 11 Bout of drinking or crying 14 Muscat native 15 Tongue-lashing 16 Sch. founded in 1819 17 Role for 11-Down 19 _____ Cruces 20 Home for many a 5-Down 21 Scott Malkinson has one on “South Park” 22 Card character 25 Optimistic 27 Show for 11-Down 31 GLaDOS and Hal, for two 32 Teeny 33 Morlocks’ enemies 35 Pulse 39 Important term in WWII history 40 See 11-Down 42 Form 1040 org.

43 Church council 45 Columbia Pictures co-founder 46 Trendy superfood 47 La ____ 49 Show for 11-Down 51 Kept on the tarmac, perhaps 55 Handy 56 Off-base?

57 Like some cans 61 Modern, in Munich 62 Role for 11-Down 41 School, for short 66 “Exodus” character 44 October birthstone 67 Cause of springtime allergies 46 Casey of 68 Heart “Manchester by the Sea” 69 Start of summer?

48 Wild-eyed supporter 70 Swear (to) 50 One who might get pwned 71 Was aware of 51 Mother of Perseus 52 Big jugs DOWN 53 See 11-Down 1 Helium, for one 54 Started a game, perhaps 2 Exist 58 Get excited, with “up” 3 ____-pal 59 Small bills 4 Follow, as a law 60 Pressed CTRL-Enter, on Gmail 5 RBI, for one 62 Org. founded under Nixon 6 Type of bean 63 “Smoking or ____?”

7 Greek god of war 64 Before, poetically 8 Crust, e.g.

65 Do some alterations 9 “______ Nightingale” 10 French sea 11 With 53-Down and 40-Across, subject of this puzzle 12 “Look over there, matey!”

13 Quebec peninsula 18 _____ a soul 21 Grateful Dead bassist 22 Falco and Adams 23 “Last of the Mohicans” name 24 Name that sucks?

26 Gets off one’s feet 28 German article 29 Smart-____ 30 Ones kept on a string 34 “_____ hollers, let him go” 36 Texas sch.

37 Some exams 38 Hit back?

40 Important term in WWII history

Marek Haar: So, I saw “Blithe Spirit” about a year and a half ago with Angela Lansbury, so of course I fell in love with it! I watched it several more times; it became my favorite comedic play, and I knew I had to be part of it somehow. So I decided if I wanted to make it happen, I knew I had to make it happen myself. So, I pitched the play to the theater department; I lobbied a little, got my votes, it got through the process, then I applied to direct it; I suppose my interview went well, so I got to direct it!

JA: What was your favorite part of directing?

MH: I think the actual giving of direction is a lot of fun. I think the really creative aspect of it is the most fun part for me, being able to communicate what you’re envisioning is something you really can’t experience in any other artistic field. I mean, as an actor you can communicate with the director what you’re thinking, but as the director, you can really mold your vision into a reality. I just think that’s super cool.

JA: What was the most challenging part of directing?

CROSSWORD COURTESY OF EVAN MAHNKEN

SOLUTION COURTESY OF EVAN MAHNKEN

MH: I think the most difficult part of directing is molding your direction to various actors. Different actors respond very, very differently to different kinds of direction. You know, for one actor it might be much more helpful for me to give abstract food items that describe their character! For Charles [Abram Foster ’19], I described him as a saltine cracker with Stilton cheese, Jalapeño marmalade and honey. I hope that was helpful for him! You know, I try different things with different actors — sometimes, it’s most helpful to literally say exactly what I want [from them]. Whatever I want, I just say it with emphasis on this word and this word and this word. For some actors, the literal-ness is helpful; for others, it’s much more helpful to be abstract. You know, it’s difficult when you’re in that moment, immediately switching from actor to actor and being able to provide helpful feedback. I find it very easy to provide feedback, providing feedback that fits each actor and will get a response is much more difficult.

JA: Is there an important message that you hope the audience took away from the show?

SUDOKU INSTRUCTIONS: Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

1. Lime Green 2. Light Brown 3. Asparagus 4. Neon Yellow 5. Burnt Sienna 6. Hot Pink 7. Silver 8. Dark Grey 9. Eggshell White 10. Peach

Solution to last issue’s sudoku

Puzzle courtesy of www.sudokuoftheday.com

MH: The play, if you really examine it, concentrates on the power dynamic between men and women and especially in that time period, in the 1930s, in the West. That’s the main idea, [but] that’s not really what I want people to take away from it. It’s a farse, it’s a comedy, it’s situational comedy — I want people to take away joy from it. In a comedy, that’s really what I think is most important. I want it to be a moment where people can just relax, forget all of their troubles and just really find this moment of joy.

JA: Who is your favorite character and why?

MH: The person who I’d most like to be friends with in the show is absolutely Madame Arcati [Blake Rosen ’21]. She definitely embodies part of who I am; she has this whimsiness, kookiness and craziness about her that I just adore. She’s nuts and bonkers, but at the same time, she’s wise and knows exactly what she’s doing. Well, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but I think she understands life better than anyone else.

—Lizzie Grossman