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Wednesday, November 6, 2013 d
Legal eagle: Alan Dershowitz at JCCGW book fair n
Celebrity attorney-writercommentator to speak at Rockville book fair BY
ALAN DERSHOWITZ n When: Reception at 6:30 p.m., lecture at 7:30 p.m., Sunday
ELLYN WEXLER
n Where: JCC of Greater Washington, 6125 Montrose Road, Rockville
SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE
Like many celebrities, Alan Dershowitz has a split personality. How does the “real Alan” see his public persona — what his son refers to as “the Dersh character”? “He can be a bit obnoxious at times, too opinionated, sometimes rude, but never boring,” said the 75-year-old high-profile attorney, Harvard Law School professor (since age 28), prolific writer (30 books plus more than 1,000 magazine, newspaper and journal articles) and outspoken commentator (especially in defense of Israel). From humble beginnings, born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn, Dershowitz went on to Yale Law School, graduating first in his class. As a criminal lawyer, he has defended clients including Patty Hearst, Harry Reems, Angela Davis, Leona Helmsley and O.J. Simpson. Dershowitz, whose most recent book, “Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law,” was released Oct. 15, is coming to Rockville on Sunday evening for a Patrons Reception and Book Talk at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington’s Annual Book Fair. In anticipation of the event, he took some time to answer some questions. A&E: What was your career aspiration as
a child?
Dershowitz: To finish high school without getting expelled. I was a terrible student. I didn’t think much about college. But everybody I knew told me I would have to be a lawyer because I had a big mouth and a small brain. A&E: Who were the most influential people in your decision to become a lawyer, a teacher, a writer, a commentator? Were these actual decisions or evolutionary? Dershowitz: Everything I did was happenstance. I was never strategic about my career. Once I started to do well in college and law school, I wanted to do everything. I have a terminal case of FOMS — fear of missing something — so I never wanted to choose. My role model for not having to choose was General Telford Taylor, who was my professor at law school. He was an eminent appellate lawyer, a great teacher, a wonderful writer and a public intellectual. I tried to model my career after his. Fortunately, I was able to work with him on freeing Soviet Jews for a decade towards the end of his life. It was one of the great privileges of my life. A&E: Why do you do so many things? Do they nurture each other or do they dilute
n Tickets: $45, $38 for JCCGW members; Reception: $136 to $500 n For information: jccgw.org
Irwin Cotler, we used every tactic available to keep Natan alive and to free him both from the gulag and from the Soviet Union. It took too long, but when we first undertook the case, there was real doubt as to whether he would survive the sentence. He is now a proud grandfather and one of the most important and influential spokespersons for the Jewish people. A&E: What authors do you read for plea-
sure? MICHAEL WESCHLER
your attention or effectiveness? Dershowitz: I do only one thing, but I do it in different ways and for different audiences. I am a teacher. I teach and learn in the classroom. I teach and learn in the courtroom. I teach and learn from my writing and on television. My teaching makes me a better practitioner and my practice makes me a better teacher. I live an integrated professional life, and so far I’ve managed to miss very little. A&E: How long did it take you to write
this book? Did you have a routine of writing daily? Do you write in a particular place? Dershowitz: In one sense, this book took me my entire life to write. In a more direct sense, it took me a couple of years. I write every day and wherever I happen to be: on airplanes, on trains, in waiting rooms, on Martha’s Vineyard, in Florida. I have no particular routine. I am an opportunistic writer. I write everything in long hand, with a ballpoint pen on legal pads. I don’t know how to type or use a computer. Fortunately, I have a great assistant who can read my handwriting. A&E: Which of your books are your fa-
vorites?
Dershowitz: Among my favorite books
are “Taking the Stand,” “The Genesis of Justice,” “Preemption,” “Just Revenge” and “Chutzpah.” The book I wish I didn’t have to write is “The Case for Israel,” but the outrageous charges leveled against Israel required a defense of the Jewish state. I hope I provided an adequate defense. A&E: Which of your cases are you proud-
est of?
Dershowitz: The case I am most proud of
is my defense of Natan Sharansky. Along with
Dershowitz: I have two categories. The first is classical literature: Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Costa. The second is contemporary fiction by authors such as Richard North Patterson and Linda Fairstein. There is a third category falling somewhere in between: Phillip Roth and Saul Bellow.
A&E: Is there something you regret not having accomplished? Dershowitz: If I did, I would try to still accomplish it. A&E: Are any of your children or grandchildren following in your footsteps? Dershowitz: The last thing I would ever want is for any child to follow in anyone’s footsteps. My three children and two grandchildren are incredibly individualistic, each following their own path. If I have had any influence on them, it is to encourage them to be individuals and not to follow into the footsteps of others. A&E: What do you do to relax? Dershowitz: For relaxation, I love sports.
At my age, it is now more watching them than participating in them. I spend a lot of time at Fenway Park and the Boston Garden. I also love long walks on the beach with my wife, Carolyn.
A&E: What do you see as your future? Do you have more books planned? Are you writing one now? Dershowitz: Yogi Berra once said that “prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” I have no idea what life holds in store for me. I plan to spend more time in Florida, also a bit more in New York and on Martha’s Vineyard. I am already working on my next book, which is tentatively entitled “Abraham: the world’s first (but certainly not last) Jewish lawyer.”
WEST
Continued from Page B-5 theme of the impact of Jewish women in history with her latest book, “The Lady at the O.K. Corral,” available now. “I realized that’s a theme that really intrigued me, so when I heard about Wyatt Earp being married to a Jewish woman and buried in a Jewish cemetery and [that] all the myths that I grew up with about the American West were basically turned on their head, I was enormously drawn to it,” Kirschner said. After receiving an email from a friend about Earp’s burial in a Jewish cemetery in California, Kirschner said she was immediately intrigued. “I had that sense of glorious obsession when you’re on fire to understand something,” she said. “I wanted to learn how she ended up in Tombstone and how she ended up with Wyatt for 50 years.” Earp was a deputy sheriff known for the infamous 30-second gunfight in Tombstone, Ariz., the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, in which he and his two brothers killed two outlaws. Earp was married twice before meeting Marcus Earp. The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral has become a cultural touchstone in American history, often used as a metaphor for standoffs in contemporary America, most recently in regards to the federal government shutdown earlier this month. “We would love things to be black and white; simple solutions to really thorny situations,” Kirschner said. “We’re going to end this once and for all. The heroes are going to kill the villains.” For Kirschner, who grew up in the 1950s watching shows about the American West, her favorite of which was “The Life and Legend of
n When: Noon and 3 p.m. Nov. 14 n Where: Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, 6125 Montrose Road, Rockville (noon), and Leisure World, 3701 Rossmoor Blvd., Silver Spring (3 p.m.) n Tickets: $10 for members, $15 for general public n For information: For a complete list of events and to reserve tickets call 301-348-3805 or visit jccgw.org
MESSAGE
Kang a message to see if she would be interested in leading a masterclass for Horman’s students. And again, to her pleasant surprise, Kang agreed. “We had a number of 140-character conversations where I felt like I was 14 and I was having to abbreviate things,” Horman laughed. “On the fourth one I thought, ‘I’m really sounding like a fool here,’ and asked her to move it to email.” Kang will hold an improv masterclass Monday at The Mansion at Strathmore. The event is co-sponsored by Strathmore Education and the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra. Horman also received funding from the Walt Whitman High School Booster Club Fund. Four of Horman’s students along with two students from the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra will take part in the class which culminates when the students accompany Kang on a showpiece. “When I told them, they went berserk,” Horman said of her students’ reaction to the news of Kang’s visit. “I don’t think I’ve ever been cool until I made that announcement.” A Montgomery County native, Horman founded her studio in 1991. She began playing the violin at age 5 and is a graduate of the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris where she won the highly-coveted Premier Prix Solo Violin. Now an adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America, Horman teaches violin to students of all ages out of her home in Washington, D.C. “I have one student who is 32 who has been here since he was 12,” Horman said. “I’ve watched them go from beginners to startling young soloists.” Horman has worked tirelessly over the last 20 years to help the studio gain recognition. She’s organized masterclasses with concertmasters including Ricardo Cyncynates of the National Symphony Orchestra and Jonathan Carney with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The Horman Violin Studio was also the only studio to team up with the National Symphony Orchestra for “NSO in Your Neighborhood” in D.C. in January. Horman credits the studio’s success with her willingness to ask for help, even in what is considered the “cutthroat” world of classical music. “People really want to help when it comes to the kids,” she said. “ ... That really warms my heart.” Working with violin students is something Kang said she’s made a priority
stress over. Born in Washington, D.C., Miller was raised in Florida and started putting videos of himself singing and rapping on YouTube when he was in high school. “I always just loved music, Miller said. “I always had music in my blood. My dad was in a band and my mom used to sing at tournaments and basketball games. I kind of grew up around music and, ever since I was little, I’ve enjoyed every kind of music – whether it was ’N Sync when I was really little and then John Mayer, Eminem, even the Beatles. I’m just a music lover in general. I don’t think it hit me that I wanted it to be my career path until probably ninth or 10th grade. I started like most kids just putting videos on YouTube just to see where it would get me and to see what kind of reaction I would get.” The reaction has been massive. Miller already has more than 221,000 YouTube subscribers with 25 million views, 319,000 Twitter followers and 220,000 likes on Facebook. What Miller described as starting out as a hobby quickly turned into the opportunity of a lifetime. “I don’t know where I’d be without [social media],” Miller said. “I always would talk to my parents about it and I honestly don’t know how people back in the day, like the Beatles ... blew up without social media. Obviously, nowadays social media is a very important tool. YouTube was the start of everything, so if I didn’t have an outlet to put my music, I’d probably be writing in my room still, singing to my family. Twitter and Facebook and Instagram are just another way to share to my fans and show them what I’m doing and what I’ve been up to. I literally live on social media. I owe a lot of my career to Twitter and Instagram and all that stuff because that’s where the fans discover me.” In 2011, in his first ever live performance, Miller opened for Snoop Dogg in Florida. Since then, he’s performed alongside R&B and hip-hop artists Flo Rida,
Continued from Page B-5
AARON TAYLOR STUDIO
Judy Kang will hold a masterclass Monday for students of the Horman Violin Studio and the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra.
JUDY KANG n When: 7 p.m. Monday n Where: The Mansion at Strathmore, 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda n Tickets: Free and open to the public. Seating is limited. n For information: To reserve a seat, email Betty Scott at bscott@stratmore. org
throughout the course of her career. “Since I started performing, I definitely incorporate the opportunity to visit schools ...” Kang said. “I wanted to have the opportunity to work with [Horman’s students] and also be a part of something together.” Ultimately, Kang said she hopes stu-
dents at the Monday masterclass walk away with confidence not just in the technical aspects of the instruments but in terms of their own musical identity as well. “I want each of them to take away this confidence and trust themselves to see what they want to improve on,” Kang said. “They’re each their own individual artist with unique personalities ...” Not surprisingly, embracing her own unique personality is something Kang said was greatly encouraged during the Lady Gaga tour. “She trusted us to do our own thing,” Kang said. “The thing I appreciated about Gaga ... was the openness to allow each individual in the band to really just kind of bring ourselves to the music.” chedgepeth@gazette.net
chedgepeth@gazette.net
ANN KIRSCHNER
STAR
Continued from Page B-5
Wyatt Earp,” Earp became the face of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. But it was his common law wife of 50 years who later fascinated Kirschner. “The Jewish dimension of this story of a frontier woman really grabbed me,” Kirschner said. “If you read the histories of the West, you would think that there were no women there ... if you leave women out of the picture, you’re not really understanding the true history of the time. My motivation was to put the women back in the picture.” Beyond Marcus Earp, Kirschner said she was also intrigued by the Jewish communities that settled in the American West. “I was fascinated by early Jewish communities in places like Tombstone and Nome, Alaska,” Kirschner said. “It struck me as fascinating; these untold stories of the settling of the U.S. Who knew they were celebrating the Jewish New Year in Tombstone?” Marcus Earp’s Jewish identity will be a major focus of Kirschner’s talks on Nov. 14. “[She] raises interesting questions about Jewish identity and when it’s easy to have a Jewish identity and when it’s difficult,” Kirschner said. “Some people think Josephine was a negative role model because she was so indifferent.” The author said she hopes readers and listeners will also consider their own identity in reading “The Lady at the O.K. Corral.” “We think about the Jewish community we grew up in and I’d be interested in having a conversation about when it’s difficult to be Jewish, how are you Jewish?” Kirschner said. “It’s a very important time to think about how we define being Jewish and ... how do we pass it on to the next generation.”
Sean Kingston, Mac Miller, Ne-Yo and Cee Lo Green. “We perform with huge celebrities and my musical heroes, to be honest,” Miller said. “Even to this day, I still get starstruck when I see them and I’m still blown away how I’m sharing the stage with the person I listened to growing up. It’s crazy.” Miller released an EP in 2012 called “The Road Less Traveled.” It debuted at No. 1 on the iTunes Hip Hop Chart. The song “A Million Lives” off that EP cracked the top-10 on SiriusXM. The video for the song has more than 3.5 million views on YouTube. The song chronicles the lives of people going through hardships. “‘A Million Lives’ is a song I put out about a year ago that’s basically a song I wrote for my fans,” Miller said. “It’s kind of like a tribute to my fans because they always tell me how much I inspire them and how my music inspires them, but really they inspire me just as much. This song is just a story about fans who write me fan mail and they’re telling me how my music has gotten them through [a tough] situation, whether it’s being bullied or fighting cancer or losing someone that they know. Not only has it launched my career … more importantly it’s kind of opened my eyes to how important it is to put out music that has a positive message instead of music without any real lyrical depth. I’ve always said music with no message was just sound.” Miller said he hopes his music is enjoyed by everyone, no matter how old they are. “I hope people take away from my music that it’s just positive and it makes them feel good,” Miller said. “I want my music to be the music parents can listen to in the car with their kids. It’s on the line of edgy and cool, but it’s not too cool where families can’t listen to it together because I’m talking about bad stuff. I want it to be that perfect line where guys can listen to it, girls can listen to it, kids can listen to it, adults … everybody can just relate to it and feel good listening to it.” wfranklin@gazette.net