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Autobiographical writing
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HOLIDAY STORIES
Note: I get an idea. I sit down at my computer and write. After I write, I reread what I have written and make corrections. It is called editing. Yesterday, I had an idea, and sat down at my computer and wrote, I had not finished. I wanted to check something. I left what I had written in the computer, and checked. When I returned to what I had written, it was no longer there. I searched and searched. I called a friend who knows a great deal more about computers than I. He asked if I had “saved” the piece. I said I did not. He said that it is most likely lost. I was very disappointed. It is very difficult to recreate what had been written. Nevertheless, I will give it a shot, but I doubt that it will be as good as the piece I started.
A SUKKOS STORY
AND A HIGH HOLIDAYS STORY
The High Holidays are over, and I just read a story by S Y Agnon called The Etrog. (I stull call the thing that looks like a big lemon an esrog, with an “s,” and I call the holiday when Jews bentsh esrog, and put up a sukkah, Sukkos.) The story describes how very important it is to observant Jews to buy a perfect esrog, and how some rabbis who have very little money will nevertheless take all the money they have to buy the perfect esrog.
The story tells, in passing, of the Rabbi from Neshkiz who was about to do exactly that. As he was on his way to make the purchase, he passed an old man who was crying beside a dead horse. When he asked the man why he was crying, the old man explained that he is a water carrier, and the horse that pulls his wagon is dead, and now so is his livelihood. The rabbi gave all the money for the esrog to the man to buy a horse. What is the difference, he thought. The esrog is one of God’s commandments, but so is giving charity. Let someone else say the blessing over the esrog. He will bless this horse.
The High Holidays story is about a young man who had committed himself to lead services at a retirement community for the High Holidays, and who, on the day before Rosh Hashanah, had gone to the local Starbucks to study and prepare. He was immersed in study when a homeless man approached him and said he was hungry. He asked the young man for some money so that he could buy a banana. The young man reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. He only had a $20 bill. He gave it to the homeless man, assuming he would go to the counter, take a banana, pay for the banana, and return the change to him. Instead, the homeless man took the $20 bill and walked out of Starbucks. I do not know if the homeless man said thank you, or if he turned around and waved. My guess is that he pocketed the bill and left very quickly. The young man was surprised and taken aback. This was a different scenario from the one he assumed. He went back to studying and preparing for the High Holiday services.
I have been saying Yizkor on Yom Kippur for my father ever since my Bar Mitzvah. I say it in Hebrew and in English. For years, I have been uncomfortable when, after asking God to remember the soul of my father who has gone to his eternal home, I say, “I pledge tzedakah to help perpetuate ideals important to him.” The fact is, I have no idea what ideals were important to him, and I have never once given tzedakah after saying Yizkor on Yom Kippur, even to support ideals important to me. I certainly give tzedakah, but it is unrelated to Yizkor. It would be dishonest of me to give tzedakah after Yizkor, that I give at another time of year, claiming that it is related to having asked God to remember my father’s soul.
The young man’s act of tzedakah got me to thinking. First, it is like the Rabbi who gave his esrog money to the poor water carrier. Second, it can also be considered something like “paying it forward.” When the time comes to pledge tzedakah when saying Yizkor on Yom Kippur, (may it be many years from now) he can justifiably say he has already given.
9-26-15
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Holiday Stories
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Jacob Schlitt
Description
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"The High Holidays are over, and I just read a story by S Y Agnon called The Etrog."
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2015-09-26
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HOLIDAY_STORIES
Holidays
Judaism
Observations
Writing
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Autobiographical writing
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PESACH
I like Pesach. I like eating matzah. I like Seders. I like thinking about all the symbols, and the story of liberation, and how the Jews survived, and the importance of feeding the hungry, and being nice to strangers, and that good can triumph over evil.
What I don’t like is the craziness about dishes and non-kosher stuff. My mother didn’t have two sets of dishes for meat and milk, and she didn’t have two sets of dishes for Pesach and for the rest of the year. She explained that in biblical times they didn’t have china dishes; they had wooden dishes. Nor did they have the kind of silverware that we have today. I guess she would have said that eating implements in biblical times were also made of wood. You can’t really wash wood the way you wash china and metal flatware. Give today’s dishes a good washing and we can use the same dishes for meat and milk, and the same dishes for Pesach and the rest of the year.
If there were bread products, or food that was not Kosher for Passover, put them somewhere else; not in the kitchen. But don’t throw them out, or give them away. They will stay until after Pesach. During Pesach, I would certainly not eat bread. When I ate lunch in school, I made matzah sandwiches. When I stopped taking sandwiches, and ate lunch in restaurants, I would ask for matzah. Of course, most restaurants did not serve matzah as bread substitutes, so I did without. Except when I had soup. Then I rationalized that the crackers that were served were like matzah, and ate the crackers.
These days, and I suspect for all the years that Fran and I have been married, we have a difference of opinion about dishes and flatware. I am perfectly happy to use the same dishes and flatware that we have been using. (It is part of my tradition.) Fran has a different tradition. She has anointed some stuff as “Pesadik,” and she takes them out of their hiding place, puts them on the kitchen counter, and insists that we use them for Pesach. Then she takes out a lot of paper plates and plastic ware and insists that we use them as well. Sometimes I nodded, and did what I wanted. Sometimes I indulged her. Then I would remember “Sholem Bais” Peace in the Home, and now, I go along. It is only for eight days.
Another aspect of Pesach which bothers me is the craziness in getting ready for the seders. Thankfully, we don’t do seders any more. Instead, we either get invited, and if it is getting close and we haven’t been invited, we drop hints which usually results in an invitation. Nevertheless, there is the earlier craziness in getting the house ready for Pesach, and of course, in preparing whatever food Fran insists on bringing to the seder to which we are invited. Fran will never agree to just bringing some wine or a store-bought dish. She has to make something. And it is usually done just before we are to leave for the seder. I point out that it is getting late, and Fran tells me to leave her alone. Everything works out. Our hosts, who must have gone crazy getting ready for the seder, greet us warmly, thank us for whatever Fran made, and we have a great evening.
Even though I am a “guest,” I insist on doing the Four Questions (fir kashes) in Yiddish, telling everyone, I have been doing this since I was eight years old. The youngest can do it in Hebrew or English. I do it in Yiddish. And when the singing begins, I make sure to inject my ex-father-in-law’s version of Ki Lo Na’eh and Adir Hu, culminating in his version of Mu Adabru, which is in the Haggadah as Ehad Mi Yodeya (Who Knows One?) If David is at the seder, we sing them together, and since he can carry a tune, it sounds a lot better than me singing alone.
We are members of the Newton Centre Minyan, and for weeks before Pesach e–mails were going back and forth demonstrating the craziness of preparing for Pesach. Most of the members are very serious about observing everything that is required to prepare for Pesach. I sent them the story about the Jew in an anti-Semitic Eastern European town who couldn’t take it anymore and decided to convert. His wife said do what you think is best. After a while, he could not live with himself, and told his wife they will convert back to Judaism. His wife said fine, but do it after Pesach.
I hope that now that all the preparing has been done, everyone is having a happy Pesach.
4-5-15
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Pesach
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Jacob Schlitt
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"I like Pesach."
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PESACH
Childhood
Fran
Jewish Identity
Judaism
Newton Centre Minyan
Passover
Yiddish
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Autobiographical writing
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DAY OF REST
I have a bumper sticker on my car that reads: “The Labor Movement. The Folks who Brought you the Weekend.” Long before unions won first a six, and then a five day work week, the Jews came up with the concept of “A Day of Rest.” I assume, before the Ten Commandments, most people worked from dawn to dusk seven days a week. No day was different from any other. It took Moses (or some other very creative individual) to provide a rationale for a day off from back-breaking labor.
The Fourth Commandment states: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you shall not do any work…” Since God created the world in six days, and on the seventh day he rested, He therefore blessed it and made it holy. Therefore, we, and our children, and our servants, and our livestock should rest on the seventh day. Whatever explanation works for you. Observant Jews make rest on Saturday a must. I suspect there are more questions about what constitutes work on Shabbes than on any of the other Ten Commandments.
I have told the story over and over of my mother leaving her first job soon after she came to Toronto at the age of 16. She was a skilled sewer and had found work as an alteration tailor at Eaton’s Department Store. It was Friday and the foreman told her that she would have to come in the next day because they were very busy. She told him that she made it clear when she started that she does not work on Saturday. He said she would have to. She replied that she is leaving and wants her pay, and she quit.
Somewhere I heard that rather than “ Jews keep the Sabbath,” “Sabbath keeps the Jews.”
All the rituals, prohibitions, and traditions, that Jews observe, that makes them different, reinforce their identity. However, over the years, my observance has been diminishing, even though my identity as a Jew is as strong as ever.
To extend the parallel with which I started: It took a long time for organized labor to win a five day week. Many factories and stores worked a six day week. (Thank God that Christians picked up on the concept of “a day of rest.”) The norm became a five day, 40 hour week, with time and a half paid for overtime. When companies figured they can make more money working seven days a week (even paying overtime) they did it, and something happened to our society. There was no longer a difference between weekdays and the weekend. Which leads me to the point of this piece:
Since I have retired, every day has become a day of rest. And since I seldom go to shul on Saturday any more, the holiness of Saturday has diminished.
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application/msword
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Title
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Day of Rest
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Jacob Schlitt
Description
An account of the resource
"I have a bumper sticker on my car that reads: 'The Labor Movement. The Folks who Brought you the Weekend'."
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DAY_OF_REST
Aging
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Jewish Identity
Judaism
Mother
Observations
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Autobiographical writing
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A REPORT ON FRAN’S 80TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION AT THE NEWTON CENTER MINYAN THROUGH MY EYES
Bob noted that I haven’t written any “memoirs” in a while. The reason was because I was busy learning my Haftorah as part of the celebration of Fran’s 80th birthday at the Newton Center Minyan which took place today, December 12. It was the same Haftorah that I chanted for my Bar Mitzvah 75 years before. I still had the booklet containing the Haftorah portion, Zechariah 2:14-4:7, and the blessings to be read before and after. The booklet, which had been sitting in the top drawer of the desk which was my mother’s, had big letters in Hebrew ”Hamaftir: Shabbat Yom Rishon Shel Chanukah” on the inside cover. It had lost the outside cover some years ago. On the next page was “Copyright 1935 by Zevi Scharfstein.” On the inside back cover was a listing of all the “Hamaftirs” etc. that Z. Scharfstein, 2647 Kenmore Place Brooklyn, published, with prices from 10 cents to $1.50. I don’t believe I spent more than 25 cents.
A few months ago, Fran came up with the idea of sponsoring a special Kiddush at the Minyan, our shul. The Minyan leadership was agreeable, and Fran was given the honor of designating all the participants in the Torah service: the “leyners,” the recipients of the aliyas, those who opened and closed the arc, and those who lifted and dressed the Torahs. (There were three Torahs today.) Fran asked me to do the Haftorah, and David was to give the D’var Torah, the Drash.
While Fran was busy making phone calls and taking care of all the details, I was trying to learn to chant the blessings and the Haftorah. I remembered nothing. Zip. Zero. Gornisht. Today, if you want information, any kind of information, you go to your computer and Google. I Googled Haftorah and up came “Haftorah Audio.” Rabbi Mark Zimmerman had recorded all the Haftorah chants and the blessings before and after, and I was able to download them for $18. A bargain. My friend Alan Lobovits, who is very knowledgable, also recorded a tape cassette for me, the Haftorah and the blessings, at no charge.
I should note that another member of the Minyan, Dalia Rudofsky, had previously been assigned the Haftorah, but graciously relinquished it. When I started to undertake the task, not being able to carry a tune, and not being able to learn the trope, I was overwhelmed. I listened to Rabbi Zimmerman, and I listened to Alan, two different versions. I become confused as well as overwhelmed. I practiced every day. I xeroxed copies of everything. I circled the words I mispronounced, I marked the places where my voice should go up, and where it should go down; when I should link words, and when I should pause. I realized I wasn’t getting it. I called Dalia and asked if we could split it. She was agreeable. She could actually sight read. It was a one third-two thirds split. I took the first third. And I also had to do the blessings before and after. It wasn’t easy.
Fran had lined up a stellar cast of female “leyners” for Parshas Miketz: Nahma Naditch, Glee Snyder, Rachel Guberman, Deborah Fogel and Linda Kasten. Two men joined the distinguished group: Alan Lobovits and Peter Squires. I was impressed. Miketz is about Joseph who had interpreted a fellow prisoner’s dream, then interpreted Pharaoh’s dream, was appointed viceroy, administered the seven years of plenty and famine, and reconnected with his brothers etc. At David’s Bar Mitzvah, seven of us did one aliya, and it took us months to learn two or three lines. Yasher Koach folks.
And what about the Drash? I called David a few weeks before, and asked how it was coming. He said he was thinking about it. Don’t worry. Friday evening, December 11, David flew in from Pittsburgh, arriving at 10 pm. I picked him up at the airport and asked him if he had written the Drash. He said, don’t worry. When we arrived home, we had latkes and lit the Chanukah candles, and the David sat down at my computer. I went to bed. When I got up at 7 am, David was still at the computer. He pulled an all-nighter, but the Drash was done. It was great. Both his introductory remarks and his written words. I haven’t spoken to David about this, but I am sure if you want a copy, he will send you one.
It was a remarkable day. The Minyan was aware of what Fran had been through, and how grateful she was to have reached this moment (shecheyonu, etc). I got a kick out of the fact that most of them could not believe that my Bar Mitzvah was 75 years ago. If Fran would have had a Bat Mitzvah, it would have been 67 years ago. David’s Bar Mitzvah was here 21 years ago, and many of the Minyan members were present. Fran and I were pleased that Alex and Bernice came, and that Peter and Linda took an active role. The Kiddush was augmented with jelly donuts (sufganiot.) I don’t remember having jelly donuts at Chanukah when I was a kid. It is an Israeli thing, and there wasn’t an Israel in 1940.
12-12-15
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A Report on Fran's 80th Birthday Celebration at the Newton Center Minyan Through My Eyes
Creator
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Jacob Schlitt
Description
An account of the resource
"Bob noted that I haven’t written any 'memoirs' in a while."
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2015-12-12
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2015
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A_REPORT_ON_FRAN'S_80TH_BIRTHDAY_CELEBRATION_AT_THE_NEWTON_CENTER_MINYAN_THROUGH_MY_EYES
Birthdays
Fran
Judaism
Newton Centre Minyan
Reading Out Loud (R.O.L.)
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Autobiographical writing
Text
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SMALL WORLD
My father was born in Kishinev in 1884, came to New York when he was around 20, leaving his parents and several brothers and sisters. He was the only one of his family to make his way to America, though he arranged for a nephew to come after World War I. My father died in 1931, when I was three. I knew nothing about his family.
In 1973, I finally learned about that family. I learned that my father had an older brother, Zalman, who as part of the second Aliyah, came to Palestine in 1912. He settled in the Upper Galilee, on land purchased in 1892, by the Jewish Colonization Association. In 1915, it became a kibbutz, Ayelet Hashachar. My uncle Zalman was one of the founders. He returned to Kishinev in 1920, and persuaded his parents and several of his brothers and sisters to go to Palestine with him. Part of the family stayed on the kibbutz, and the others spread out across the land—to Haifa, Tel Aviv, Beersheba etc.
In 1975, I visited Israel for the first time, and met my Israeli relatives. I stayed on the kibbutz, Ayelet Hashachar, for several days and got to know the youngest brother, whose name, appropriately, was ISRAEL Shalit, and his family. I learned that the older brother had been killed in a flash flood in 1924. I was shown his grave, and the grave of his parents, in the kibbutz cemetery. I helped pick apples, ate in the kibbutz dining room, and drove with Israel’s son, Moshe, to the Lebanese border, and “The Good Fence.” (Writing this, I realize that I was wrong calling Israel my cousin. Since he was the youngest of my father’s siblings, he was actually my uncle.)
I visited Ayelet Hashachar several more times: in 1979 with my daughter Martha, and in 1994, when Fran, David and I went to meet an Ethiopian 13 year old and his family in Haifa, bringing them gifts for his Bar Mitzvah. Through the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry (NACOEJ) we had arranged to “twin” his and David’s Bar Mitzvahs. It was our first contact with an Ethiopian Jewish family.
In 1982, my friend Sid Stern, participated in a mission to Ethiopia, organized by NACOEJ. There was much excitement in Jewish communities across the US about the “discovery” of a large, persecuted, and forgotten, Jewish community in Ethiopia, labeled falashas. The word has several meanings, as noted by another friend, Len Lyons, in his beautiful book, “The Ethiopian Jews of Israel:” exile, stranger, immigrant, outsider. An effort was undertaken to rescue our Ethiopian brothers and sisters (who preferred to be called “Beta Israel” and bring them home. Sid was active in NACOEJ, served on its board, and supervised their warehouse, which received, stored and shipped, food and clothing to both the Ethiopian Jews remaining in Ethiopia, and those who made it to Israel as part of Operation Moses in 1984, and Operation Solomon in 1991. These were massive airlifts that brought thousands of black Jews home, after more than a thousand years. Home, but to a very different culture and environment from which they left.
So, what does the story of my father’s family leaving Kishinev and helping to found a kibbutz, Ayelet Hashachar, have to do with Sid, NACOEJ, and Ethiopian Jews returning to Israel? After 70 years, the kibbutz was in decline. It once had fruit trees, a dairy and poultry farm, fish ponds, and a very impressive guest house where hundreds of tourists enjoyed wonderful accommodations. However, the days of Israel’s kibbutzim were coming to an end. By the 1980s, Ayelet Hashachar’s kibbutzniks were leaving, and those who stayed cut back on the farms and the orchards, and worked outside the kibbutz, like my cousin Moshe. There were no more communal dining halls, or communal anything. And the impressive guest house had fewer and fewer guests.
The Israeli government’s Jewish Agency arranged with Ayelet Hashachar for it to become an absorption center for the newly arrived Ethiopian Jews, which enabled the kibbutz, which was no longer a kibbutz, to remain solvent. If the transition was hard for the kibbutzniks, it was infinitely harder for the Ethiopian Jews. It is not easy, and it takes time, to learn a new language and a new way of life. But thousands of Ethiopian Jews have done it, and are continuing to do it at Ayelet Hashachar. Some have chosen to live there permanently.
The Winter 2014 edition of NACOEJ’s newsletter carried a story on its front page: “A Torah Goes to Addis Ababa for Rosh Hashanah.” It reported that, a few years ago, a synagogue in the Bronx was closing, (another example of change in the Jewish world) and gave one of its Torahs to an Ethiopian congregation in Israel. The congregation was located in Ayelet Hashachar. The Ethiopian-Israeli recipients were thrilled to receive the Torah, made some repairs, and replaced the Torah’s cloth mantle with a Sephardic-style case.
Rosh Hashanah was approaching, and the small Jewish community in Addis, waiting to be admitted to Israel, did not have a Torah for the High Holidays. They requested one from the Jewish Agency’s Director of Ethiopian Absorption. The director turned to Ayelet Hashachar’s Ethiopian congregation, and asked if they would be good enough to lend a Torah to the Jews in Addis. They happily agreed, with the expectation and hope that it will be returned, and with the Torah’s return, will come the remaining Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
It may turn out that some of the Ethiopian Jews in Addis, along with the Torah, will find a home on the kibbutz that my uncle from Kishinev helped found 100 years ago.
12-27-14
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Small World
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Jacob Schlitt
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"My father was born in Kishinev in 1884, came to New York when he was around 20, leaving his parents and several brothers and sisters."
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Cousins
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Israel
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CHRONOLOGY AND THE JEWS
The Jews are an ancient people. If you date them back to Abraham, that’s over 3,800 years old. The Exodus was supposed to have taken place about 3,300 years ago. Then the land of Canaan, and Judges and Kings and Prophets and Temples, and finally the Diaspora in 70 CE. Fact or myth? God knows!
Which brings us to the next 2000 years. What did happen to the rest of the Jews after the Romans killed them and kicked them out of Judea? Did they go to the Arab peninsula, to North Arica, to southern Europe? And did some of them stay where they were? What happened after Constantine, after Mohammed? There was a period around the 8th and 9th centuries when the Jews and Muslims got along, but then everybody started persecuting the Jews again. Why the Crusades and the Inquisition? Was that why the Jews started moving east? Somewhere along the way, they created Yiddish, and around the 16-17 centuries, Polish Royalty invited them, so many moved further eastward. When we think about our forefathers, most of us imagine Eastern European Jews living in a hostile environment, but maintaining their identity as Jews, and maintaining the dream of “Meshiakh” and “Next year in Jerusalem.”
What prompted the above brief chronology was my sense of wonder with regard to two aspects of recent Jewish history: Yiddish literature and the Jewish state. The Jews have been around a long time. They came up with the idea of monotheism; they wrote the Bible and the Talmud; and they even had a nation for a while. Nothing much happened in the way of literature or nationalism, but then in a remarkably short time, one group of Jews created a literature, and another group of Jews created a state.
I was impressed when I heard someone say that Yiddish literature is less than 200 years old, starting with Mendele Mocher Sforim, though there must have been a few writers before him. By the mid 19th century to the mid 20th century there were thousands of Yiddish novelists, essayists, short story writers and poets, as many as England, France Italy, Germany, Russia etc. produced over a period of 400 plus years.
I was also impressed when I thought about the creation of nation states and the emergence of all those countries in Europe, and the founding of the United States, and after Imperialism, the creation of countries in Latin America, Asia and finally, Africa. When I was a kid, I shared the dream with my mother that some day there would be a Jewish state. I had heard about Theodore Herzl, and Chaim Weitzman, and Zionism, and that there were thousands of Jews settling on kibbutzim in “The Promised Land.” I raised money for the Jewish National Fund. Then came the Holocaust, and then the promise was fulfilled, and Israel came into being in 1948. And from 1948 until today, a period of less than 70 years, Israel has created an advanced economy, a democratic society, and a powerful nation.
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Chronology and the Jews
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Jacob Schlitt
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"The Jews are an ancient people."
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2014
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CHRONOLOGY_AND_THE_JEWS
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Jewish Identity
Judaism
Observations
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A DYBBUK?
I don’t believe in spirits. I am a rational person. When pressed, I will even admit that I don’t believe in God, though I proudly proclaim my Jewishness. Why am I saying this? Because for some time now, I have felt that Fran was possessed by a Dybbuk. And to make this weirder, the Dybbuk was the spirit of my mother (though when I told this to David, he said it was more likely her father.) Who knows?
As part of writing my story, I have been writing my mother’s story. And as I have been writing my mother’s story, I have been reliving my life with her and remembering all the thoughtless, mean-spirited things I said and did. When she died, I was not with her. I was unable to ask her forgiveness.
What happens to the soul, spirit, “nishamah” when one dies? Does it leave the body and float around? The concept of a Dybbuk has been part of Jewish legend for a long time. One definition: the dislocated soul of a dead person. The word itself means to adhere, or to cling. It does not have to be a bad spirit. And it will leave the body it possesses after doing what it sets out to do.
Early on, Fran and I have had arguments, disagreements, and lots of bickering. You don’t listen. I do listen. I told you. You didn’t tell me. You don’t pay attention. I am tired of repeating myself. I want it here. You put it there. It doesn’t belong there. I didn’t tell you to buy that. Buy this. This does not go with that. That is too cheap. This is too expensive. That was not washed. We will be late. We have lots of time. What happened to this dish? The floor is dirty. Where are my keys? Try putting it in the same place. Hang up your coat. Clear the table. Take out the trash. Where is the paper? It is too hot. It is too cold. The picture is crooked. The TV is too loud. Change the bulb. This is broken. That is broken. Wake me at 9. Close the door. Open the door. Close the window. Open the window. And on and on.
Other couples have arguments, but I cannot believe it is anything like ours. It escalates. The decibel rises, as does our blood pressure. Who started it? I am beginning to think it was the Dybbuk. Could it be my mother getting even? Her most frequent complaint in the last years, and I must admit, a legitimate one, was that I did not listen. Whether she wanted to tell me about the day she had, or her childhood in Vaslui, I did not listen. I was not interested. I had my own world. Leave me alone. And then she did. And I was left alone. And I would never hear her again.
Fran keeps telling me that listening was her business. Therefore, if I claimed I told her something, she would have known it, because listening was her business, and it follows that if she does not know it, I did not tell her it.
There are several unusual similarities between my mother and my wife. My mother had a brother and a sister. Fran has a brother and a sister. I had the impression that my mother had the most responsibility among the three, growing up. Fran had the most responsibility among the three growing up. My mother had a love for learning.
Fran has a love for learning. My mother loved to read the newspaper, and was seldom without her paper. Fran loves to read the newspaper, and is seldom without her paper. My mother was an activist, and concerned about the condition of the world. Fran etc.
In my mother’s will, she asked that if I had a son, I should name him David. I did not do as she asked. I named him after my father. But some remarkable force brought Fran and me together, and we had a son, and as my mother asked, he was named David.
There is a wonderful Yiddish word, “bashert,” and a very similar word, “basherte.” The first means “fated, predestined, inevitable,” and the second specifically refers to a “predestined mate.” Who controls the “predestination?” There is a story about someone asking a Rabbi, what God has been doing since he made the world, and the Rabbi answered, “arranging marriages.” But maybe not every marriage. I am not sure if God had a hand in either my first or second marriage. These days, as I look back on my life, I am willing to take the blame for the failure of my first marriage, and the precariousness of my second. But I would like to think that both Sylvia and Fran were my “bashertes,” one in 1951, and the other in 1981.
3-7-14
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A Dybbuk?
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Jacob Schlitt
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"I don't believe in spirits."
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Judaism
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Why It Is OK To Go To A Ballgame On Shabbes If You Bring Nosherei
As far as I know, and I don’t know much about halachah, the real problem about violating shabbes is about riding and handling money. We are commanded to remember the Sabbath to keep it holy, and do all our work in six days. Thanks to unions and labor legislation, most of us do all our work in five days. Those of us who “remember the Sabbath” don’t do things like writing, answering the phone, driving, watching TV, lighting fires, tearing paper, manual labor or buying or selling.
When we were in Israel, we stayed at a hotel which had a shabbes elevator. But as far as I am concerned, if you can ride an elevator on shabbes, as long as you are not activating it by pushing a button, then you can take the T to a ballgame.
As far as handling money goes, if you bought the tickets beforehand, you are good to go. If you plan to buy your tickets at the ballpark on shabbes, that is definitely a no-no.
And to get to the ballpark, presuming you do not live within walking distance, you will ride the T and have a Charlie pass, which you bought beforehand. No handling money.
So, now you have gotten from your home to Fenway, and gotten into Fenway with your tickets that you bought beforehand. At no time has money changed hands.
And since it is almost impossible to sit through nine innings of a Red Sox game and not want to eat or drink something, and since it is also a violation of shabbes to carry anything, you will have to wear something with pockets in which can be placed, a plastic bottle of water and whatever it is you might want to munch on—peanuts, popcorn, crackerjacks, potato chips, cookies, maybe even a piece fruit.
And since it is shabbes and you no doubt went to shul, you will have to rush home after kiddush, have something more to eat, and change into appropriate Red Sox paraphernalia.
You may have thought you have had your share of standing up and sitting down in shul, but be prepared for more standing up and sitting down, especially toward the later innings when the Red Sox are threatening, and David Ortiz is at bat. Very likely, you will spend the entire second half of the ninth inning on your feet, praying.
8-2-14
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Why It Is OK To Go To A Ballgame On Shabbes If You Bring Nosherei
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Jacob Schlitt
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"As far as I know, and I don’t know much about halachah, the real problem about violating shabbes is about riding and handling money."
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Why_It_Is_OK_To_Go_To_A_Ballgame_On_Shabbes_If_You_Bring_Nosherei
Boston
Jewish Identity
Judaism
Observations
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THE SECOND COMMANDMENT AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT
Am I the only one who sees a connection between the second of the Ten Commandments, and the second of the Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution? Both are the second out of ten, and both have given rise to different interpretations, especially the second second..
Here they are:
Second Commandment: Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them… (Exodus 20:4-5).
Second Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. (Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution).
To me, they are simple enough, but I am neither a Rabbi nor a lawyer. The first one says, don’t make a likeness of anything AND worship it. The second says, armed State Militias are OK.
My friend Mae Tupa wrote about the Second Commandment issue in “An Approach to Jewish Art,” the first chapter of her book, “The Work of Our Hands.” The Second Commandment, she noted, is not “…a prohibition against artistic endeavor…it was meant to discourage idolatry, not art.” There is also a threat and a promise, but we will skip that.
Jews, in Biblical times, were not doing the kind of sculpture found in Greece and Rome. They were the people of the book, not the people of the rock. Prior to the diaspora, there must have been Jewish artists and craftsmen doing some pretty fancy weaving, woodworking and metalwork, especially for the Tabernacle and the Temple, but, to play it safe, the art at the time was non-representational. Nothing that could be considered an idol. “Building a wall around the Torah.” There was a lot of image worshiping from Abraham’s time on, and they did not want to take a chance.
If an artist wanted to make a graven image, a likeness of any thing in the heavens, on earth or below the water, I am sure it would have been all right, (especially cherubs) as long as nobody worshiped it. However, when the children of Israel got Aaron to make them a golden calf, that was a no-no. I read somewhere that they felt it was intended it to represent God, not a competitor. Still, there had been bull worshipping among a lot of other groups, and a calf is a baby bull.
Now, we skip ahead three thousand years, and our founding fathers, having just written the Constitution, discovered that they left out a few things, and came up with additional protections. The first one was a beauty, guaranteeing freedom of religion, speech, press, peaceable assembly and the right to complain to the Government.
Then, they remembered the problems the English had a hundred years before with a crazy King, and figured it would be a good idea for the people to have State Militias to protect them. There were a lot of anti-Federalists who were afraid that a Federal Government might be a problem here just as a King was in England . So Madison wrote the second amendment to reassure them. States could have a well regulated militia that could be called up in an emergency. Members would each have a nice single shot rifle, meet at the armory, march in parades, go on maneuvers in the summer, and drink beer. The members of the militia will insure the security of a free State, and THEIR right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Our founding fathers never anticipated the National Rifle Association, and the kinds of weapons we have today. If they did, they would have written, “…the right of the people WHO ARE MEMBERS OF THE MILITIA to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed, AND EVERYONE ELSE CAN KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SUBJECT TO FEDERAL, STATE AND/OR LOCAL REGULATIONS.”
In 1789, James Madison felt he had to assure the anti-Federalists that their militias can keep their guns, Two hundred years later, what was once interpreted as a collective right was turned into an individual right by the NRA and Justice Scalia. They simply ignored the first half of the amendment, and what was left was the right of people to keep and bear arms. As a result, gun control laws are struck down, gun violence is increasing, and a conservative Congress is unwilling to pass common sense proposals calling for background checks, assault weapons bans, and limiting the size of ammunition magazines.
Wasn’t it Charleton Heston who played Moses, bringing the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, smashing them when he saw the golden calf, and wasn’t it the same Charleton Heston, addressing the NRA, holding up a rifle and saying no government will pry it loose from his dead, cold hand? We have come full circle. Gun-toting NRA members have become gun worshippers, violating both the second commandment and the second amendment.
2-8-14
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The Second Commandment and the Second Amendment
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Jacob Schlitt
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"Am I the only one who sees a connection between the second of the Ten Commandments, and the second of the Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution?"
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2014-02-08
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THE_SECOND_COMMANDMENT_AND_THE_SECOND_AMENDMENT
Judaism
Observations
Politics
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MEMORIES OF MY MOTHER
I am 88 years old. My mother died at 62. I have lived 26 years more than my mother. I attribute this to the fact that I was born in the US, and my mother was born in Romania. My mother saw to it that I had a nutritious diet, and a healthy environment, which she certainly did not have. My mother’s parents were poor, and she was apprenticed to a tailor when she was 6. Not a day of schooling, until she found someone to teach her to read Yiddish when she was in her twenties. After she married, she went to night school to learn to read and write English.
My mother died in March 1951. A long time ago; longer than her life-span. She had looked forward to her retirement, to collecting her pension and social security, to visiting the new State of Israel, to seeing me married and to having grandchildren. None of that was to be.
The following are a variety of recollections. Some of them, I may have written about before.
RITUALS From my earliest days, perhaps as early as two or three, whenever I went to bed—initially, when my mother put me to bed—she would say to me “Shloff gezinterheyt” and I would reply “Shtey off gezinterheyt.” (Sleep well; Get up well. Or sleep in good health.) I suspect, in the early years, she would kiss me goodnight, a time-honored custom. And would you believe, she never kissed me on the lips. I am sure that she had heard that kissing on the lips transmitted germs, and she did not want to be responsible for making her little boy sick. (And that is why I have managed to live to 88.)
We continued the practice of saying “shlof gezint, shtey off gezint” to the very end. Through high school, college, and in the year that I was with the ILGWU. By this time, I was usually out late, my mother was in bed when I came home, but I would go into her bedroom and say to her, whether she was awake or asleep, shlof gezinterheit, and she would replay, whether she was awake or asleep, shtey off gezinterheyt. It became a sacred act. Early on, I may have thought something bad might happen if I had skipped this ritual. And I have tried to replicate it with my children.
I believe when I left the house, or went on a trip, my mother may have said, “Foor gezinterheyt , and Koom gezinterheyt” and I carried that with me, until today. This has turned into a family joke. When my children went on a trip, I would say to them, Foor gezinterheyt, (which they heard as four goes into eight) and they would reply “Two times.” A bit of a connection to their grandmother.
BLESSINGS Fran has, from the time David was little, said the traditional blessing of children every Friday night, after lighting the candles. She would place her hands on his head and say the blessing in Hebrew and English: Y’simcha Elohim…May God bless you etc. My mother would light the candles every Friday night, we would say Git Shabbes, and she would then serve dinner. No blessings. However, from the time I was little, my mother would repeat her wish for me. I am sure she made it up. It was more humorous than religious. She said it so often, that it has become imprinted in my brain: “Mazel, brukha, parnussa, gedilla, khaye, veltn, un millionen mit geltn.” “Luck, blessing, income, prosperity, long life, the world, and wealth (millions).” It had a lilt, and it rhymed: veltn with geltn. I thought it was cool.
BATHING Another very early memory is of my being given a bath. I used to have a great time in the bathtub. I don’t believe I had bathtub toys, no rubber duckies or boats, but a wash cloth and a bar of soap, and I made lots of bubbles. Initially, my mother washed me. Then I insisted on washing myself. But when the bath was over, my mother came in and insisted that I stand under the shower, to wash off the soapy bath water. She would then take me out of the bathtub, stand me on the toilet seat cover on which she had placed a towel, and dry me, with a warm bath towel.
When I became self-conscious, having my mother see me naked, I insisted that I would bathe and dry myself. I did not need my mother helping me bathe any more. And so when the bath was over, (I no longer played with soap bubbles), I exited the bathtub, minus the shower, and took a towel which I placed on the toilet, and a bath towel, and standing on the toilet, dried myself. It was a few years later that I realized that I did not have to stand on the toilet. I felt foolish, realizing that I was replicating my mother’s actions, that people actually stand on the floor and dry themselves (which I have been doing ever since.)
READING My mother was an avid reader of the Yiddish newspaper, The Day (Der Tog). As I mentioned above, my mother did not learn to read Yiddish until she was almost 30. She told me that soon after the 1910 Cloakmakers’ Strike, she took an active role in her union, Local 9, Cloak finishers, ILGWU. She was elected shop chairlady, and attended union meetings, frequently taking the floor and forcefully expressing her position. The meetings were in Yiddish, and her spoken Yiddish was impressive. After one meeting, another union member asked her if she was familiar with a writer whose position was similar to hers. My mother answered that she was not familiar with his writings. The next day, she found a “melamed,” a teacher, to teach her to read Yiddish.
From my earliest days, I never remember her being without Der Tog. Reading the paper every day was very important to her. We were in the “depths of the depression” but my mother bought the newspaper regularly. (I have a vivid memory of the newsstand outside each candy store, with the papers laid out: News, Mirror, Times, Herald Tribune, Worker, and the Yiddish and other foreign language papers. And the magazines!) My mother read her paper “from cover to cover.” This was the period of clearly, politically aligned, Yiddish press: The Forward was Socialist, the Freiheit was Communist, the Morning Journal was Orthodox-Republican, and The Day was New Deal Democrat. My mother pressed me to read her Der Tog, and would call different articles to my attention, but I demurred. Reading Yiddish was too difficult for me, so my mother compromised. She insisted that I read the English column by Dr. Samuel Margoshes, which appeared every day in the left hand column on the front page. Not only did I have to read it, but most of the time, I had to read it aloud to her.
RADIO Just as she insisted that I listen with her to Zvi Schooler,the Grammeister, whose rhymed commentary on the news, concluded the Forward Hour Sundays on WEVD. We shared a lot of radio listening from the first days of my mother’s purchase in 1936, of this awesome invention. Radio had been around for several years, but what motivated my mother to buy one was her desire to hear President Roosevelt. He was our hero. And we listened spellbound to his campaign speeches and to his Fireside Chats. Everyone my age has fond memories of the radio programs of the 1930s and 1940s. A common refrain throughout my junior high school and high school days was my mother’s reproach: “Don’t do your homework with the radio on!” She was convinced that I needed to concentrate on my homework, and the radio was a distraction. She was right.
Early Sunday morning, I would listen to a couple of children’s programs. I believe one of them was “Let’s Pretend.” At 11 am, my mother took over, and the radio dial went from 880 (WCBS) to 1330 (WEVD). At the conclusion of the Forward Hour, there was news in Yiddish, and at 12:30 pm we switched over to WEAF for “The Eternal Light.” Again, my mother and I would sit, side by side, frequently in tears, brought on by the dramatizations of Jewish historical and contemporary stories by writers like Morton Wishengrad. It was presented by the Jewish Theological Seminary. I had no idea what the Jewish Theological Seminary was, but I was deeply grateful to them for presenting it. Immediately following, was “The Lutheran Hour: Bringing Christ to the Nation” which we immediately turned off, and had lunch.
My mother and I loved Sunday evening radio, especially one dramatic, and three comedy programs. The drama was “One Man’s Family” by Carleton E. Morse. It was high class soap opera, and we listened to it religiously, following Father Barber and his remarkable family. Real Americana. We hit the comedy jackpot Sundays with Jack Benny, Fred Allen and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. When they were on, my mother listened with half an ear and resumed reading her paper. She got the jokes. She had a great sense of humor.
JOKES My mother was one of the few grown-ups that I knew, who actually told jokes. It seems contradictory that someone whose life was so hard—she frequently said, “mayn leybn iz azoi shver”—would nevertheless relate humorous stories. She knew the Khelm stories and Sholem Aleichem’s humorous writings, and was the first to tell me that he was referred to as the Jewish Mark Twain. She loved Molly Picon, but was also critical of the slapstick humor of the Second Avenue Yiddish musical theatre, shund. Her favorite motion picture comedy performer was Charlie Chaplin.
Some anecdotes that she told me, I still remember. And others may come back to me. The first is about a little boy who needed his mother’s help to urinate. (That is the premise of the joke.) Whenever he had to pee, he would go to his mother and say, “I have to pee.” One day, when his mother was entertaining guests, he announced he had to pee, which she found embarrassing. She told him that, in the future, he should say, I have to whisper. And that is what he did. The following week his grandfather was visiting, and his mother was out. His grandfather was lying on the couch, when the little boy had to pee. He went to his grandfather and said, as he was told, I have to whisper, and the grandfather said to the little boy, whisper in my ear. Ta da!
My mother also told me the origin of the name of the state of Massachusetts. Seems one of the colonists was exploring New England in the company of his loyal black slave. He was impressed with this land that ran from the ocean all the way west, and he asked his loyal black slave what the land should be called. His loyal black slave demurred, and said, “Massa choose it.” And that is how, according to my mother, Massachusetts got its name. Ta da!
In 1916, the presidential election was very close. It was a hard-fought campaign. Charles Evans Hughes was the Republican candidate and Woodrow Wilson was the Democratic nominee. When the final results came in, one Republican turned to the other and said , “It’s no Hughes.” Ta da!
And then there is this story about me that she enjoyed: I was two or three. We lived on Beck Street in a lovely apartment. We had a telephone. I loved playing with the telephone. However, this was the time when there was no direct dialing. You lifted the receiver, the operator answered, and you gave the operator the number. On several occasions, the operator called our home to ask that the child not touch the phone. My mother told me not to play with the phone. I continued to play with the phone. My mother came up with the solution; she bought me a toy phone, and explained that this is my phone, the other phone is hers, and I should not touch it. Some days later, the operator called to tell my mother that the child was still lifting the receiver. My mother, upset, reprimanded me, and asked why was I touching her phone when I have one of my own. My answer: “My phone doesn’t say, ‘number pease.’”
She also told jokes in Yiddish. Kiev has been in the news recently, and the following which is more of an aphorism, came to mind with the trouble in Ukraine and the constant references to Kiev: “ A kee geyt tsum Kiev, un kimt fun Kiev, un blaybt a kee.” A cow goes to Kiev and returns from Kiev and remains a cow. What was the context? It was a derisive observation regarding the nouveau riche and their luxury trips to Paris and London. To Eastern European Jews, Kiev was a large metropolis, and a center of art, culture and learning. A trip to Kiev by a seeker of knowledge would be transforming, but to a cow…
POLITICS My mother was very political, which always impressed me. It is clear that, in addition to my blue eyes, I inherited her politics, and I suspect she inherited her politics from her union. Or maybe, before. She left Romania at 16, and though there were the beginnings of a political awakening, I would suspect she was too young and too removed, to have been exposed to it. It is possible that politics—Marxism, workers’ rights, anti-Semitism and pogroms, the franchise—were discussed by her fellow-“fees-gayers” as they walked across Europe to the ports from which they boarded ships for the New World. But what would an illiterate girl of 16 know of those things?
I do know that, early on, she had a sense of herself as a person, a Jew, a worker, a woman. Someone who demanded justice. No book-learning. She just had it, early on. That is why she joined the union, was active in the historic 1910 cloakmakers strike, was elected shop chairlady, and a member of the local’s executive board. And when she married, and became a citizen, she also voted Socialist. Her early heroes were Meyer London and Meyer Berger and Eugene Debs. She also admired Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger, Rosa Luxemburg, and Leon Blum in France. By the early 30s, being a realist, she looked to President Roosevelt, Governor Lehman and Mayor LaGuardia. She still admired Norman Thomas, but she considered herself a small “s” socialist.
The ILGWU was a “socialist union.” Like my mother, it moved from Socialist to socialist. In 1936, it went all out for FDR’s reelection, abandoning Norman Thomas. Knowing that a large number of its member would not vote for a capitalist party (and the Democratic party was a capitalist party), it helped form the American Labor Party. My mother became a loyal member of the ALP. However, by the early 40s, the Communists, as part of their popular front strategy, took over the ALP. So the ILGWU and the Hatters Union formed the Liberal Party. My mother became a loyal member of the Liberal Party.
I am not sure where her antipathy to the Communists came from. She obviously was familiar with their role within the internal politics of the ILGWU. They almost destroyed the union in 1926, but my mother was no longer a member. Nevertheless she must have read about the struggle in the Yiddish press. She also read about the rigged Moscow trials in the mid 30s. She felt that the American Communist party was more loyal to the Soviet Union than to the US, and this was confirmed by its initial opposition to “lend-lease,” after the Hitler-Stalin pact was signed in 1940. When Hitler invaded Russia, the Communists became super-patriots.
My mother obsessed about war and killing. How could civilized people do such things? She supported Debs in his opposition to World War I, and she supported Wilson in his effort to have the US ratify the League of Nations. She told me that she had no faith that World War I would be the war to end all wars. However, if out of it came an organization that would settle disputes without people killing each other , it would have been worth it. Being opposed to killing, she was opposed to capital punishment. And she was opposed to guns. I certainly could not have a toy gun.
World War II was another story.
PHOTOGRAPHS The first photograph I have of my mother was taken in 1908 in Pittsburgh. She was seated on the arm of a chair, and another young woman was standing beside her, right hand on hip, and left elbow on my mother’s shoulder. My mother had her left hand on her hip, and was holding a small bouquet of flowers in her right hand, on her lap. They were two very pretty young women. On the back was written my mother’s name: Cilia Goldstein, and the other woman’s name, Jon Orenstein (?).
This was followed by two photographs taken at Levin’s Studio, 333 Grand Street in New York. My guess is that they were taken around 1911, or 1912. One was to serve as a Jewish New Year greeting, and my mother’s hair was up. In the other photograph, my mother hair was down. It appears that my mother had become a big fan of the professional photography studio. Displayed prominently in our apartment when I was a child were were two different large wedding photographs. The one I still have is sepia colored, 14 by 18 inches, in a polished mahogany frame. My parents look serious, my father in a dark suit and vest, a tie with a stickpin, head tilted toward my mother, who has a slight smile, bobbed hair, a dark dress with a scooped neckline and a lot of hand needlework. Their wedding in 1916 was not in a synagogue. There was no wedding dress for my mother or tuxedo for my father. They were married by a Rabbi. I have a copy of their Ketubah. Smaller copies of their wedding picture were mailed to family. There is another photograph of my parents, and over the next several years, photographs of my mother. She took a series of photos in June 1921, according to the date on the back. In one she is posed as a religious woman with her hair covered. In another, she is examining her hair, and in Yiddish she wrote, a gray hair? A third was labeled, In doubt.
When I was born, in December 1927, she was 39, which is quite old to have your first child. She had pictures taken a few weeks before she gave birth. It bothered me when she said she did not know if she would survive the pregnancy, so she wanted a record of how happy she was then. My mother did not want amateurs taking her picture. One summer in the mid-twenties, my parents went away on vacation and someone had a camera. My mother refused to have her picture taken, but fortunately the amateur photographer took one as she was reading her newspaper, and another with my father. There are several of my father in knickers.
When I was born, she went wild with picture-taking. There were photographs of my mother with me, and photographs of my father with me. And there were photographs of me in traditional baby poses every few months until I was one year old. Then every year on my birthday, until I was four. The depression hit when I was two. Still, we had to have a photographic record of my turning two, then three. My father died when I was three and a half. Still, my mother took me to the photographer’s at four. Those were the last pictures, until I graduated from junior high, ten years later.
CLOTHES The early photographs of my mother revealed an attractive woman. She was short, 4 feet 11 inches, and weighed about 130 pounds, large busted. A pleasing face, blue eyes, a lovely smile. Initially, she wore her brown, wavy hair long, but when it became too much trouble, had it cut short. She had long fingers and fingernails. She told me that her ears had been pierced as a child, but she seldom wore earrings; only on special occasions. She loved necklaces. Her only ring was her white gold wedding band.
My mother knew clothes, and quality. However, she found it difficult to find clothing that fit her, so she made most of her own, both dresses and coats and jackets. She would visit Woolworth’s and go through their various patterns, select one, and then go to the fabric store, and buy the necessary amount of fabric and the thread to match. Then followed several evenings of work. Though I did not admit it, I was impressed as she laid out the fabric on the kitchen table after dinner, placed the pattern over it, and began cutting it. She did it skillfully. After the material was cut, she sat at her foot treadle Singer sewing machine and stitched the material together. Again, I was impressed by her ability to manipulate the material through the sewing machine, threading the needle, inserting the bobbin, working the treadle. The pieces came together.
My mother took out of the closet a figure that was supposed to look like her, on which she draped the garment she was working on, and then did the hand sewing. It never occurred to me that what she was doing was very difficult. A one of a kind garment, created for her figure: setting sleeves, attaching the collar, making the buttonholes, hemming, stitching, embroidering, and then pressing. Over the years, she worked her way through several thimbles, which she used to push the needle through the fabric. Her favorite was silver. My mother also made a coat for me, about which I have written.
Most of the clothing that she made, as well as the clothing that she bought for herself or for me, was usually made or purchased in connection with a Jewish holiday. In the spring, Pesach, In the fall, Rosh Hashanah. In the winter, Chanukah. (The custom did not apply to Tisha B’Av in the summer).
One winter, she worked on a coat for herself. I was a teen-ager, and a know-it-all, at this time. And it was a period when I had become more and more embarrassed by my mother. I am not sure when I began being embarrassed. It is something that, over the years, I have become more and more ashamed of myself. First, I was embarrassed because my mother spoke with an accent. Then I was embarrassed because she was short. The fact is that almost all the other boys’ mothers were short and spoke with an accent. This was compounded by the fact that she was an older mother, and that she walked with a limp. I have this awful memory of, whenever we went out together, I constantly walked ahead of her, and kept urging her to walk faster. How cruel!. I may have even been embarrassed by her always carrying a Jewish newspaper.
Back to the coat: She made a lovely winter coat, and found that she had some material left over. Being creative, she made herself a hat and a handbag. It was a terrific ensemble. I was embarrassed by it. I told her the hat was funny-looking. The handbag that she made was in the shape of a large envelope. Carrying forward with this idea, she embroidered a name and an address: Mr. December. The year was the street number, with a made up street name, and on the third line, New York City. She even embroidered a stamp. I shuddered, and did not want to be seen with her. I felt that store bought had to be better than home-made, and this had home-made written all over it.
AUCTION SALES I mentioned that my parents married in 1916, and as a newly married woman of the period, it would have been demeaning to my father if my mother continued working. She left the shop. My mother was a skilled cloak finisher, and an active member of Local 9. She had been both a shop chairlady and a member of the local’s executive board.
She took a “withdrawal card” from the union, maintaining her membership, but not paying dues. She left the place which gave her an identity and where she was respected.
She became a homemaker. My mother had good taste, and she furnished her home with beautiful furniture and bought the finest Limoges china, 1847 Rogers Brothers silverware, Wearever aluminum cookware etc. I am sure she made my father proud. But after that, she had very little to do.
My mother told me (on the increasingly rare occasion that I listened to her) that she had learned about auction sales at this time, and was fascinated by the process. A great variety of merchandise (including works of art) were put up for sale, and people would bid on them. She decided to take part. In the process, she obtained a number of remarkable art objects, paintings, prints, sculpture, cut glass. My parents’ home in the 20s must have looked like a museum. After describing the fun of going to the sales, my mother told me that she felt terrible coming home. Why? Because she was taking up space in the subway that really belonged to the workers who were returning from a hard day’s work!
HEALTH Unfortunately, I only knew my mother as an “older woman” with infirmities. When I was four, she had a major hip operation. I did not know what was happening.
She went into the hospital, and I went to stay with my cousins, Ruth and Arthur Kestenbaum. They had their hands full with their new daughter Barbara. Ruth’s parents, Yetta and Beryl Goldstein, were living with them, as well. I called them Tanta Yetta and Uncle Beryl, even though they were not my uncle and aunt.
When my mother came home, she walked with a limp, and from that time on, had to wear corrective shoes. I remember a cane in the corner. But I do not remember her using it. What I do remember is her awareness of how important it was for her to keep walking. Almost every day, she would walk the length of our two room apartment. Back and forth; back and forth. It drove me crazy, as I got older. Pacing, pacing with her hands clasped behind her back.
Not only did she have a limp, she frequently had very painful gall stone attacks. I was told that it was brought on by something she ate. My mother would writhe in pain, and there was nothing I could do. Just watch her as she suffered, until it went away. I asked her about it when I was six or seven, and she told me that it was “gold stones.” I could not get over the fact that my mother had gold stones inside her. I asked her if she would be rich if the doctors could take out the gold stones. Apparently, they could not, and she would not.
My mother’s observation during the depression: Only the very rich and the very poor are receiving decent medical attention. My earliest memory of medical care for both of us was the Lincoln Hospital infirmary. I had no idea what ailments she had, but I know she went to the hospital frequently. We both had a hospital card, which I saw as similar to my library card. I visited the Lincoln Hospital less frequently, but that is where I had my tonsils taken out. There were a few occasions that required my mother to be hospitalized, and she always felt grateful for the care she received. Because it was the “Lincoln” Hospital, and it was the 1930s, the New York Department of Hospitals apparently assigned all its black nurses there. My mother was incredulous and delighted that a few of the black nurses knew Yiddish. How wonderful, she thought, that they were able to communicate with the Yiddish speaking patients.
A SECOND MARRIAGE? Over the years, I have written dozens of pieces about my mother, and have told countless stories about her, but I have never mentioned that very brief period when I was 9 or 10, and a strange man and his son came to live with us. Whenever anyone asked me if my mother remarried, I say no. Perhaps I have been trying to repress it. I know it happened, but I really know nothing about it. I certainly don’t remember my mother telling me that she is remarrying. All I know is that I came home after school one day and there were two strange people in my living room.
As I try to reconstruct the event, it is as if it took place in a dream (nightmare) that I put out of my mind and am struggling to remember. His name was Mr. Schoenbaum. I do not recall his son’s name. His son was a few years older than me. I was told that they were moving in with us. Mr. Schoenbaum would be sleeping in the bedroom with my mother. His son would be sleeping on a cot next to me. How did this come about? I have no idea. Did they find each other through an ad in the paper; through a marriage broker? Did someone introduce them?
There was Mr. Schoenbaum and his son, with a valise and a violin case next to them, looking terribly uncomfortable and out of place. I was stunned, and said nothing. How did this happen? My mother never told me that she was considering marrying again. I know that when things were most desparate, she admitted that she thought of placing me in a home. But of course, she never acted on it. I was all she had, and she was all I had.
I guess Mr. Schoenbaum was in the same position. He may have lost his wife, lost his job, lost his home. Here was a woman who had a home—a two room apartment that rented for $25 a month. If they joined forces, perhaps four can live as cheaply as two.
I cannot remember what Mr. Schoenbaum or his son looked like. He certainly was taller than my mother, and his son was taller than me. All I remember was that I had almost nothing to do with either of them. I did not consider them my stepfather and stepbrother. I simply did not consider them. They must have done their thing, and I did mine.
And after what I imagine was a few weeks, they were gone! Just as they arrived. I came home and there were no Schoenbaums. All that was left was the violin in the closet. My mother may have acknowledged that they would no longer be living with us. And I may have acknowledged how happy I was that they would no longer be living with us. No discussion. Life returned to what ever it was before they came on the scene.
One more event from the dream: It was a Sunday, several weeks later. The doorbell rang, and in came Mr. Schoenbaum. He sat down at the kitchen table and entered into a conversation with my mother. Again, I have no idea what it was about. What I do know is that it was my job to dust the furniture, and I was in the middle of doing it. And as my mother and Mr. Schoenbaum were talking, I proceeded to wipe the dust off the chair Mr. Schoenbaum was sitting in, until my mother told me to stop and leave the room. That was the last I saw of Mr. Schonbaum. My mother and I never talked about it, ever.
NEIGHBORS I never thought of my mother as unfriendly. I was aware that she did not go in for small talk or gossip. She always greeted the people we passed in the hallway. But as far back as I can remember, there was only one neighbor who actually stepped foot into our apartment on Fox Street. It certainly was not always like this. My earliest memory of her friendship with a neighbor goes back to a visit we made to the lower east side when I was very young. It was an eye-opener for me. I had never seen a building like it. The woman was a friend from before my mother married, who apparently remained in the old neighborhood, Allen Street. We lived in an elevator house with heat and hot water. This was a cold water tenement, with the toilet in the hall. I remember how happy my mother’s friend was to see her. I don’t know if my mother made a return visit.
Another friend from her earliest days was Mrs. Nerenstein, with whom my mother lived when she came to New York. It was also on Allen Street. They were “lantslayt.” I believe it was Mr and Mrs Nerentstein whose address my mother had when she left Vaslui. Mrs. Nerenstein was older than mother. I saw her as someone who my mother might have viewed as an older sister or an aunt. Coincidentally, the Nerensteins had moved to the Bronx, and did not live too far away from Fox Street. They lived a short trolley ride to Hoe Avenue, and we visited them often. A treat that Mrs. Nerentstein would always serve in the summer was a glass of seltzer with a spoonful of jam. As my mother and Mrs. Nerenstein talked, Mr. Nerenstein read the paper, and I played by myself under the table. Everyone was happy.
Two other neighbors who became friends, pre Fox Street, were Mrs. Getter and Mrs. Bortnick. Mrs. Getter was one of the few people who would visit my mother from time to time. Both women impressed my as intelligent, and sophisticated, and their conversations dealt with serious issues, not gossip. Mrs. Bortnick was someone my mother knew from 566 Beck Street, and she and her family moved to an apartment house around the corner from us. I remember Mrs. Bortnick’s son Paul, who was a few years older than me. I enjoyed taking to him, just as my mother enjoyed talking to his mother.
However, there was no neighbor on Fox Street who became a friend. I began to wonder if it was because my mother did not reach out. Were her standards too high? I tried to encourage her to engage with my friends’ mothers, but she refused. Clearly, she was a different person after my father died. Perhaps she withdrew. She constantly complained that she had no one to talk to.
The one neighbor who interacted with my mother was Mrs. Durst. She lived directly across the hall in B67; we lived in B63. She was younger than my mother, and was also a widow. She was also friendlier, and was American born. Mrs. Durst was also on relief. We had that in common. She was always up on whatever benefits were to be had by relief recipients, and told my mother how to get surplus food, and clothing. It was because of Mrs. Durst that my mother was able to get a winter coat for me. Mrs. Durst was a good looking woman, and also had a “friend.” He went fishing on weekends and he would frequently bring her large quantities of fish, mostly flounder, that he had caught, and Mrs.Durst would share it with my mother.
And it was Mrs. Durst who must have noticed on March 11, 1951, that she had not seen my mother for a while, and knocked on the door. When she received no answer, she called the police. They forced open the door, found my mother unconscious and called for an ambulance, which took her to the Lincoln Hospital, which is where she died. And it was Mrs. Durst who remembered that I worked for the ILGWU and was out of town, and called the union, to let me know that my mother died.
3-14
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
application/msword
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Memories of My Mother
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jacob Schlitt
Description
An account of the resource
"I am 88 years old. My mother died at 62."
Revised draft of "Memories of My Mother" (2014)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014/2016
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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text
Language
A language of the resource
en
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1910/1951
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MEMORIES_OF_MY_MOTHER
Family
Judaism
Memory
Mother
Politics
Yiddish