Category Archives: American Jewry

March 15, 2010 · 7:49 am

Ticket to New York

by Harry Lazarus (Tenafly, NJ)
Interviewed by Bruce Black

When I was growing up, I used to love listening to my grandfather, Harry Lazarus, z”l, retell  stories about his childhood in Zharnov and how he made his way to America. Before his death a number of years ago, I recorded one of our story-telling sessions in his apartment in Tenafly, NJ. In this segment, he describes how he made his way from Europe to America.

BB: So you came to the Jewish section of Berlin?

HL: I came there with another two boys, and the people came over and said, “What’s the matter with you?” And I told them the story that I ran away and I wanted to go back to Vienna.

And they said, “All right, we’ll buy you the ticket. You’ll go to Czechoslovakia and from there you’ll go to Vienna.”

And I said, “A ticket? That’s very nice.”

But when we came to Czechoslovakia, the inspectors looked up and asked, “Where’s your passport?”

I said, “I have no passport. I just got a worker’s book that shows I worked in Vienna.”

They said, “That’s not a passport.”

So they kept me there, again arrested in Czechoslovakia. If I wouldn’t have the book, the inspectors said they’d send me back to Poland. But I had the book showing that I had worked in Vienna, so they sent me back to Berlin.

They sent me back to Berlin with a soldier on the train. Back to Berlin.

BB: And when you got back to Berlin?

HL: I came back to Berlin and went again to the Jewish section, and they said, “All right, we’re going to buy you a ticket to go the other way through Dresden.”

They bought a ticket to go to Dresden. We went to Dresden. We went down, me and another boy, we had a few pieces bread, and we came there.

And we met a boy there, and I said, “You should smuggle us over to Vienna.”

And he said, “All right, I’ll go in and ask my father.”

If his father went along, he would smuggle us over to Vienna. Not to Vienna, but to the border. And that’s what happened, you know? He smuggled us over  the border, and then I took a train and went back to Vienna. And I was in Vienna.

That was the terrible time I had when I went to visit Zharnov.

BB: Where was your brother, Manny, during all of this?

HL: He was in Vienna. He didn’t go. I was the only one who went crazy.

BB: Did he know the trouble you were in?

HL: He didn’t know, but he found out when I came back to Vienna.

BB: Once you were back in Vienna, what did you do?

HL: A little while later we ran away to Paris.

BB: You and Manny? You didn’t need special papers to get to Paris?

HL: We couldn’t get passports. So, I bought a passport in a Polish consul. And that was my trouble. I bought a passport.

And the fellow says, “What should I write in?”

And I heard in America they needed engineers. So I told him, “Write in that I’m an engineer.” And Manny wrote in that he was a tailor. If I would write in that I am a baker, I would be safe. But I wrote in an engineer.

And I had the passport, you know. And in Paris we were about three months there. We kept on going to the consul and going again, and we had to wait, and every time he told us we needed something from America to prove that we got there somebody in the country.

We got letters from Izzy and everybody but the consul didn’t recognize it. So we were about three months in Paris and we spent a lot of money there. And then I decided, “Well, if we can’t go to America, we’re going to go to Canada.” So I got somebody, you know, and he made me out to go to Canada. I gave him some money, you know, and he made me up to go to Canada.

BB: So you went straight from Paris to Canada?

HL: We decided that we got a brother in England that we’re going to go to England to visit him and from England we’re going to go to Canada.

We came to England and he was very nice to us. He was a tailor, too, and Manny worked for him a little bit and me, I wanted to go there to work in a bakery, but I couldn’t do nothing.

Anyhow, we were there about two weeks and decided that we should go to Canada. We bought tickets, you know, to go to Canada. When we came to Canada, they let Manny out, they let my brother out, but me? They arrested me.

BB: Arrested you? Why?

HL: Because I wrote that I’m an engineer. They said, “What kind of engineer are you?” So they kept me back, and I was there, not just me, it was about fifty boys they kept back. We were in a prison, a house, and Manny wrote letters to Meir, to my brother Meir in New York.

He told him if they sent me back to Poland, they’d kill me.

So Meir was a very good person. He decided to come to Canada and take me out from there. He came to Canada, you know, he took me to the consul, and he said, “He’s in the bakery business and he’s all right.”

He said that he was going to take me into the bakery, but the Americans wouldn’t give me the okay to go there. Just because I said I was an engineer. They thought I was a liar, a Communist or something. They wouldn’t give me an entry visa.

So Meir paid for a lawyer to take me out. He paid $500 for the food while I was there, and he paid a lawyer $200 to take me out. And then I had to pay some money, you know, to a fellow to smuggle me over to America.

And that’s what it was. I went on the train and I went to a farmer about 4 o’clock in the morning and he put in a horse and wagon and he took me over.

I thought he was going to throw me down somewhere in the woods. It was winter, you know? But he took me over and he showed me the station, Over there, he said, you have to buy a ticket to New York.

That’s all I knew. Meir spent about $1,000, you know, my brother Meir. He spent about $1,000 to take me out of Canada.

When I came to the station, I said, “Ticket to New York.” And they gave me a ticket.

Next: Finding romance in New York…

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March 8, 2010 · 7:31 am

Turmoil in Vienna

by Harry Lazarus (Tenafly, NJ)
interviewed by Bruce Black

When I was growing up, I used to love listening to my grandfather, Harry Lazarus, z”l, retell  stories about his childhood in Zharnov, a small village near Lodz and not far from Warsaw, and how he made his way to America. He was a baker, with bright blue eyes above a thick nose, a warm smile, and broad, strong shoulders, and he spoke with the thick Eastern European Yiddish accent of his youth. Before his death a number of years ago, I recorded one of our story-telling sessions in his apartment in Tenafly, NJ. In this segment, he shares scenes from his life in Vienna.

BB: You were involved with the Black Market while you were in Vienna?

HL: I don’t want to say anything about it.

BB: Why not?

HL: I don’t want to talk about it, that’s all.  But I made a lot of money, and I used to go dancing, and I had a nice girl and I had a very good time. I used to go to operas and I used to go to shows. I had a very good time in Vienna.

And I figured a little later, I was already about 18 years old, I was already about four years in Vienna, and I knew everything and I spoke beautiful German and I wrote beautiful German and everything was nice. And I figured I’m going to buy myself a little business there and get married and stay there in Vienna.

And then when Hitler started to talk, Hitler, he was in Austria, you know? Hitler, he started to talk about Jews and all that stuff and right away there was a lot of trouble in Vienna, you know? The government was a socialist government, and there was a Communist Party and they marched to the Parliament, and I marched, too.

BB: You were a Communist?

HL: I marched with the Communist party. I marched. And when we came there, they threw fire, you know, the things that fire, they threw on the Parliament. As soon as the marchers did that, the soldiers came out with machine guns and they started to shoot and everybody ran. And I ran, too. But somebody pushed me up to a tree and I was hurt.

I went to the doctor the next day and I told him. He said, “What the hell? Why did you march? Who told you to march?”

I said, “Nu, I marched.”

And that was the end of my time in Vienna when I had money in my pocket.

BB: So what’d you do?

HL: I figured that I would go back to Zharnov. I used to have in Zharnov my uncle and a nice girl that I left there, a girlfriend. And I wanted to see them. And I went back to Poland.

When I came back home, I was over 17 years old, so they wanted to take me for a soldier. They wanted to take me for a soldier. But I didn’t want to go to be a soldier for the Pollacks.

When I went home, the soldiers on the train, when they saw a Jew with a beard, they grabbed his beard and they did all kinds of trouble to the Jewish people. So I should go to be a soldier to fight with them? I didn’t want to.

I said to my uncle, “I want to run, to go back to Vienna.”

So I went back, I tried to smuggle myself over to Germany, and it wasn’t easy. When I came to Breslau, I was sitting on the train by a German officer, and I told him I wanted to go to Vienna. And he said, “You better hide yourself. The Polish detective is going to be here. They’ll take you off.”

So I hid myself in the toilet and I didn’t let anybody in. And I was laying there in the toilet. I was laying for a long time there and I was so tired already from laying there that I came out and I said “Can I go out already?”

And the German officer said, “No, not yet.”

And I had to go back again until I came to Berlin and the Polish inspector couldn’t take me off no more.

So I came to Berlin and I went over to the police and asked, “Where’s the Jewish street?” And he told me which street car to take to go to the Jewish section.

Next: From Berlin to New York

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March 1, 2010 · 8:33 am

War Breaks Out

by Harry Lazarus (Tenafly, NJ)
(interviewed by Bruce Black)

When I was growing up, I used to love listening to my grandfather, Harry Lazarus, z”l, retell  stories about his childhood in Zharnov, a small village near Lodz and not far from Warsaw, and how he made his way to America. He was a baker, with bright blue eyes above a thick nose, a warm smile, and broad, strong shoulders, and he spoke with the thick Eastern European Yiddish accent of his youth. Before his death a number of years ago, I recorded one of our story-telling sessions in his apartment in Tenafly, NJ. In this segment he describes his life in Zharnov when  war between the Austrians and the Russians breaks out.

BB: So, you were saying the war broke out…

HL: Yes, then the war broke out. The Russians were in Zharnov. Then the Austrians chased them out and grabbed all the boys, fourteen-year-old boys, to chop stones. And then they took us and sent us away to make trenches.

We were there by a farmer, two boys laying on the floor or three of us covered up in our coats, and at 5 am we used to go to the place where the sergeant counted us, and then we ate something, and then we had to go to dig the trenches.

One time my boots fell apart. I walked about two miles without the boots in the snow. When I came there to the place, I warmed my leg under my jacket, and the sergeant hit me with a whip, the Austrian sergeant. He hit me with a whip. I had to stay with both feet in the snow.

And some fellow that spoke German came over and said, “What did you hit him for? He hasn’t got boots.” And he sent me in the place to peel potatoes until they were going to fix my boots.

They fixed my boots, and I came out, but instead of going to them I ran away. I couldn’t go on a train because I didn’t have any documents. So, I ran. When I came to a farm or somewhere, I went inside to the farmer and I crossed myself and I spoke Polish.

They didn’t know whether I am Jewish or not, and I begged for a piece of bread or something, and that’s what they used to give me: a piece of bread or potato or something. And I would sit around there, and then I’d run again.

I ran, I don’t know, maybe forty or fifty miles. I kept on running until I came to Kunsk. There was my sister. Not from my father’s first wife, but a sister, and she was no good. She was a terrible woman. When I came there on a Friday morning, she gave me something to eat and said, “When do you go home?” She wouldn’t let me stay over Saturday in her place. “When do you go back to Zharnov?”

So I had to run from her place to Zharnov. It was maybe another ten miles. When I came back to Zharnov, I went to my uncle. He was a very good man. He kept me there, you know, and I was by him a few days, until a soldier asked “Who wants to go to Vienna?” And I registered to go to Vienna, and another few boys registered to go to Vienna, too.

So, we came to Vienna. We were put in a barracks where the soldiers lived and they gave us something to eat, all right, and then they came in the next day or two and asked, “Who wants to go to Czechoslovakia?”

At that time Czechoslovakia used to belong to Austria, and I picked up my hand right away to go to work in a leather factory. And another boy picked up his hand. And they sent us away to Czechoslovakia. The city was, I think, Brinn.

And they took away all our documents, and then they gave me an apron and boots and a piece of iron to take out the leather from the lime and bring it to the machine to fix up. The machine cleaned this up to make leather out of it.

But lots of times I couldn’t hit the leather, you know, with the hook. I couldn’t hit it. It would slide out. So I used to grab it with my hand to pull it over to the machine and my fingers got burned up from the lime. And I thought, “This is not for me neither.”

So, I ran again. They wouldn’t give me my documents back. So I ran away to a train, and I hid myself under the bench, and I knew that the train goes back to Vienna, and I went back to Vienna.

When I came to Vienna, everything was rationed. You couldn’t get anything without a ration card. I didn’t have any money to go into places to eat. So I said, “All right, whatever’s going to be is going to be.” And I went back to the barracks.

I came to the barracks and the officer said in German, “What are you doing here?”

And I said, “I burned my fingers up. I couldn’t work there, so I ran away.”

And he called me all kinds of names in German, “Verfluchte Yuden! Verfluchte Yude! I’m going to send you back to Poland!” Oh, he hollered murder.

But I had one nephew there who worked in a very big factory. He found out that I am there, and he made a job for me in the factory. So the German let me out. He gave me another document and he let me out to go to work in the factory.

I went to the factory. It was a very big factory, about 20,000 people there, and they put me in, and I had to put electric lights in, you know? Electric lights.

I used to work in that place and we used to get one meal a day, just a little meal. One time everybody was kicking, and I said to a friend, “What are you kicking for?” And he said, “We’re eating horse meat.” So I had enough already. I didn’t eat it.

And then I lived in a place, you know, I used to pay there, I don’t know, two krone or five krone, to rent a room. And I used to live there as a boarder, and I brought over Manny, and he was a boarder there, too.

After work we used to go in a people’s kitchen to get something to eat, like a bowl of soup or something. And then we used to go home with nothing more than a piece of bread in my pocket. I used to have such a terrible life.

But I was with Manny, and he made a few dollars, and we used to share, and soon I was making a little money on the Black Market…

Next: From Vienna to Berlin…

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February 22, 2010 · 8:59 am

Growing Up in Zharnov

by Harry Lazarus (Tenafly, NJ)
(interviewed by Bruce Black)

When I was growing up, I used to love listening to my grandfather, Harry Lazarus, z”l, retell  stories about his childhood in Zharnov, a small village near Lodz and not far from Warsaw, and how he made his way to America. He was a baker with bright blue eyes above a thick nose, a warm smile, and broad shoulders, and he spoke with the thick Eastern European Yiddish accent of his youth. Before his death a number of years ago, I recorded one of our story-telling sessions in his apartment in Tenafly, NJ. In this segment he describes his early years.

BB: So, Grandpa, tell me about growing up in Zharnov.

HL: Well, when I was seven years old, I was a very lively boy. I used to run around in winter without skates–just with my boots–on the ice. I ran up and down the river and everything, and I used to go outside and I used to stay by the fire, and then I used to come home.

And my mother used to work in the bakery. She worked very hard, and I used to help her as much as I could. I used to run to buy everything, to help whatever I could. In the morning before I went to the Hebrew school, I used to carry out the rolls, the orders, to restaurants, and then I used to go to Hebrew school half-a-day, and then I used to go half-a-day in the Russian school, the Russian-Polish school.

And everything was going all right but I was never satisfied with what we had in the house. I always liked to take something more. In the summer the druggist man had a whole wall with grapes, and I went in there and took bunches of grapes. And I had another boy, a partner, and we went out and we had grapes for a whole day. We had grapes!

And it was the same thing with everything. I went in the teacher’s garden and I went over to pick up some cucumbers. I needed cucumbers? But I went there to pick them and I spoiled so much stuff by going in, and that boy was supposed to watch so that we could get away. But the teacher caught me, and he gave me a slap in the face, and took me in to my father and complained.

My father saw that he made me a red cheek and said, “Why did you hit him so much?” And he hollered at the teacher.

But, anyhow, that’s what I used to do in Zharnov.

BB: Anything else you want to say about your childhood?

HL: Then girls and boys weren’t allowed to walk together. Girls used to walk separate and boys used to walk separate. It was a very religious town.

So, I used to take down these stickers from the trees and I used to throw them on the girls. The more wild I was, the more girls I had that loved me.

I went in Hebrew school–there weren’t many students, I wouldn’t say much, about twenty-five boys in the school–and the rabbi’s daughter fell in love with me.

One time we had to give him our papers, and after that we had to write the whole thing over and over. I didn’t like his writing, so I didn’t want to give him the paper. Then he took me and he hit me with his strap. He gave me some slap! Not just me, you know, a few other boys–they didn’t like his writing either, so they didn’t give him the papers. But he knew that I am the leader, so he strapped me.  He hit me very much. And when I came back home, my brother, Izzy, went to the rabbi and told him, “If you’re going to hit him, I’m going to hit your head off, if you’re going to hit him so. You made him black and blue marks from the strap.”

BB: Why didn’t his daughter try to save you from the beatings?

HL: Oh, she was crying. She called her mother over, and they pulled me away. Her father wanted to kill me, you know, he was so mad because I didn’t give him the paper.

And that was my life. I was growing up. When I was twelve years old, I knew how to read Russian and Polish and Jewish, and an uncle of mine came from a big city.

BB: Which city did he come from?

HL: He came from Lodz. He made a theater, and he put together a show in Zharnov. He took one of the finest buildings and he made a show and he put me in the show. And everything was nice, everything was good.

But when I was about thirteen years old, my mother passed away. She was sick, and my brother Izzy wanted to be a doctor. He was in a hospital, an intern, in a big city, and we sent him a telegram to come back. And he came home, and she died in his hands, my mother.

When she died, my brother Izzy decided to get married so he could take care of us. I was twelve or thirteen years old, my sister Yetta was about nine years old, and my sister Tilly was six years old. He figured he would get married and would take care of us.

He was full of life. He made himself a little room where we had three mills and where we made oil for the farmers before Easter. He made there a room for himself to live there, a very poor room.

My father didn’t like that life. He liked to have another wife again, and he started to have arguments with my brother Izzy.

My brother Izzy said, “Nu, I’ve had enough.” He wrote away a letter to Meyer, our step-brother in New York, and Meyer sent him a boat card. At that time, a boat card was about twenty-five dollars to go with the boat to come here. I don’t remember if he sent him the money or if he sent him a card, a boat card, but Izzy went away to America.

He came to America, and, well, he couldn’t be a doctor in America. So, he went and learned how to be a dress operator. And at the same time he used to go in a place to help out in a barbershop–he knew how to give a haircut and a shave and he used to make a little money, you know?

Then, when he had enough money, he sent for his wife, Lutzie. She was pregnant when he left her, and she had the baby, Morris, in Europe. She had the baby there and then he took over his wife, and he took over Yetta, and he took over Tilly. He brought them over here. And he tried to keep them alive with the money that he made.

BB: Why didn’t he bring you and Manny over?

HL: Me and Manny? He didn’t take us over. We remained there, but he took over Tilly and Yetta.

BB: How did Izzy meet Lutzie?

HL: She was in my mother’s family, and he was in Lodz and got acquainted with her in Lodz. And he went around with her and everything, and then he married her because of my mother passing away. He married her, and then she got pregnant, and he thought he’s going to lead the business and everything and that’s what’s going to be, but my father didn’t like it.

So, he went away to America, and he brought over Lutzie with Morris, Tilly, and Yetta, and he had a poor life here.

And I was in Zharnov with Manny, and he worked with a tailor and he got a few cents and we used to share together, you know?

BB: And your father? Did he remarry?

HL: My father was in love, and he married again, a nice woman. He married, and he put her right away in the bakery, and I knew already how to work in the bakery, too. Everything was going fine, but a year later he passed away, and he left me an order that we shouldn’t leave my uncle in, but my uncle didn’t care. He came and he threw everyone out.

He threw out Lutzie… she was in Zharnov, too, you know? I was thirteen years old, I used to bring her a piece of candy and a little soda or something because I knew that she was pregnant. She never forgot this, what I used to do as a young boy.

When he came, Lutzie had to go back to her town, and she had the baby, and then Izzy took them over to America.

I remained there in Zharnov, and I had to make a living for myself.

For Pesach I went in another bakery and I worked by the matzahs. They made matzahs for Pesach. So I worked by the oven to shovel in the matzahs and bring them out, and I had to be very careful. When you put in the matzah, the raw matzah mustn’t touch the baked matzah. The rabbi would come, you know, and he’d look if I worked the right way. And I worked the right way. Whatever I made–two dollars or three dollars a week–I made a little living. That wasn’t so bad.

BB: And then what happened?

HL: Then the war broke out…

Next: The Austrian army chases the Russian army out of Zharnov and conscripts the village youth to dig trenches.

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February 15, 2010 · 8:51 am

The Last Kaddish

by Robert J. Avrech (Los Angeles, CA)

The Kaddish has been called an echo of The Book of Job. Job said: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him.”

The Kaddish is an expression of faith on the part of the mourner that although he is grief-stricken, he still believes in God, still trusts in the meaning of life. It is the ultimate anti-existentialist statement.

Karen and I will mourn forever. We are riven as day follows night. Our son will always be dead, and a central portion of our lives died with him.

This Shabbos I recite the last Kaddish of the eleven months for Ariel.

I stand in shul, eyes closed, swaying back and forth, chanting the words with—I hope—perfect diction and true feeling. I want the b’racha to go on forever. I want to stretch the words like a giant rubber band and make them reach from earth to heaven.

There are at least another dozen mourners in shul, all with much louder voices than mine, but I hear only one sound. Is this my voice? I see Ariel as he used to be: sitting in shul beside me. Is this my voice? I study the delicate contours of his face. I melt as Ariel’s lips move, savoring each syllable, whispering the sacred Hebrew text. Is this me? I study his long tapering fingers as they turn the pages of the siddur. I lean over and bury my lips in the plush groove of his neck. It is my voice. I am close to the end. It is my son.

I take three steps back and three steps forward. I finish the Kaddish. I open my eyes and discover a dozen men in shul gazing at me. Some have tears in their eyes. Several nod, tacitly acknowledging the finality of the moment. I open my eyes and I see light. I open my eyes and I am swimming through layers of memory. I open my eyes and I see splendor. I open my eyes and I see my son, my son, Ariel.

Robert J. Avrech is a screenwriter and producer in Los Angeles. Among his best-known films is the thriller, Body Double, directed by Brian DePalma. His script for the modern Hasidic tale, A Stranger Among Us, directed by Sidney Lumet, was an official selection of the Cannes film festival. Robert won the Emmy award for his adaptation of the young adult classic, The Devil’s Arithmetic, starring Kirsten Dunst and Brittany Murphy. Robert was also nominated for The Humanitas Award for Within These Walls, starring Ellen Burstyn and Laura Dern. Robert writes an award winning blog, Seraphic Secret http://www.seraphicpress.com/. He also writes a regular column for Andrew Breitbart’s Big Hollywood http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/author/ravrech/.

This piece is reprinted here with permission of the author. It first appeared in 2004 on his blog, Seraphic Secret.

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February 8, 2010 · 9:03 am

Grandpa’s Shears

by Janet Ruth Falon (Elkins Park, PA)

I have a photograph of my maternal grandfather, Sam Frankel, sitting in the New York City sweatshop where he earned his subsistence living.  He looks rakish, wearing a cap and looking right at the camera, and even jaunty, not like the sour, beaten-down, shuffling old man I knew whose only pleasure was a Hershey bar.

But I never really knew my grandfather; he was deaf, and Yiddish speaking, and he kept to himself, wrapped in an off-putting cloak of bitterness and disappointment.

He only gave me one thing when I was a little girl, an inexpensive cut-glass pendant shaped like a heart.  I value it, even though its sparkle and clarity seem like the exception to our relationship. But I own a piece of my grandfather that’s even more important, which my mother passed on to me after his death more than twenty years ago: his shears.

The heavy, enormous scissors that he used to cut through thick layers of fabric in the sweatshop seem a more appropriate souvenir of Sam Frankel. These are scissors with serious intentions, scissors that would identify themselves as a tool, work implements in an entirely different class than the blunted scissors I used to cut out outfits for my paper dolls.  They’re meant to persevere, and to survive.

The blades are sharp, still, and the scissors are heavy, to be used by an adult who meant business.  As different from kiddie scissors as oil paints are from crayons, it’s clear that the goal of these scissors is to divide things, to separate them.  It would be someone else’s job to join things.  That fits.

Someone–maybe my grandfather, maybe his wife–wrapped both looped handles of the scissors with fabric tape, wound round and round to create a cushion that might soften the irritation of repeated use.  Without it the scissors would undoubtedly have caused blisters or, with time and persistence, calluses, those physical manifestations of surrender.

I never saw him use these scissors; instead, it was the women in his family who I associate with sewing and creating.  My grandmother used her treadle-pedal sewing machine, which was sold at her death when my mother was too grief-stricken to know she’d regret its loss. (She also knitted and made sweaters for my dolls from leftover wool which I still own.)

My aunts were both in the millinery field, crafting hats from all sorts of materials in the era when women seriously wore hats; I have some of these, too.

And my mother has dabbled in needlepoint, rug-hooking, mosaics and knitting.  To this day, she has never used a sewing machine; she sews everything by hand–even, equal stitches that hold together.

I’ve never liked sewing.  I had to take a sewing class in junior high school, and I wasn’t good at it.  I didn’t like the precision it required nor the fact that I had to follow a pattern. But the easiest part was cutting out the fabric.  I used my grandfather’s shears.

Janet Ruth Falon, the author of The Jewish Journaling Book (Jewish Lights, 2004), teaches a variety of writing classes at many places, including the University of Pennsylvania.  At the moment she is teaching journaling and creative-writing classes to people with cancer, and she’s working on a project that she hopes will be published as The Breast Cancer Journaling Workbook.

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February 1, 2010 · 9:36 am

The Shul is Dark

by Chaim Weinstein (Brooklyn, NY)

The shul is still, dark.
Blood-red velvet drapes
Hide cold hard-oak doors
Slide open, reveal
Lonely Torah scroll:
Knitted mantle frayed,
Blushing, embarrassed,
Like town urchin or
Forlorn orphan brought
To Magistrate’s Throne.
Old Jews’ prayers rise
Like illusory
Flickering flames high
Above the gold-hewed
Menorah, curling,
Wispy bony smoke
Rising to gray grime
Of low-hung ceilings:
Here the journeys end

Chaim Weinstein taught English for more than thirty years at two inner-city junior high schools in Brooklyn, NY. “The Shul is Dark” is based on a short story that he is currently working on, one which has long haunted him.

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January 11, 2010 · 9:31 am

The Diner

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

God’s sitting at the next table over,
amid the noontime rush,
consulting the menu the angelic
waitress has placed before him.
I wonder what he’s ordering,
what celestial meal will be to his liking.
There are so many questions I would like to ask,
but I don’t want to appear rude,
like some overzealous autograph seeker.
I’d like to ask if he made the universe eons ago,
and whether these days he takes an active hand
in the petty and paltry affairs of man.
I’d like to know why over the course of time
he has let so many disasters go unattended,
and more selfishly, what plans does he have for me?
But I will sit here quietly at my own table
and not presume upon his meal.
He has enough on his plate, I would think,
though I do wonder whether he leaves a large tip
as he finishes his coffee, checks his BlackBerry,
and contemplates what miracles
he has to accomplish by evening.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in a new YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

“The Diner” was prompted, Mel says, by “the Job-like questions I still have about God and what He is not doing lately.”

You can read more about his work at his website: www.melglenn.com

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December 21, 2009 · 9:35 am

Jerusalem: December 24

by Cherryl Smith (El Cerrito, CA)

I’m wheeling my new rolling cart out of the supermarket on HaPalmach on Christmas Eve, strolling past Bank Hapoalim, which looks pretty crowded, and congratulating myself on the purchase of the brown and white checkered shopping cart that makes the seven block trek back to our apartment on Rechov Alkalai an easy errand, no awkward maneuvering of heavy grocery-filled plastic bags or hands red from the drawstrings. There’s a new bookstore on the corner and tonight I decide to go in. It’s a small, inviting place with a good English selection and an electric kettle for tea or instant coffee. I browse for a few minutes and though I’m feeling carefree and happy, I resist buying more books, say l’hitraot to the young clerk and go back outside where the air is cold, and the streets, the open stores, the traffic — all are the same as on any other weekday evening.

How to describe this, the joy of Christmas in the Holy Land?

Tourists have arrived from around the globe and the hotels in Jerusalem, as well as in Bethlehem, are full. The municipality is distributing free evergreen trees at Jaffa Gate to anyone who wants one.  For the past few nights, a lime green floodlight has been projected onto the Old City walls. There is even a large inflated Santa Claus outside a shop on a side street in the Christian Quarter. Around 10 pm, we hear bells ringing from the Old City and we do not, immediately, remember that it’s Christmas Eve.

This is my first visit to Israel in winter, the first time that I have experienced Christmas as just another day, all the weeks and months leading up to it invisible within the Jewish calendar of Haggim and Shabbatot that create the rhythm of life here. It’s the first winter that I have not wished to flee my surroundings, to mute the sensory barrage of piped in Christmas music, the glare of Christmas lights, the shopping countdown and the spending frenzy–the first time that Chanukah has not been swept into the holidays of “the season.”

There is Christmas in Israel and it is a religious observance, the reason for the December influx of tourism to the sites made famous by Christianity. Here, in the one Jewish country of the world, Christmas is not a national holiday. The day passes unnoticed in the Jewish and Arab-Muslim neighborhoods and for the first time in my life the weeks of December did not include finding a response to the question: “Are you ready for Christmas?”

The IBA English news even interviewed Christian tourists in a kind of human interest story you sometimes see given to Jewish holidays in the US.  The tourists, “some of whom refer to themselves as pilgrims,” notes Yochanan Elron, the anchor, have filled the hotels and are enjoying Israel for the holiday. IBA news’ Leah Stern speaks to visitors outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. One African-American woman traveling with a tour group is especially enthusiastic. What does she want to tell the folks back home? “Everybody” ought to come here, see the sites, spend time in Israel. It’s safer here than in the cities in the USA.  You’ve “just got to experience Christmas in Israel,” she says.  It is “the best Christmas” of her life.

The same for me, exactly.

Cherryl Smith is author of After Being Somewhere Else (poems) and Writing Your Way Through College, a student’s guide. She teaches writing at Sacramento State University where she is a Professor in Composition and Rhetoric.  During the fall and winter of 2007 she taught at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

This piece is reprinted with permission of the author.

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December 14, 2009 · 9:13 am

Two year anniversary since my father died….

by Linda Cohen (Portland, OR)

After Linda’s father died in December 2006, she began her blog, 1000 mitzvahs, as a way to move through the grief that she was feeling at that time. “It has proved to be a transforming experience both for myself and my family,” she writes. “This mitzvah project has allowed us opportunities to talk more about my father, doing mitzvahs and sharing more family stories.” The numbers below refer to the number of mitzvahs that she has performed since starting the blog.

Today is December 1, 2008. My father died two years ago today. His death also coincides with my son’s birthday which turns out to be a wonderful blessing. Solomon was so excited today to turn eight. I had left three gifts on the table and he was so happy to find them when he woke up. Later, he confessed to me that he had peeked into one of the bags while I was still asleep. When he opened the presents he never let on that this was the case. I know sometimes my husband and I wonder if our kids really need one more toy, but today Solomon was so grateful for everything that he received. There were some baseball items (hat and cards), PJ’s, Legos, several gifts of money but his most favorite gift was a boxed set of Chaotic cards. He had been coveting them for weeks at Target and I was excited when I snuck them to the cashier without him seeing a few weeks ago. He was shrill with excitement when he opened them and saw what was inside.

I spoke with my stepmother today and she had gone out for dinner with my stepsister and her family. They ate Chinese food, told stories about my dad and toasted him. Officially in Judaism, you commemorate or have someone’s “yartzeit” on the Hebrew date of their death. So I have decided that even though it is sometimes easier to remember the English date, I want this date to remain Solomon’s special day and I will light a candle in memory of my dad next week on his yartzeit, December 8th. I am sure my dad would want it this way too.

820) Referred a friend to a colleague of mine for some services.

821) Have you ever offered to do something and then really wished you hadn’t? You might wonder why did I offer to do that? I had one of those moments this weekend and was even contemplating how I could get out of it. It was kind of a misunderstood offer that would require about an hour of my time which in itself was no big deal, it was just that it was in combination with my son’s birthday party on an already busy day. In the end, I just figured I should make the best of it and did, and you know what? Attitude is everything because it turned out to be exactly what I needed at that time of the day.

822) Offered to drive two children to Solomon’s party to help out the parents.

823, 824 & 825) Donated a gift certificate to a Mitten Tree project, as well as coordinated a donation of hand creams and purchased some baby clothes for the project.

826) Brought new magazines to my gym to donate to the reading area.

827) Donated in memory of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holzberg of Mumbai, India.

Linda Cohen considers herself a young, hip Jewish mother who does what modern Jewish mothers do. They bring the traditions into the 21st century. They take care of their families, their communities and get involved with organizations they care for passionately.

Linda feels blessed to be married to her insightful “renaissance” husband. She’s also the mother of two spirited and exuberant children who keep her laughing and always keep her humble. They all live in Portland, Oregon with their Cavalier Spaniel.

You can read more about her work at http://1000mitzvahs.wordpress.com/ where this piece first appeared. It’s reprinted here with permission of the author.

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