Category Archives: Brooklyn Jews

May 29, 2023 · 6:30 am

I Wanted to Be More Jewish

by Carol Blatter (Tucson, AZ)

My dad died of lung cancer on January 16, 1965. I was twenty-two. I remember Mom and me trying to find his tallit to be used in his burial which was tucked away somewhere in the apartment. Luckily we found it. Do I ever remember him wearing his tallit? No. Why would he? He didn’t go to synagogue on the Sabbath to engage in prayer. Nor on other holidays either. 

Because he had a hard life and had to work long hours including on Shabbat and on Jewish holidays, he left behind any Jewish observance. (I am assuming that he had some Jewish education in his childhood but I never had a way of verifying or refuting this. All my dad’s  family are deceased).

Jewish practice could not heal his losses. He lost his dad when Grandma locked his dad out permanently for his abusive behavior. Dad, the oldest child, lost his childhood when he became a dad for his family. He lost the love and attention from his mom, my grandmother, who was raising Dad’s three younger siblings. He lost an education when he dropped out of school in eighth grade to support his family. He lost his sense of self-esteem and the ability to earn a good living in his adult life. 

I grew up in a Jewish and Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. I always knew that I was Jewish. Most of our neighbors were Jewish. An Italian family lived next door. I thought that we had a good relationship with them. Maybe it was a superficial relationship because we were of different faiths. Thinking back I realize they never came to our apartment. Did my parents ever invite them even for a cup of coffee and chat? Did they ever invite us to their apartment for a cup of coffee and a chat? Not that I can ever remember.

We had a dance toward the end of sixth grade before graduation. John Mortorello, a very nice Italian boy, asked me to the dance. When I told my parents, Dad was incensed. He probably said something like, I can’t believe that you are going to a dance with an Italian boy. He was visibly upset. It’s hard to remember my reaction. I wanted to go to the dance and I was content to go with John. Mom didn’t say anything. I don’t think I knew much about prejudice. But I was beginning to learn. I still went to the dance with John. Did Dad have bad memories of having been beaten up by some Italian and Irish kids when he was a kid? Does that explain his reaction? 

Did he fear that eventually I would meet and date and, perhaps, marry a non-Jewish boy? I have no idea what he thought. 

Dad had an ice cream parlor and luncheonette when I was growing up. Many Syrian Jews frequented the store. For some reason Dad kept complaining about the Syrians. Why complain about the customers who brought income into the store? And why pick on other Jews just because they originated in Syria? Not from Minsk or Pinsk or Brooklyn? Not Ashkenazi Jews? Were their skins darker than ours? Did they have accents that made it difficult for them to be understood? I wonder what dad really feared. What I do know is that he feared the goyim. But Sephardic Jews are not the goyim. 

Dad and I never talked about our religion. I don’t think that I learned anything about our Jewish traditions from Dad. Showing was a way of teaching, and Dad was not a role model for Jewish practices.

My recollection is that neither Dad nor Mom went to the neighborhood synagogue on Kol Nidre night nor on the following day. I have my doubts that they prayed at home and fasted. I never saw this happen. What was strange was Dad taking on the role of a taskmaster on Kol Nidre night. I can still hear him telling me what I wasn’t allowed do. I couldn’t turn on the radio. I couldn’t watch TV. I couldn’t read. There wasn’t anything I was allowed to do. What was going on with Dad? Why this strange behavior? Why was he so harsh? So dictatorial? When did Dad ever tell me what to do or not do on other Jewish holidays? Not once that I can remember. In telling me the rules of Yom Kippur as interpreted by my dad, perhaps he was assuaging his guilt for his own non-observance. He could tell himself he was a good parent keeping me in line Jewishly. It is as if he fulfilled his obligations as a Jew even when he didn’t.

I was ten and in fifth grade. I told my parents that I wanted to fast on Yom Kippur. They appeared shocked and surprised. Imagine seeing my parents standing there frozen like two statues facing a traumatic event. I wondered. Did they think I was too young to make an informed decision? Did they think that I might die if I fasted? After their brief whispered chat, they agreed I could fast but only until 3 PM. I was ok with that. But they didn’t say anything about fasting with me.

I’m thinking back to when my dad sat shiva for his dad. I was eight years old. It confirmed that  my dad had some knowledge of Jewish traditions. He followed the Jewish practice of mourning for his dad. Despite a life-long fractured relationship, he knew he had to sit shiva. He had to say goodbye to his dad in this traditional way. Maybe in his dad’s death, he forgave him.

Thinking about all the main Jewish holidays, Sukkot, Purim, Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Ha’Shanah, Yom Kippur, and Chanukah, I can’t remember any family celebrations. I don’t know if I knew so little about these holidays that I didn’t feel a sense of loss. Maybe in a subconscious way, I did. Somewhere in my childhood, I decided I wanted to be more Jewish. Where this came from I have no idea. But it has shaped my entire adult life. 

I’m proud to be an observant Jew.

—

Carol J. Wechsler Blatter is a recently retired psychotherapist in private practice. She has contributed writings to Chaleur Press, Story Circle Network Journal and One Woman’s Day; stories in Writing it Real anthologies, Mishearing: Miseries, Mysteries, and Misbehaviors, Real Women Write: Growing/ Older, Real Women Write: Seeing Through Their Eyes, Story Circle Network’s Kitchen Table Stories, The Jewish Writing Project, Jewish Literary Journal, New Millennium Writings, 101words.org, and poems in Story Circle Network’s Real Women Write, Beyond Covid: Leaning into Tomorrow, and Covenant of the Generations by Women of Reform Judaism. She is a wife, mother, and grandmother. 

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May 1, 2023 · 6:30 am

My Bar Mitzvah Story

by Jack Braverman   (Sarasota, FL)

This was the day that I was to become a man. It was the day of my bar mitzvah. I could only wonder about all of this. I was the smallest of boys, and I knew that in all ways I was just a little kid. 

Everyone was rushing. My mother, Lisle, and my father, Nachman,  were getting dressed in their very best. My sister, Marilyn, was yelling something about nylons. Her fiancée, Stanley, was coming to pick her up in a little while so they could go out together for breakfast before going to Temple.  

I said the brucha that I had been taught and pulled my tzit tzit up over my head. I put on a new stiff white shirt and clumsily tied my tie into a giant knot. This made the tie too short, so I tried again, and this time the knot came out lopsided, but the tie was the right length. I put on the new suit my mother had bought me from the tailor at the dry-cleaning store. It was my very first suit made too big so I could grow into it and made of thick, stiff, scratchy wool that made me feel itchy all over. I could wear it to my sister’s and brother’s engagement parties and their summer weddings so it wouldn’t be a waste.  

I looked in the mirror and tried to smile. Sometimes I wondered if I was normal. Other kids laughed and smiled. I just couldn’t seem to smile. I didn’t know what it felt like to be happy. I usually felt just sort of numb. My parents had often told me how hard their lives had been as children. They had been new immigrants so it had been a struggle for their family just to survive. They often went hungry, were often cold, and some of their brothers and sisters just weren’t strong enough and had died as young children. My father had to leave school in the third grade to sell newspapers in the streets of Montreal. He had learned then how to fight for the best street corners, how to jump onto a speeding trolley to sell some papers and then to jump between the cars onto the next trolley that passed before the conductors could collect a fare. The school of “hard knocks,” my father had called it.  

So my father taught me what he himself had learned as a child in order to survive—how to fight with your fists and how to knock someone out before they knocked you out, how to be tough and take a punch and never ever show pain or weakness, how to be a man. So I learned how to be tough. I challenged the other boys to hit me in the stomach and trained myself to take any punch they could give. I never flinched, never showed pain, never cried. But no matter how hard I tried, I never seemed to be as strong or as tough as my father wanted me to be. My mother taught me what she had learned as a child—how to account for every penny, how to work tirelessly without stopping from before dawn to well after dark, to never to give up, to hold my feelings deep inside and never let them show. I was a good student. I learned what my parents taught me. 

My parents moved often so I had to go to a variety of different Hebrew Schools. I never much liked Hebrew School. When I lived in Far Rockaway and Brighton Beach, I had to ride my bike to get there, so it was easy to just get lost along the way. Then I would weave my bike slowly back and forth across the whole width of some back road, leaning hard into the turns, feeling the edge, feeling the slow hypnotic rhythm as I rode one curve into another, feeling the bike as it felt the road. Sometimes I made it to school, sometimes I didn’t. 

When my family moved to Flatbush in Brooklyn, I was within walking distance to Hebrew School, so I couldn’t use my bike to get there. There was a collapsed building right next door to the school, and there I could spend the hours I was supposed to be in school. Jumping off the edge of one broken wall to another, playing at being an adventurer who could find my footing on the edge of any precipice, leaping out over broken glass and steel shards from one ruined wall to another, improvising more and more difficult jumps—allowing my feet to feel the strength and shape of the broken brick, trusting my senses to gauge the jump and then jumping beyond what I had ever done before, testing my courage, challenging myself to climb higher and jump further, trusting my feet to find their own footing. There was a feeling of danger, and I reveled in it because it made me feel alive. 

The Hebrew School teachers in Brooklyn weren’t kind when boys missed class or disobeyed. They taught as they themselves had been taught. Brutalized when they were children, these teachers taught brutality along with the Hebrew alphabet. They walked the aisles striking each desk with a thick wooden pointer as they passed, seeking out the boys who looked away or showed fear for they knew that these were the boys who were not prepared. There was an edginess, a feeling of danger, in the classroom as they called on one boy after another, waiting to catch one unprepared or not paying attention. When they caught one, they would humiliate him, embarrass him, scrape their wooden pointer across their knuckles or slap it across their backs. Sometimes they smashed the pointers across a desk, and the loud crack of wood splintering always managed to command attention. I read well, so the teachers rarely called on me. I made up a game of making the teachers believe I was asleep, resting my head on my books or mindlessly staring out the windows, knowing I was baiting the teachers, knowing that if I lost my place as I played the game I would be shamed or hit or thrown out. I knew it was risky, but it was the very risk that made it fun. 

Occasionally, some of the biggest boys, who were bigger even than the teachers, answered back. It was then that little Rabbi Menachim, who wasn’t much taller than 5 feet, would be called in. Rabbi Menachim was the toughest teacher in the school. No matter how big they were, Rabbi Menachim just grabbed these boys by their collar, lifted them right up out of their seats, and threw them down the stairs. Rabbi Menachim became my bar mitzvah teacher, and after throwing one boy out of school Rabbi Menachim confided in me that when he himself was a boy of just fifteen, he had disobeyed his father by cutting his hair short to be like the other kids. His father had thrown him down the stairs and out of his house. Then Rabbi Menachim’s father sat shiva for seven days as if his son were dead and never did speak to him again.  

The rabbi told me that though the bruises from being thrown down the stairs went away in a few days, the pain of hearing his own father say the prayer for the dead for him —the pain of looking into his father’s eyes while his father looked right through him as if he weren’t there—that pain was with him still. The personal confidences that Rabbi Menachim shared with me created a special bond between us, and I worked very hard to please the rabbi.  

Rabbi Menachim made it very clear to all of his students that if they could not or would not sing in the very fast, precise, restrained, somewhat stilted way that he taught, they would be bar mitzvahed anyway. They would sit up on the bima, but they would sit there like fools, shamed and embarrassed in front of all of their friends and family because they would  sit up there in front of everyone and say nothing. He insisted on the form of the cantillation being perfect—every word sung in an even controlled tone, no part louder or softer, no part faster or slower.  

I worked as hard as I could at being the perfect student for Rabbi Menachim. I did just as I was told, and the rabbi gave me more and more to chant and finally gave me the Torah portion itself to chant. I sang every note perfectly and distinctly just as I was taught, even though the stiffness and the flatness made the words sound dead—without spirit or heart or melody. 

The chanting that Rabbi Menachim taught sounded nothing like the cantorial music that my father listened to at home. My father would sit at home in the evening listening to old scratchy recordings of the great cantors of Europe and America—Moishe Kousevitsky, Rosenblatt, Serota. These were the cantors from a lost age, my father would tell me. These were cantors who had found a poetry, a natural harmony, in the Torah. They sang with a mesmerizing rhythm, an intensity, an anguish, a cry in their voices that drew me in. My father called these cantors chazans—those who could sing with a feeling in their voices that came from somewhere beyond themselves. They gave a voice to the pain, the loss, the loneliness and the hopes of generations of Jews. The chazans, my father told me, were those who could recreate the ancient haunting melodies hidden deep within the Torah. 

I heard that same music over and over for years growing up. My father would sit in a chair listening, crying quietly as he listened, revealing an emotion that I didn’t know my father had. My father and I didn’t talk much but since my father always seemed pleased when I sat down and just listened, I sat with him often. He told me that these chazans“sang from the heart” and “that was why their singing was so powerful.”  

“Singing from the heart, touches the heart,” he would say. 

Sometimes when I was sure no one was around, I played those old records, listening carefully to the anguished chant of those chazans. I even found a recording of my own Torah portion and sang along and joined in with the  recording, singing in the loudest voice that I could, filling the room with my voice, releasing something inside that was almost dead. 

My sister, Marilyn, came in to see me before she left with her fiancé for breakfast. She retied my tie, tucked in my shirt, which was half out, kissed me on the cheek, and gave me a hug. 

I sat up on the bima waiting to get up to sing my portion. It was the Akedah, the story of Abraham preparing to sacrifice his own son, Isaac. God himself had had to intervene to stop the sacrifice. This was the Abraham whom God had told to lech lecha, to leave his father’s house, to leave everything he had known, and go to himself. What a strange idea, I thought.  To reach beyond everything he had known by going to himself, to reach into  himself in order to go beyond himself. Is this what I’m doing now, I wondered?

I felt even smaller than usual sitting up there alone, vulnerable in front of all those people. I swung my feet back and forth while I waited to be called. I could hear Rabbi Menachim’s instructions in my head. I could still hear the pain in the rabbi’s voice when the rabbi had told the story about his father saying the prayer for the dead for him. 

I felt confused. Didn’t Rabbi Menachim’s own father sacrifice his son just for cutting his hair? Didn’t Rabbi Menachim himself sacrifice some of the bar mitzvah boys just because they couldn’t sing perfectly? In my mind, I could hear the cries and the hypnotic chanting of the chazans. I could hear the rhythms of the poetry in the Torah, the mesmerizing passion. As I sat perched high up on the bima, I remembered my father sitting in the living room crying as he listened to the chazans chanting.  

I wanted to please Rabbi Menachim. I wanted so desperately to finally please my father. I wanted to express the pounding, throbbing emotions that I felt. I wanted to stand up and scream out, “Here I am. I am a person. I have feelings too!” I wanted so much for my father just to notice me, to express some emotion towards me, to approve of something. I wanted to step out of the deadened, crushing life that I lived, unfeeling, numbed. 

Was this a dream?  A dream where I couldn’t feel? A dream where sad old men had taken over a religion and forgotten their heart and their spirit, where a son became dead to his father because he had cut his hair, where a father could cry for long dead cantors while ignoring his own living son sitting right in front of him?

I heard my name called in Hebrew. I stepped up onto a stool so I could see over the podium. Standing on the edge of that stool, I felt I was standing at the edge of the world, on the edge of everything I had ever known, and I could see a soft void in front of me waiting for me to fill it. All those faces in front of me.  

Something was tearing at me inside. My head was throbbing. Thoughts and memories were crowding within me, pushing against each other, trying to get out. There was a pounding in my ears. My skin was hot. There was a cry pushing its way out of me: the anguish of Rabbi Menachim, my father’s tears, my own long buried ache pulsing and pounding within me. I was sweating. I could smell my own fear. I tried to control all these feelings that were exploding within me. I tried to hold myself together. 

I could hear the words of my portion — “Heneni: here I am” —screaming in my head.  I am a human being. I am someone, too. I won’t be crushed. I will be…….

An ancient haunting wail filled the synagogue echoing back from the rear walls. An ancient rhythm seemed to call out to each of the listeners, speaking to each of them in their own name, drawing them in with a passion and a cry that seemed to know each one’s secret pain. The usual constant murmuring in the synagogue was silenced. The passions of the chazans was still alive. A song from the heart touched many hearts that day. I  looked up to see my father embarrassed, wiping away some tears before anyone noticed. 

At the end, when I walked off the bima, I tried to catch the eye of Rabbi Menachim, but the rabbi stood there stone-faced. At first the rabbi seemed to turn away. But when he turned back toward me, he looked right through me, as if I wasn’t there. My father ran up to me, his face still wet, and, proud father that he was, he picked me up and held me up high like a trophy. 

Rabbi Menachim and I never spoke again. 

Jack Braverman was born and raised in “the old country,” better known as Brooklyn, New York. He dabbles in swimming, sailing, kayaking, photography, and writing short stories.

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February 6, 2023 · 6:00 am

Saturday morning

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

A man this Saturday
passes me on the street.
He is dressed in a suit and tie
and carries his tallis bag obviously 
on his way to the local shul.
He wears a yarmulke.
“Good shabbos,” he says.
I mumble the same in reply.

I feel I should be someplace else.

I am dressed in a 
tee-shirt, shorts, and sandals,
and on my head is a baseball cap.

I feel I should be someplace else.

The morning sun, 
rather than a call to prayer,
dictates my walk around the park
where I can think my little thoughts.
The air is fresh, my mind is clear,
and yet …

I feel I should be someplace else.

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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December 12, 2022 · 6:00 am

The Rebbe’s Blessing

by Steve Meltz (Clifton, NJ)

It was a 98° Tuesday night in the summer of 1974 when my mother parked her green Ford Pinto along Eastern Parkway at the corner of Kingston Ave in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.  

My mother, brother, sister and I were headed to 770 Eastern Parkway, the world headquarters of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson (of blessed memory) with whom we were about to have a one-on-one meeting called a Yachidus (Yiddish for “At one with”).   

This was arranged by a friend of my brother Dan’s named Yossie who he had befriended at a religious summer Camp we had both attended in the Catskills called Gan Israel. The camp was run by the Lubavitch (also known as Chabad) who are a Brooklyn-based Chassidic group whose leader we were about to meet.          

Dan had casually mentioned to Yossie, that I was unable to have my bar mitzvah in our own synagogue. I was 12 at the time and had also met Yossie at Gan Israel and was taken by how kind, gentle and genuine a person he was and at summer’s end we said our goodbyes.   

What I did not know at the time was that he was from one of the most prominent families within the Lubavitch community and had arranged for this meeting, a great honor. Normally one would have to wait over three years to have an audience with the Rebbe and Yossie had arranged it in less than three months.

I later learned that among the Lubavitch community, having a one-on-one meeting with the Rebbe was like having an audience with the Pope and was among the highest honors one could be given within that community. I suppose because it was arranged so quickly and easily, I did not realize at the time just how big of a deal it was. 

770 Eastern Parkway (referred to as just “770”), was originally a three-story Gothic revival mansion built in the 1920s. Over the years, as the Lubavitch community had grown, this building and a large apartment house next to it on the corner were joined. Thankfully this original structure had remained intact and had been added to rather than torn down and replaced.  

The evening sky had turned dark, and the only available light came from a few evenly spaced streetlights. As we approached 770, the light grew stronger as it came into view in all its splendor. It was dramatically lit from below and looked like a structure from a medieval university. 

As we entered the upper level, we walked through a small vestibule with a 15’ ceiling and a single naked bulb high above our heads. To our right were two adjoining rooms each with long wooden tables and benches that had clearly seen better days. The tables we piled high with books of all kinds scattered everywhere. At those tables were 35-40 men engaged in the study of Torah, Talmud, and other sacred texts. Typically made up of small groups of 2 to 6 men who ranged in age from 20 to 70, these study sessions often turned into debates about interpretations of passages and texts and were often loud and lively and at the same time very passionate and exciting.

I had only been active within the community for about two years and in that time had visited Crown Heights many times for Shabbat weekends and had prayed in 770 many times before, but being here now felt very different. 

As we walked through that entrance usually reserved for men, I could feel the eyes of those around us. Looking in our direction and no doubt thinking, they must be important if they’re getting to meet Rebbe, and I was thinking the same thing.

The Rebbe’s private office was on the floor just above ground level and he usually met people on Tuesday evenings throughout the year. 

As the leader of a worldwide religious movement who was also a brilliant rabbinical scholar and fluent in 17 languages, he was consulted regularly by his followers on virtually all matters affecting their future.  

Questions like: “who should I marry?” or “should I start a business?” or “what profession should I pursue?” or “what course should I take in life?” were just some of the questions the Rebbe was requested to answer six days a week.

Because this was (and still is) a society in which arranged marriage is practiced, anyone within the community who was contemplating marriage (both male and female) would write to the Rebbe for both his guidance and his blessing. 

We were led to a dimly lit corridor with some 20-30 other people and were left standing in a 5’ x 25′ hallway meant to accommodate no more than 15 at most. There we waited with Yossie who had met us on our way in. For close to an hour and a half we stood in relative silence and only whispered so as not to disturb the meeting currently under way as a steady flow of men and women were ushered in and escorted out of the Rebbe’s office in 15-to-25-minute intervals. As I stood there, my mind turned to… What if?

I had noticed on several prior occasions when praying in the great sanctuary hall on the floor below that every time the Rebbe entered or left the sanctuary, men of all ages would scatter and hide from his gaze. When I asked a friend why, he said it was believed that the Rebbe had the ability to see into a person’s soul just by looking into thier eyes.  

It had suddenly occurred to me that in a few minutes I would be looking directly into those eyes. What if it is true? What if he could see into my soul?  What would he see? Even at the tender age of 12, I knew I was no angel and was certain I had broken at least two of the ten Commandments. Seeing the righteous flock scurry like cockroaches as he entered and exited a room only magnified those fears. After a quick and reassuring look from Yossie, the Rebbe’s office door opened, a couple exited, and we were waved in.

My mother and I sat in the two chairs directly in front of the Rebbe’s desk and my brother and sister sat in two chairs placed against the back wall of his office. The Rebbe was standing as we entered the rather small room with a 1950s style florescent desk lamp as its only source of light which gave the room an eerie, film noir quality. With him were two assistants who stood in the shadows. 

As he began to speak to my mother, he looked directly at me. I found myself focused not so much on his words, but on his face which looked like the face of Moses. He had piercing blue eyes and a very full, almost entirely gray beard that fell to the middle of his chest.

Even all these years later, it’s hard to explain what I was experiencing. I knew instantly that I was in the presence of a truly great man. He gave off an aura that was nothing short of holy and angelic and wore a traditional long black coat (1860s style), a white shirt, and the signature Fedora worn by nearly all his male followers.  

While still looking at me, the Rebbe, in a fairly deep and slightly Yiddish-accented voice, said, “So, Mother… You look like you have a heavy heart.” It was at that moment that I began to believe that he really could see inside a person’s soul.

I should explain that the reason I could not have my bar mitzvah at my hometown synagogue was that my mother, a divorcé and mother of three, had been engaged in a long-term affair with the rabbi of our congregation in a small town in northern New Jersey. We had been active members of the synagogue and been welcome at all religious and community events until the affair was made public. Once it was discovered, we found ourselves virtually excommunicated from the synagogue and the Jewish community. As a result, I was without a place to have my bar mitzvah. 

In my mother’s defense, the rabbi (who was also a practicing psychologist) had been “counseling and comforting” a fairly large number of divorcees within the community and many years later it came to light that he was by legal definition a serial sexual abuser and had taken advantage of both of his positions as a rabbi and therapist by having had many such affairs with similarly vulnerable women. Many years later, I found out that he had been defrocked and his titles (both rabbinical and doctoral) were stripped away from him. Sadly, there were no apologies to any of those he had wronged or to the families whose trust he had for decades betrayed.  

In trying to respond to the Rebbe, my mother spoke in a restrained and strictly measured, barely audible voice, no doubt trying to figure out how she would explain the salacious and sordid details of the situation to the Rebbe… 

“Well, you see there is a problem…,” she began, pausing to take a deep breath as though she were taking a looooong drag of the cigarette. She was entirely on her own. I sat about two feet to her left facing the Rebbe’s desk and dared not look at her. I had held my breathe for so long that I was forced to take in a breath so deeply that I sounded like I was genuinely stunned. 

The room was so still and quit, it suddenly seemed even smaller to me. What could she reveal in front of her children and what, if anything, did we know? 

What could she admit to the Lubavitcher Rebbe about the affair she had had with our Rabbi at home? She was an adulterer and had to own up to it. 

Would she have the courage to confess to the sins she had committed, even if it was by coercion? This was an absolute defining moment for my mother and might have signaled a turning point in her existence. I glanced to my left ever so quickly and saw only the silhouette of her chest rising and falling rapidly. 

After what seemed like an eternity, she slowly began… “You see,” again a long pause… “My son cannot have his bar mitzvah at the shul in the town where we live, because…  because… “

 I shot a quick look over my shoulder and saw my brother and sister out of the corner of my eye, but there was not enough time or light to make eye contact. 

It was obvious that she was struggling to carefully choose what to say next when the Rebbe who had sat down behind his desk, leaned forward, placed the palms of his hands on his green desk blotter, slowly pushed his chair backward, and once again stood up. His measured and deliberate movements seemed to acknowledge the gravity of the situation. Slightly slumped, he walked slowly to the front of the table and leaned against it in a decidedly reassuring and connected way. Standing only a few feet from us both, I could barely see his face but there was a glow that reminded me of Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments standing at the burning bush as God spoke to and through him. 

He slowly crossed his right arm over his left and wrapped his right hand around his voluminous gray beard and began stroking it in a downward motion. His hand was slow and soothing as if he were petting a cat or caressing a loved one. 

Though he was not particularly tall, looking up at him from my seated position he seemed larger than life with his shoulders slightly slumped forward, but despite his less than perfect posture he had a very real presence about him and it was clear to me that this was indeed an honor.

It was obvious that my mother was struggling for the “right” words and the Rebbe picked up on it. 

“So,” the Rebbe said in a low empathetic tone deeply connected to the obvious difficulty my mother was having. “So,” he again repeated, “he’ll have it here,” he said in a tone of voice so matter of fact that it seemed to answer a great ancient riddle. 

“Excuse me?” my mother said in a voice that immediately betrayed her surprise and relief at the same time. Her voice, which was usually very deep and akin to Lauren Bacall’s, jumped a full two octaves higher. 

“When you say here, where exactly do you mean?” she asked slowly and deliberately in an effort to clarify what she was sure she could not possibly have heard. 

“He will have his bar mitzvah here at 770,” the Rebbe repeated. And in those nine words it was as if all of her problems were resolved and in some odd way she was absolved of the sin which which led to our being here, at least for the moment. 

With those nine words, she was effectively let off the hook, and with that realization she began to cry uncontrollably.

In my mind I was thinking, did this just happen? Did the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the head of a worldwide Chassidic movement with thousands of followers, just offer to let me have my bar mitzvah at 770? 

The enormity of this kind of honor is difficult for one who is not Orthodox or Chassidic to grasp and would be equivalent to the Pope offering to perform my confirmation himself.

 I too felt the sudden urge to cry as I looked into the Rebbe’s eyes with abundant gratitude but held back my tears knowing that it would not be befitting for a boy who was soon to become a man. 

My mother’s tears finally subsided and the meeting, which has lasted for only about 15 minutes and which felt like suspended time, came to an end. It was during those 15 minutes that I knew he was going to be my leader and that I was going to be one of his disciples.

For almost a solid 5 minutes of the full 15, the Rebbe stared directly into my eyes, but I didn’t feel exposed or scared. I felt connected to him in a very real and spiritual way as though he were my grandfather or King Solomon the wise. His eyes were the kindest and most compassionate I have ever seen before or since.

At the meeting’s end, my brother and I stood and shook the Rebbe’s hand as we turned to walk out the door. My mother had to use all of her power to restrain herself from throwing her arms around the Rebbe and giving him a giant kiss (which was strictly forbidden). 

The irony was not lost on me that I was going to have my bar mitzvah at 770 instead of in the town where I grew up because that rabbi couldn’t keep his hands off of women who were not his wife.

As we left the office, I felt physically lighter, as if a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I could tell that my mother was still in shock as I saw Yossie standing in the hallway with a big smile on his face. 

I smiled back but couldn’t speak. “So, nu? How was it?” he asked as he escorted us out of the vestibule and through the doorway that led back out onto the street. 

“He’s absolutely w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l”, my mother answered with a genuine hint of awe in her voice that I–and I’m certain no one else–had never heard before.

“Steven will have his bar mitzvah here at 770,” she said, with a voice still in a relatively high octave, which betrayed the fact that she was clearly still in shock. 

I could see that Yossie had a hard time comprehending what my mother had just said and he too became silent. As he walked us back to the car through the humid night air, the look of surprise and happiness for me never left his face as we said our goodbye’s and drove off into the night. 

It wasn’t until several years later that I came to fully understand why. In all his years as Rebbe, he had only done this a handful of times and it was usually an honor reserved for lifers (those born Lubavitch) so, as it turned out this was a VERY big deal.

And so it was that on Thursday, September 28, 1975, my actual 13th birthday according to the Hebrew calendar, at the regular weekly Thursday morning prayer service at 770 that I, Simcha Yosef Ben Dovid Levi Meltz, was called up to the Torah and given the aliyah just before Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson… the Lubavitcher Rebbe (may he be of sainted memory). 

All in all, there was very little pomp and circumstance or fanfare as I completed this central and essential rite of passage in the Jewish religion which officially signified my becoming a man. I would from that point forward assume full responsibility for my actions as an adult according to Jewish law. 

I was not dragged from a hut and banished to the bush to fend for myself against wild and ferocious animals for a week with nothing but a dagger, nor was there any body-piercing involved whatsoever. I had not crossed a physical line between childhood and adulthood, but a spiritual one and I felt somehow different, like I was closing a chapter on my my old life and was beginning another as a Lubavitcher Chassid.

Unfortunately, the service was conducted in the upstairs section of 770, which I had glanced only a few months earlier when we came to meet the Rebbe. Because it was in the Men’s Only section of 770, neither my mom nor my sister were allowed to attend. 

It still saddens me that after all the struggles and crosses my mother had been forced to bear that she was denied the right to see her own son become a man according to Jewish tradition. I knew how proud she was of me, but I can only imagine how much prouder she’d have been had she been able to actually see it.

As I look back now, that was the day I officially “became” a Lubavitcher Chassid, a member of the largest Chassidic group within all of Judaism. And it was on that day that I took a leap of faith and landed squarely in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Steve Meltz was raised from the early age of 11 in the Chabad / Lubavitch community of Crown Heights, Brooklyn receiving a traditional Orthodox education while attending yeshivot in Brooklyn and in Baltimore, Maryland. Parting ways with the Orthodox community while in his late 20s, he began a voyage of self- discovery, and in 2007 (at the age of 45) received his smicah as a Reform rabbi and teacher. He presently serves as an affiliate rabbi in a norther New Jersey synagogue where his voyage of self-discovery continues to this day. 

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April 25, 2022 · 6:30 am

My Father’s Holocaust

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

My father escaped the Holocaust,
but suffered for it, and when, as a kid,
I pointed out he never actually
spent time in Auschwitz or Dachau,
he stared at me, “Same thing,” he said.
“You’ll see,” he added. When I pressed
him further, he said only one word: “Family.”
I didn’t see, the Holocaust becoming 
just one more historical fact.
I began my own very secular career.
Then I saw a picture at a lecture
given by a famous art historian.
Thumbprints of dirt, blood, ink, 
mounted upon rows of stripes
in different colors, an abstract
suddenly becoming very real— 
a line of prisoners awaiting the 
morning roll call in the freezing cold.
I looked closer at the thumbprints
and could see my father’s face.
“I am here, remember me, never forget.”
A generation later I am still safe, still free, 
but the picture still haunts me.
“I escaped,” I said to the thumbprints.
“Oh, no, you didn’t,” I heard my father say. 
And finally I understood his words.

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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January 17, 2022 · 7:30 am

Elegy for a Man I Hardly Knew

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

I had met him just once

a week before his sudden death.

I hardly knew him at all,

an afternoon’s conversation, 

no more.

We had spoken for hours,

and I felt there was a connection,

saw him as a possible new friend.

(You know now difficult it is for older

men like me to make new friends.)

So, even though I barely knew him,

his sudden death shocked me, and

I felt compelled to attend his funeral

where I heard the usual — the 23rd Psalm, 

“turn, turn, turn,” and a few desultory speeches

—ending with the Mourner’s Kaddish.

His life was described in twenty minutes.

Surely, a human being rates more time.

Surely, there is more to be said about a life.

Was his soul in a hurry to get to heaven?

Did the rabbi want to prevent excessive 

crying over the casket?

If the soul hovers at the grave site, as rabbis 

say, waiting to hear words of praise, words of 

sorrow, before making its journey to higher realms,

then perhaps I could see the need for such urgency.

But maybe I was being momentarily insensitive

taking notes in effect for my own demise, not

understanding why the funeral was so truncated,

or why my friend’s soul wasn’t allowed a final communion

with all the mourners at the place of his eternal rest.

Shouldn’t all souls be granted this indulgence?

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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August 30, 2021 · 11:12 am

A Day at the Ball Park

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

Feeling the need to catch the ocean breeze,

I went to a Brooklyn Cyclones game

in Coney Island, a minor league team 

of my beloved New York Mets.

The game was sponsored by Hadassah,

the world-wide Jewish service organization.

Seated comfortably in the stands,

I was surprised to receive

their free gift: a baseball cap

emblazoned with the Star of David

surrounding the team’s logo.

A flash to the Jews of the 1940s

who were forced to wear such a star,

my relatives for one, plus countless others.

How wonderful America is

that Jews can gather at a ball game

and proudly display their heritage.

The next batter up is Jay Gordon.

Is he Jewish?

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

Author’s Note: It is the practice of many minor league ball clubs to offer their fans free giveaways like hats, shirts and game passes. Different organizations sponsor these events.

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September 14, 2020 · 10:13 am

My First Anti-Semitic Experience

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

Growing up in the cooling shade

of a predominantly Jewish neighborhood,

I had been totally unprepared for the

hot sun attack of anti-Semitism.

They say the first time it happens

it leaves a lasting sunburn on your skin,

and now, some 50 years later

it still singes my soul.

First time? Indiana, I was in the

bucolic fields of the Midwest.

I descended the plane and

a passenger near me said, “You Jewish?”

“Yes,” I said, dumbfounded at the question.

“Where are your horns?” he asked.

I could only manage a weak, “What”?

I had no reference point, no rebuttal,

and that lack of response

has haunted me all these years.

I have assuredly witnessed much more since,

but my silence then and failure to answer

was and is anti-Semitism accepted.

How I wish that Indiana passenger

were in front of me right now.

I believe I would know what to say.

Even with standing in the shade now

my sunburn still remains,

as indelible as the numbers

on my grandfather’s arm.

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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June 1, 2020 · 6:54 am

“What do you want?”

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)
Unscathed, I live comfortably in hibernation, 
my larder stocked, my outlook optimistic.
The morning air wafts through my open window,
and I can hear the call and response of birds
punctuated by the screams of ambulances.
Then there is a knock at my door.
It grows louder, and, finally, I say,
“What do you want?”
I peer out my window and go downstairs 
and see a strange man dressed all in black.
“I have some terrible news,
about your friend, Tony, I believe.”
“Tony?”
“Yes, I see you and Tony at the diner most days.
You often eat breakfast together. Is that not true?
And he’s a paramedic and loved by many?”
“He is a good friend. What’s wrong? Tell me!”
“He is in the hospital with Covid-19.”
“Oh, my God, Is he OK?”
“I’m sorry to say he’s on a ventilator.”
“Which hospital? Can I see him?”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. Can I come in?
Perhaps we can pray together.”
“No, no, go away. You’re scaring me.”
“But there is more.”
“Don’t tell me he’s gonna die.”
“Most probably, but there is even more.”
“Are you coming for me?”
“Yes, possibly, and quite soon, I might add.”
Panic-stricken, I double-lock the door and shut the window.
I collapse in a chair and start praying for my friend,
but, upon reflection, I begin to say Kaddish for myself,
somehow hoping these words might save me.

 

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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April 6, 2020 · 6:16 am

The Ultimate Truth

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

At a recent and joyous Orthodox wedding,
surrounded by dancing men all dressed in black
with most stylish hats, I was asked by a young scholar
why was I not singing in Hebrew.
“I don’t know Hebrew,” I said, embarrassed,
owning up to my lack of Jewish education.
“So why don’t you learn?” he said,
“The words are  the ultimate truth, the one truth,
the word of God given to His people.”
“But don’t other religions have their truth?” I countered.
“Spoken like an American,” he said. “Ours
is the only truth. We know this for thousands of years.”
Hard to argue with someone so convinced
of the certainty of his belief, while admitting to myself
I was jealous of his steadfast conviction.
Better not, I thought, to get so engaged
into such a theological discussion while
celebrating with cheers the bride and groom.
The search for truth continues for me
long after the final toast is offered.

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 the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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