Category Archives: Jewish identity

September 30, 2013 · 6:00 am

The Letter

by Ellen Norman Stern (Willow Grove, PA)

The knock on the door of our Berlin apartment came around five o’clock one dark May morning in 1938.

It was the Gestapo’s favorite time of day to make house calls. Their victims were usually asleep and not many other people saw them at such an hour.

When my mother opened the door two men in dark raincoats stood outside. One of them muttered “Geheime Staatspolizei”, pushed the door open and let himself and his partner in. Their clothing was as anonymous as their faces. Perhaps secret agents are picked for their faces. Only members of a Secret Service look like this, no matter what their country. No one ever remembers their faces afterwards.

It was a time of constant rumors, all of them threatening. Even I, a child, had recently heard of an impending roundup of Jewish men in our Berlin community. There would be a mass raid, a Razzia. Why and what was to happen later no one knew. A pre-dawn knock on the door was dreaded, almost expected that summer. The only speculation was when that knock would come and for whom.

Yet when it came for us, it surprised my father and mother.

Inside the apartment the agents confronted my father in the foyer and announced their orders for his arrest. My father asked permission to take a little of their time: he needed to shave and dress. There was no way of resisting.

Permission granted, one agent remained in the bathroom with him and took up a position by the window facing into the room. The other man stayed in the foyer with his back against the slightly open bathroom door.

I tried to be unobtrusive. From my spot in the small entrance hall I peeked into the bathroom. Inside I saw my father’s face in the mirror over the sink. I thought him calm and accepting. But I noticed how his hands shook while he freshened up.

My father had suffered several recent gall bladder attacks. My mother said it was bad nerves. Conditions in Berlin were more than favorable to nervous tensions that spring in 1938, especially if you were Jewish and in a prosperous business.

My mother went into the kitchen and got ready a dose of his medication. When she came out she held a small bag in her hand and said he must be sure to take it with him. One of the agents remarked drily that there would be little chance for using it.

I saw my mother’s eyes starting to blaze. I cowered as she turned on those the two Gestapo agents. Fearlessly she chastise them for barging in on our peaceful household at such an hour, for taking away an innocent man when everyone knew how wrong that was. How could they face their consciences performing such a mission?

I like to think the Gestapo men remembered that scene. I did, all of my life. It took incredible guts to speak out the way Mimi (my pet name for my mother) did. Mimi remained ladylike, even in her scolding. But she certainly exploded that morning. She had good reason. The Gestapo men knew that, too.

In later years when her health and mental strength failed she was often afraid of things that seemed childish.. But I remembered Mimi’s courage and I recalled how she stood in the hallway of our fashionable apartment, wagging her finger under the nose of one of the Gestapo men, backing him against our bathroom door. Would I have such guts were I put to the test?

That dark morning the man at the door just shrugged his shoulder, while the other one inside the bathroom ignored her. None of that deterred her.

“Where are you taking my husband?” she asked repeatedly until the second man finally answered.

“To the police station.”

The landing outside our apartment door was still dark when they took my father out. My father, wedged between both agents, turned to Mimi.

“I have a cousin in America. His name is Karl Nussbaum, he lives in Louisville (he pronounced it Lewisville), in the state of Kentucky. Try to contact him and see if he can help.”

Mimi dressed quickly, then she helped me with my clothes. We began the rapid walk to the police station a few short blocks away. Just as we arrived breathlessly at the precinct, several police vans pulled out. All the vans were fully loaded. Therazzia had already produced results…

Inside the station Mimi asked again and again about the destination of those departing vehicles.

“Alexanderplatz,” was the desk sergeant’s brusque reply.

She decided we would follow them. My mother held my hand during the long taxi ride that brought us to the center of Berlin. The driver stopped at a large dark, gray forbidding-looking building. Threatening, just like the mood of everything else that morning.

Many years later I saw the dreaded headquarters of the Gestapo in a television newsreel. Even after many decades that view crystalized into the special and horrible aura I once felt. I could not know what went on in that building, what unspeakable and excruciatingly painful acts people experienced there. What I sensed at age ten was that it was an evil place.

The day I entered it with Mimi I saw a warren of dark corridors filled on either side with windowless small brown cubicles. In one such sparse hole in the wall I waited quietly at her side while Mimi faced a heavy-set official behind a desk. The chubby man rustled some papers, pretending to look up my father’s name.

The prisoner Leopold Nussbaum, he informed us, was on his way to an interrogation center, but the family would probably have some news from him within a few days.

Not encouraging information, yet the official was a shade kinder than others we had encountered on our way in. Why that was I couldn’t tell. The way he looked at Mimi was definitely less insolent and arrogant.

On our return trip we stood waiting for the streetcar at its Alexanderplatz stop. Buildings just as dismal and forbidding as the one we had just left surrounded the traffic-filled square. I glanced across the street at another evil-looking dark tall structure. I felt Mimi shudder as she too, looked at it.

“The Volksgerichtshof, ” she volunteered without my asking.

In later years I learned more about the People’s Court and its use by the Nazi regime. Mimi might have known even then what kind of place it was. Few prisoners left it without an order for their execution, if they left the building alive at all.

The long ride home on the streetcar was bleak. Mimi looked discouraged and fearful and did not let go of my hand. My feelings, of course, were a reflection of hers. She was quiet and sad, and barely spoke. It was May, yet everything around us was still gray and cold. It started to drizzle. Times were suddenly desperate. I had a dreadful sense of foreboding.

In the days following my father’s arrest Mimi searched for the address of the cousin she was supposed to contact. There was a problem. Nowhere in my father’s papers could she find the address. But she did what had to be done. She wrote the letter and explained carefully and discreetly the urgent need for my father to leave Germany quickly. To accomplish that a relative in the United States of America had to grant him an affidavit. This document had to declare that my father would not become a financial burden to the state, but, if necessary, would be supported by his relative. The affidavit listing the sponsor’s assets was one of the requirements of the American consulate in Germany before it granted the desired visa that allowed exit from Germany and entry into the United States.

When she finished her appeal Mimi simply addressed the envelope to Mr. Karl Nussbaum, in care of His Excellency the Mayor of the City of Louisville in Kentucky, The United States of America.

It was a summer hotter than most Berliners remembered. The usually moderate climate had reversed itself. I suffered a heat stroke by just playing in the schoolyard. I lay on my bed in the dark with cold compresses on my forehead and hoped the room would stop spinning.

I thought of my father constantly. My throat tightened with fear when I did. We had not the slightest knowledge of his location or the circumstances of his whereabouts. I did not dare to talk about him to Mimi. She did not let on how worried she was. Perhaps we both hoped that by avoiding a discussion it would not -could not- possibly be as bad as we feared.

After two long dreadful weeks a postcard arrived. “I am healthy. Do not worry.”

Eight more weeks of silence followed. But there were rumors. My God, what dreadful rumors.

Some of them were uttered by the men who came to our apartment every night. Their presence was another baffling phenomenon that summer. No one explained it to me. Children were silent observers of a time which most adults did not understand. Perhaps it was assumed the less children knew, the safer were the grownups around them. Who knew what dangerous information could be leaked by a child who overheard conversations he was not meant to hear? I already knew, that Jewish people did not venture out in daylight unless they had to.

The strangers, different ones every night, came to sleep in our apartment. They slept on pillows, spare mattresses, and blankets, on the grey-carpeted Chippendale dining room floor, under the grand piano in the fruit-wood music room, or just on the carpet in the front hall. By sleeping away from their own homes and spending their nights in strange places these Jewish men felt secure. Our apartment was “safe”. Safe because its family head had already been “visited” and was now in the clutches of the Gestapo. Why would the authorities return and strike for a second time?

The feeling of being watched was constant and ominous. One afternoon the telephone rang. Mimi took the call. She said nothing, but her face showed great concentration as she listened to the caller.

Suddenly she spoke into the telephone with sharp, clipped tones.

“Herr Schmidt, I recognize your voice. Don’t dare to threaten me again. And if you attempt to show your face near me I will report you to the police precinct.”

When she hung up I saw that she trembled.

“It was that lout, the son of the concierge downstairs. That vulture. He thought he could frighten me. ”

The unemployed, sharp-eyed young man apparently surmised that we might be leaving the country before long. He had done odd jobs in our apartment and knew we had unusual and beautiful furniture. With a disguised voice he had claimed to be a government official and told Mimi that it was against the law to sell or remove any of it and that we would be prosecuted if we tried. He stated that every piece had to be left in place were we to move away.

At another time during those difficult days our doorbell rang for the delivery of a large and fancy food basket. It contained delicacies that had been hard to find in the strictly-rationed Berlin food markets for some time. A note in the basket read, “To Frau Trude, from your admirer, Herr Z.”

I did not know any “Mr.Z”, nor did I think Mimi did. And why would he send us such a splendid gift? There was never a definite revelation, yet I felt Mimi strongly suspected who the donor was. In later years she confided that it must have been the fat man behind the desk at Gestapo headquarters. “He felt sorry for me,” she said. “But he also appreciated my situation. Perhaps he even liked it when I spoke back to him and told him what I really thought.”

In Louisville, Karl Nussbaum met with his buddies every Thursday evening for a night of cold cuts and beer, and a round of their beloved “Skat” card game at Cunningham’s, the popular delicatessen restaurant that catered to the “heimatlich” tastes of its German-born clientele.

Karl Nussbaum was a wealthy businessman. During the long years since his arrival in Kentucky as a penniless escapee from World War I German military service his original scrap iron yard had expanded into a big business. His other ventures included the purchase of a whiskey distillery. He and his Gentile wife, Marie Louise, had raised a family of three sons and a daughter. All the sons and the husband of his daughter were engaged in the father’s enterprises. All were stalwart pillars of their Christian church communities. Karl himself, though he never officially left his Judaism behind, took pride in being the donor of substantial gifts to many Christian endeavors.

Among the “regulars” at Cunninghams were several men who had known Karl for many years. One of them was Louisville’s current mayor, Joseph Scholtz.

One Thursday evening during that summer of 1938 the mayor was greeting his friends before sitting down to supper. Seeing Karl Nussbaum suddenly reminded him of something. He pulled out an envelope from the pocket of his seersucker jacket.

“Oh, Karl,” he said, “here is something for you. It arrived at my City Hall office this week.”

Mimi’s letter had reached its destination.

That letter to Louisville bore fruit. Some time during that summer an amazing document arrived at our house. It was an affidavit of many pages vouching for the financial security of Leopold Nussbaum, his spouse and child once they had reached American shores.

After thanking God and the American relatives, Mimi paid numerous highly frustrating visits to the American consulate near Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. I went along because as a Jewish child I was no longer allowed to go to school and was too young to be left at home alone.

The daily lines of applicants seeking quota numbers for American visas were incredibly long. It was obvious that the staff members of the consulate enjoyed feeling superior to all the pathetic souls seeking admission to the U.S. They made incredible difficulties for them.

Mimi had to apply for my father who was still in the concentration camp. This caused more obstacles. The person seeking a visa had to apply in person or his case would be deferred. In desperation Mimi hired an immigration lawyer to handle the situation. His enormous fee must have included an “inducement” to his personal connection at the consulate.

My father was incarcerated at Buchenwald for eleven weeks. Upon his release he came home to us in Berlin. He was allowed to stay exactly forty-eight hours.

My father was a different man after he came home. He looked so sad, defeated, and distant, I hesitated to go near him. Not the warm, affectionate father I had known before. No longer the man who took me, his only child, with him on Sunday mornings to meet his male friends at Berlin’s famous coffeehouses and treated me to special puff pastry delicacies at Kempinsky or the Cafe Dobrin. Now he was tired and for his two days and nights at home sat in our apartment silent, smoking and thinking.

He was so tired. “It’s from hacking out all those rocks,” he murmured to Mimi, speaking softly so I would not hear. He had worked in the stone quarries while at Buchenwald, had been forced to cut, move and carry heavy stones and rubble. He was a businessman and not used to such hard physical work. The food he had been given was minimal. At that time I did not understand why the camp authorities demanded such tasks from him, why he was treated the way he was.

What he had really endured he never told us.

During his time in Buchenwald he had relinquished the ownership of his business to the state. He told Mimi he was released from camp because he had signed a statement that he would leave Germany within forty-eight hours. But his captors had a departing message for him: “Don’t for a moment think you will ever escape us. No matter where you end up, we will find you. Then we will finish the job we started here.”

During his last day at home my father sat in his favorite chair in the dining room smoking one cigarette after another as he watched the man from the shipping firm pack his personal belongings. Several suitcases stood open on the thick grey carpeting where unfamiliar visitors had slept only a few nights before. On the dining table neat stacks of shirts, pajamas, and underwear lay next to my father’s papers, photographs, and medications. As he distributed the clothing neatly among the cases the mover glanced at the silver-covered porcelain coffee and tea set on the buffet. He picked up one of the silver pitchers and carefully wrapped some heavy underwear around it. Then he positioned it inside one of the suitcases.

“No, no, that set isn’t going,” I heard Mimi protest.

“Might as well send it along while I have the room here, Madame,” the burly man replied. He paid no further attention to her and continued to wrap the rest of the pieces and place them in the baggage. When he was done with the packing, he secured all the suitcases with the moving firm’s official seal. “Ready to go,” he announced. “They’ll travel on the ship with him and no one will bother to open them.”

Within only a few weeks after that a government order came through forbidding emigrating “non-Aryans” from taking gold or silver possessions out of Germany. To this day Mimi’s tea set has kept its special place in our family. When I married my parents gave it to me. When I look at it (and whenever I polish it) I remember the packer who must have known something we did not when he wrapped up my father’s winter underwear. And now, so many years later, I am still grateful to him.

At the end of his 48-hours with us my father left Germany thanks to a train ticket to Antwerp Mimi had been fortunate to obtain. From there he embarked on the S.S. Europa for the trans-Atlantic crossing and a new life.

It was only many, many years later that I understood how close he and Mimi and I had come to the destruction that so tragically annihilated the rest of our family.

And sometimes when I think about the way fate turned out for us I remember the letter Mimi wrote in those dark days. There is no doubt in my mind that letter was “beshert.” It saved our lives.

Born in Germany, Ellen Stern came to the United States as a young girl and grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. She’s the author of numerous books for young adult readers, including biographies of Louis D. Brandeis, Nelson Glueck, and Elie Wiesel. Her most recent publication is The French Physician’s Boy, a novel about Philadelphia’s 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic.

“The Letter” is an excerpt from Ellen Stern’s unpublished memoir, Surviving: A Family Journal, and is reprinted here with permission of the author.

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September 9, 2013 · 8:32 am

Building Community with Soul

by Shira Sebban (Sydney, Australia)

I can no longer live a meaningful life without my Jewish community. My teenage son calls it an addiction. But my love for my community does not stem from mere habit, nor am I guided by compulsive need or blind infatuation. On the contrary, it has taken years of soul searching and trial and error to find the appropriate community where my family has been able to take root, grow and contribute.

Since ancient times, philosophers like Aristotle (Politics, 1.1253a) and more recently, Spinoza (Ethics, IV, prop 35) have argued that we are social animals. As Rabbi Hillel famously said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I?” (Ethics of Our Fathers 1:14) In other words, “All Israel are responsible for one another” (Babylonian Talmud, Shevuot 39A, Sifra Bechukotai 7:5).

The Talmud actually defined the type of society where scholars were allowed to live: The chosen city had to include a beit din (law court), an honest charity fund, a synagogue, public baths and toilet facilities, a mohel (circumciser) and a surgeon, a notary, a shochet (ritual slaughterer) and a teacher (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 17b). As Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, has explained, “in order to be a suitable place to live, a community must provide for all its members’ spiritual and physical needs” (www.myjewishlearning.com).

Yet, it was not until my own father’s death ten years ago that my longing for such community became so urgent. I had once asked him whether he would wish to be buried in the same cemetery as his parents and extended family in Toronto, Canada. “We should be buried within the community where we live,” was my father’s reply. By that time, he had been residing in Melbourne, Australia, for more than 30 years.

He was espousing the teachings of both Rabbis Hillel and Tzaddok, who urged us not to separate ourselves from the community (Ethics of the Fathers 2:5, 4:7). Indeed, Judaism teaches that those who are not prepared to feel their community’s pain and help out when the going gets tough, will not enjoy comfort in the good times either. As the Talmud warns, “The man who secludes himself from the community, which is in distress, shall not see the prosperity of the community” (Ta’anit, chapter 1).

A midrash goes even further, maintaining that removing yourself from the community is like overthrowing the world. It tells the story of the dying Rabbi Assi, who was depressed because although he had been a great scholar and kind and generous man, he had not been involved in communal matters or disputes. As he told his nephew, “I might perhaps have been able to render some service, had I not kept to myself but taken upon me the burden of communal affairs” (Midrash Tanhuma, Mishpatim 2).

When my father died, I did not know where to turn. Although we had belonged to various Orthodox synagogues in the past, my husband and I had not been able to find a spiritual home since moving to a new city some years earlier. As a result, we had flitted from one synagogue to the next, sampling a different one on each Jewish holiday but not feeling “at home” in any of them.

Nevertheless, I was touched when one of the rabbis, whom I had met in the course of my search, rang several times to see how I was faring. When upon my father’s first yahrzeit (anniversary after death), the same rabbi offered me his synagogue for a memorial service, we finally made up our minds to join his congregation – after such generosity on his part, we believed it was the least we could do.

That sense of welcome, warmth and support through both tough and good times remain major factors in why we renew our membership each year. Judaism ensures that mourners do not grieve alone, stipulating that Kaddish, the prayer for the dead in which God’s name is sanctified, only be recited publicly in the presence of a minyan (ten Jewish adults – the minimum number required for community). Celebrations also become more meaningful when enjoyed together in community.

As our sons have grown older and undertaken preparation for their Bar Mitzvah, our family has come to attend synagogue every Shabbat. Our shule of choice is Conservative (Masorti): Integrating tradition with modernity, it allows us to sit together as a family instead of banishing me behind a mechitza (partition to separate men and women).

This egalitarian ethos is particularly important to me as I do not have any daughters and would otherwise be sitting apart from my husband and sons. Nevertheless, it was several years before I felt comfortable being counted in a minyan and agreed to be called up to the Torah. Not that there was ever any pressure on me to do so – our synagogue accepts a certain variety of Jewish practice.

It also gives us the freedom to question and acknowledges our right to consider different interpretations and viewpoints. As Robert Gordis, chairman of the Commission on the Philosophy of Conservative Judaism, has explained: “Pluralism is a characteristic not only of Judaism as a whole, but of every Jewish school of thought that is nurtured by the spirit of freedom” (JTS: Emet Ve’Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism, 1988, Introduction p14).

In addition to my synagogue, the Jewish day school my children attend is another pillar of my community. Pluralistic and egalitarian too, it welcomes students of all backgrounds, who come together in mutual respect and are encouraged to work for tikkun olam, making the world a better place. So committed have I become to this philosophy that I decided to volunteer for the School Board when my oldest son was in first grade and have remained actively involved ever since.

According to Rabban Gamliel, the son of Rabbi Judah HaNassi, “Those who work for the community should do so for the sake of heaven” (Ethics of Our Fathers 2:2). In other words, the early rabbis were urging us to be ethical when we undertake communal work. As Rabbi Yehudah Prero explains, “We must act with pure intentions, with no ulterior motives” (“Community – Then, Now, and Forever, www.torah.org/learning/yomtov/holocaust/no3.html).

Humility is also an important factor: The Talmud not only regards leaders as the “servants” of the community (Horayot 10a), but also stresses that they should always carry “a basket of reptiles” on their back so that if they “became arrogant”, they could be told to “Turn around!” (Yoma 22b). In other words, never forget that family skeleton hidden in your closet!

Recognizing the frailties of human nature, the ancient rabbis resorted to divine reward and punishment as a means of encouraging ethical communal leadership: those who cause others to do wrong will not be “given the opportunity to repent”, while those who lead others to do good will be credited with their community’s merit (Ethics of Our Fathers, 5:18).

Sure, as Rabbi Yitzchak Blau has pointed out, the rabbis did not think it fair that communal leaders should enjoy heaven while their followers rotted in hell, but is there really no hope of redemption for those who lead others down the wrong path? Here scholars disagreed, with some arguing that while God would not help the wrongdoers, they were still free to repent on their own. In contrast, the medieval scholar and physician Moses Maimonides is much more damning in his assessment: for him, there is truly no hope of salvation for such wicked leaders (Hilchot Teshuva 4:1, http://blog.webyeshiva.org/teshuva/inights-in-pirkei-avot-the-implications-of-causing-others-to-sin).

Admittedly, such threats have little effect in this day and age when many of us don’t even know whether we believe in God. Nevertheless, it is still possible to contribute altruistically to and derive meaning from community based on religious civilization. Conservative (Masorti) Judaism recognizes this position as valid: “One can live fully and authentically as a Jew without having a single satisfactory answer to such doubts; one cannot, however, live a thoughtful Jewish life without having asked the questions” (Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism, p17).

My oldest son has commented that without faith, a prayer service is just “a group of strangers singing together”. Yet, I have certainly discovered a sense of inner peace, spiritual uplift and intellectual stimulation through regular attendance at synagogue services and communal celebrations like the Pesach Seder.

To quote the writer Alain de Botton: The “relevance” of such religions as Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism “to the problems of community are arguably never greater than when they … remind us that there is also value to be had in standing in a hall with a hundred acquaintances and singing a hymn together … or in sitting at a table with neighbors and partaking of lamb stew and conversation, the kinds of rituals which, as much as the deliberations inside parliaments and law courts, are what help to hold our fractious and fragile societies together” (2012, Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion, London: Penguin Books, p50).

De Botton – who was born Jewish but describes himself as a committed atheist – argues for the removal of religion’s “supernatural structure” before it can help solve “many of the problems of the modern soul” (pp311-312).

My soul, however, does not need to be quarantined from the full gamut of my religion in order to thrive. Indeed, I am quite happy to keep on exploring the laws and customs of my heritage and culture, practicing rituals and contemplating ideas from within Judaism. All I need is my community.

Shira Sebban, a writer and editor based in Sydney, Australia, worked as a journalist for the Australian Jewish News. She previously taught French at the University of Queensland and worked in publishing. She also serves as vice-president on the board of  Emanuel School, a pluralistic and egalitarian Jewish Day School. You can read more of her work at: https://jewishwritingproject.wordpress.com/category/australian-jewry/ http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13636  and at http://shirasebban.blogspot.com.au/

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September 2, 2013 · 7:00 am

Hebrew School Memories

by Jan Booker (Malibu, CA)

School meant public school.  Private school was for rich kids and we didn’t know any.  For South Philadelphia Jewish families, Hebrew School equaled in importance our secular education.

We didn’t go to Sunday School or religious school once or twice a week. Hebrew school was serious business: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, after regular school, for two and one half hours, plus the same amount of time on Sunday mornings.  If you subtract recess, assemblies, art, gym and music, the time spent in Hebrew School equaled our daily secular school time.

We had several subjects: Hebrew, of course, where we learned to read and write using the first five books of the Bible as our text. But this was before the establishment of the State  of Israel when Hebrew was rarely used as a conversational language, so to this day I can read Hebrew, but my conversational skills are limited to about thirty unconnected words.  Then there was literature, where we studied the literature of the Jews, concentrating on writers like Sholom Aleichem and Peretz.  History was as expected, a history of the Jewish people, from Biblical times through the Diaspora, up to what was the  present for us.  In the days before and during World War11, we studied shtetl life and European migrations of the Jews.  For those who went to Hebrew school after the war, studies must have had a very different focus.  We had written  tests and oral exams and homework.  Probably our classes in Hebrew school plus our secular school education equaled what is taught in any Jewish day school, except we spent double the time in classrooms combining public school and Hebrew school.

I attended JEC2, which meant Jewish Educational Center #2, part of a network of independent schools called, usually, a “Talmud Torah” or referred to in Yiddish as “Cheder.”  This institution was not synagogue- affiliated but part of a central education system.  Classes and offices were housed in a building at Marshall and Porter Streets, a typical school building with three floors and a wonderful auditorium.  The building was a kind of art deco- style.  Wide front steps led to a center hall and then to the large auditorium, where typical school-wide events were held: plays and holiday celebrations, religious observances and special events. Many years later, the building was utilized as a senior center operated by Philadelphia Jewish Community Centers.

Attendance at this Hebrew school almost mitigated the necessity of belonging to a synagogue.  There was no need for additional opportunity for worship.  We celebrated all holidays through the school, and the entire family was welcome to join any event.  The children were involved in all aspects of presentation or observance.

When I was about eight, studying Bible stories, I asked my teacher a question:  “Why,” I said, “if God knows everything, did He permit Eve to eat the apple.”  A curious look passed over the teacher’s face.  “Ask your mother,” was her answer.  It took quite a few years for me to understand why she didn’t want to deal with a reply.

We celebrated every holiday with a play to which parents and grandparents proudly lent their presence.  In my first year of Hebrew school I was in a Chanukah play.  Because so many of the parents, and all the grandparents, were immigrants whose English language skills were modest,  plays were presented in English and Yiddish.  My part was to run across the stage, stopping front and center, to announce in Yiddish, “Hannah is dead, Hannah has died, threw herself over the wharf and lies there with her seven children.”

When I think back to my seven years of Hebrew School, I am full of wonder at the quality of the teachers.  Mr. Blank taught Hebrew, a brilliant man who wrote fourteen novels in a language not yet used other than for worship.   Mr. Sankowsky taught us history.  I learned  years later that he was an accomplished artist whose work was exhibited throughout the city.  Dr. Levitsky, the principal, had a PhD, an impressive accomplishment in those days.  His wife, a striking exotic- looking brunette, taught us music and directed our dramatic productions.

We had no confirmation, no bat-mitzvah.  Those ceremonies were for more upscale neighborhoods.  Our parents thought them frivolous; it was the learning that mattered. In our South Philadelphia culture, boys were bar-mitzvahed but girls were also educated in Hebrew school in coed classes.

My memory is that there were no bar-mitzvah classes for the boys, who had to study with a Rabbi or Melamed (teacher.)  My brother was tutored by a special bar-mitzvah teacher who came to our house several days a week for a year.  My father, who lost no opportunity to increase the educational opportunities of his children, had Mr. Shafritz stay a little longer each session to teach me to read and write Yiddish.  So long as I knew the basic  Hebrew alphabet (Yiddish uses the same alphabet but substitutes letter vowels for the symbols used as vowels in Hebrew) he argued, it would be a simple matter.  It wasn’t, yet I can still work my way around large print in a Yiddish newspaper.  Book texts are somewhat harder and I give up easily.

Some families, eager to pass on their Socialist political leanings to their children, sent them to Jewish schools that de-emphasized the religious aspects of Judaism and focused on political and cultural issues.  I met many graduates of these schools several years later when I joined the Zionist youth group.

Janice L. Booker is the author of The Jewish American Princess and Other Myths, Philly Firsts, and Across from the Alley Next Door to the Pool Room, from which this reminiscence is excerpted with permission of the author. For more information about her work, visit: http://www.amazon.com/Janice-L.-Booker/e/B001KCCS8E

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August 19, 2013 · 8:43 am

What Is A Jew?

by Amy Krakovitz,(Charlotte, NC)

With the diversity of students we have at the Consolidated High School of Jewish Studies in Charlotte, NC, I got a variety of answers to the question that I asked my 8th and 9th grade students: “What is a Jew?”

One Orthodox student adamantly claimed that a Jew was someone whose mother was Jewish. Other students, whose mothers weren’t Jewish, were equally as adamant about their own Jewish identity. The discussion that ensued was lively, animated, and expressive.

“What if you don’t believe in God,” I asked?

Some students were sure that it didn’t matter. The same Orthodox boy, however, was positive that you couldn’t be Jewish if you didn’t believe in God.

“But what if your mother is Jewish and you don’t believe in God?” I asked him.

He couldn’t answer.

“You see, it’s not that simple,” I replied.

What I wanted from them, I explained, was what they thought, not what someone else taught them.

Are you still a Jew if you don’t observe certain mitzvot? Can you be a Jew if you cheat, hurt, or even murder someone? And what is it in your soul, that essential spark, that makes you a Jew?

Underlying all the questions was my need to answer that one question: what is it that makes a Yiddishe neshama?

Here are my students’ responses:

Who is a Jew? For the past 4,000 years, we have believed that someone is Jewish according to their mother. But let me ask you something: If your mother is a lesbian, are you automatically one as well? If your mother is Democrat, can you not be a Republican? Of course not! You are whatever you believe. That’s all religion is: belief and faith.

Belief is not passed on by genes. Neither is faith. These are the result of who you are, your God-given soul. So if you like the color blue, but it’s not allowed because your mother likes red, is that something you’ll stand for? Most people say no. Yet they still say your religion is based off what your mother is.

I believe that religion is your faith in God, your personal connection with Adonai. We’re not cells that are 100% identical to the parent. The connection you have with God is yours, and yours to keep. It’s not based on your parents’ beliefs. It’s because it’s YOUR belief. – Sam Cohen, Weddington, NC (9th Grade)

A Jew is defined by his or her personal beliefs. If a person believes in the core values of Judaism, such as one God, the Torah, etc., she is defined as a Jew. It does not matter what  her parents are, although if someone is raised Jewish that may affect her values and beliefs. If someone is raised one religion, no matter how extreme, and she decides she would rather practice Judaism, then she becomes Jewish and she is entitled to Jewish rights.

You cannot inherit a religion, so you cannot say that you are automatically whatever religion your parents are, especially just your mother. You can be a Jew no matter how much or little you practice or study your religion. You do not have to go to temple every day, or cover your head, or eat kosher. A religion is defined by beliefs.

A Jew is also not defined by values. A horrible person can still claim to be Jewish, even if she doesn’t exactly follow Jewish values; she may have a different interpretation, although an outsider’s view of Judaism might be affected by her behavior.

A Jew is defined by beliefs, and can interpret the values and teachings of Judaism in her own way and still remain Jewish. — Isabelle Katz, Charlotte, NC (9th grade)

What is a Jew? Jews can be defined by many things, such as physical features, morals and a common belief in a single God. What one word can describe Judaism? Purity. In Judaism we try to keep our actions pure through the morals that are taught to us. I think that the most important part of Judaism is its moral component and the moral values we espouse. They create, define, and shape a lot of our day-to-day decisions. I do not think that Judaism is the same for everyone, but for me the one word would be “pure,” though for someone else it might be different. — Roy Kasher, Charlotte, NC (9th grade)

A Jew is not restricted by the jewelry they wear,

A Jew is not defined as someone who keeps kosher, or wears a kippah,

A Jew is not limited to having dark hair and a big nose,

A Jew is not labeled by stereotypes,

A Jew is simply a person. — Ivy Gold, Charlotte, NC (9th grade)

What is a Jew? This is a very controversial question, as it can be argued many different ways. Different people may have varying opinions as to how Judaism is defined. Some would say that religion is acquired through inheritance, and people take on the beliefs of their parents. Others would say that one’s religion is determined through actions and practices such as prayer, eating habits, or other religious rituals. In my opinion, the second group is correct. Though some may be Jews from birth and practice Judaism throughout life, others may simply hold an “empty title.” These people may identify themselves as Jewish without taking part in the values and expectations of the religion. True Jews may not follow every word of the Torah, or eat kosher, but if they stay involved and connected to God through prayer and righteous values, they can proudly and rightly call themselves Jewish. — Olivia Weidner, Charlotte, NC  (9th grade)

I was brought up by a mother who claims relation to the ancient tribe of Levi and traces her origin back to Ukrainian Jews who fled to America because of the Russian pogroms. I was brought up by a man of Christian birth, although he was given a Jewish name and circumcision; his mother urged him not to marry my mother, a Jew. But he did and he converted.

The question of “who is a Jew” brings ups the conundrum of whether Judaism is a faith or an ethnicity. I believe Judaism to be a faith. I do not believe religion can be passed down through family lines, but believe, instead, that faith is taught by the parents and passed down through tradition and not passed down through ritual. To be Jewish, you do not have to light candles on Shabbat, or go to temple. Most Fridays, I dine across from a mother whose laptop is set up and being typed on, and I lay my plate on a table covered with papers from both our lives.

Judaism is a system of belief. And belief is all that’s required to be Jewish.– Sally Parker, Waxhaw, NC (8th grade)

A Jew is a person who actively practices Judaism and holds all of the traditions of the Jewish culture. They believe in one God and practice the traditions. Judaism is a religion where people practice their faith and have a personal relationship with God.– Isaac Turtletaub, Charlotte, NC (8th grade)

Do you identify as a Jew?

Yes? You’re a Jew.

No? You’re not. — Leah Kwiatkowski, Harrisburg, NC (8th grade)

A Jew is a holy person who follows the holy teachings of God and has a connection to Jerusalem as the holy homeland of the Jewish people. Jews are required to do as God commands them. I believe Jews were the chosen ones by God and are metaphorically “the branches of God,” for they take what God showed and taught them, and they pass it on to future generations.

To be Jewish, your mother must be Jewish. If the mother isn’t Jewish, then the children can’t be Jewish unless they decide to convert.

Judaism is more of a tradition than a religion. We practice the original ways of our ancestors and bring them into our modern world.– Elliot Adler, Charlotte, NC (8th grade)

Judaism is a matrilineal chain of people connected by a shared set of beliefs, values, or communities.

Judaism is so much more than a religion: it’s an ethnicity. Judaism is a word used to describe people with a common heritage.

Jews are technically born Jewish and must be part of a long line of people to be ethnically classified as “Jewish.”

However, people convert to Judaism all the time; does this mean that they are not Jewish?   — Sam Friedman, Charlotte, NC (8th grade)

Amy Krakovitz, an instructor in “Writing for Good” at the Consolidated High School for Jewish Studies, Charlotte, NC, worked with her 8th and 9th grade students to prepare these essays for publication. They are reprinted here with the permission of the students and their parents.

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August 12, 2013 · 7:00 am

How A Jew Reads The News

by Lev Raphael (Okemos, MI)

Most people wouldn’t put Trayvon Martin and Anthony Weiner in the same sentence, yet watching the recent news coverage of the Martin trial and the new revelations about Weiner’s sexting, I’ve been deeply aware that I read the news as a Jew.  And that this is something I learned from my parents.

My parents devoured a handful of newspapers between them, and they read them with a special lens.  They were always on the lookout for news about anti-semitism, in whatever form.  That’s understandable, given that they were Holocaust survivors.

But when they read their newspapers, they were also on the lookout for Jews.  Bad Jews.  If there was any kind of crime and the accused had a Jewish name, that name would always be read aloud, with an inevitable “Oy” or some other complaint.  I knew what concerned them:  Why does it have to be a Jew? Why did this Jew have to make us look so bad?  Isn’t it hard enough being Jewish already?

News like that was “a shandeh far di goyim.”  And the lesson was very clear.  If my parents were watching the behavior of every single Jew in New York, imagine what the goyim were doing. Those goyim were the same people Philip Roth’s Portnoy says “own the world and know absolutely nothing about human boundaries and limits.”

And so the Zimmerman trial echoed for me every single time I heard his name mentioned because when the story broke about his shooting Trayvon Martin, along with revulsion about the killing, I also thought “I hope he’s not Jewish.”  As it turned out, he wasn’t.  And I should have remembered that my junior high school French teacher, an Alsatian, was named Zimmerman and had explained that it was a common last name where he grew up.

Just when the Zimmerman trial was over and the controversial verdict started being debated in the media, another story reminded me who I was and where I had come from.  Anthony Weiner was not only running again for office, he was running from himself.

In all the furor over the revelations about his sexual behavior, the question “Why?” keeps being asked, and the answers, as suggested in a recent New York Times article, have been pretty superficial: addiction, inadequacy, narcissism.  Nobody’s mentioned the obvious fact that’s he’s Jewish and that he might be suffering from internalized shame about being Jewish.  It seems improbable at first because what he’s done, both the sexting and lying about it, seems shameless, but that’s just on the surface.

Weiner has always reminded me of guys I knew in junior high and high school.  Nerdy, driven kids, they were all Jewish like me.  And like me, they grew up in a culture that sent very clear messages to Jewish men: you are not athletic, you are not handsome, you are not manly.  You are Woody Allen.  Big nose.  Big ears.  Whiny voice.  A nebbish now and always. It’s only in recent years that advertising images of men have become more “ethnic,” but in the 50s and 60s, goyish was in and ethnic was not saleable.

And so I suspect that like me, Weiner grew up with a core of unexamined shame about being Jewish, though he might never have put it that way.  His behavior makes his doubts about his masculinity pretty obvious. Think of Weiner sending women pictures of himself.  That’s justifiable pride in one sense, but it also evinces profound insecurity and a response to internalized stereotypes of Jewish men as not being well-endowed.  And look how he posed his body for his camera.  All that showing off his muscles seems like an obvious response to intense body shame. Not a healthy one, no, but sadly understandable.

Nobody I’m aware of has published about the possible Jewish angle to this story, and that too is understandable.  It’s too embarrassing to explore. The renowned psychologist Gershen Kaufman has called shame a sickness of the soul, a wound that feels beyond healing because there is shame about shame.

Sexting is the mask Weiner shows the world, simultaneously hiding and expressing his secret shame.  Reading the news about him, I’ve both been ashamed for him, and aware of the ways in which my own shame has shaped my life.  That’s why when I see outraged pundits claiming they can’t remotely understand how Weiner could behave as he has, I wonder what they’re hiding, what nerve he’s touched.

Lev Raphael is a prize-winning pioneer in American-Jewish literature, and has been publishing fiction and nonfiction about the Second Generation since 1978. The author of twenty-four books which have been translated into almost a dozen languages, he has spoken about his work in hundreds of venues on three continents. His fiction and creative non-fiction are widely taught at American colleges and universities, and his work has been the subject of numerous academic articles, papers, and books. A former public radio book show host and newspaper columnist, he can be found on the web at http://www.levraphael.com where you can also read his blog on writing and publishing.  His most recent Jewish-themed novel is set in The Gilded Age: Rosedale in Love.  He currently teaches creative writing at Michigan State University.

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July 29, 2013 · 3:33 pm

The View from the Rue Constantinople

by Ellen Norman Stern (Willow Grove, PA)

We were both eleven years old that May in 1939 when my best friend Wolfgang and I told each other goodbye.

The late sun above the tall roofs of Berlin’s Kurfuerstendamm was starting to fade when we returned from our afternoon walk and stopped at the street corner near the apartment house where I lived.

Emma, Wolfgang’s elderly nanny, left us there for a few more minutes together while she started on her slow trip to his building a few blocks away. Wolfgang held Gustl, his brown-and-white cocker spaniel, on her leash.

Wolfgang, brown-eyed and dark-haired, was tall for his age. When he smiled, he was good-looking. He was often mischievous and got into trouble without trying. But he could also be very serious. Someday he would be a handsome man like his father.

The next day Wolfgang’s family was set to travel from Berlin to Hamburg. From there they planned to embark for Cuba on a ship of the Hamburg-America line.

For the past year and a half Wolfgang and I had attended the same private school.

I enjoyed being with him. Every day he and Emma stopped for me before she walked us some distance to the Ferbelliner Platz where we boarded the streetcar to its last stop. Goldschmidt Schule was located at the corner of Roseneck in the Grunewald.

We did not attend the same classes, but we became inseparable after school. Every day we returned on the tram to be met by his nanny and Gustl. We spent afternoons and early evenings, sometimes even suppers, together at his house until the three of them walked me home before dark. Wolfgang and I grew close and in our unsupervised conversations often pledged we would always remain that way. We never believed that anything could part us.

Emma always wore the regional costume of the Spreewald where she came from. The many layers of petticoats under her black skirts, the tightly-laced colorful vest, and the elongated headcovering with its veil trailing halfway down her back never failed to draw the attention of onlookers we met on our way to the tram stop.

Our school days ended unexpectedly on the morning a group of brown-shirted troopers marched into the building and escorted us outside. They lined everyone up on the sidewalk in front of the school and made us watch the flames curl around Goldschmidt’s facade. The gleeful expression on some SA men’s faces left little doubt about the fire’s origin. Even the youngest student sensed what was happening.

It felt strange to ride the streetcar back home so much earlier than usual. We were both quite hungry and ate the sandwiches from our lunchboxes on the tram. Because of the morning’s events we had skipped lunch recess. We were agitated for still another reason. The fire had forced the school staff to leave along with the student body. No one could call our parents to meet us. That day we worried they would be angry to have us walk that long stretch by ourselves.

After that, no more school.

Now, as he held Gustl’s leash tightly, Wolfgang stretched his other hand out to me.

“Don’t look so sad,” he comforted me. “As soon as we land in Havana I will send you our new address and we can write each other.”

But I was sad. I had seen too many people I knew leave Berlin that year. Too many goodbyes are hard to take, even when you are very young.

“I know you will write whenever you can, but I will still miss our afternoon walks.”

This saddened Wolfgang, too. He looked down at Gustl whose golden curly hair shone in the late afternoon sun. He bent down and gently stroked her long silky ears. Gustl, the companion of our walks, would be left behind. Immigration quotas did not include pet dogs. Wolfgang’s father had arranged for Gustl to live with Emma who was retiring to her native village deep in the heart of Germany.

Despite the upcoming separation from Gustl, Wolfgang tried hard to be cheerful.

“It’ll be exciting to sail aboard such a large ship. We will practice Spanish on the way. Can you imagine my grandmother learning Spanish?”

We both giggled. Wolfgang’s grandmother — like mine — was proud and regal and tried to imitate the style of the English Queen Mary.

“Of course, we won’t be in Cuba long. When our American visas are approved we’ll go there. Someday, who knows, you and I will meet again.”

I nodded, wanting to believe him. Within a few days my mother and I, too, would leave Berlin on the journey to our new home. We were more fortunate: our visas were already approved and we would travel to the United States directly.

“I don’t want to go back to our apartment yet. Everything is so uncomfortable, with most of the furniture gone and all the suitcases standing around,” Wolfgang said. “And my mother has her nervous headaches again.”

“It’s the same way at our apartment. Most of the furniture is sold, but we’re not packed yet. There isn’t one soft chair left to sit in.”

“Will you walk me back to my corner once more?” he asked. “We could talk a little longer that way.”

I was glad to. I didn’t want to go home, either.

We tried to prolong it, but finally the moment came when I petted Gustl’s shiny coat and shook Wolfgang’s hand. I wanted to kiss him, but I knew such girl stuff would embarrass him.

“When it’s your turn, have a good journey, too,” he said.

I thanked him. “Oh, what’s the name of your ship?” I asked before he turned to go.

“The St. Louis. Mach’s gut.”

He walked away. Only Gustl turned her head and looked back at me once more.

Wolfgang kept his word. Within a few days I received a post card from Hamburg with a picture of his ship on it. The card was postmarked May 13, 1939, his sailing date.

“We’re hoping for a wonderful trip,” he wrote. “My parents and I wish you the same.”

I thought of him often later that month when my mother and I crossed the Atlantic Ocean on our own journey. By this time his ship was due to have landed in Havana and I wondered how it felt to be in sunny, romantic Cuba.

A few days after we arrived in Louisville to a joyous reunion with my father the picture of a ship appeared on the front page of the local newspaper.

The caption read “SS.St.Louis refused landing permission in Cuba. 930 Jewish refugees face certain doom if returned to Germany.”

The month of June brought hotter weather than we had expected. There was so much else to get used to — a new language, new faces, new surroundings.

I sat on the front steps of the house where we now lived, speaking to no one. When it was too hot outside, I came in and sat some more.

“Eat a little something,” my mother urged often.  But I wasn’t hungry.

“Why is she so quiet?” a new neighbor asked my mother.

“It’s the hot weather. We are not used to these high summer temperatures in Europe,” Mimi answered. But she knew the real reason and did not tell.

The story of the St. Louis stayed news for only a few days. When she sailed out of Cuban waters — after no country in the West accepted her cargo of refugees — she lingered near Miami…hopefully. Then she finally turned back toward Europe.

I waited for the paperboy every afternoon, but the press had dropped any mention of the ship’s fate.

On the September day when news came of Poland’s invasion by Germany, Mimi and I sat at our small kitchen table and cried. Now it seemed certain that contact between us and our relatives and friends in Europe had been lost, perhaps forever.

Sometime during that fall a letter arrived for me from Paris. The Red Cross had been able to find Wolfgang.

“We were lucky, after all,” he wrote. “France took in many of us. It was a long trip. We thought it would never end. Now we live in the Rue Constantinople. We’re on the top floor and from our window we can see the Place d’Etoile and the Champs Elysee behind it. We hope you and your parents are well. I think of you often.”

I started school in Louisville. The first few months were hard for me. Everything was so totally different. I was homesick a lot. Perhaps I really did not question what I was homesick for since nothing I had known existed anymore. I carried Wolfgang’s letter in my pocket. Sometimes, while I was in the schoolyard and the other children played their recess games, I leaned against a wall and read the letter.

Another few months passed, and then a second letter arrived. It was postmarked Limoges, France.

“The Jewish Committee sent us here to be safe in case the war spreads. Limoges is very beautiful. They make china here. But we liked it in Paris and wish we could have stayed there while we wait to enter the United States. Now we must hope the war will end soon. My father and my grandmother are well. My mother worries a lot and suffers from headaches.”

I wrote back, sent good wishes from my family, and said we hoped to see all of them again before long. I told him the American people seemed to understand how bad things were with Jews in Europe and would make it possible for them to enter this country. “Everybody here is very nice. We have been helped to a new start. The same will happen to you when you come here.”

In June 1940, France fell to the Germans. The radio spoke of fleeing refugees camping by the roadside. The newspapers showed photographs of the miseries of war. The Vichy government turned over the Jews of France to the invading Nazis. In our synagogue special prayers were said for those Jews trapped in the Occupation zone.

Once more I tried to find my friend. I wrote directly to the mayor of the city of Limoges and asked for his help in locating Wolfgang’s family.

Many months went by. One day an official-looking letter from France arrived at our house.

“Our records do not show that any family by the name you mention ever resided in the city of Limoges. I regret we cannot help you.” It was signed: The Mayor.

I knew then Wolfgang would not write again.

Born in Germany, Ellen Norman Stern came to the United States as a young girl and grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. She’s the author of numerous books for young adult readers, including biographies of Louis D. Brandeis, Nelson Glueck, and Elie Wiesel.  Her most recent publication is The French Physician’s Boy, a novel about Philadelphia’s 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic.

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July 15, 2013 · 8:59 am

Blue Nails on the Subway

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

Blue nails,
Hebrew prayer book,
Nike running shoes.
What question would I ask, I wonder?
How, my child of Israel,
do you reconcile your two worlds?
I shudder to think you go partying
at hot spots in the city Friday nights,
or run half-marathons Saturday mornings.
I watch you as you hold your book
up to your face after reading, as if
you were memorizing the wisdom therein.
There is no doubt God’s tent
is large enough to shelter you
no matter which corner you inhabit.
You get off at DeKalb Avenue,

confident of stepping surely in both worlds.

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.

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

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April 1, 2013 · 8:38 am

Teenagers and Interfaith Dating

by Amy Krakovitz (Charlotte, NC)

Here’s my guilt and my joy: my husband isn’t Jewish. And yet we’ve made a wonderful life together for 35 years. We have two grown sons, and I love him more today than I did 35 years ago. But ask me what I want for my own children: I want them both to find partners who are Jewish or who have some Jewish ancestry. I want grandchildren who will identify as Jewish and who will love Israel, Hebrew, and Judaism the same way that I do.

So when I asked my 8th and 9th graders at the Consolidated High School for Jewish Studies in Charlotte, NC to write an essay on how they felt about interfaith dating, I didn’t want to influence their opinions. I can imagine how their parents feel about it, whether they are the children of two Jewish parents or one, whether their parents were born Jewish or are Jewish by choice.

Every one of these teenagers goes to a school in North Carolina where they are in a tiny minority; in some cases a student might even be the only Jew in the entire school. So the desire to date and have a relationship with someone is profoundly impacted by their exposure to a Christian majority. Most of their peers are not Jewish. It’s likely that most of their friends are not Jewish. This reality is evident in their essays. One hundred percent of the essays that I received approved of interfaith dating, at least for now while they are young.

They’ve exposed themselves in a very visceral and sometimes humorous way. I am truly proud of what they have produced.

As a class, we will continue to write about Jewish subjects and I hope these teens will continue to be as honest and forthright as they have been here.

Writing prompt: DATE ONLY JEWS OR PLAY THE FIELD?

Responses from 8th Graders:

As far as I know, Harrisburg, North Carolina, isn’t exactly known for its Jewish community. The only Jews who I’ve ever met in North Carolina are from the Charlotte JCC, which happens to be a half hour away. I don’t have the money, time, or license to ship myself to Charlotte every day (or even every other day) to see my Jewish friends. So how can I be expected to hold a committed, romantic relationship with one of them?

Exclusively dating Jews is not an option for me, nor has it been for most members of my family. My mother married an atheist, my aunt a Christian, and there have certainly been no special Jewish boys or girls in my own or any of my siblings’ lives. For the time being, I don’t foresee my siblings or myself with a Jewish counterpart. But that is not to say I wouldn’t date a Jew, for I certainly would. I’ll date whom I love regardless of gender, race, or religion. – Leah Kwiatskowski

* * *

I am only 13 years old and I have not been in a serious relationship yet. For now, I would play the field for it does not really matter whom you date now or if you do not date at all. For now, religion is not a factor in whom you date. Religion does matter as you get older and develop more serious relationships because if you believe you have found your wife and you are planning on having a child with her, deciding the religion of the baby will be a lot easier if you are both Jewish. For boys, when you first see an attractive girl, your first question is rarely about what religion she practices. It does not play a key role in choosing relationships when you are 13 years old or maybe even an older teenager. So for me, instead of sticking to just Jewish girls, I would play the field. – Isaac Turtletaub

* * *

Being a 14-year-old boy, I have not had any long-term, serious relationships. However, I have been on “little” dates and, honestly, most have been with non-Jews. Dating is a way to get to know new people and experience new things. Limiting whom you can date based on their religion seems a little ignorant to me. As people grow up, they begin to date more frequently. Dating only people who share your views could set you up for problems later. The old saying can often hold true: “Opposites attract.”

On the other hand, dating only Jews could have its advantages. Let’s say you dated and eventually married a woman who was not Jewish. You had a child who is now entering school and you don’t know whether to enroll that child in public, Jewish-based, or another type of religious school. How do you decide who gets the final say? Sometimes difficult situations can be avoided years before they occur. But what if you don’t meet someone amazing because of your religious standards?

In the end, your relationships shouldn’t be dependent on someone else’s religion. Everyone should have the opportunity to be with others. Limiting whom you date based on their religion is inconsiderate. Everyone should be able to date anyone. – Sam Friedman

* * *

Dating only Jews is an interesting topic to talk about. From a teenage perspective, I would say playing the field and dating girls of other religions is okay. In today’s world, it’s possible that the person you are dating now is not always going to be the person you marry when you get older. As teenagers, we are going through mood changes and changing our minds all the time. Just because someone “likes” a girl one day doesn’t mean that he will still like her months later. Most relationships among my peers last around a month. If you’re Jewish and you want to date a Christian girl at a young age, why not?

Teenager’s relationships are normally not that strong. The dating couple might see one another in school and occasionally on a weekend. It’s not the same as living with someone and seeing each other every day. We want to enjoy life as teenagers, not regret it.

Even for adults, it’s a personal decision. I would prefer to have a Jewish wife. But if I am in love with a Christian girl, I am going to marry that Christian girl and try to raise a Jewish family. – Jason Garfinkle

Responses from 9th graders:

As my favorite Beatle once said: “All you need is love.” Now what did he mean by that? Any love? Specific love from certain people? Love from your religion? Others? No. John didn’t mean that. Any love is worth attention, affection, and time. No matter a person’s religion.

My family would not agree. They say the same thing over and over. “Date Jewish, tatala! The shiksa goddess is not for you, tatala! Oy! I will match you up with a real Jewish lady!” (sigh) If they could leave me alone, life could be better.

I love girls. Christian and Jewish. It has nothing to do with how they look, how they talk, it just doesn’t! People have not looked at this the way they should: loving the person. Relationships are not about people’s backgrounds.

You love a girl for the girl she is. Her personality. Her sense of humor. And how she loves you. You can’t let religion affect it. Most people who date outside their religion do it because they love their partner. If someone denies their love or feelings for someone just because of religion, they’re absurd!

I’d like to ask any married couple: Name everything you love about your spouse. Every little single detail. Now top it off by saying they’re a different religion. If that can change your love for this person, then you aren’t really in love.

I encourage my friends to date outside their Judaism. Relationships are about loving someone. I really don’t care about their beliefs. These are two separate things: your love for a person and your thoughts about his or her religion. Whether you let one thing affect another is your prerogative. Just remember that you can hate a religion, but love a person. Love is love, no matter whether you accept or deny it. It’s love. – Sam Cohen

* * *

Half of my family is Jewish. They moved from Poland just before the Holocaust claimed their lives. My grandfather started a trucking company in New Jersey where my dad grew up until he was a teenager. My grandparents were fairly traditional Jews, with my grandfather serving as a part-time rabbi, and my grandmother studying Hebrew for her Bat Mitzvah when she was 65. Yet, they’ve never forced on me the idea of dating only inside the faith. In fact, I don’t even know what they feel about the subject because my mother converted to Judaism before she met my dad.

Personally, I believe it’s fine to date outside the faith. Your partner doesn’t have to change your faith or your idea of faith, and you don’t even have to talk about faith. If you talk about religion, you may learn something about someone else’s religion, and maybe even some new ideas that will serve to help you grow. Dating someone of a different faith should be considered a learning experience, not a break in religious observance. If you are talking about marriage or moving in together, you should definitely talk about your faith and how you want to raise your children, and possible religious conflicts.

Choosing whom to date is like choosing your career. You should make your own decision but be aware of the consequences. Dating outside the faith should be a personal choice on what you believe is right or wrong. Faith does not have to be a big part of a small relationship, although it can make for interesting conversations.

My parents were the first generation of my family to intermarry. Though my mother converted before they were married, her sister remains a devout Christian. I am aware of the differences in our religions, but I want to appreciate them rather than fight them.

I think the choice of dating outside your faith should be yours alone. You should not let peer pressure or family influence get in the way of your happiness, but you should be aware of the consequences. – Isabelle Katz

* * *

When people meet and fall in love, it happens naturally. We shouldn’t need to over-examine another person’s characteristics right from the start. This is why I believe that people should be free to date whomever they choose. In my experience, I’ve never been involved with someone of Jewish ancestry. Though someone may not pray to God in the same way that I do, or attend the same house of worship, he or she may still be a good person. In my perspective, beliefs are not the key factors in relationships. Values are. Truly good people are those who find ways to apply their beliefs to their lives and aspire to live a life by the right values.

Though the various religions across the globe may vary from one another, many of their values are universal. As long as two people share similar values in life and are able to maintain mutual respect for each other’s beliefs, there shouldn’t be anything holding them back from being together. God may want two people to come together. By limiting ourselves to one group of people, we may be denying ourselves someone who could make us truly happy. – Olivia Weidner

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 Amy Krakovit, an instructor in “Writing for Good” at the Consolidated High School for Jewish Studies, Charlotte, NC, worked with her 8th and 9th grade students to prepare these essays for publication. They are reprinted here with the permission of the students and their parents.

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March 25, 2013 · 6:11 am

Passover Reminiscence

by Janice L. Booker (Malibu, CA)

We bought spring clothes for Passover and fall clothes for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the high holidays.  The weather seemed always too cold for the new Passover clothes and too hot for the new fall clothes.  It took a long time and a lot of explanation for me to understand that the dates of the holidays didn’t change but the relationship between the Gregorian calendar and the Hebrew calendar did.

Holidays punctuated the sameness of days, the continuing emphasis on getting things done, going to school, shopping, playing; in general, our daily routine.  Preparation for the holiday of Passover was frenzied.

I don’t know how our grandmothers and mothers did it.   No dishwashers, no prepared foods, certainly no outside help – and yet, somehow it got done.  I hope it wasn’t the holiday that contributed to a shortened life span for that generation of women.   Yet, the expectation of repetition of the preparations, and the ceremony of the seder, were comforting in their continuity.  Before so many contemporary creative Haggadahs  with their inventive writings and improvisations were popular, we used the old Maxwell House Haggadah, a text familiar to me since early childhood.  Maybe the company’s distribution of these brand name Haggadahs was to give the subtle suggestion that Maxwell House coffee was kosher.  When my grandfather was alive, my parents, little brother and I went to their house on Wharton Street for the ritual meal.  I can still see my grandfather, imposing in a white kimono-like caftan, leaning on pillows as prescribed in the Haggadah, intoning the familiar story of the exodus.  My brother was too young to participate in the ceremony, but I, a Hebrew school student, asked the centuries- old Four Questions.

We learned to say them in Hebrew School in two languages, Hebrew and Yiddish, and I dutifully asked them in both languages, intoning the singsong liturgy learned in Hebrew School.  I remember being given sips of the sweet Passover wine, feeling indoctrinated in a world of grownups.  I also felt very important, with all attention focused on me; also, nervous, fearful I would make a mistake.  I didn’t realize that family indulgence was part of the game and all would smile gently if I slipped up.  Passover was  celebrated for its full eight days with ritual foods.  On the eighth day I was sent to the nearest bakery to buy the first bread.  My mother always grumbled that the bakery opened too soon which elicited a discussion of whether the holiday was over before lunch or before dinner, an argument still unresolved.  When we children came home for lunch in elementary school and junior high, Passover foods awaited us.

We all had two Seders on two successive nights and spent the next part of the holiday eating fried matzoh, gefilte fish and the special holiday dishes which, for some unexplained reason, certainly not sacred, we never prepared the rest of the year.  Nuts were a part of the Passover table, walnuts and almonds and particularly filberts.  These were the perfect shape for marbles, and we could be seen, in our new Passover clothes,  kneeling on the sidewalk using those  nuts for a game of marbles

Janice L. Booker is the author of The Jewish American Princess and Other Myths, Philly Firsts, and Across from the Alley Next Door to the Pool Room, from which this reminiscence is excerpted with permission of the author. For more information about her work, visit: http://www.amazon.com/Janice-L.-Booker/e/B001KCCS8E

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March 4, 2013 · 9:17 am

Jewish Identity: A Round-Trip Journey

by Donna Swarthout (Bozeman, MT)

A life-long discomfort with institutionalized Judaism is hard to shed once you reach the mid-life years. Sure, it’s great to keep an open mind, but there’s also the sense of not wanting to waste time on pursuits unlikely to enrich one’s life. Some of us narrow our options as we get older in a bargain to reduce the odds of having regrets.

Years of involvement with synagogue life had left me without a strong Jewish identity. This could be my own fault for not making a large enough personal investment, at least that’s what our rabbi and congregation president hinted at when we recently decided not to renew our annual membership. What was it that held us back? Years of trying to fit in, find meaning in the services, and carve out time and money for the responsibilities of membership had left us feeling….well, unfulfilled.

But something shifted when we moved to Germany in July of 2010. The vague contours of my Jewish identity gradually took on a clear shape. This was not a transformation of faith, but rather a return to the embrace of German Jewish culture, to the memories of my childhood when I was surrounded by relatives who all spoke with the same New York German Jewish accent and whose lives were a story from a faraway place that I could only imagine.

In a place where Jewish life had been all but extinguished, our family took part in building a new Jewish presence on German soil. A void was filled as I attended services in Berlin among people who shared my ancestry and my determination to revive a part of what had been lost. The sense of connection to Jewish traditions and rituals was present for me in a way that it had never been in the States, at least not since I had left the East Coast at the age of eight to become a California transplant.

Back in the States we were part of the melting pot of Jewish America. Despite all the benefits that come from our diversity, there was also something missing that I had never before been able to put my finger on. In Germany I realized that the missing element was a common cultural heritage that connects us.

As assimilated Americans, we have Jewish identity issues that German Jews don’t have. We come together to share Jewish rituals, but the feeling does not always or often run very deep. We remind ourselves that we come from a long historical tradition that must be kept alive, but we may not feel this in our bones. We worry about things like building funds and membership growth, but how do such pressures help build our Jewish identities?

It was the return to the States that cast a sharper light on the questions that I had struggled with for so long. The journey back to my roots had helped me to find the core of my Jewish identity, but the old doubts about how to lead a meaningful Jewish life resurfaced upon my return to Montana.

One of the first discussions I had with our rabbi after our return was about my daughter’s bat mitzvah. Olivia had been struggling for quite some time to decide if her coming of age ritual would be a bat mitzvah or something outside the Jewish faith. As I listened to the rabbi recite the long list of official guidelines, I was stunned to hear that she would be required to keep a punch card to mark her attendance at services. She would need to have ten punches on the card during the year leading up to her bat mitzvah, with no free coffee or hot chocolate to reward her at the end!

I’m troubled by the image of my daughter holding up her punch card to the rabbi after Friday night services. Would my daughter really be more Jewish when the card was full? If she learned her Torah portion and the requisite prayers, why couldn’t she carve her own path to her bat mitzvah and Jewish adulthood? Wouldn’t a single profound experience at services be worth more than half a dozen boring ones? Judaism in America feels formulaic at times and the punch card rule symbolized a structure within which I often feel more constrained than inspired.

The end of a journey can bring emotions that range from elation to relief, from fulfillment to exhaustion. I returned from Berlin enriched by my involvement in one of the smallest, but fastest growing Jewish communities in the world. But I also had renewed feelings of ambivalence and doubt about my connection to American Judaism. Now I must weave these two strands of my Jewish self into a single thread of my identity. And I must not abandon the effort to find community amidst the melting pot of Jews in America.

Donna Swarthout lived in Berlin, Germany from 2010 – 2012. You can read more about her experiences on her blog Full Circle. Her work has appeared on The Jewish Writing Project, AVIVA-berlin.de, Tikkun Daily, and in Tablet. This piece first appeared on Jewesses with Attitude (http://jwa.org/blog) and is reprinted here with the kind permission of The Jewish Women’s Archive.

 

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