The Jewish Writing Project

by Milt Zolotow (z”l)

(with his daughter, Nina Zolotow)

Note from Nina Zolotow: My father enlisted in the Army during World War II when he was told that they needed mapmakers in New Jersey and that with his background in commercial art the map making division would want his skills. Instead, the day he enlisted, he and the other recruits were put aboard a train whose destination was Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, for basic training to be a member of an elite force of soldiers in a tank battalion under General George Patton. 

After completing basic training, he was shipped to North Africa—he never said where—and from there he wrote his family a long letter about a very interesting Rosh Hashanah that he spent with members of the Jewish community who lived in a big city there. He also sent home a small portfolio of drawings he made of people he saw there. 

The letter is typed, so it’s very legible, but the paper on which he typed the words is old and crumbling. The drawings aren’t in the best condition either. Many of us face the same kind of situation when we go through our parent’s things. I decided to transcribe the letter and scan some of the drawings as the best way of preserving them and sharing them with family members. 

But I really think the letter is so fascinating and raises a lot of important issues about the Jewish diaspora and the state of the world back then that I thought I’d share the letter with you, dear readers. 

Dear Folks:

Spent Rosh Hashanah in a big African town and it is a day I shall never forget. I had been learning to know these people from the outside, but before that day, I had never come so close to understanding their lives. 

I went to the largest synagogue and after a few minutes rushed outside to sketch some of the wonderful things I had seen. The boys approached me and asked if I were Jewish. I was then handed a copy of a G.I. Siddur and asked to read from it. I stumbled through a couple of words and the littlest kid picked up and rattled off about three minutes of minhah from memory.

The kids invited me to dinner at their home and introduced themselves. The small one was named Maurice. I dubbed him Moish; he was six and smart as a whip.

On the way to their home he recited his lessons in French, Hebrew, and sang Moroccan songs for me. The home was in the “off limits” area, the vilest slum I have ever seen. I stumbled through a dark alley and found myself led into a dark room with a table inside. I was in the quarters of a family of six, and the size of the room was like the one Eleanore [ed. note: his sister] used to use.

I shook hands with the mother and father and felt very ill at ease. The mother hid in the corner behind the bed, occasionally covering herself in the manner of the Moslems.  

They were Moroccan Jews and spoke poor French, no Yiddish, and though the father was a Hebrew scholar, I couldn’t even recognize the few remaining words in my Hebrew vocabulary because the vowel sounds were distorted and he always stressed the last syllable in the manner of the French.

We spoke little till the arrival of the daughter, son-in-law, their baby, and an audience of neighbors, who gathered in the courtyard causing great excitement amongst the chickens.

When the younger generation arrived, we sat down to the meal and conversation picked up. Son-in-law and myself in French, kids helping with English, and all translating into Moroccan for the benefit of the parents. Kiddush was said and we went through the ceremonial washing of the hands and brochos for each course. After some more anisette, Moish and I sang Au Claire de la Lune, Hinai Matov in all three traditional melodies, and Frére Jacques. Everybody was gay and we toasted the brotherhood of the Jewish race, the liberation of all people, the end of the war, and my return to America.

We all ate, including the baby who was nursed at the table, and I got the lion’s share, doing my best to swallow the miserable food. 

Here’s the menu: Pimento, etc. The main course was a tiny piece of meat which I could not eat despite my good intentions. For dessert there were grapes and pomegranates (poor ones, not like the delicious red ones from Palestine). To drink, much wine and anisette. 

We talked of big buildings, freedom, the Moroccan antecedents of the family, and we all shared a dream of America and the good life. 

I rose to go and they asked me if I were not pleased; I said I was very happy and would return after a walk with the boys.

I got a pass to the restricted area from the Chaplain and we went on a tour through the streets.

Every step I took, people grabbed me and shouted, “Jew?” and when I answered they said, “Sholom Aleichem” and called me brother. They brought me some Jewish girls, lovely faces like Hadassah F. [ed. note: possibly one of Milt’s friends] and rich black hair, but incredibly dirty.

The streets were full of soldiers mingling with the populace. From the balcony, I heard Pistol Packin’ Mama, and saw a couple of G.I.’s celebrating and dancing.

I spoke to many people, poor diseased people with glazed eyes and infections. All of them expressed their great love for America. We mean food and life to them. They all told stories of starvation at the hands of the Germans.

After a long discussion with several amusing salesgirls, I finally managed to buy the boys some un-rationed wooden shoes, and in this small way expressed my gratitude.

All the neighbors heard about the shoes and came to see. We went out again and met a cousin of the boys, and I was invited to his house for some more wine. He and his young wife lived in an apartment house of modern construction, with tasteful furnishings and a gramophone. We drank and listened to Harry James, Jimmie Lunceford, and Arabic music.

The Moroccan music was Spanish in origin and its basic rhythm was tango. Some resembled the music of the Yemenites. Ali ali, and Zum Gali. I really regret not having learned to sight-read for I really wanted to have a record of the songs we played and they sang. They were well informed and quite cultured. The father had been a classical scholar and the young man and his wife were alert to young people.

We discussed freedom and they asked about antisemitism. I could not say our country was free from it and had a hard time explaining in my poor French its subtle manifestations in the U.S.

When I left, he made a little speech over a glass of wine and looked forward to the victory of the allies, days of peace and plenty, and, of course, my eventual return home. A La Victoire! 

Moish almost cried when I left him, and I promised to come back. We walked hand in hand to the place where I took my truck back to camp. 

I have hardly touched the reality of their painful existence. I tried to record shapes and colors of the environment in my mind and by rapidly sketching what I remember. To tell the truth of this poor yet dignified life would take a Zola or Rembrandt.

The disease and pain is written onto the faces, and some of them stayed with me so that I have had to draw them several times.

It’s a strange mixture, this complex picture I discovered, with roots in our ancient traditions and existing side by side with the businesses, like brothels, of the French; it makes cultural polyglots out of the children.

Moish could be a great man, a man of intellect but someone else will have to throw off the shackles that confine him to memorizing the phrases of a dead culture. 

If only we could or would realize the meaning we Americans have to these poor people in terms of their survival as a people. We are their dream embodied and the facts of our lives, however unsatisfactory to us, are the meat and some of the future they want.

I told Moish to always go to school and added to the tremendous store of his memorized knowledge two words, the “Glory Hallelujah” which he sings to Hinai Ma Tov. 

He already knew the Star-Spangled Banner. 

Milt