"YOU" JEWS AND YOUR FISH
America is a young country. When a Jew says that his family has been in the US for 100 years, it’s like a Jekke saying that his mishpocho has been in Frankfurt for a millennium.
When my parents and I moved to San Francisco, we discovered a pair of distant, distant relatives who established their roots there two generations before the Great Earthquake of 1906. Cousins Charles and Frances, a brother and sister, were a dotty 90-year-old couple who spent most of their time at the opera, ballet, symphony, and theater.
They were a delight to have around, as they regaled us in stories of the Great Earthquake, the graciousness of the old days among the wealthy, cultured German Jews, the charity balls with the Sutros and Fleishackers, and the arrival of the slothful Ostjuden with their Old World nonsense.
They told me, the astonished yeshiva bochur, how their Reform temple celebrated the Sabbath on Sunday, of its Quad Suite organ, and its magnificent choir resplendent with voices from the opera.
The only thing plebian about Charles and Frances was their passion for fishing. Given their love for my folks, though, they never shared the fruits of their expeditions. Then one day they appeared at the door, somewhat sheepishly, bearing a neatly wrapped package of rockfish from Half Moon Bay. They wrinkled their noses self-consciously.
As Frances presented the fish, she said in her usual genteel voice, “I don’t know too much about the kosher laws, but I know that fish have to be soaked and salted to make them acceptable. I couldn’t bear it, so I broiled one, and I couldn’t even touch it, it was so tough and salty.”
I could see that my mother was about to try to explain, but then she thought the better of it.
On went Cousin Frances: “My goodness, how long do you have to salt your beef? No wonder that Jews like ‘them’ have such high blood pressure.” There could be no doubt as to the “them” to whom she was referring. “I guess that’s why ‘you people’ are always saying how hard it is to be a Jew. How ever do you prepare your eggs?”
February 24, 2009
February 14, 2009
IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE BROCCOLI CASSEROLE
Small towns like Greenville are rife with Christian fundamentalists. They assume that we know about the Torah, holidays, ceremonies, philosophy, and history. Uh-huh.
Some of them are so serious about Judaism that they practice it as it was at Jesus’ time, “searching for the Hebraic roots of their faith.” So, five or six families will get together on Friday evenings for candles, Kiddush, Motzi, Shabbat, Benschen, and Torah study.
That’s where I fit in. A local Donna Gracia regularly had her nails done by one such Judeophile, who was always full of questions. “Why do the Jews do this? What does the Bible say about that?” How many answers do you think the dowager could give her?
She referred her to her rabbi. Our invitation included traditional Shabbat dinner, tastefully kosher – salmon, salad, rice, and a miserable broccoli casserole. Then we engaged in four hours of Torah study – stimulating, reverent . . . And, no, they were quick to say, they were not damning me behind my back. That was not part of “their” doctrine.
In the course of discussion, I mentioned that I was going in to zap a kidney stone. I’d been peeing blood for weeks, and I was constantly doubled over in pain.
“Do you mind if we pray for you?” one said. “No, of course not.” “Jesus won’t offend you?” “No, of course not.”
At once, they beehive-buzzed around me. Above the din I heard one pray, “May Marc be healed, but not by the hands of man!”
Well, think what you want. By the next morning, I stopped peeing blood, and by mid-afternoon, the pain had stopped. Like I said, think what you want. It made me no surer of Jesus, but of the power of sincere faith and spirit all imploded into the one needing it most.
The next day, I went to the hospital just to make sure. Already on my gurney, the doctor announced that the procedure was unnecessary, pulled the IV from my arm, and instructed me to go home.
As I got in the car, I pronounced to Linda, “It’s a miracle!” Ever the skeptic, she declared, “No, honey, I think it was just the broccoli casserole.”
Small towns like Greenville are rife with Christian fundamentalists. They assume that we know about the Torah, holidays, ceremonies, philosophy, and history. Uh-huh.
Some of them are so serious about Judaism that they practice it as it was at Jesus’ time, “searching for the Hebraic roots of their faith.” So, five or six families will get together on Friday evenings for candles, Kiddush, Motzi, Shabbat, Benschen, and Torah study.
That’s where I fit in. A local Donna Gracia regularly had her nails done by one such Judeophile, who was always full of questions. “Why do the Jews do this? What does the Bible say about that?” How many answers do you think the dowager could give her?
She referred her to her rabbi. Our invitation included traditional Shabbat dinner, tastefully kosher – salmon, salad, rice, and a miserable broccoli casserole. Then we engaged in four hours of Torah study – stimulating, reverent . . . And, no, they were quick to say, they were not damning me behind my back. That was not part of “their” doctrine.
In the course of discussion, I mentioned that I was going in to zap a kidney stone. I’d been peeing blood for weeks, and I was constantly doubled over in pain.
“Do you mind if we pray for you?” one said. “No, of course not.” “Jesus won’t offend you?” “No, of course not.”
At once, they beehive-buzzed around me. Above the din I heard one pray, “May Marc be healed, but not by the hands of man!”
Well, think what you want. By the next morning, I stopped peeing blood, and by mid-afternoon, the pain had stopped. Like I said, think what you want. It made me no surer of Jesus, but of the power of sincere faith and spirit all imploded into the one needing it most.
The next day, I went to the hospital just to make sure. Already on my gurney, the doctor announced that the procedure was unnecessary, pulled the IV from my arm, and instructed me to go home.
As I got in the car, I pronounced to Linda, “It’s a miracle!” Ever the skeptic, she declared, “No, honey, I think it was just the broccoli casserole.”
February 10, 2009
THE KEY TO INFLUENCE: FEED THE REPORTERS FRESH SALMON
Ninety-five percent of the nation looked aghast on the contemptuousness of that shnook Blagojevich. We Chicagoans knew better. We snicker at you rubes who think that duplicity like his happens only on bad TV.
Sociology-types would trace Blagojevich’s blatant double-dealing to the fast-and-loose atmosphere set by Hizonner da Mare Richard J. Daley. They do beg comparison. No matter how much Blagojevich would have prospered financially, he would always have been a second-stringer.
Mayor Daley appeared unimpressed with money. He and his beloved Sis continued to live in the modest home Back of the (Stock) Yards, along with descendants of the other Irish immigrants. Aside from tailored suits to flatter his matzo-ball girth, he played himself as one of the people.
Sheer power was Mayor Daley’s rate of exchange, elevating the faithful everyman and humbling the disloyal bigshot. Mayor Daley was the one, after all who “found” the extra box of ballots that put JFK over the top, ensuring the presidency for a Democrat coreligionist.
Blagojevich collected his bounty in payoffs. Mayor Daley collected a court of loyalists who paid homage to his agenda, and thus themselves became rich – a judge here, an alderman there, graft, porkpie, and the cumulatively effect of minor acts of corruption.
Loyalty had its benefits for the commoner, as well. Before each election, Harry Speck appeared at our doorstep. As a kid, I thought he was some kind of important public official. Actually, he was one of Hizzoner’s precinct captains, attempting to buy voter loyalty by offering to fix any of my dad’s outstanding traffic tickets. As a law enforcement officer, my dad made quick dispatch of him.
This did not stop my dad from wrapping a $5 bill around his driver’s license, as all Chicagoans did, so when stopped by a cop, the cop smiled and told him to “be more careful the next time.”
When I got a little older, I too learned the ropes of Pax Daleyum. Once I was in a fender-bender and cited for negligence. I called my insurance man. He told me to bring $40 to traffic court and give it to his lawyer, Newberger. That’s all it would take. “What if we lose?” I sputtered like a dope.
“You won’t lose.”
Sure enough, at the appointed hour, I presented Newberger $40 in cash. When my case was called, he approached the docket. Apparently, the arresting cop had not shown up. The case was dismissed for failure to produce prosecution. $20 to Newberger, $20 to the cop. But, we didn’t lose.
Heaven forbid, though, if you were a resident of the 46th Ward, where all the anti-corruption, intellectual liberals lived. Hizzoner was the bane of their existence. He and the machine were well aware of this, hence the deepest potholes in the streets, the never-to-be-fixed broken curbs, the monthly accumulation of street-side garbage. Go ahead. Be idealistic. Just be prepared to break an axle. We, the faithful, had our potholes repaved at the first sign of spring.
The real story of Daley’s Chicago was not about retribution. Often it was the warning implicit in the humor of the mighty, like the good-natured fun he poked at the press. Once he suggested that the Department of Sanitation (!) stock the Chicago River with salmon, as it meandered between the Tribune Tower and the hideous Sun-Times building. At noontime, he said, let the City give the reporters fishing rods, provide them with open grills and plenty of cold beer. “You’d be surprised,” Hizzoner opined, “how much better your attitude would be before we held one of those 1:00 press conferences.”
This, friends, is not a Blagojevich move.
This is why, by Illinois standards, he would always be a second-stringer. He demanded money, not the power and influence that comes from people paying homage to a fearsome, yet imminently loveable, humpty-dumpty Irishman. Greedy Blagojevich would wind up in jail because he practiced slimy greed, not graciously dyeing the river green for St. Patrick’s Day.
Once-Governor Blagojevich will forever be remembered as a greasy punk. Not Hizzoner da Mare. He fixed the curbs, filled the potholes, collected the garbage, ran the CTA buses in blizzards, made a president, fed the reporters fresh salmon. Blagojevich thought it took $500,000 to become a heavy hitter. Mayor Daley had already figured out that all it took was a sawbuck wrapped around a driver’s license to buy you all the influence you needed and then some.
Ninety-five percent of the nation looked aghast on the contemptuousness of that shnook Blagojevich. We Chicagoans knew better. We snicker at you rubes who think that duplicity like his happens only on bad TV.
Sociology-types would trace Blagojevich’s blatant double-dealing to the fast-and-loose atmosphere set by Hizonner da Mare Richard J. Daley. They do beg comparison. No matter how much Blagojevich would have prospered financially, he would always have been a second-stringer.
Mayor Daley appeared unimpressed with money. He and his beloved Sis continued to live in the modest home Back of the (Stock) Yards, along with descendants of the other Irish immigrants. Aside from tailored suits to flatter his matzo-ball girth, he played himself as one of the people.
Sheer power was Mayor Daley’s rate of exchange, elevating the faithful everyman and humbling the disloyal bigshot. Mayor Daley was the one, after all who “found” the extra box of ballots that put JFK over the top, ensuring the presidency for a Democrat coreligionist.
Blagojevich collected his bounty in payoffs. Mayor Daley collected a court of loyalists who paid homage to his agenda, and thus themselves became rich – a judge here, an alderman there, graft, porkpie, and the cumulatively effect of minor acts of corruption.
Loyalty had its benefits for the commoner, as well. Before each election, Harry Speck appeared at our doorstep. As a kid, I thought he was some kind of important public official. Actually, he was one of Hizzoner’s precinct captains, attempting to buy voter loyalty by offering to fix any of my dad’s outstanding traffic tickets. As a law enforcement officer, my dad made quick dispatch of him.
This did not stop my dad from wrapping a $5 bill around his driver’s license, as all Chicagoans did, so when stopped by a cop, the cop smiled and told him to “be more careful the next time.”
When I got a little older, I too learned the ropes of Pax Daleyum. Once I was in a fender-bender and cited for negligence. I called my insurance man. He told me to bring $40 to traffic court and give it to his lawyer, Newberger. That’s all it would take. “What if we lose?” I sputtered like a dope.
“You won’t lose.”
Sure enough, at the appointed hour, I presented Newberger $40 in cash. When my case was called, he approached the docket. Apparently, the arresting cop had not shown up. The case was dismissed for failure to produce prosecution. $20 to Newberger, $20 to the cop. But, we didn’t lose.
Heaven forbid, though, if you were a resident of the 46th Ward, where all the anti-corruption, intellectual liberals lived. Hizzoner was the bane of their existence. He and the machine were well aware of this, hence the deepest potholes in the streets, the never-to-be-fixed broken curbs, the monthly accumulation of street-side garbage. Go ahead. Be idealistic. Just be prepared to break an axle. We, the faithful, had our potholes repaved at the first sign of spring.
The real story of Daley’s Chicago was not about retribution. Often it was the warning implicit in the humor of the mighty, like the good-natured fun he poked at the press. Once he suggested that the Department of Sanitation (!) stock the Chicago River with salmon, as it meandered between the Tribune Tower and the hideous Sun-Times building. At noontime, he said, let the City give the reporters fishing rods, provide them with open grills and plenty of cold beer. “You’d be surprised,” Hizzoner opined, “how much better your attitude would be before we held one of those 1:00 press conferences.”
This, friends, is not a Blagojevich move.
This is why, by Illinois standards, he would always be a second-stringer. He demanded money, not the power and influence that comes from people paying homage to a fearsome, yet imminently loveable, humpty-dumpty Irishman. Greedy Blagojevich would wind up in jail because he practiced slimy greed, not graciously dyeing the river green for St. Patrick’s Day.
Once-Governor Blagojevich will forever be remembered as a greasy punk. Not Hizzoner da Mare. He fixed the curbs, filled the potholes, collected the garbage, ran the CTA buses in blizzards, made a president, fed the reporters fresh salmon. Blagojevich thought it took $500,000 to become a heavy hitter. Mayor Daley had already figured out that all it took was a sawbuck wrapped around a driver’s license to buy you all the influence you needed and then some.
February 02, 2009
SHONDEH IS THE JEWISH CRITERION
What Bernard Madoff did, to the gentile world, was an enormous crime. To the Jew it was a “shondeh,” the harshest Yiddish word for “disgrace.” I honestly don’t know how many gentiles are saying among themselves, “There goes another money-grubbing Jew.” It doesn’t really matter. I am ashamed by Madoff not because his story might generate anti-Semitism. For a Jew to betray the heritage to which we claim to be born is a shondeh.
This I tell you: We take no glory in Bernard Madoff even when you are not around. I’ve heard no one say in the covert Greenfield’s bagel place, “Boy, he really knew how to screw those dumb goyim.” Aside from swiping millions from Jewish institutions, he grabbed money from smart Jews, and plenty of smart goyim, who trusted him. The word I hear most when you are not around is, you guessed it, shondeh.
When I moved south in 1975, I was a snotty/snooty urban damnyankee pacifist. My assumptions were built on burning crosses, fire hoses, Bull Connor, George Wallace, and slurs against Jews almost as vituperative as they were toward African Americans. (“If them G.D. Jews hadn’t gotten them ni**as so stirred up, we wouldn’t be having the problems we do today!”). I assumed that little towns were places where Jews chose to live only at their own peril, and not only because you couldn’t get a hot pastrami sandwich there.
Then I received my delicious dose of reality: I found that for every Christian who wanted to convert me, a thousand venerated me because I was a leader of the Chosen People, and another thousand were simply curious.
Listen up now, Mr. Madoff, Mr. Shondeh: The decency and respect of the Jewish storekeeper in rural Upstate is legendary: Sarlins of Liberty, Fedders of Easley, Vigodskys of Westminster, Poliakoffs of Walhalla, Karelitzs of Fountain Inn, Burgens of Seneca . . . all of them venerated as saints – extending credit at no interest, building the community, stimulating education, leading in patriotism and civic organizations, charity without question from the cash register, often the only ones who were helpful to minorities.
Ask our anchorman Michael Cogdill. He will tell you that he was set on his direction of prominence by the Jewish storekeeper in his little town in North Carolina, who brought him into his home as if he were his own child.
No, they could not all have been saints 24-7. But, this I will tell you: They were not shondeh Jews, either. When I meet someone from Liberty and ask him if he knew the Sarlins, he always regales me of some act of kindness that they bestowed. I chalk another one up for not being a shondeh, but for being an exemplary member of the Chosen People. And Jerry Fedder? Not a “shyster Jew-lawyer,” but an honest man who never played fast and loose with the truth. And I chalk another one up for being one of the Chosen People, not a double-talking shondeh.
Ralph, Jerry, et al, did not do it to impress. Of this, I am sure. They had good mommas and poppas, who in turn had good mommas and poppas. They were quite sure of their chosen-ness without a scintilla of false pride.
Yes, there is a downside to being a member of a Chosen People. When you tarnish your chosen-ness, you are not just a crook or a thief. You are a shondeh. I am consistently surrounded by people who rightfully wear their chosen-ness with distinction. Jerry and Ralph, may he rest in peace, and the others, have set a backdrop of stiff comparison. When I do something wrong, I know full-well that it is a shondeh, not merely an oops or oversight. Where was Bernard Madoff’s armor to ward off shondeh? Where were the “Jerry and Ralph” in his life? Where did he lose it?
This is the sobering truth whether you and I accept it or not: When a Jew steals, it is not the same as when a gentile steals. He’s not a bad boy with his hand stuck in the cookie jar. He is a shondeh, a shondeh.
What Bernard Madoff did, to the gentile world, was an enormous crime. To the Jew it was a “shondeh,” the harshest Yiddish word for “disgrace.” I honestly don’t know how many gentiles are saying among themselves, “There goes another money-grubbing Jew.” It doesn’t really matter. I am ashamed by Madoff not because his story might generate anti-Semitism. For a Jew to betray the heritage to which we claim to be born is a shondeh.
This I tell you: We take no glory in Bernard Madoff even when you are not around. I’ve heard no one say in the covert Greenfield’s bagel place, “Boy, he really knew how to screw those dumb goyim.” Aside from swiping millions from Jewish institutions, he grabbed money from smart Jews, and plenty of smart goyim, who trusted him. The word I hear most when you are not around is, you guessed it, shondeh.
When I moved south in 1975, I was a snotty/snooty urban damnyankee pacifist. My assumptions were built on burning crosses, fire hoses, Bull Connor, George Wallace, and slurs against Jews almost as vituperative as they were toward African Americans. (“If them G.D. Jews hadn’t gotten them ni**as so stirred up, we wouldn’t be having the problems we do today!”). I assumed that little towns were places where Jews chose to live only at their own peril, and not only because you couldn’t get a hot pastrami sandwich there.
Then I received my delicious dose of reality: I found that for every Christian who wanted to convert me, a thousand venerated me because I was a leader of the Chosen People, and another thousand were simply curious.
Listen up now, Mr. Madoff, Mr. Shondeh: The decency and respect of the Jewish storekeeper in rural Upstate is legendary: Sarlins of Liberty, Fedders of Easley, Vigodskys of Westminster, Poliakoffs of Walhalla, Karelitzs of Fountain Inn, Burgens of Seneca . . . all of them venerated as saints – extending credit at no interest, building the community, stimulating education, leading in patriotism and civic organizations, charity without question from the cash register, often the only ones who were helpful to minorities.
Ask our anchorman Michael Cogdill. He will tell you that he was set on his direction of prominence by the Jewish storekeeper in his little town in North Carolina, who brought him into his home as if he were his own child.
No, they could not all have been saints 24-7. But, this I will tell you: They were not shondeh Jews, either. When I meet someone from Liberty and ask him if he knew the Sarlins, he always regales me of some act of kindness that they bestowed. I chalk another one up for not being a shondeh, but for being an exemplary member of the Chosen People. And Jerry Fedder? Not a “shyster Jew-lawyer,” but an honest man who never played fast and loose with the truth. And I chalk another one up for being one of the Chosen People, not a double-talking shondeh.
Ralph, Jerry, et al, did not do it to impress. Of this, I am sure. They had good mommas and poppas, who in turn had good mommas and poppas. They were quite sure of their chosen-ness without a scintilla of false pride.
Yes, there is a downside to being a member of a Chosen People. When you tarnish your chosen-ness, you are not just a crook or a thief. You are a shondeh. I am consistently surrounded by people who rightfully wear their chosen-ness with distinction. Jerry and Ralph, may he rest in peace, and the others, have set a backdrop of stiff comparison. When I do something wrong, I know full-well that it is a shondeh, not merely an oops or oversight. Where was Bernard Madoff’s armor to ward off shondeh? Where were the “Jerry and Ralph” in his life? Where did he lose it?
This is the sobering truth whether you and I accept it or not: When a Jew steals, it is not the same as when a gentile steals. He’s not a bad boy with his hand stuck in the cookie jar. He is a shondeh, a shondeh.
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