A HOUSE OF PEACE AT GROUND ZERO
Let us say for argument’s sake that there is not something outright malevolent in building a mega-mosque at Ground Zero. Yet, no one can escape the truth that it is an act of the most inconceivable chutzpa (gall) on the part of purportedly well-motivated Muslim movers-and-shakers.
Someone had to have whispered in someone’s ear, “Think of how much ill-will we would generate by dropping that edifice down at the foot of the symbol of abject hatred. How much worse would building the mosque sully the reputation of a people already alleged to be intent on ‘taking over the world’? How many people would ‘get it’ that our motives were only the highest? Isn’t resisting that kind of controversy and ill-repute worth our buying some less tragedy-steeped plot of land? Should we not have the wisdom, kindness, and pursuit of peace to move elsewhere?”
The day will likely never come for that mosque to represent anything other than rancor, ill-will, and the antithesis of the Muslim pledge to foster ways of peace. Perception is everything, and the perception will always be twenty-stories of chutzpa, if not outright malevolence.
Were that space next to Ground Zero to remain mosque-less and empty, no higher cause would have been served. If anything, Muslims would be vindicated, because no altruistic goal whatsoever would be realized by a conspicuous gap in Downtown architecture, or worse, filled in by a bodega.
What then? Just a thought, now:
What about a House of Peace, welcoming to all people? I envision it as a calm and serene place, a respite from the shoulder-jogging bustle of the Downtown streets and financial district chicanery and intrigue. No graffiti or rancor. Cool, quiet, fountains, areas that lend themselves to meditation, others to discussion and study, with serene plantings and a grotto. Not a museum, but perhaps niches where in solitude one can listen to the words of the world’s peacemakers. A string-quartet here. A flute recital here. And no Wi-Fi. Serenity. Restfulness. Restoration. Peace.
When you stop to think of it, a house of peace is the only meaningful use of property once so sullied by hate and every antithesis of peace.
“Get real!” you say. And, I would say that you are right. Think of the security, the coordination of programming, the fundraising cocktail parties and extravaganzas, the decisions of what does-and-doesn’t represent the vision of peace, the designs of the fountains and grottos, the letting of contracts for construction . . .
Getting real is precisely the point. It’s inconceivable that we would ever find a critical mass of people – particularly people of influence – to concretize a vision of peace, even if it’s merely a symbolic one, or even to agree to what “peace” would look like. Yet, what we do with that parcel of land at Ground Zero must bring the issue to a head. If not a mosque, what then? If not a symbol of chutzpa and provocation, then what in its place?
There are dreamers and “big-picture” people, and I confess to being both. I know an ideal when I see it, and I know that the only thing worse than having dreams is to have no dreams at all. The events at Ground Zero left many of us cynical and dreamless. We need some good dreams, not ones of revenge and vindication, but of places here and there, if not everywhere, that peace becomes reality for all who dare to dream it. We may never have a House of Peace in Lower Manhattan, but what a lovely dream, if only we held in our hearts and did not capitulate to cynicism. The world may laugh at our dreams, but in a dreamless world, how dare we not dream them?
July 21, 2010
July 04, 2010
THE LANDSMANSCHAFT PICNIC
My mother’s parents, Pa and Bubbe, arrived in Chicago fresh off the boat from Grodno, Poland, in 1921. As years went by, they took on American ways, prospered but retained ties to the Old Country and old friends through the Grodno landsmanschaft. The landsmanschaft was a friendship circle of the Jewish people who hailed from the same town in Eastern Europe, its members commonly known as landsleit.
Landsleit would periodically convene to socialize, play cards and gossip. They also looked out for each other and financed each other’s debts. They donated selflessly to ransom other landsleit out of the horrors in Europe and get them started in the New Land, which they cherished. (You’d get a chuckle out of their Yiddish version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, sung on patriotic occasions.)
To their immeasurably grief, too many relatives and landsleit were left behind to perish in the horrific concentration camps. A saintly old rabbi, despite knowing of my grandfather’s socialist leanings, wept when he discovered that I was his grandson, telling me in a hoarse whisper, “He is blessed. He saved many, many lives.”
The Grondo picnic was the apex of the landsmanschaft’s year. By the time I was old enough to be taken along, the landsleit had aged out. They still spoke Yiddish with each other, and memories of their youth and starting over in the Promised Land had evolved into full-blown wonder-tales.
Pa lorded over the picnic like a godfather. He had the charisma and grooming of Gotti. He was the quintessential glad-hander and big talker: An ingratiatingly arm around shoulder. Quick with a handclasp. A robust “Sholom aleichem!” – “Peace be with you!” A laugh enhanced at the edges by as asthmatic rasp. Heaping more food on your plate, want it or not. Calling over every child by his Yiddish name, then “Kum aher!” (Come here!), stuffing a dollar bill in each kid’s pocket.
Ah, the food . . . I was, I guess, the typical all-American kid – baseball, rock-and-roll, and picnics of hamburgers and hotdogs. Yet, the Old World cuisine of the Grodno picnic intoxicated me. Ironically, I thought that I had to eat it surreptitiously for fear that a classmate would spy me and report to jeering friends that I ate the same foods that their grandparents did.
Let them be damned! It was delectable, a symphony of robust tastes and textures. The American hamburger is at best a swatch of carpet and its hotdog a link of garden hose. The Grodno picnic was a holy-day al fresco in the Garden of Eden: vampire-banishing garlicky brisket and orange-yellow gravy (at home, our brisket was always bland as wet hemp because garlic upset my cranky grandmother’s stomach), roasted “Sabbath-style” chicken, oven-browned potatoes shimmering in grease like motor oil, Pa’s throat-puckering sour pickles and tomatoes, fermented in crocks in his basement, buckwheat kasha, dense potato kugel (pudding). To be honest, I do not remember the sweets, despite knowing that they were abundant, because I had already lapsed into a coma of well-fatted meat and potatoes long before dessert.
Of this I assure you: Recreation did not mean egg tosses or potato sack races. Instead, there were card games like Kaluki, brought over from the Old Country (although, ironically, its origin may be South African or Caribbean). And Pa, voice still honey-sweet despite his asthma, would lead the landsleit in Yiddish songs, happy, melancholy: Teyere Malkeh – Fill again my cup with wine! Hob’n Mir a Nigen’dl – Let us sing a song of childhood! A Sudenu – How shall we host a feast for Messiah? And the doleful Partizaner Lied, in memory of the Partisans who struggled valiantly against the Nazis – Never say there is only death ahead!
I still think a lot about the landsleit and their magical picnics, now all of them gone to their heavenly reward. I think of their arrival in Columbus’s Golden Land, the hope, the fear, the unknowingness, the self-doubt. Then, even as the decades wore on, once a year the landsleit would gather to replicate the deliciousness of their long-ago salad days, their customs and cuisine yet intact.
Why I too miss those days I have yet understand. Perhaps it is because the memories are not simply cherished, but consecrated. Ach, maybe next Sunday I’ll take the kids to the park and show them a real picnic with brisket and potato kugel. Shall I teach them how to play Kaluki, too?
My mother’s parents, Pa and Bubbe, arrived in Chicago fresh off the boat from Grodno, Poland, in 1921. As years went by, they took on American ways, prospered but retained ties to the Old Country and old friends through the Grodno landsmanschaft. The landsmanschaft was a friendship circle of the Jewish people who hailed from the same town in Eastern Europe, its members commonly known as landsleit.
Landsleit would periodically convene to socialize, play cards and gossip. They also looked out for each other and financed each other’s debts. They donated selflessly to ransom other landsleit out of the horrors in Europe and get them started in the New Land, which they cherished. (You’d get a chuckle out of their Yiddish version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, sung on patriotic occasions.)
To their immeasurably grief, too many relatives and landsleit were left behind to perish in the horrific concentration camps. A saintly old rabbi, despite knowing of my grandfather’s socialist leanings, wept when he discovered that I was his grandson, telling me in a hoarse whisper, “He is blessed. He saved many, many lives.”
The Grondo picnic was the apex of the landsmanschaft’s year. By the time I was old enough to be taken along, the landsleit had aged out. They still spoke Yiddish with each other, and memories of their youth and starting over in the Promised Land had evolved into full-blown wonder-tales.
Pa lorded over the picnic like a godfather. He had the charisma and grooming of Gotti. He was the quintessential glad-hander and big talker: An ingratiatingly arm around shoulder. Quick with a handclasp. A robust “Sholom aleichem!” – “Peace be with you!” A laugh enhanced at the edges by as asthmatic rasp. Heaping more food on your plate, want it or not. Calling over every child by his Yiddish name, then “Kum aher!” (Come here!), stuffing a dollar bill in each kid’s pocket.
Ah, the food . . . I was, I guess, the typical all-American kid – baseball, rock-and-roll, and picnics of hamburgers and hotdogs. Yet, the Old World cuisine of the Grodno picnic intoxicated me. Ironically, I thought that I had to eat it surreptitiously for fear that a classmate would spy me and report to jeering friends that I ate the same foods that their grandparents did.
Let them be damned! It was delectable, a symphony of robust tastes and textures. The American hamburger is at best a swatch of carpet and its hotdog a link of garden hose. The Grodno picnic was a holy-day al fresco in the Garden of Eden: vampire-banishing garlicky brisket and orange-yellow gravy (at home, our brisket was always bland as wet hemp because garlic upset my cranky grandmother’s stomach), roasted “Sabbath-style” chicken, oven-browned potatoes shimmering in grease like motor oil, Pa’s throat-puckering sour pickles and tomatoes, fermented in crocks in his basement, buckwheat kasha, dense potato kugel (pudding). To be honest, I do not remember the sweets, despite knowing that they were abundant, because I had already lapsed into a coma of well-fatted meat and potatoes long before dessert.
Of this I assure you: Recreation did not mean egg tosses or potato sack races. Instead, there were card games like Kaluki, brought over from the Old Country (although, ironically, its origin may be South African or Caribbean). And Pa, voice still honey-sweet despite his asthma, would lead the landsleit in Yiddish songs, happy, melancholy: Teyere Malkeh – Fill again my cup with wine! Hob’n Mir a Nigen’dl – Let us sing a song of childhood! A Sudenu – How shall we host a feast for Messiah? And the doleful Partizaner Lied, in memory of the Partisans who struggled valiantly against the Nazis – Never say there is only death ahead!
I still think a lot about the landsleit and their magical picnics, now all of them gone to their heavenly reward. I think of their arrival in Columbus’s Golden Land, the hope, the fear, the unknowingness, the self-doubt. Then, even as the decades wore on, once a year the landsleit would gather to replicate the deliciousness of their long-ago salad days, their customs and cuisine yet intact.
Why I too miss those days I have yet understand. Perhaps it is because the memories are not simply cherished, but consecrated. Ach, maybe next Sunday I’ll take the kids to the park and show them a real picnic with brisket and potato kugel. Shall I teach them how to play Kaluki, too?
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