[Note: Over the next few pages I’m going to explore these images. I’ll mix my own reflections with the explanations and memories of my grandparents—Seymour and Fran—and I’ll mention the thoughts of a few scholars. There is no master narrative here—my reflections will meander from the images to the memories to the reflections. There may, at times, be no direct progression between these elements.]

Grandma and Pop Pop, late 40's.

 

It had been over a year and some time since I was last in my grandparents’ home on Long Island. This home has been a place of utter familiarity for me, almost static since my childhood. And the home has also been a source of deep mystery. Though we were only there for less than two days, I constantly walked around the house, flipped through old drawers, examining my grandfather’s desk, trying on old hats, fingering through old encyclopedias. We also worked hard going through a large cache of old photographs. Documents of my family’s history—from immigration, to the four years in Israel, life in suburban places, children, grandchildren—I was encouraged to salvage a handful and take them home with me. 

These photographs paint a dramatic opening scene of my family’s first thirty years in America. If I arrange them around me, I am overwhelmed by the young faces, the stories, the neighborhoods and beaches just off in the background. The photos capture the hesitancy of first moments, and the impact of the long journey. They also capture great camaraderie and joy.

Looking specifically for my grandparents in these pictures, we can see what Deborah Moore calls the “bilateral line of descent” which second generation Jews trace (Moore 9). These photos tell the story of a younger generation that felt home both in Jewish immigrant culture as well as an American urban scene. They represent the moment of “living in two civilizations” which Kaplan was mesmerized by. While my great grandparents—who met on the steam liner en route their new land—are decorated in a European style and expression, their children are more wily, carefree, and somehow American.

Bronx, pre-war. Pop at bottom right.

 

I see a scrappiness in my grandfather’s young face, surrounded by chums in the park. Some of the boys are holding ball gloves. Grandfather’s brother, Hyme, looks cocksure, and serious. They’re arms are draped over one another in an expression rare in my own generation.

Just as Moore asserts, when Jews arrived in second settlement neighborhoods their “residential segregation increased,” and that seems to have been the case in the Jewish Bronx (9).All these young guys are Jews, all went to cheder, all children of immigrants. Many are headed to the army—though Hyme will be determined 4F. My grandfather signed up just shy of his 19^th birthday, and drove a truck (he had never driven a car) deep in India.

Sports were important to them and they would pay intense attention to the baseball leagues, reading the sports section of the papers in great detail. And they also followed boxing, which held a much more significant role in American sporting than today. There were Jewish boxers too, and Seymour would revel in his victories over gentiles. The names come back to him: Max Bear, Max Schmelling.

Grandma and cousin Ethel, Bronx

Seymour reminds me frequently of the persistence of Anti-Semitism in the era of his childhood. And he tells me several stories of Jewish small-time revenge: Harold Novak is seated in the middle—between my grandfather and his brother, who are sitting on the ground. Harold was apparently taller than most of the others. According to my grandfather, when Howard went to the army, some guys got nasty with him and he beat them to a pulp. This story circulated widely and became famous in the neighborhood.

Their corner of the Bronx was not exclusively Jewish: it was filled with Sicilians and Italians. But, as my grandmother put it, the Jews lived in clans, with often two split level homes worth of family living side by side. When she was three, her parents along with her aunt and uncle moved to Monroe Avenue, where they purchased a home beside her grandparents. When her grandmother died—quite young of an infection from appendicitis—her grandfather began to live with each of his children for a few years at a time. He would move between his children’s apartments, which were in homes right next to one another.

My grandmother’s grandfather (my great-great grandfather!) was a quiet man. He would sit in the front porch and read the entirety of the Yiddish dailies. He helped start a synagogue, and would spend his elder years there. He was religious, though his son-in law and daughter, according to Fran, “didn’t give a damn.” The only reason my grandmother attended the Shalom Aleichem school—which met every day!—was because of her grandfather’s presence in the home. But that ethnic schooling proved meaningful enough to her that when my mother was born, she became deeply committed to a flopped bid to begin an Artiber Ring group in the neighborhood. A teacher ended up not being paid for two sessions.

When they moved to Long Island my mom did eventually attend Workman’s Circle, and received a Bat Mitzvah there—never learning much Hebrew, but celebrating Yiddish culture.

***

Seymour’s father served as the Ba’al Tefilah at the small local shul. My grandfather recalls women crying when his father would begin the Musaf prayer on Yom Kippur. This voluntary work covered the costs of Seymour’s education in the shul’s cheder. On many occasions he has reflected over the learning he accomplished during those years. He had a favorite teacher, Mr. Opteka, who taught the children Hebrew—from verb forms to vocabulary. This early education in Hebrew served as the basis of his later acquisition during the family’s time in Israel in the early 70’s. 

I seems to me that both my grandparents grew up in families where education was prioritized. Their experiences echo Alfred Kazin’s reflection that, “[a]nything less than absolute perfection in school always suggested to my mind that I might fall out of the daily race, be kept back in the working class forever, or—dared I think of it?—fall into the criminal class itself!” (Kazin 21) In this spirit, Seymour recalls that the prevalent attitude surrounding him and his siblings academic success was, “You bring home an “A” or I’ll beat the hell outta ya!” Well, at least it’s a memorable strategy.

To this end, both my grandparents attended City College. Seymour remembers being creative with the acronym, renaming the institution “Catholic College Now Yiddish.” My grandmother would receive a sandwich and 10 cents before heading out on the journey south into Manhattan.

Great-Grandparents. Met on the boat.

My great grandparents met on the boat coming over. He had deserted the Austro-Hungarian army, and left for America without any family. They were married in the early 1920’s. He worked first in a fruit stand, and later drove a bread delivery truck. Much later on he purchased a boarding house in Rockaway. The place burned down.

In 1935, aware of the great difficulties beginning to emerge in Europe, my grandmother traveled with her parents and brother to her father’s hometown of Stanislaw (Galicia), to try and convince them to immigrate. They were not successful—and this was the last time much of the family was seen. This story has always captivated me both because it is so difficult to imagine the emotional and psychological adventure which the trip must have been, but also the details of my grandmother’s recollections are wonderful and tragic.

Fran recalls that they arrived in Berlin in order to take a train to Stanislaw. In Berlin they sent a telegram ahead to the family, announcing their arrival. On the train the conductor instructed them to “Get in your cabin, close the door, and don’t open it for anyone.” This was the first time she ever saw her father cry. They arrived in Stanislaw at 6am, without anyone to waiting to meet them so they took a horse and buggy to the Jewish neighborhood. A cleaning girl met them at the door. Grandma recalls a water pump in the middle of the living room, an outhouse around back—which she was terrified to use—and no running water. He mother insisted they eat the chocolate pudding (which must have been powdered?) that she had brought with them for the trip. My great grandmother was convinced they would die if the children wouldn’t eat the pudding every day.

I think about the moment when his stunned parents saw their son—gone for nearly 20 years!—at the door. They never received the telegram and were completely unaware of his arrival. What conversations must they have had, what arguments would he have made to try and convince them to uproot themselves and head for America? And how must his heart arched when he finally left (earlier than expected because my great grandmother couldn’t stand the place) knowing he may never seen them again? It’s a mesmerizing thing.

Rockaway. Pop Pop in center.

I love this photo of my grandfather, shirtless, singing and gesticulating on the beach in Rockaway—66^th street as he wanted me to indicate. He’s not yet married to my grandmother, but they’ve met. There in the circle of friends are some of Fran’s cousins, and other important personalities. It’s after the war, clearly a moment of great celebration, joy and youth. What can I say? It’s remarkable to see my grandfather as a young man—younger than I am now. He’s in the center of the action. He’s wearing sunglasses. It’s a long moment before he became a patriarch, or even an engineer.

Fran’s parents had some marital problems at some point. Her dad took off and went to California—a lacuna of immense imaginative richness—only to be brought back by her mother. When he returned—jobless—along with his brother-in-law, he purchased a “rooming house” not far from the beach in Rockaway. Families would rent single rooms for the summertime. There were shared bathrooms, and only cold water showers in the back yard. Seymour wonders how the older folks could have possible stood the coldness of that water…he remembers it being freezing!

It was here that my grandparents met one another. Seymour came one summer with a gang of his buddies, and rented a small room in the basement. All four of them would sleep in a single little basement closet. My grandmother and her brother would also live in the basement throughout the summer. And that’s how it all began.

That summer Seymour worked around the building. He recalls that initially there was only a single refrigerator in the entire house. They hauled secondhand refrigerators from around the city into the building. According to Fran, they worked “like horses.”

Regardless of how much they might have worked, this photo captures what was—and of course still is—the great celebrated possibility of being a young Jewish person in America. This gang is at home in their urban America, crossing the length of the city for the weekend. They’re probably singing a popular song of the period, caught up in post-war euphoria and optimism.

And just beneath this ecstatic moment is the Yiddish neighborhood of the Bronx. This is a moment of transition: the children of immigrants with their rhythms and mores are about to eclipse the generation of their parents. The psychic impact of immigration, of the profound journey will no longer be the point of self understanding. This moment continues to pulsate in our own experience, today. And the decisions of this younger generation—the generation of my grandparents—including their mistakes, can still emerge in our present conversations.

Florida, late 40's / early 50's

My grandparents traveled to Florida between the war and my mother’s birth. It may have been a honeymoon of sorts.

My grandfather, seated on top of the crocodile sculpture: He related an interesting story about this trip south—which they drove. (And on the point of driving, it makes me wonder if all the Delaware Bay Bridge was built at that point? What would their path have been?) On the last night down there, Pop went swimming in the motel’s pool, and his eyes got really dry exposed to all the chlorine. The next morning, Fran had to drive the car—though she had yet to get a license, and had barely driven in her life! Pop fell asleep and woke to find Fran driving super fast down the Georgia highway. He yelled to pull over, and he took the wheel.

Most touching, and telling, was that over the phone Pop expressed a particular obtuse fear about the Georgia police. He hinted that I probably understood, that, “You know, the Georgia police…they…you know.” I think this is an expression of his generations’ experience with the latent anti-Semitism of the 20^th century’s first half in America. And here they we’re in the American south!

So I see this vignette as a beautifully framed historical worldview.

***

Especially for my grandfather, a complicated but powerful send of Jewish identity emerged from this childhood.

This identity was fully expressed (or fully formed) when the Israeli aircraft industry hired my grandfather. They lived through the Yom haKippur War. My uncles spoke Hebrew. My grandmother made sandwiches for the soldiers. They bought oranges in Yaffo.

And as of late, Seymour has told me several times of how crushed he was when his mother died—he was only 14 years old. He recounts that he manically said kaddish for her, going from synagogue to synagogue. (In my childhood, I remember that the book, Kaddish, had a big impact upon him.) This spiritual shock of his childhood has long remained, though relatively unexpressed, and perhaps even repressed. It was an expression of some type of faith for a man that always expressed the firmest form of atheistic reason. It was the act which bound a firm link between his life and the holy rituals of the past. 

*** 

Works Cited

At Home in America, Second Generation New York Jews. Deborah Dash Moore. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.

A Walker in the City. Alfred Kazin. Harcourt, Brace Jovanovitch, 1969.