FIVE

    Chayim Nachman Bialik Yiddish Folk Shul, our afternoon “Hebrew” school, was named after Israel’s national poet who did not live long enough to actually witness the birth of that nation in 1948. Unlike other Bais Hadmedrash (schools) in the neighborhood, it basically existed to teach secular Jewish kids about their culture and religion focusing on the Yiddish language, but including enough Hebrew to get the boys prepared, at least mentally, for bar-mitzvah at 13 years old, and the girls prepared for keeping a kosher home. Bat-mitzvah’s for girls were still rare in those pre-feminist days. We learned how to observe the Sabbath and holidays, history, music, etc., as well as conversational Yiddish, our parents’ second language and the foreign language most heard on the streets of Boro Park. 

    These days, Yiddish is still the language of choice for Orthodox Jews, but has otherwise fallen into disuse. Once it was spoken by almost every Jew, and many Yiddish words, or anglicized versions have entered common English usage, for instance bagel, beatnik, Sputnik (or other 'nik' words), shlep, nosh, chutzpah, tush (or tuches) and oy vey. In history class, I remember a little footnote about Jesus, roughly ‘we know that if he existed that he was a Jew’, fertik (that’s all). Further prodding of the teacher would lead to the Inquisition, the pogroms and the Holocaust.

    I have sweet memories of the Bialik School, and still remember some of the holiday songs and teach them to Christians today in our Messianic group. But mainly I remember how well-behaved all the girls were and how naughty all the boys were. It was only an hour a day, but we managed to get into a lot of trouble. We sure gave our poor teachers, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, plenty of grief. On one occasion a kid brought a water gun to class and was shooting it at the blackboard. When the teacher finally figured out who it was and reprimanded him, the kid said “tough tucheses”. The teacher punched him pretty hard. In fact, the teachers including the women, were not shy about slapping us when we deserved it. Another time, Teddy and I were attempting to dance the kozatski and he fell backwards breaking a pane of glass in the door. Going to the bathroom there was kind of an adventure as it was an old pull-chain water closet, the only one I’d ever seen at the time.

            Only three in our graduating class at C.N. Bialik School; Pete on left. With teacher Mrs. Gold

                   Receiving my diploma, 1960

    My most lasting memory of the school was when one afternoon several of us were walking down the block, when across the street we heard one kid in a gang of 'rocks' shout to another one, “Hey, Bill, eat it!” A 'rock' was one of those cool dumb kids with great hair, a juvenile delinquent, later called 'sweathogs' by Gabe Kaplan. Anyway, Teddy also yells in his huge voice, hey Bill eat it, and they all start chasing us. So we ran for sanctuary, the Yiddish school doors. One guy didn’t make it inside and got punched pretty good. But who am I kidding; my real lasting memory was the numbers tattooed on the arms of some of the teachers, indicating they had been in concentration camps. Years later when we lived in the Wabasse apartments, I saw one of my teachers for the last time, Mrs. Sousel, waiting for an elevator. She was so sweet to me after all I’d put her through. It was a good lesson in forgiveness, although at 17 I still wasn’t much for learning lessons. Still, it touched my heart.

The Bialik School was on 16^th Avenue, near the Bialistok Bakery. After school, I’d often buy a bag of bialys, a bread item similar to a bagel, but with a different taste, more onion-y, and a center hole that did not go all the way through. It was fascinating to watch the huge oven baking these things by the hundred, as well as other bread treats. An army of bialys moving along the wide automated tracks might be followed by a row or two of this large, round, thin bread that we called pizza because of their shape,called pletzel. A bialy or bagel cost 5 cents in those days. Next to that, on the corner was Sam’s Grocery. Five cents would buy you an apple there, or a pickle from the pickle barrel. Across the street was the butcher shop, and the drug store which blew up one night killing all the residents of that building due to a faulty boiler. I was already afraid of the boiler in our basement, and would sometimes take the elevator to the basement just to gaze at its awesome scariness.

Before I leave 16^th Avenue, the other place of importance there was my uncle’s house where I took bar-mitzvah lessons. Bar-mitzvah, or becoming a bar-mitzvah, is a rite of passage for Jewish boys who upon reaching 13 years of age are then considered to be responsible for their own sins, and their own mitzvah’s (good deeds). These days, there is also the bat-mitzvah for girls, so that they also can have a nice 13^th birthday party (bar means ‘son of’, bat ‘daughter of’). The things I remember most about Uncle Shlomo’s house were the wall of books, talmuds, mishnahs, gemorrahs, etc., and the odor. I would try to breathe through my mouth during the entire hour lesson to avoid that pungent smell of I don’t know what. Maybe old clothes mixed with something decaying, or maybe food cooking. Once I snuck over and smelled the wall of books to see if it was coming from there, but they had their own odor. Shlomo asked me which book I was interested in; just looking I replied. 

I recently read that most people living in smelly houses don’t even realize it. The only other smell in my memory that came close was years later when I published a music fanzine called “Stormy Weather”. We would go use a typesetting machine that was located in a private residence in Oakland in order to save money. The people that lived there were into recycling in the extreme, recycling even their used toilet paper! I swear; I’m not making this up. There were lines, like clotheslines, running across the room, with the used sheets of potty paper hung on them to dry so they could be reused. To be fair, this place had a worse stench than my uncle’s.

Perhaps I’m being a little negative by mentioning that odor and also that he forbid my father from entering a cemetery. Actually Uncle Shlomo was a wonderful man, with a positive attitude and a gentle spirit. He was very patient and sympathetic while teaching me my haftorah, but very strict when it came to the Law of Moses. Late in life when he was dying of cancer, we prayed for him weekly at our Messianic Bible study. I was amazed at the faith of some of the folks, praying not only for healing but salvation, believing that G-d might actually supernaturally reveal Jesus to this Orthodox Jewish Rabbi. I comfort myself that in the last days, all Israel shall be saved. But I mourn for my sweet family members that have already passed. What will become of them?

I became a bar-mitzvah at an Orthodox shul, also on 16^th Avenue, on a bitter cold day in February of 1961. As we neared the synagogue, my dad asked if I had anything in my pockets, to which I replied, no, only my gloves. He said to throw them away because it was a sin to carry anything on the Sabbath. I complained that he’d never asked this of me before, but he demanded that I toss them. So I hid them in a bush, hoping for retrieval later, but with all that was going on I forgot. I had learned to sing my haftorah (a portion of Scripture chanted during the ceremony) pretty well. I remember the sweat dripping from my armpits as I stood in front of the congregation, myself and three rabbis, who chimed together in unison to correct me when I mispronounced a word. But eventually it was over, and it was time for my party.

Nowadays there are some pretty fancy bar-mitzvah parties, the subject of a recent movie that I confess I haven’t seen. I remember the news story back in the early 1970’s that Clive Davis, the head of Columbia Records had been fired over allegedly spending $100,000.00 of company money on his kid’s bar-mitzvah. Not a problem, Clive simply started his own company, Arista Records. Yes, there are some rich Jews out there. My family did not contain any of those. I did have an uncle that was self-employed, owning his own taxi-cab, and even became a home owner. And he had a son that became a doctor. I have a couple of cousins that became lawyers, I think. I assume that they’re home owners. But in those black & white days there were few success stories in our family. Nevertheless, I made quite a haul at my party. You’ve heard it said that Jews are cheap? Not these Jews; my bar-mitzvah gifts added up to about three thousand 1961 dollars. My parents borrowed the money from me, but paid it back many times over during the years I've struggled to keep my little business going.

There wasn’t any money to hire a hall or a band, so my party was held in our three room, one bathroom apartment. We did have a nice radio, but I’m sure it couldn’t have been heard over the racket we made. My uncle Paddy Ryan was a great guy and the life of any party. He had been a junior Golden Gloves champ, a stocky guy that drank a little more than most of us. What kind of Jewish name is Patrick Ryan, you ask? I can’t explain; a mix-up at the hospital you ask? I don’t know, but he was Jewish like the rest of us, and merely a half-hour or so into my party was passed out cold on the bathroom floor. So, if you had to 'go', you had to step over him, that’s all. I found out only this year from his son Shelly that Paddy wasn’t his actual name. His real name? I blocked it out already. The party eventually spilled out into the hallway as the noise level grew. My parents had had a few other parties there over the years, when it was their turn to host the monthly “cousin’s club”. But my party was the most fun anyone ever had in that little apartment, I’m sure.

One of my gifts was a set of tefillin, Jewish phylacteries that are worn to fulfill the commandment of binding G-d’s word to one’s forehead and arm. I was told that I was to put them on every day for the rest of my life and recite the “Sh’ma Yisroel” prayer. This I faithfully did the next morning, and then never again. Unless you count when some Chabadnik comes to the door and asks you to put on the tefillin so that it can be a mitzvah for him, which still happens once in awhile even here, way out in the diaspora (Jewish dispersion). Chabad is an Orthodox Jewish movement, also known as Lebavitcher, whose rabbi was the late Solomon Schneerson whom many adherents believed was the Jewish Messiah. Many had hoped he would announce his Messiahship before he died about a decade ago, which he did not. And many are still waiting for his resurrection. And waiting. As a group, Chabad-ites believe that the Bible is G-d’s literal word and they vote conservative, so not so different than most Christians at least in some ways.

My uncle Shlomo belonged to another Orthodox Jewish sect, although I confess I do not know which one as there are many. While the various groups have different spiritual leaders, they otherwise seem very close in their beliefs, at least to us outsiders. Stanley, his English name, became interested in orthodoxy at five years old and never looked back. He was a teacher for most of his life, and had four children all of whom stayed within the fold. His own marriage had been arranged, and he stayed with his wife until his death several years ago. His oldest kids were boys about my age, and on the rare occasion of a family visit we’d play together, often Monopoly. Two girls were eventually born into the family as well. Many children were born to these four, and the man of each household is a rabbi.

               Cousins Yisroel & Shmuel Beryl

As a child I was closest with the eldest cousin, Shmuel, Hebrew for Samuel as in the prophet Samuel. But it was decided that this name was too holy for a mere child, and was changed to Beryl. Yisroel, Hebrew for Israel, was a year or so younger than I. As I mentioned, we saw each other infrequently, even after their family moved from the Bronx to literally around the corner from us. They received my hand-me-down clothing for a time, Orthodox families were generally poor, until my fashion sense got too wild for them. I remember their rejecting a pair of red pants in particular. Who would dress even a hip, young man in red pants in the late 1950’s? Why, the local child molester, working in the boys clothing store on 13^th Avenue, of course.

I can’t comment much on the 'cousin’s club' parties as they were for adults only, and my only glimpse of them was when my parents were the hosts. Once a month, the secular relatives on my mother’s side would have what sounded like a great bash, judging from the laughs and screams I could hear from my room before falling asleep. One time a cousin brought me 3 45’s as a gift, perhaps an incentive to stay in my room or they probably felt bad that I had to miss all the fun. One was the new Coasters record, “Searchin”/”Young Blood”; wow, that was 56 years ago!