(Dad's comments are in bold)
>Grandpa was born in 1898 and came to the states in 1917 - these dates may both be wrong - correct me family!
1898 is correct. He came with his brother in 1913, just in time to avoid becoming a German soldier in World War 1. (The war started in 1914.)
>Grandma was born in 1902 and came to the states as a baby.
I thought it was 1901, and the family came to Chicago in 1904.
>The way I see it, the negative side, Grandma's life and values were influenced by the shame that comes from not fitting in, having parents who don't speak the language etc. She told me about how her mother didn't know you brought cupcakes to school on your birthday - Grandma's birthday was in September, so she would have been one of the first birthdays in her class.
This was especially true in xenophobic Chicago.
>Grandma left school at 12 ....
More likely 14, which would have been the school-leaving age in Massachusetts. She worked first delivering groceries for her father. I've always suspected that Mendel Pezrow became a grocer because the more ambitious immigrants got in to "break-bulk", buying wholesale quantities and selling them retail to their neighbors. One of Julius's earliest memories (from Hamburg) was (with his brother) picking through a load of potatoes his mother bought to separate the good from the rotten.
(Aunt Ruth wrote me that Grandma did leave school at 12 to take care of Uncle Ken because her mother was working in the store!)
>Grandpa, like many of his generation, tried to organize workers in his print shop. As a result, he and a friend were blackballed and could not get work.
It was more than organizing. They led a successful strike. When management found out who organized it, they fired them, and the others refused a second strike. This was legal until the Wagner Act in 1938. What Julius was blackballed from was going to Monotype school; he could and did get work. But the experience was something that impelled him to go to law school.
>Neither of my grandparents had much Jewish learning, but they both strongly valued Jewish peoplehood. My grandfather was a true apikorus - a non-believer. My grandmother hadn't much secular education - she also never learned to swim - and she grew up in a time when girls did not receive Jewish education. (OTOH, neither did her brothers, from what I know, get much Jewish education.)
I don't think that's true. Both Jack and Kenneth would have had bar mitzvahs, and they grew up in a kosher home. Neither followed their father's strict Orthodoxy. (Mendel was reputedly the most frum of the four Pesorowsky/Pessarevsky brothers.) Jack married out and was cut off. Kenneth always belonged to a Reform synagogue in Manhattan (Rodeph Shalom?).
(Gail's comment here - Uriel told me that the oldest brother was the most frum (religious) and that's why he stayed in Ukraine. But more on that in another post.)
>The world of my grandparents - and their century - is gone. But they are with me every day, and I believe with their other grandchildren too. May their memory be for a blessing.
Halevi!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Grandma's yahrzeit
Today is, incredibly, the 15th Yahrzeit of my grandmother Zena Pezrow Burstyn, or as she preferred to be called, Mrs. Julius Burstyn. Today we had a memorial day of study at the Conservative Yeshiva donated by my parents in memory of my grandmother and grandfather. I had a few minutes to speak before Kaddish at the afternoon service, and these are some of the things I said:
I started out by saying that we can't really imagine the lives my grandparents led. They were both immigrants - Grandpa was born in 1898 and came to the states in 1917 - these dates may both be wrong - correct me family! Grandma was born in 1902 and came to the states as a baby. The way I see it, the negative side, Grandma's life and values were influenced by the shame that comes from not fitting in, having parents who don't speak the language etc. She told me about how her mother didn't know you brought cupcakes to school on your birthday - Grandma's birthday was in September, so she would have been one of the first birthdays in her class. Grandma's mother made her clothes and the seams were never quite right. From those experiences came Grandma's tremendous aspirations.
Grandma and Grandpa married late - putting off their marriage for years because he was supporting his family. I told my students how shocked Grandma was when the 60s came and people thought premarital sex was ok - imagine how that must have sounded to her after all the years they waited to marry.
Grandma was a homemaker at a time when home economics meant what it says. She saw it as her job to be sure her family had enough - stretching every penny there was and wasn't and making it count. She told me all the time how if you keep things nice they last for a long time. She had an immaculate home, the furniture was always polished, and there was always a sweet for a child visiting. I forgot to mention how she fresh squeezed orange juice for Grandpa every morning.
Grandma left school at 12, took a business class, and went to work. She didn't have a chance for higher education and she didn't learn critical thinking. Instead, she had conventional wisdom, and deeply held beliefs about what was right and what was wrong. This wisdom was greatly challenged in the upheavals of the 60s and 70s - if she was here today I would tell her how I've come to value the things she stood for.
Grandpa, like many of his generation, tried to organize workers in his print shop. As a result, he and a friend were blackballed and could not get work. Later, much later, he became a republican, and at the end of his life had to deal with the betrayal that was Watergate.
Neither of my grandparents had much Jewish learning, but they both strongly valued Jewish peoplehood. My grandfather was a true apikorus - a non-believer. My grandmother hadn't much secular education - she also never learned to swim - and she grew up in a time when girls did not receive Jewish education. (OTOH, neither did her brothers, from what I know, get much Jewish education.) But they both cared about the Jewish people and about Israel and I think they would be proud to know that a day of learning was dedicated in their memory today in Jerusalem. What I didn't say but meant to was that for them, I think, everything, including religion, took a back seat to the enormous struggle to make it in America.
My grandmother lived most of the 20th century. She saw the incredible changes - cars, tvs, women's suffrage, 2 world wars, the Shoah, the civil rights and women's movements. Toward the end of her life, if her ideas seemed outdated to me, I understood that she had lived through so many changes, more perhaps than a person can be expected to absorb.
The world of my grandparents - and their century - is gone. But they are with me every day, and I believe with their other grandchildren too. May their memory be for a blessing.
I started out by saying that we can't really imagine the lives my grandparents led. They were both immigrants - Grandpa was born in 1898 and came to the states in 1917 - these dates may both be wrong - correct me family! Grandma was born in 1902 and came to the states as a baby. The way I see it, the negative side, Grandma's life and values were influenced by the shame that comes from not fitting in, having parents who don't speak the language etc. She told me about how her mother didn't know you brought cupcakes to school on your birthday - Grandma's birthday was in September, so she would have been one of the first birthdays in her class. Grandma's mother made her clothes and the seams were never quite right. From those experiences came Grandma's tremendous aspirations.
Grandma and Grandpa married late - putting off their marriage for years because he was supporting his family. I told my students how shocked Grandma was when the 60s came and people thought premarital sex was ok - imagine how that must have sounded to her after all the years they waited to marry.
Grandma was a homemaker at a time when home economics meant what it says. She saw it as her job to be sure her family had enough - stretching every penny there was and wasn't and making it count. She told me all the time how if you keep things nice they last for a long time. She had an immaculate home, the furniture was always polished, and there was always a sweet for a child visiting. I forgot to mention how she fresh squeezed orange juice for Grandpa every morning.
Grandma left school at 12, took a business class, and went to work. She didn't have a chance for higher education and she didn't learn critical thinking. Instead, she had conventional wisdom, and deeply held beliefs about what was right and what was wrong. This wisdom was greatly challenged in the upheavals of the 60s and 70s - if she was here today I would tell her how I've come to value the things she stood for.
Grandpa, like many of his generation, tried to organize workers in his print shop. As a result, he and a friend were blackballed and could not get work. Later, much later, he became a republican, and at the end of his life had to deal with the betrayal that was Watergate.
Neither of my grandparents had much Jewish learning, but they both strongly valued Jewish peoplehood. My grandfather was a true apikorus - a non-believer. My grandmother hadn't much secular education - she also never learned to swim - and she grew up in a time when girls did not receive Jewish education. (OTOH, neither did her brothers, from what I know, get much Jewish education.) But they both cared about the Jewish people and about Israel and I think they would be proud to know that a day of learning was dedicated in their memory today in Jerusalem. What I didn't say but meant to was that for them, I think, everything, including religion, took a back seat to the enormous struggle to make it in America.
My grandmother lived most of the 20th century. She saw the incredible changes - cars, tvs, women's suffrage, 2 world wars, the Shoah, the civil rights and women's movements. Toward the end of her life, if her ideas seemed outdated to me, I understood that she had lived through so many changes, more perhaps than a person can be expected to absorb.
The world of my grandparents - and their century - is gone. But they are with me every day, and I believe with their other grandchildren too. May their memory be for a blessing.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Contingency and Responsibility
A wonderful teacher and alum came by to visit and we were talking about davenning options and independent minyanim in the states. Somehow it came up that she said that somewhere (a synagogue, a minyan, I forget) the davenning was not "fulfilling the needs" of the participants.
I stopped and nodded. I didn't rant really. I could have, but I didn't.
I've got 2 hours to myself tonight by waking up at 3:30 am not on purpose. I get up in the morning and exercise (a must if I want to avoid back pain), get kids up, make their lunches, get them to school and get to work. I work until I absolutely must leave, drive to pick up kids, do what they want for a couple of hours interspersed with housework, dinner, baths, reading to them, usually more work after they are in bed though sometimes a discretionary hour (computer or more exercise). On Shabbat, I take them to shul, because it's a mitzvah (veshinantam levanecha - and they don't go to religious school so I have more obligation), because it keeps them occupied, because I'm there to pray. Sometimes I learn something, I always see people I know.
I guess in the fulfilling needs department I'm with the Ballad of Erica Levine - picking up in the middle here:
"'Erica Levine will you marry me - This relationship is filling a basic need and I'd like to have it legally guaranteed.'
'Basic needs at this age should be met by you, I'm your lover not your mother, let's be careful what we do. I love you but your needs are a very different issue' then he started to cry and she handed him a tissue."
I'm grateful because my life is so contingent - people depend on me, I am committed to people and to my work, there isn't much discretionary time and there isn't so much room - wiggle room maybe, but wide open spaces aren't there. I go back and forth - I've had moments this year of real envy of my students who are in their 20s with so many options. At the same time all the things I'm most grateful for are the things I'm most committed to and those that demand the most from me.
I know this is an age and stage thing. But I also know adult life is about what we give, not about getting our needs met. I'm grateful to Miriam Weinberg, who first shared the ballad of Erica Levine with me, and to everyone who has taught me that.
I stopped and nodded. I didn't rant really. I could have, but I didn't.
I've got 2 hours to myself tonight by waking up at 3:30 am not on purpose. I get up in the morning and exercise (a must if I want to avoid back pain), get kids up, make their lunches, get them to school and get to work. I work until I absolutely must leave, drive to pick up kids, do what they want for a couple of hours interspersed with housework, dinner, baths, reading to them, usually more work after they are in bed though sometimes a discretionary hour (computer or more exercise). On Shabbat, I take them to shul, because it's a mitzvah (veshinantam levanecha - and they don't go to religious school so I have more obligation), because it keeps them occupied, because I'm there to pray. Sometimes I learn something, I always see people I know.
I guess in the fulfilling needs department I'm with the Ballad of Erica Levine - picking up in the middle here:
"'Erica Levine will you marry me - This relationship is filling a basic need and I'd like to have it legally guaranteed.'
'Basic needs at this age should be met by you, I'm your lover not your mother, let's be careful what we do. I love you but your needs are a very different issue' then he started to cry and she handed him a tissue."
I'm grateful because my life is so contingent - people depend on me, I am committed to people and to my work, there isn't much discretionary time and there isn't so much room - wiggle room maybe, but wide open spaces aren't there. I go back and forth - I've had moments this year of real envy of my students who are in their 20s with so many options. At the same time all the things I'm most grateful for are the things I'm most committed to and those that demand the most from me.
I know this is an age and stage thing. But I also know adult life is about what we give, not about getting our needs met. I'm grateful to Miriam Weinberg, who first shared the ballad of Erica Levine with me, and to everyone who has taught me that.
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