Ballad of Erica Levine

I had a request for the full lyrics of this song, mentioned in my post Contingency and Responsibility.

It's found on page 244 in Rise Up Singing. Hear it on Youtube

The Ballad of Erica Levine
(Bob Blue)

When Erica Levine was seven and a half
Up to her door came Jason Metcalfe
And he said "Will you marry me, Erica Levine?"
And Erica Levine said "What do you mean?"
"Well my father and my mother say a fellow ought to marry
And my father said his brother, who is my Uncle Larry
Never married and he said Uncle Larry is a dope---
So will you marry me?" Said Erica,"Nope."
"My piano teacher's smart, and she never had to marry
And your father may be right about your Uncle Larry,
But not being married isn't what made him a dope.
Don't ask me again, 'cause my answer's 'Nope'."

When Erica Levine was seventeen
She went to a dance with Joel Bernstein,
And they danced by the light of a sparkling bobby sock,
'Cause the theme of the prom was the history of Rock.
And after the prom, Joel kissed her at the door,
And he said "Do you know what that kiss was for?"
And she said "I don't know, but you kiss just fine."
And he said "What it means is that you are mine."
And she said "No, I'm not!", and she rushed inside
And on the way home, Joel Bernstein cried
And she cried, too, and wrote a letter to 'Ms.',
Saying"This much I know: I am mine, not his."

When Erica Levine was twenty-three
Her lover said "Erica, marry me.
This relationship is answering a basic need
And I'd like to have it legally guaranteed.
For without your precious love I would surely die
So why can't we make it legal?" Said Erica, "Why?
Basic needs, at your age, should be met by you;
I'm your lover, not your mother---let's be careful what we do.
If I should ever marry,I will marry to grow,
Not for tradition, or possession or protection. No!
I love you, but your needs are a very different issue."
Then He cried, and Erica handed him a tissue.

When Erica was thirty, she was talking with Lou,
Discussing and deciding what they wanted to do.
"When we marry, should we move into your place or mine?
Yours is rent-controlled, but mine is on the green line."
And they argued and they talked, and they finally didn't care
And they joined a small cooperative near Central Square.
And their wedding was a simple one, they wanted it that way.
And they thought a lot about the the things that they would
choose to say.
"I will live with you and love you, but I'll never call you mine."
Then the judge pronounced them married, and everyone had wine.
And a happy-ever-after life is not the kind they got,
But they tended to be happy more often than not.

Dear Gail, Love Gail

Julia, Keiko, Camille, Jane, Elaine, Beth, Heidi and Al - this is for you.

Here's a shocking fact - I've been part of a google group for people who graduated Bryn Mawr and Haverford in 1982, and it's been one of the best parts of this year. I know some of the people in the group - I remember them and their names - and many I do not. They are by and large people who I think enjoyed our college years. They are people who wanted to stay in touch. They are people I mostly would not have talked to in college, or people my friends and I laughed at. And guess what? They are smart, funny, incredibly talented and successful and best of all, they're all about turning 50, like me. We've had some great discussions - about lesbian moms, about aging parents, about being old parents, about health care, about many things I care about.

Now there's a photo of me from shortly after college years, it's a photo of a bunch of us actually, me and a group of college friends in 1985, and it's on facebook, and recently a friend from those days wrote - "the photo that should be burned!" and others made similar remarks and I feel sad.

Because one of the great gifts of my life has been the way G-d has given me opportunities to revisit every part of my growth with love and tenderness. That's what the google group has done for me this year. The folks on the google group are likely folks who were always way better adjusted than myself.

Because here's the truth about my college years - I went to college at 16 and a half years old. I was addicted to drugs and alcohol. I was way too young to be on my own and I was scared. I was affected by buried childhood trauma that has followed me all my life. I was a self-centered person and careless in the way I treated others. I did things I'm not proud of, things that damaged myself and others. I cared deeply about my friends but I chose my friends based on a set of values I no longer hold. I was very bright but very stupid. My mother worried I would not see my 20th birthday. I'm lucky I survived and in honesty I owe a great debt - to my friends from those years (I love you all) to the college that despite a not-so-benign neglect offered some kind of safe container for my acting out, to my teachers who connected with me, to my family who never gave up on me and to G-d who saw me through.

One of my favorite writings is an essay in a book called "To Weep and To Sing", a collection by women scholars of religion about their lives. The essay, "Dear Chris, Love Christine", is a woman writing, with great love, to her younger self of 20 plus years ago. I am so grateful to be able to look back with love and compassion at all we were, and so grateful for the journey that has taken me far from there. I don't want to burn the picture. Today, I can put it on my wall with love.

Internalized racism and other musings

I had an intense experience at a checkpoint today. This is the checkpoint before the tunnels on Route 60 when you are coming into Jerusalem from Gush Etzion. Those of you who know me know that although I live within the green line, I live right next to it, and travel every day through the west bank to get to work in Jerusalem. I drive through this checkpoint every day - I should say breeze through this checkpoint - an experience of privilege I am almost always conscious of. I pay almost no attention to the automatic weapons (machine guns) on pretty much every soldier. The soldiers often seem to me like kids, especially the young women.

The far right lane is like the will be checked lane and in the next lane over they can also pull you aside to a bay. The left lane has not been open much lately.

I have known (from a hitchhiker I picked up once who explained this to me) that the people who work at the checkpoint fall into three categories - army, police and security staff hired by a private company. I don't know why this is or what the various tasks are.

Today, in the far right lane, there were three extra people with guns, I think only one of them in uniform, not right at the checkpoint but closer to where the cars come in, like walking toward the cars. They were holding their guns differently, but in addition, two of them were black. All of a sudden when I saw them, I felt very fearful. I think this was my own internalized racism at work - I think that I should be afraid of black people, and the fact they were holding guns made it more so. When I see Ethiopian soldiers, the Israeli army uniform puts me at ease. These men did not seem to be Ethiopian but I think also the visual cue to me was that they were not wearing uniforms.

This gave me a glimpse of what Arabs going through this checkpoint probably feel. It was a horrible feeling to feel so fearful, and also to recognize my own racism generating the fear, and to once again recognize the privilege I have of traveling most days without fear through this checkpoint.

Today we marked the 5th anniversary of the "hitnatkut" - the pullout from Gaza. Five years in which the left has declined and the right increased, so that on the radio yesterday I heard one commentator say that the right has succeeded in convincing the country that the pullout from Gaza was a mistake. A pro-pullout woman and a woman settler were on the radio and the former said she is less optimistic than she was 5 years ago while the latter said she feels good about how the country is going. She said the country is getting closer to Judaism. That would appear to be backed up by the statistic I heard yesterday - 52% of first graders in the country are in Orthodox or Ultra-Orthodox schools.

We have wonderful students at my work this summer, Alen is hosting a GLBT birthright group at her work tomorrow!, and Gabi has loved her camp that ends tomorrow at the nature museum. I'm looking forward to another afternoon at the nursing home and to a relaxing Shabbat. We had the first Tisha B'Av program that our Reform congregation has held this week and a packed house at the Conservative Yeshiva as usual. The conversion bill brings a lot of concern to our home and work. A sense of privilege and awe along with frustration and sometimes a fear or despair stay with me when I look at all this. The big picture just gets bigger.

what started this blog

I wrote this message, Reflections on Arevut (Mutual responsibility) and Sinat Hinam (causeless hatred) on August 2, 2009. The shooting in the bar noar gay youth club in Tel Aviv is what caused me to start this blog. The shooter has not been found.

The young people who were murdered last night in Tel Aviv at a gathering place for gay youth and buried tonight were named Nir Katz, 26 and Lizzie Tarboushi, 17, z"l.

I heard two parents on the radio today - Nir Katz's stepfather and the mother of a young man who had stepped outside when the shooter came in to the center last night. Both were incredibly supportive of their children. Nir Katz's stepfather talked about how most people in Israel are supportive as his family is - that this crime was committed by one person whose views are shared by few. He also spoke about the shootings as an act of "sinat hinam" - the very thing whose consequences we were calling to mind in our fast last week.

I spoke today about how Israel is considered a "high context society" - what happens here in the news has such a direct impact on us all. I had my ears open today to the radio - checking to see that the murders would get covered, would get taken seriously. The coverage sounded like what I know of Israel - I was even heartened by the message of Shas - that murder is against Jewish law and Jewish tradition (in case anyone wondered after last week's Torah reading).

This morning while on my way to work I stopped for a stranger who flagged me down and asked me to help him jump start his car. He got in my car and we drove around back of his house where his young daughter waited in the car, started his car and I went on my way. As we did this, I was thinking how I could not do this in the states, how fear for my safety would stop me. I live in a culture where people in certain defined ways and contexts and with exclusions, help one another and consider ourselves responsible for one another. It has its ups and downs, but that basic social contract, even covenant, the idea that we are partners in a common enterprise and attached to a common fate, that makes life here feel very worthwhile most of the time. Sinat Hinam seems to me the opposite of our Arevut, and that's part of what makes this such a painful day.

I pray for the families of those killed and injured, for a speedy recovery to all who were injured, and that they catch the person who did this soon.

Great Uncle Jack - gone but not forgotten

My grandmother had a brother who disappeared. His name was Jack - he was older than her, her closest age sibling. He had three sisters, of whom my grandmother was one. My aunt Lil was the oldest, next came Vera, who died at the age of 46 I think, the mother of my dad's cousin Clifford, then was Jack, then my grandma Zena.

One of the last times I saw my grandmother I wrote down some of what she had to say about Jack, but I'm not sure where that got to - I think it's with the stuff I left in the states because I could not bear for it to fall off a boat and instead I have no idea where it is.

What I remember - Jack went out west to fight Pancho Villa. He "fell in with a bad lot", according to Grandma, and at some point became estranged from his family. My dad says my aunt Lil was in touch with him up until about 1935 - he would have been born just before the turn of the century.

I've thought to look and only just recently tried to look - for some record of him, with no luck. There are just a few death records for Pezrow I could find online - only my aunt Grace and my great grandparents Mendel and Pearl. Not even my uncle Ken. I don't know if Uncle Ken remembered Jack - Grandma certainly did but she never expressed to me an active desire to know what had happened to him. That is, she never went looking for him.

If you know more about Uncle Jack or have ideas about how to look for him, let me know!

Grandma's yahrzeit - my dad responds

(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!

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.