A Hanukkah Story

Since Hanukkah is falling abnormally early this year, on Thanksgiving even! I've decided to write a small tale for the holiday. Here it is:

It was December 1968 and I was a mere stripling of 12 years. It was a cold winter by Los Angeles standards and the holidays were approaching, Christmas and Hanukkah. Usually around Hanukkah we would visit a childless elderly couple, The Pollaks.

Although they were the happiest and warmest elderly people I have ever known, the Pollaks met under less than romantic circumstances. Henry Pollak was a concentration camp survivor who saw his wife and four daughters killed by the Nazis. Agnes Pollak also suffered through seeing her husband and children murdered in the camps. Survivors both, they shared their experiences and mourned together and eventually married. When my father came by to visit he would reflect his experiences with them. Most of his family was wiped out as well.

One night when we visited the Pollaks, they left the living room and my brother changed the channel on the TV from a wrestling show to a World War II war show ("Combat"). There was a scene when army tanks rolled into a small village and as we were watching it my father and the Pollaks came back into the room.

The normally mellow Mr. Pollak dropped his customary friendly tone and shouted at my brother, "CHANGE THE CHANNEL! CHANGE IT RIGHT NOW!"
"Put something nicer on. Take it off", my dad said.
A little freaked out by the reaction, my brother quickly turned the TV knob to the next station, taking us back to two wrestlers beating the crap out of each other and drop kicking each other in the face.
"HAHAHAHA, oh that's funny!" The Pollaks laughed hysterically.

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A week later we had assembly in the gym at school and there was a projector in the back. Nobody knew what they were going to watch. Sometimes we saw films like the instructional CPR training movie but this time no one knew.

The school principal, Rabbi Goldstein didn't help with his obscure introduction. Walking up to the microphone stand he simply said. "You are going to see a film about your future and your parent's future and your friend's future".

With the lights turned off, the film started and we watched a black and white film of concentration camps....Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka....a voice narrated over the footage of genocide.

"During the Nazi purge of World War II, Nazi Germany exterminated millions of Jews, young and old alike..."
-An emaciated Jewish boy with a shaved head and haunting eyes stares at the camera.
"...Man, woman and child, the Nazi death camps showed no mercy to anyone, slaughtering people by the hundreds whether by bullet or by gas chamber..."
-Piles of dead, emaciated, naked Jewish bodies are pushed into a huge, bottomless ditch by a tractor.
"...The Nazis showed no mercy to the Jews of Europe, even making lamp shades made from human skin..."
-Skeletal Jews are being gently carried out of the concentration camp gates by American soldiers, liberating them.

"With the end of the Jewish nightmare comes a new paradise, the State of Israel..."
-The film is now in color and shows olive groves around a sunny desert. The sky is a clear blue.
"A Jewish state brimming with industry and promise, one can live here safe from threats of genocide..."
-Fifties era Israel shows Israelis farming and laughing, enjoying their jobs on a Kibbutz.
"Women participate in the Israeli army or they work on a Kibbutz. A Kibbutz! A cooperative farm where man, woman and child enjoy the fruits of The Holy Land..."
-Footage of dark women in fatigues with rifles drilling, date trees in a static desert surrounding them.
"This is The New Holy Land, Jerusalem of Gold!"

The film ended with a rising crescendo of music to stir the soul and the lights turned on. The principal returned to the mike.
"After you graduate Hebrew school, I want you to consider Israel as your new homeland and work on a kibbutz. It would be a life-changing experience. Talk it over with your parents tonight!"

Returning to our regular classes, I wondered why I would give up a city that housed the Whiskey A Go Go, the Santa Monica Pier and Irwindale Raceway for a farm in the desert. I didn't even like looking at short-haired girls in shorts juggling rifles.

**************************************

My school would often employ Israelis newly arrived to the States as teachers. Many of them did not have teaching credentials at all, but as long as they could speak Hebrew they had a job. The worst teacher and class I ever had was the one called Jewish History. Jewish History consisted of a Six-Day War veteran named Mister Gur newly emigrated to the US teaching us what he did during the Six-Day War. He was a red-haired man with a handlebar moustache and thick horn-rimmed glasses. He spoke with a lisp and never bathed. Every day he wore the same white dress shirt open down his chest so you could see his chest hairs.

Class consisted of him pulling down a yellowed map of Israel in front of the blackboard and using a wooden pointer to show each little town where there was war action. He spoke very slowly and knew very little English. If you knew Hebrew you had a fighting chance of understanding him.

"Tho, we went to....Haifa and got our orderth to go the Gatha Thtrip, and blah blah blah..."
I started daydreaming.
"Hmmmm..." I thought. "If The Beatles put out a white album cover and The Rolling Stones also put out a white album cover does this mean EVERYBODY'S going to put out white album covers? That's so dull-"
"THEVRIN!!!! Are you paying attention? What did I jutht thay?"
"Um...." think fast. "You surrounded the Egyptians and they all surrendered!"
Everybody laughed. Mister Gur's face turned red.
"Go to the printhipal's offith!!!!!"

Great, now I have to tell the Zionist principal I didn't pay attention listening to a bunch of war stories.

***************************************

Most Gentiles don't really know what Hanukkah means, but most Jews, especially American ones don't really know what Hanukkah means, either.

Hanukkah is a holiday about the empowerment of the Jews who fought back against the Greeks when they took over the Second Temple and outlawed Judaism. A family of rebels named The Maccabees fought against them and emerged victorious. Hanukkah is a holiday celebrating Jewish strength over adversity and not one of sorrow or persecution.

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Today marks the Centennial birthday of my Uncle Alex who I wrote about in my story "Hungarian Kitchen Fight Club" (August 11, 2007). A remarkable man who began as a mechanic in my grandfather's machine shop, he survived The Holocaust and moved to the United States where he repaired motorcycles, maintaining a highly loyal clientele among countless biker clubs across the greater New England Area. When I asked him if he was offended by their swastikas, he'd just smile and say, "They don't really understand what the hell it means".

Although he worked long hours in his garage he still managed to find time to put on tefillin and pray in the morning. Happy birthday, Uncle Alex, 100 years old today.

Happy New Year 5773

At this time of year the Jewish Holiday Season begins, inaugurated by the Jewish New Year, which is now 5773. Around this time I engage in thoughts both religious and secular, but as long as I’m discussing religion I want to talk about my favorite artist, Marc Chagall. The majority of Chagall’s timeless artwork is Jewish-based, mostly reflecting the streets of the European ghettos of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Chagall’s art style strikes an equal balance of fauvism, surrealism and naïve art that still presents a challenge to the viewer. The presence of animals in his painting, such as goats, chickens and cows is not necessarily intended for comic relief but is included because many homes in the pre-war shtetls (Jewish villages) had farms which housed these animals.

Most religious art is bound by tradition but Chagall’s depiction of religion is the freest ever painted, unencumbered by any pressure to follow reverence. While it isn’t irreverent by any means, there is a playfulness and humor that is absent in most religious work.

Whenever Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and its successive holidays come around I always look at my Chagall books and enjoy the works of a brilliant genius. His work transcends the folklore of any religion - if you’ve got eyes you gotta feel it.

+++++++++++++++++++++

I live in the heart of the Jewish hood on La Brea Avenue between a girls’ school and a wig store (heh!) and the school kids walk by under my 2nd floor window. It’s funny when I play my techno-swing records because a lot of them use clarinet, giving the music an almost klezmer-type sound. One day I was blasting out “Chambermaid Swing” by Parov Stelar, the lord high fixer of electro-swing, and I could hear a bunch of school kids hooping and hollering outside my window.

The Mojo Radio Gang - Parov Stelar

Who knew Jewish kids were into this Betty Boop swing shit? But it all fits, the music, the era, the culture, a lot of it has very Jewish roots (Afro too, of course, but this is really Jewish sounding stuff!). Just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things I played “The Mojo Radio Gang” by Stelar and I could still hear those crazy kids outside enjoying the music.

Princess Crocdile - Gry

After doing a little bit of research I discovered that electro-swing is pretty big in Europe, esp. in Britain and Germany, where they even have gigantic festivals dedicated to this hypnotic, insane dance music. Girls dress like Louise Brooks/Clara Bow flapperdoodle and guys look like old bootleggers, and it might all dress-up , but it doesn’t matter. The king of swing Parov Stelar looks like a male model so you don’t need to re-enact “The Sting”.

Chambermaid Swing - Parov Stelar

Just to raise the Betty Boop stakes some more I played “Princess Crocodile” by Gry, a bizarre ballad about a woman who travels through graveyards as a swing band of ghosts vamp on "Sweet Georgia Brown". By the way, the kids didn’t leave until I stopped playing all that crazy electro-swing. Never mind the lame American punk revival, electro-swing is the very next craze. The kids have spoken. Loudly!

God's Little Darkroom

I don’t remember how I met him, maybe he approached me, maybe I approached him, Yosef was a very cool guy for an Orthodox Jew. He talked the hip lingo, didn’t cop a self-righteous attitude as many did, loved science fiction, and collected vintage Citroens. Yosef was part of some Citroen collectors club so there were four parked in his driveway, some spilling over into the front lawn. He wasn’t a diamond dealer, he was an astronomer who worked at Griffith Observatory. If all Orthodox Jews were as hip as he was, well…

“You know, Andy, Citroens are pretty far-out cars, they have the most amazing pneumatic system that protects them. Let’s go see ‘Barbarella’ tomorrow night, man. It’s playing in Sherman Oaks, I’ll drive”.
“Barbarella, huh? Does Miriam know?” Miriam was his wife.
“No”, he smiled sheepishly. “We’ll tell her we’re going to the Observatory. She hates astronomy”.

Miriam didn’t hate astronomy, she hated everything. A cold, unfriendly Catholic girl who converted to Judaism, Mary, I mean Miriam had “NUN” written all over her. With no makeup on and her shawl around her head instead of a habit, Miriam didn’t resemble a Jewish wife so much as she did an angry nun. And acted like one, too.

It wasn’t unusual, though. After hanging out at Chez Yosef on the Sabbath I got to meet a few of their friends, who were either: a) Jewish ex-hippies who got on the rehab train from acid, speed or heroin; or, b) they were converts to Judaism. So when you met a Nordic-looking kid named Moshe Johnson, you shouldn’t be surprised.

I didn’t mind them at all except when they acted like they knew Judaism better than I did.
Yosef’s wife Miriam was like that.
“That’s not the way you hold a menorah”.
“You can’t be alone in a room with a married woman. It’s in the Torah”.
No it’s not, Mother Superior. I went to Hebrew school while you were eating pork out of a can, you stupid bitch. Out of respect for Yosef I kept my mouth shut from her.

When Passover came around Yosef invited me to come to his Seder (festival banquet). He practically begged to the point of embarrassment, so I gave in.
“Besides”, I said, “It’ll probably be safer than the Chabad House (UCLA campus Jewish institution) Seder I went to last year. The frat house next door was staging a Redneck Night:”
“That sounds funny”.
“No, it wasn’t”, I said, “After the Seder some drunken frat guys were following me down the sidewalk blathering about beating up some Jews”.
“That’s terrible! Baruch Hashem (praise the Lord) you’re safe.”
“The sidewalk was poorly lit and I was by myself. I was pretty scared, and to this day I hate college fraternities”.
“Well, we’ll protect you. I give you my guarantee this will be the safest Passover you’ll ever have. The most enjoyable, too”.

It wasn’t. I met Yosef and Miriam’s friends, some looked like they were visiting and some looked like they were now living in the house. Moshe Johnson was there, and then there was some guy everybody was excited about seeing.
“Herschel’s here! Herschel, when did you get back?”
“I got out on Sunday. They wanted to release me on Shabbos, but I said no”, he said, lifting up his arm to take off his jacket. All I focused on was the tracks on his arms. Herschel was a junkie, who with his sleepy eyes looked like he was still loaded. He always wore a large overcoat and beret. Junkie.

There was Freyer, the Johnny Cool Jew with dreadlocks, resplendent in shorts, sandals and the ever-present tallith under a green t-shirt. Tallith is a prayer shawl that married men wear when they pray. Well, he wasn’t married, and you don’t wear it as a clothes accoutrement 24/7. But all the girls loved him.
“Ooooh, Freyer, when are you going to Israel?”
“Oh, Freyer, will you make the blessing? Yosef won’t mind!”
Even Yosef thought Freyer was a posey little tool but had too much class to spit it out. But he’d get a little snatchy some times.
“Ahhh, Freyer”, Yosef slyly appraised the bad Hebrew hippie outfit, “I see you’ll be working in a nice Shabbos hat with those sandals, huh?”
“Far out, Brother”, Freyer would insincerely drawl. Trash.

Yosef and Miriam had a cute little boy, Mendel, three years old, and a little girl, Chana, two years old. Chana was a show-off and being the youngest got all the attention. I liked Mendel immediately. He was always asking me questions.
“How do you know my abbah (daddy)?”
“Did you stop taking drugs, too?”
“I can count in Hebrew. Wanna hear?”

Miriam had a new friend, a fat, surly black girl (Leah) who wore the same ugly scarf around her head as her. She also disdained makeup like her mentor, and I suspected there was a little more going on, too. I had the nauseating notion that she was now living in their home. Now that Miriam had a sneer sister it was a waste of time trying to befriend her.
“It’s time to set the Passover table, Leah”, Miriam coldly commanded.
“Can I help?” I offered.
“No thank you”, Miriam said, not smiling.
“You’re not taking a mitzvah (holy deed) away from us, okay”, Leah grumbled angrily. I think this was the only thing she ever said to me. For the rest of the time I was there she just kept grumbling quietly about everybody to Miriam, and refused to speak to anyone else. It was astounding how dysfunctional all of these hippie Jews were with their new found gift of God.

The Seder went okay. No, it was irritating, I’m sorry. Freyer sang so loudly he drowned everyone out. Herschel almost passed out in his matzos, and Leah kept grumbling in Miriam’s ear. I wanted to be home and in bed reading Raymond Chandler. The only thing that kept me there was Mendel, whose huge brown eyes kept darting around the room. He couldn’t ask the Four Questions which the youngest in the house is supposed to sing. It was Chana’s job now, and she struggled through it for seven agonizing minutes. Everybody thought it was cute. Leah didn’t smile until Miriam made it okay for her to smile.

Once the Seder was over I was fixing to leave. Moshe Johnson was asking Yosef more questions about Jewish traditional laws in his hippie way.
“So this cat was rapping to the Rabbi, and-“
“Andy, where are you going?”
“I’m going home, it’s been great. Thanks for having me as a guest, I enjoyed myself, and-“
“You can’t go home now”, Yosef ran up to me. “You drank too much wine and it’s very late. Please stay, we’ll go to shul (temple) together tomorrow. Stay!”
“Yes, Andy!” Miriam yelped. “Please stay!”
What the fuck does she care whether I stay or go? I looked over at Leah and she was still cleaning off the table with an angry look plastered on her fat, black face.

It creeped me out: ten people sleeping on the floor of the living room like a hippie commune. I just wanted to shoot myself in the head.
So the lot of us prayed in the house, same area where we slept, is it starting to get claustrophobic for you? Then we walked five feet to the dining room for lunch. Same people, same little house. By one p.m. I was getting a little freaked out by the commune environment, so I escaped to the back yard.

I watched Mendel digging up worms excitedly. Leah walked over and freaked out.
“Mendel, no digging on Passover, it’s a Yom Tov (holiday)”. She sneered at me.
“Oh, okay”, Mendel sighed. Leah trotted away. He looked up at me.
“Listen, Mendel”, I said to him, “the reason you can’t dig around here is because there’s buried treasure in the back yard.”
Mendel’s eyes lit up. “There is?”
“Yeah! There’s gold, diamonds, sparkling jewelry of every color you can imagine. You can’t dig it up because then burglars will find out”, I gave him my best Treasure Island rap.
“Wow!” He ran away all excited. I stretched my legs out on the back yard lawn staring up at the trees. In two minutes Miriam’s face replaced the trees.

“What kind of garbage are you telling MY SON? Who do you think you are filling his head with your vile lies? “ She screamed at me, the cords in her neck bulging like cables. “I want you to stay away from my boy!”
That does it. I try to have a little fun with some kid and I get my ass handed to me by a lesbian pseudo-nun with pretensions of being a Jew. Fuck her.
“Okay”, I said half-heartedly, “I’m sorry-“
“Sorry won’t cut it! You’re filling Mendel with impure thoughts! Such rubbish! You know what I think? I think you must be some evil spirit sent to test us from Satan!”
Okay, that did it, my Judaism questioned by some trendy Cross banger. I turned. “Gee, I’m sorry. Maybe I should be a junkie with a yarmulke and dreadlocks, and-“
“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! NOW!!!” she screamed.
“Yeah, fuck you, too”, I grumbled, imitating Leah. Yosef was nowhere to be found, probably in the bathroom jerking off thinking about Barbarella or something like that. I was finally booted out of the commune. And that’s all it took.

Months later I ran into Yosef, once, twice, etc. He was always trying to invite me over to another religious function at his creepy house. After the third invitation whenever I saw him I would duck out of sight from him. I liked him, actually, he wasn’t a bad guy. After all, it’s not like he put the fear of God in me. No, he put the fear of religion in me.