THE HOLOCAUST, THE holidays, the outsider—my early associations with Judaism formed the basis for a complicated relationship. Mom often told me when I was growing up that she wished she were raising me in a more religious home. I assumed that meant Dad was the obstacle. It turned out that Mom, too, had ambivalent feelings about religion. We neither lit candles on Shabbos nor kept kosher. And while there was a mezuzah mounted on our doorpost, perhaps to protect us, we didn’t regularly kiss it or say a prayer as we passed by. It was just a part of the door, like the hinges and the round bronze knob.
In our family, synagogue was mostly limited to the High Holidays. It never failed to impress me that Mom could read every prayer in Hebrew and recite so many of the songs. For me, synagogue was depressing. The numerous references to death throughout the High Holiday services were unbearable reminders that we were all going to perish, regardless of how well we fasted or obeyed the commandments.
In my teens I avoided going to services whenever possible. I would convince myself, if no one else, that I was too tired. I felt guilty when my family walked out the door; I disliked disappointing Mom, and I also had some trepidation about messing with God. But my concerns were usually quickly drowned out by the opening musical sequence of whatever sitcom happened to be on television. The laughs and friendly, familiar characters predictably raised my spirits higher than they had ever been elevated sitting in the temple of gloom’s High Holiday services of my youth.
Religious school was even more of a struggle for me, in part because classes took place weekly rather than on an annual basis. I felt like a foreigner there as I watched my classmates regurgitating Bible stories and learning to read words in a language that none of us understood. To make matters worse, the teachers referred to me as rebellious! Didn’t they realize how much I had already given to my religion? How much suffering my family and I had incurred as a result?
Aside from the Jewish obligation I keenly felt to help repair our broken world, the despair and anger that Mom’s past evoked was, for me, the most sacred part of being a Jew. Had the Holocaust been a part of the curriculum, and the students been given an opportunity to grieve in the process for fallen family members, I might have better connected. Instead, we learned about Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac and Noah’s ark, in addition to memorizing the Hebrew alphabet. I sat in class feeling alienated. How had this knowledge helped the six million Jews who were always in the back of my mind?
As far as I could tell, no one else in my class—not my friends with whom I passed notes, nor the teachers who bristled at my disrespect, nor the aloof elderly rabbi from whom I optimistically awaited words of wisdom that never arrived—could understand this. Eventually, when Dad was ill, bills were mounting, and Mom’s time was stretched to the limit, my parents let me choose whether or not to remain in Hebrew school. I quit on the spot.
Conflicted feelings notwithstanding, I always felt proud to be Jewish. I appreciated the idea of sharing traditions and values with a people who preceded me by three thousand years and hopefully would live on in perpetuity. Moreover, I loved celebrating the Jewish holidays. For Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Hanukkah, Mom created festive celebrations much like the ones she had enjoyed long ago. Her enthusiasm infused the atmosphere with an unusual levity.
“We’ll be back in one hour,” Mom said one December evening in 1971. I was watching Laugh In on television, but the excitement in her voice as she and Dad zipped up their jackets caught my attention.
“You’re going Hanukkah shopping, right?” I asked. Mom loved to buy us gifts.
“Not necessarily,” Mom said. She could never keep a secret.
“I still think we’ve bought enough already,” I overheard Dad tell Mom as they headed for the door. “We’ll have to rob Peter to pay Paul to pay for all these things.”
“I want to be sure the kids each get exactly the same amount,” Mom said, as the door slammed behind her.
By the eve of Hanukkah, the silver-wrapped gifts were out on the fireplace hearth in the den. We gazed at each one, and fantasized about its contents, as tantalizing and mysterious as the bonbons in a See’s Candies box. Overhead, from the mantel, hung a blue and white “Happy Hanukkah” sign. When Dad finally got home from work, around five o’clock, we raced into the kitchen, where Mom was frying crispy latkes (potato pancakes). The aromas emanating from sizzling oil in the pan and brisket and onions in the oven heralded the arrival of the Festival of Lights. Atop the counter sat a simple turquoise-colored menorah in which one red candle and one yellow candle had been placed. Mom lit them, and we joined her in praising God for commanding us to celebrate the holiday.
“The brisket’s delicious,” Dad said. We had just sat down for dinner.
Mom looked over at his plate. It was already empty. “I’m taking my first bite, and you’re finished? Frankie, it’s much healthier to chew your food slowly.”
“I know, honey.”
I ate one or two latkes with applesauce and sour cream. The first bite was always the best. Once they cooled down, they tasted like soggy oatmeal. After rushing through dinner, we rushed back into the den, tingling with excitement.
“Mine’s heavier,” David boasted, lifting up his gift.
“Well, good things come in small packages,” I shot back.
“You all got exactly the same amount,” Mom said.
“I know what I’m getting. A brand-new bike,” Gwyn said in dramatic fashion.
“This one is for you,” Mom said, placing a sparkly blue present on my lap. Then she eagerly watched me tear off the paper and remove the box top. I lifted up the tissue inside to find a copper-colored suede vest with long graceful strips of fringe running down the back. It was the most exquisite article of clothing I had ever seen. As I held it up, visions of walking around school robed in its splendor as the other kids took note filled my imagination. Mom was so proud of her selection.
Just then, Dad wheeled in a shiny yellow bicycle with a bow tied around the white seat. “Winnie, this is for you,” he said. He and Mom eagerly awaited her reaction.
“See, I knew it,” she said gleefully. But then she examined the bike more closely. Her face fell in disappointment. “This isn’t a Schwinn.”
“So?” my father said.
“But all my friends have Schwinns. These handlebars aren’t wrapped, and the seat’s not the same.”
“It’s a Huffy,” Mom said. “They’re even better. But we can get the seat changed, right, honey?”
“Sure,” Dad said, keeping up a brave front. I wished that my eight-year-old sister could just pretend to be happy. Wasn’t it clear that we needed to make Mom feel good, so that things could be evened out for her?
My brother clearly had read that memo. “A CB radio! I love it!” David exclaimed. Caught up in the bicycle drama, no one had seen him open his present. Fortunately, he loved it so much he didn’t notice. Years later, he would tell me that he had in fact been so excited about this radio that his first thought after he opened it was, At least if the tanks invade tomorrow, something really good will already have happened to me. I was surprised to hear that my brother also savored his positive experiences in preparation for possible future famine.
On the last night of Hanukkah, Mom and Dad gave me a game called Scrabble.
“Is it fun?” I asked.
“It’s supposed to be. It’s a word game,” Mom said.
After my siblings went to bed and Dad settled into his recliner in front of the television set, Mom and I sat hunched over the Scrabble board. From the beginning, we loved finding words to make sense of the disparate tiles. We were acquiring skills we would utilize years later, when we embarked on our memoir. That evening, I was surprised to discover that Mom had a competitive side. She actually seemed to care about winning, although maybe not as much as I did.
“Z-O-O,” I said proudly, placing the “Z” deliberately on a double letter space.
“Q-U-O-T-E,” Mom countered. “Look, it’s on a triple word score!”
“Not anymore,” I said, flipping the board over and sending the pieces flying.
Mom looked up at me in disbelief, apparently deliberating whether to laugh or be upset. “That’s really not being a good sport,” she finally said.
ON SOME LESS festive evenings, Mom would mysteriously disappear. The ensuing search often led me into the dark backyard. There I would find her alone, on a lounge chair by the swimming pool, staring up at the stars. One evening after dinner, when I was twelve years old, I sat down at the foot of her chaise.
“Why are you out here?” I asked, bracing myself for her response. I dreaded discovering that she was angry with Dad or worse, with me, and I also didn’t want to hear that she was dejected.
“I just want to be by myself for a while,” Mom said, in a far-off voice.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.” The flat tone of her voice suggested otherwise.
“Then come inside, Mommy. It’s cold out here.”
“I will, soon.”
“Then I’m staying out here, too,” I said, flopping down on the other lounge chair and staring up at the oppressive, dark sky. I tried to stifle a shiver from the evening chill.
I came to learn decades later that this had been Mom’s way of escaping. She would stretch out on the chaise longue and stare up at the stars and the airplanes, to vicariously travel beyond the confinement she felt as a wife and mother with few discretionary hours or resources. Perhaps in this respect Grandpa Isaac had not been so different from his daughter. He, too, might have looked to the heavens for relief from the pain and demands of his earthly life.
Someday I would find my own means of escape. I would be on those airplanes traveling as often as possible, and I would find countless local diversions as well. As for religion, I would come to see its beauty, and at least intellectually, appreciate the ideal of believing in an intangible being greater than ourselves. But the Holocaust and the holidays would be my primary connections to Judaism. In this respect, I would remain the outsider, peeking in.