Jewish Musings, Wednesday 10/11

[lee058]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.





Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:





Holly

Lee

Louise

Lynne

Peachy





And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE! Please continue to pray for Israel; I'm glad to hear so many of our group are doing that.

Today's topic: Ashkenazi Jews

We got started on this yesterday, with people talking about where their families were from, so lets continue the discussion. Have your families been in the USA a long time? Where are some places they came from, and how about where they travelled (in and out of the USA)?

My father's family came from what used to be Austro-Hungary, and my grandmother always said that we were Austrian, not German. The land has changed countries several times (Poland, Russia, etc.), and now is in Poland. My great-grandparents were able to bring their families over around the turn of the last century to NY. My father's father was born in NY, the only one that was born here. He met my grandma when she was only 16; they fell in love and got married very early. My dad was born when she was only 18. My grandfather died from the flu two years later. My grandma married again but it was not a success, so she divorced him; very, very unusual back then. One good thing that came of that marriage was my aunt Judy, who had one daughter, my nice cousin Liz. Liz is currently living in PA with her partner, and we talk or email every once in awhile.

I guess I'm the adventurous one in the family, re travelling in the USA anyway. After college, I decided I wanted to see more of the country, so I worked and travelled my way around most of it. I'll always be glad I did; I had some bad experiences, but mostly people were kind and I saw lots of amazing places. I met my DH in CO, and we eventually moved to MO, where we got married and had DS. Thanks to DH's job, we lived in Panama for three years, and then moved to VA, where we have been ever since.

As for being Ashkenazi, I think one of the main reference points was my grandma's cooking (as well as everyone being involved politically!). My grandma used to make things like sweet and sour meatballs especially for me, because she knew how much I loved them. She had a tiny NYC kitchen, but managed to create amazing meals. Oh, and her latkes were fabulous. She had a special two-handled tool that held the potato mixture in the oil for deep-frying. I've never had any as good as hers.

My dad was in the US Army for WW2. He was one of the few in his unit who was married. For part of the war, he travelled in South and Central America. He made a point of asking if there were any Jewish families in the towns he went to, and was always warmly welcomed.

I miss my family, but at least I have a lot of good memories. I miss my sister, my mom and my dad.

Have a peaceful day, Lee

[hollygail]

DM's parents both came from a place (whose name I don't know) that was located in an area also at war a lot; sometimes Poland and sometimes Austria claimed it. As a result, my maternal DGF was able to read, write and speak Polish and German as well as his native Yiddish, and of course he could read and write Hebrew although at the time no one was speaking Hebrew (it was solely the language of prayer). I don't know how much (if any) formal schooling my maternal DGM had in the old country. There's a rumor that her beau jilted her so when she and DGF bumped into each other in New York (before the turn of the last century), at least she knew him from having met him in the old country. They married in New York City and had five children (my DM being #2 with an older sister and a younger one, then two brothers later).

DF's father was born in Riga in Latvia and came to New York when he was about 14. The rumor is that my paternal DGM may have been conceived in the old country (probably Germany, but no one who knew ever corroborated that to my knowledge) but she was born in New York City. She apparently made it clear she would not under any circumstances marry a "greenhorn;" her husband would have to know English. Voila! Apparently coming to the US at age 14 made my paternal grandfather fluent in English by the time he met DGM. They married and had four children (DF being the oldest son of the oldest son of probably the oldest son; there may very well have been an expectation for DF to become a rabbi, which didn't come to fruition). Their second child was my Aunt Martha; she and DM became friends (and there was also one rumor I heard from my own DS that DM befriended Aunt Martha because she knew about Aunt Martha's older brother).

DF's father became a traveling salesman and apparently treated his wife poorly; one time when he was on the road (after their youngest married), DGM had the locks changed. He never tried to break the door down, instead moving to New Jersey where he remarried (a widow). He gave my DGM a Jewish bill of divorce (a get) but never a civil divorce, so when he died many years later, it was DGM who received his Social Security, not his second wife, his "widow." DGM broke her hip at age 80 and spent the rest of her life in a nursing home (she died at age 102).

My parents "kept company" for something like five years. I was told that during that time, DM told DF she wouldn't marry him until he got a real job. Apparently, he'd made a living gambling. I believe it's true, based not only on what I'd heard growing up, but also by later evidence on how good a craps shooter he was: he and DM joined DS and DBIL in Las Vegas once and DM won enough at the craps tables to take the four of them out to a nice dinner and a Vegas show. Another time, my DH#1 shot pool with DM and told me what a great pool player DF was. DS and I were raised as secular Jews; we got all the cultural and historical learning and none of the religious learning of Judaism. As adults, one time DS told me she was Reform "because it's the easiest." I disagreed with her; I said Reform is the hardest because you have to know all the rules to decide which ones you are and which ones you aren't going to keep. We never talked about it again. She's the one who says I'm the "frum" one in the whole family (my perspective is that I observe Judaism; I practice Reconstructionist Judaism and teach across all the non-Orthodox Jewish movements).

DS was born in Manhattan; I in Queens where we lived until DS and DBIL moved from (Forest Hills in) Queens to North Hollywood, Los Angeles. I lived in Queens until graduating from the City University of New York, Queens College to move with DH#1 to Buffalo, NY where he wanted to attend SUNYAB (the State University of New York at Buffalo, formerly UB, the University of Buffalo). We moved several times; our only child was born in Boston, Mass. And I've lived a lot of places since then. I've been in San Diego County for longer than I lived anywhere before here, having moved here in August of 1989, almost half of my entire life, and definitely longer than everywhere else put together during my adult life.

I seem to have veered from the original questions about an Ashkenazi background...

[gazelle18]

My parental and maternal families are both vaguely from Poland. But I don’t know a whole lot about it, except that they came over in the late 1800s and early 1900s. On the other hand , DH’s family is completely German on both sides. My father in law escaped the Holocaust right before WWII, but sadly my mother in law did not. She was interned in a concentration camp. The fortunate thing for her is that she was ransomed out by American relatives. Her father was taken by the Nazis one night at the start of the war, and never came back. She managed to get her mother out, and her mom lived out her last years in NOLA.

[peachymom1]

All my grandparents were born in the United States, as were my parents. I'm not sure how long my family has been here. I didn't grow up hearing anything about any cultural behavior or memories. Kind of boring, I know, but I certainly enjoy hearing about everyone else's families!

My parents met in the Army; they were both stationed in France. I don't think my mom ever went anywhere else outside the country. Dad was a pilot in Vietnam, and I remember him sending us (my sisters and me) these beautiful blue cloth hats with flowers embroidered on them, from Vietnam. The hats had wire frames and folded up, and we loved them.

My oldest two sisters have done quite a bit of national and international travel; the third sister has never been outside the U.S. I went to England and France when I was 18, to visit my oldest sister, but that's it. My kids have done more traveling than I have.

[louise]

My grandparents and my father were all born in Russia (Ukraine). I wish I had learned more from them about their early heritage. I don't even have most of my grandmothers' recipes.