Harry

Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett has published a wonderful biography, titled “Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care About Jews, the South, and Civil Rights”. As it’s the first biography of Harry (excluding his own colorful 1969 autobiography “the Right Time”) it instantly became the go-to reference for information about this interesting man and his astonishing life. Ms. Hartnett was going to hold a reading at a local Raleigh bookstore; I was not about to miss this.

To my complete surprise, the meeting area was packed. Having attended other events there, I was amazed by the turnout. Then I noticed another thing: the author and I were, by far, the youngest ones in attendance. As the reading progressed, and questions were asked, it became apparent that most of the participants were contemporaries of Harry, and many had interesting things to share, none more interesting and exciting than the nonagenarian lady who stood up and, in a perfectly clear voice, introduced herself as one of Harry’s former secretaries (apparently he employed many including, for a time being, the author’s mother) and recounted wonderful anecdotes of working with Harry.

Reading the book (which is extremely well-written) was emotionally challenging for me. Harry is presented in a very human light, warts and all, and one’s former perception of his personage, which was gleaned almost entirely from his writing, is irretrievably altered. The author writes warmly, yet critically, and shines some interesting light on who he was and, more importantly, why he is so significant to me. Sadly, the biography also helps understand why much of Harry’s writing (both content and voice) will not be necessarily appreciated by a current-day reader – the sentimentality, the social vocabulary of a long-gone era, and his lack of appreciation for the cultural revolution of his times.

The author shared with us that the book took her several years to research and write (which was surprising to me, as it took me only three hours to read…), naturally conducting numerous interviews along the way, effectively deciphering the charm, wisdom, and joie de vivre of one of the most remarkable personages from the South, and quite possibly the most famous Jew from North Carolina.

This biography is a must-read for both Harry Golden admirers and those who are interested in the history of the South in the second half of the 20^th century. For me, it was like visiting with an older relative, and I am now a member of what must be a very exclusive club: I own both Harry’s autobiography and Ms. Hartnett’s book of him, each signed by its respective author. I have come a full circle: Grew up on Golden’s books in Israel, moved to North Carolina, created my version of the “Carolina Israelite”, and met his biographer, whose mother worked for him. As Harry would undoubtedly say: “Only in America”…

_{(visit “New Biography” to purchase the book)}

Sit Down and Shut Up

When did every TV talk show host (or guest, for that matter) start receiving standard standing ovations from the audience? I remember when this kind of accolade was reserved for either a very special performance (honoring a classical soloist after an inspiring performance) or when a truly notable person enters the venue (think US Representative Gabby Giffords returning to Congress after the assassination attempt on her), not every time some celebrity shows-up to vapidly push a new movie or show. It now seems that virtually every personage on television is awarded this honor. Not only is this faux accolade irritating and the recipient typically unworthy, it actually also reflects poorly on the audience, who while boorishly indulging said performer with undeserved applause is displaying an utter lack of critical discernment and intellect. Sit down, and save the “standing o” for the president, a great aria, your kid’s ballet recital, or that grand slam homer.

Palmyra (and Other Antiquities)

When I was a young child in Israel, there was not a more terrifying, fear-inspiring locale than the Syrian city of Tadmur, known in Aramaic (and English) as Palmyra. We all grew up learning about the bravery of Israel Defense Force and civilian prisoners who were incarcerated for years at the Syrian regime’s notorious prison there, in the middle of the desert. Stories of interrogations and torture, of brave men who refused to be broken, and their evil jailers. There literally were books about this, and all boys of my generation grew up on these appalling stories. Tadmur prison was known throughout Syria as the place where the regime’s political prisoners were taken to, tortured, and many eventually executed.

Now Palmyra is once again in my thoughts. The actions taken by ISIS to destroy old pagan and pre-Islamic temples and other antiquities, blowing-up what was universally acclaimed as the most important archeological site in Syria, completely shocked the Western world. Me? Not so much.

The Middle East has hundreds of cities and towns that were destroyed and rebuilt over numerous times. In Israel there is a common manifestation of this, known as a “Tel”, essentially a hill comprised of two or three dozen layers of the same town, albeit from different eras. As conquerors and their religions came and went, so did their dwellings and places of worship. Jews were equally at fault here: Joshua destroyed thirty one Canaanite cities, and the ancient land of Israel had its fair share of iconoclasts who would deface Hellenistic statues as they were proscribed by the Second commandment, which prohibits graven images. In essence, entire swaths of the Middle East are a pile of one civilization laid over another. Is ISIS’ destruction of the ancient temples terrible? Of course. But with all the strife in the region which has been going on for a few millennia, why should we expect any different outcome? As the French say, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (the more things change, the more they remain the same).

In his tragic poem “From all Nations” written during the Second World War, Israeli poet Nathan Alterman writes (my translation)

“…and there is widespread concern for paintings and statues
and should treasures-of-art be bombarded,
but treasures-of-art of young infants’ heads
on the pavements and walls are shattered”

As the poet lamented the focus on objets d’art, as opposed to defending human life, I find the international community’s response to the tragedy that has befallen the Syrian people simply appalling. Over 250,000 Syrians have died, and millions more became refugees, but what do we focus our outrage on? A bunch of pagan temples that were the main (some say the only) tourist attraction in Palmyra. Yes, ISIS is a brutal, murderous organization which needs to be destroyed, and fast. But the strife of the Syrian people started decades ago, under a succession of brutal dictators, so please pardon my non-UNESCO world-heritage sentiment, but I do not believe that all the historic rubble in Palmyra is worth the life of one child. The true treasure of Syria is its people, not some carved basalt pillar.

I reiterate: ISIS are the scum of the Earth. But I do take a modicum of pleasure in noting that among the various things they destroyed in and around Palmyra was the Assad’s regime infamous Tadmur prison.

You say To-ma-to; I say To-mah-toe

The Israeli food conglomerate “Osem” has just scored a major coup on the fifth-largest food company in the world, and it’s a true “Only in Israel” story. Osem is, amongst other things, the country’s largest producer of tomato ketchup (full disclosure: I detest the stuff, but for others in our household ketchup is somewhat of a beverage, and they all attest that the Israeli version is, at least to their discerning palates, quite vile). Well, it seems that Israel’s Ministry of Trade, who’s responsible for such matters, actually has a standard which defines what it takes to be allowed to market your product as a “Ketchup”. Apparently there is a matter of the ratio of something called “tomato solids” which a true ketchup must have at least 10% of. Osem’s has it, but their chief competitor does not, and lab tests evidenced a meager 6% of tomato solids, forcing the Ministry (to Osem’s great delight) to disallow the competition from marking its product as a “Tomato Ketchup”, requiring the new product description to read “Tomato Condiment” instead (all these machinations are for the Hebrew markings; “Ketchup” may still be marked on the packaging in English). The name of the inferior, sub-par ketchup-poseur competitor, who’s been making its low-quality product since 1876? Heinz. Yes, that of the A.J. Heinz “57 varieties” fame. However, I would caution the reader from jumping too soon to characterizing this as yet another one of those typical Israeli “David vs. Goliath” tales. You see, Osem is far from being the “David” here, as it is owned by the largest food corporation in the world, Nestlé.

So once again Israel finds itself as the battleground of distant empires. Thankfully, ketchup is thicker (and cheaper) than blood…

The Flagman Cometh

The horrific murder of nine members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina has brought back the debate surrounding Civil War artifacts and monuments, much of it surrounding the Confederate Battle Flag. Haven’t we already been here, time and time again? An evil (probably mentally-disturbed, but definitely also evil) person commits a heinous crime while invoking some objectionable symbol, and suddenly all public attention is focused on a historical battle-banner, as opposed to racial hatred, mental illness, or handgun accessibility. To lift a line from the NRA crowd: “Flags don’t kill people. Guns kill people.” First off, the flag in mention wasn’t the official flag of the Confederacy; that honor belongs to the “Stars and Bars” (After the First Battle of Bull Run General P. G. T. Beauregard felt that there was a need for a battle flag that was manifestly different from the “Stars and Stripes” and “Stars and Bars”, to avoid confusion on the battlefield. That’s how the “Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia” came to be). Second, it is an emblem in the South which carries different meanings to different folk: For some, it evokes NASCAR, moonshine, and the 1969 Dodge Charger “General Lee” of the “Dukes of Hazzard” fame. To others, it is emblematic of ancestors who died in battle. At a recent Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in Raleigh it seemed to be the preferred lawn blanket and beach towel design. And not a single person whom I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet in the South has pined for the restoration of “The Peculiar Institute”, as the antebellum euphemism for slavery was ambiguously named. Somehow, however, the Battle Flag has become a simulacrum with attributes it never had. Contrast, for example, with the Nazi swastika flag, which was an official flag of state (it even hung for a while in the Thirties over the German consulate in Jerusalem, of all places) and had countless unspeakable crimes committed under it. The flying of the Palestinian flag is still not fully permitted in Israel, although it dates back to the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. To some it represents terror and threats against Israel’s sovereignty. However, it is now flown in Olympic Games and, as of last week, at the UN headquarters in New York. Strange business, these flags.

It is very common to associate symbols with historical or religious events. The Romans perfected a hideous method of public execution, yet somehow the very image of this instrument of death has become the most recognized religious symbol ever. On the other hand, over the past thirty years or so the image of a hangman’s noose has become a symbol of segregation-era lynchings. This attribution to the image exists only in the US, while elsewhere around the world a noose is simply a noose. In Israel we used to display them on Purim, when we celebrated the hanging of the biblical arch-villain Haman.

Granted, the Confederate Battle Flag has no business being flown by government entities, or be part of state flags or DMV-issued license plates. But it does represent for many a certain cultural heritage, and that needs to be respected. Personally, I find flying it a quaint practice, certainly not offensive.

I grew up in a country that is overrun with war monuments and memorials. They are viewed and treated as sacrosanct, which is fitting. I am disgusted by the numerous cases of vandalism of Confederate monuments – these are acts of desecration which ultimately dishonor our nation’s history, North and South. What next? Blow up the Washington Monument or Jefferson Memorial because they owned slaves? Let’s keep in mind that during the eighty-six years in which slavery was entirely legal in the US, it was allowed to flourish under a flag which still waves above us all, Old Glory. Should we tear that down as well? And as my Yankee friend Eileen states, in any event the true flag of the South is the white one flown back then on that Spring day at Appomattox…

The interesting thing is that this matter was actually settled some seventy years before the Civil war, long before the Battle Flag was designed, on December 15, 1791, when Virginia became the tenth state to ratify the Bill of Rights, which famously states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The South, by losing the war and returning to the fold of the Union, gained equal protection under the US Constitution, along with the right to wave whatever banner its citizens choose. Time to move on, Y’all.

Fiber in My Diet

Both Google and AT&T have declared that our town of Cary is a select one, worthy of their latest fiber-optic Internet connectivity. Those of us who depend on rapid online access for, well, everything, started salivating at the promise of one gigabyte download and upload speeds. Undoubtedly, access will be blazingly fast, our children will complain less about the speed (or lack thereof) of their computer and video games, we’d be able to do away with an expensive monthly cable TV bill, the “Carolina Israelite” will reach its readers with no additional delay (but for the author’s occasional writing blocks). In other words, a panacea for all of the nuisances and foibles of modern life. Since our current Internet access is so spotty, needless to say, I was excited.

It started with a gentleman from the town who painted a myriad of color-coded lines on the streets and sidewalks of our quiet suburban neighborhood, indicating where (and, presumably, where not) to dig, followed by a message from City Hall that we can expect construction to commence within “several weeks”. This was the equivalent of the fencing alert “En Garde!”. From that moment on, every single public-works activity within a two-mile radius of my home was subject to my immediate scrutiny, as it raised my hopes regarding the imminent fiber-optic tentacles soon to reach our community. It’s amazing how many things are actually going-on, once you start paying attention: A conduit was bored under our neighborhood’s main entrance (Turned out to be a new power line). A deep hole was dug by the roadside (Gas company doing work). Deep cuts in the median? Sprinkler pipes were being replaced. A fence knocked down (car accident). More cryptic paint markings kept appearing on the roads. A couple of miles away I finally spotted a crew laying thick cables, and they identified themselves as working for Google. I was overjoyed, until I realized that they were running the fiber in the opposite direction, away from our house. In the meantime, I continue being teased by the aforementioned companies, with AT&T promising that our town is on the verge of a digital revolution, and Google sending me a free tee shirt. Perhaps the fiber they’re pushing is actually cotton? All I know is that I, for one, can no longer handle the tense anticipation. The next ditch I see dug around my house better be for a fiber-optic cable, or I might as well just lay myself in it.

Lekach

Every year, for over a quarter of a century, a couple of weeks before Rosh Hashanah, my mother mails us from Israel two honey cakes (known in Yiddish as Lekach) and an Israeli art calendar displaying the new Jewish year (our weeks start on Sundays, and happily there’s a boatload more holidays on it than on the regular one). Eating honey is an ancient tradition on Rosh Hashanah, signifying the wish for a sweet new year, and there are hundreds of variants of honey cakes, from all over the Diaspora. My mother’s cake is typically moist, and slightly “spicy”: nutmeg and cinnamon probably play a part. As soon as the cakes arrive they go into the freezer, with the first one consumed on Rosh Hashanah eve, and the second held back for the Yom Kippur feast and break-the-fast meal. I cherish this tradition and pray that it will continue for many more years to come.

This year my wife, no slouch of a baker herself, extended the tradition and shipped off two honey cakes of her own to our daughter who’s away at college. Different addresses, different recipes, same message: May you enjoy a Sweet New Year. L’Shana Tova!