by Jeff Rosen
I grew up in Brooklyn during the 1950s. A very different Brooklyn than the one that seems to capture the world’s imagination today. I remember being in Paris and seeing somebody wearing a Brooklyn T-shirt and thinking, “you’re in Paris! Forget Brooklyn.” But when I grew up in Brooklyn it was a very special place and a very special time. The neighborhood was mostly Jewish and Italian with a high concentration of second-generation immigrants. Everybody seemed to get along pretty well. I lived in a big old house on Ocean Parkway. The house had been in my family for several generations, in fact my grandparents lived upstairs and we lived downstairs. Both my grandparents had escaped from Russia when they were quite young and were more American then European. My other grandmother lived five blocks down towards Coney Island. I never met my paternal grandfather, Meyer. Meyer had immigrated from Romania and made his living in children’s ready-to-wear. Meyer loved cigars and whiskey. The doctor had told him that if he wanted to live, he needed to cut out the vices of which he was so fond. Meyer’s alleged response was, “why live?” As I said – I never met the man.
My father, named Seymour, was never close with his father Meyer. Probably because there was a big age difference between them, almost 40 years. The day my father turned 18, he enlisted in the Army so that he could fight in World War II. The night before he was to leave for basic training, Meyer awkwardly sat down with my dad who was packing up to leave. Meyer did not want my father leaving home before having the “father and son” talk, but didn’t have the vocabulary necessary to articulate such a touchy subject.In the end, all Meyer said was, “so tell me Seymour, you know what to do with girls?” My dad said yes, and an awkward silence continued between them. Meyer then said, “always remember, your mother is a woman.” And then left.
The next day my father was on line waiting to be mustered in the Army. His friend Roth nudged him and asked him if he recognized the old man that was hiding behind a tree and apparently peeking out every once in a while towards them. It was Meyer. Wanting to see his son off to the Army but unable to express the kind of father and son emotions that I grew up with. My dad went over and hugged him.
My father wanted to be in the air Corps, but he was colorblind and wound up in the weather service. I wish I could remember his tales of basic training better. He grew up as a Brooklyn street tough and was a large barrel-chested man who was quick to anger and but just as quick with an apology. The thing that shocked him the most about military service was the unbelievable degree of anti-Semitism. He did his basic training down in Texas and was dumbfounded by the hostility towards Jews.
My father wasn’t a particularly lucky man, but he did arrive in Europe at just about the right time. I do not think he was there for very long when the war in the European theater ended. He was 19 years old, out of Brooklyn for the first time in his life, and had a war experience that leaned a lot more towards celebration then combat. However, he had heard the stories of the concentration camps and went to see Dachau because he couldn’t believe the things he had heard and wanted to see with his own eyes if they were true. He never spoke about the experience, but I know it troubled him to the core. Shortly after he returned, his lieutenant called him a Kike. Not an unusual experience given the amount of anti-Semitism that existed in the Army, but something that after seeing Dachau was untenable for my dad. In a rage, he delivered a roundhouse punch to the lieutenant, knocking him out. My dad always said that if the war hadn’t been winding down in Europe, he would have spent the next 25 years doing hard time at Leavenworth prison. Instead, he was busted down a rank and completed his service with an honorable discharge.
The war changed my dad. He had a chance to grow up and put the rougher side of his youth behind him. He very much wanted to go to college on the G.I. bill, hoping to become a high school history teacher. But, with millions of young men returning, the rules for becoming a teacher were extremely strict. My dad had a slight, imperceptible lisp that ruled out the possibility of a career in education. Disappointed, but armed with a kind of post nuclear faith in science, he took an aptitude test which suggested he should become an accountant. And that’s what he became, earning his degree at City College. But in those days, bizarrely, the large accounting firms would not hire Jewish accountants. So my dad settled into a decent living working in small Jewish accounting firms that serviced drugstores, luncheonettes, garment manufacturers and in what would become his specialty, the music business. The hours were long and the pay was slim, which is how he wound up living with my mother’s parents, primarily a way to save money.
I’m sure living with his in-laws was difficult for my dad, but for me it provided one of the greatest childhoods ever. My grandparents were warm friendly family people. My grandmother was a world-class cook of kosher Jewish delicacies. Her pot roast was legendary. Her kreplach light and flaky, and her blintzes were out of this world – everything made from scratch, and then cooked in caramelized onions, filled with cottage cheese and raisins. My grandfather was formerly in construction. He and his father had a company that built new houses in Queens. Unfortunately, the depression crushed their business. My mother remembers my grandfather hiding in the closet when creditors came knocking on the door. He eventually would spend much of his life working in a cigar store, until my dad came along and taught him bookkeeping. He spent the last 10 years of his working life as a bookkeeper at the Brooklyn Navy yards. He retired promptly at the age of 65 and spent the rest of his days sitting on the front porch, watching the traffic and listening to country music on a transistor radio.
He could build just about anything. As he had heart troubles in his later days, I became his hands and provided the manual labor for his many projects. He also loved making his own wine which we would drink on the holidays. We had grapes that grew in the backyard and my sister and I would harvest the grapes and then grind them with potato mashers in giant ceramic pots in the basement under my grandfather’s direction. All throughout the year the basement had a rich smell of fermenting grapes.
Although they kept kosher, and my grandmother would light the Shabbos candles, my family was not religious. However, when I became of age, my father became more involved with the synagogue, eventually becoming its president. Attending services on the high holy days with my father and grandfather was fraught with mystical emotions. It was an Orthodox synagogue around five blocks away from where we lived. The temple was filled with music. I loved the old melodies and the fervor with which they were sung. To this day I get chills when I think back on the singing of the Kaddish or the Kol Nidre. Yes, the Cantor sang with passion and conviction. But it was seeing the inexplicable emotions on the faces of these tough men that moved me so deeply. Men who’d come from the old country with nothing in their pockets and had ground out a difficult living in a foreign country. Men, like my grandfather Meyer, who were uncomfortable expressing feelings. And yet, there they were, fighting to hold back the tears. It was only years later that I realized that almost everyone in that room had lost family during the war - family that was lost not only in combat, but through hunger, disease and starvation. Mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts, nieces and nephews who had perished in unspeakable circumstances in the work camps and in the ghettos and in the concentration camps.
Later, back home, my mother and grandmother would lay out a feast to break the fast. And I remember the joy and happiness around the family table.
All of my family are now gone, some way too soon. I discontinued the rituals of my youth. But Yom Kippur is still a special day for me. Not for any religious reason, but as a day to remember the times so long ago spent with my family. To summon the warmth and love that surrounded our table. And to honor the majesty and the sorrow of the men in that synagogue and the history of the Jewish people.
Jeff Rosen, Film Producer
Manhattan, 2021/5782
Jeff Rosen can be reached at: jeff@specialr.com