Missed a turn in the latest Kafka controversy? Here’s a primer
By Kathi Diamant
SAN DIEGO — Franz Kafka has gotten quite a bit of play lately. His photo has accompanied headlines in any number of newspapers, magazines, and network news websites in the past couple of months, most of which include one or more of the following words: treasure, trial, nightmare, snarled, tangled, vaults, masterpieces, secret, lost—and, lest we forget—Kafkaesque.
In the past few weeks, CBS News, Time Magazine, Salon, The New York Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, and Haaretz as well as dozens of other news outlets weighed in on the acrimonious fight over Franz Kafka’s papers in the Brod Collection. One of the most thoughtful was by Rodger Kamenetz in the Huffington Post. Coverage on the trial over the Brod Collection in Tel Aviv extends to The National, published daily in Abu Dhabi. Franz Kafka is the Arab world’s favorite Jewish writer. Who knew?
Most of the news reports have been correct, more or less. The AP story by Aaron Heller stated, “Aside from previously unknown versions of Kafka’s work, the trove could give more insight on Kafka’s personal life, including his relationship with his lover, Dora Diamant. It may include papers that Kafka gave to Diamant but were stolen by the German Gestapo from her Berlin apartment in 1933, later obtained by Brod after World War II.”
I am sad to report that the papers stolen by the Gestapo were not recovered by Max Brod after World War II. Since 1996, the Kafka Project at SDSU has led the international search for these papers, 20 notebooks and 35 letters written by Kafka in the last year of his life, which most Kafka experts agree, represent the real missing treasure, not whatever remains in the Brod Collection.
As the Director of the Kafka Project and someone who has followed the story of the Brod Collection closely since 2001, I am happy to share the straight scoop, with links to the best sources, as well as a quick cast list to the Kafkaesque drama unfolding in Tel Aviv:
Franz Kafka (whose literary leavings in the Brod collection are trapped in litigation) was a Jewish-Czech writer who died at the age of 40 in 1924, largely unpublished and unknown. After his death in 1924, with the posthumous publication of his novels, letters and diaries, Kafka rose to international fame as a literary genius, one of the founding fathers of magical realism and the modern novel. He is considered the most influential, profoundly misunderstood writers of our time. His most famous works are two unfinished novels, The Trial and The Castle and the short story, The Metamorphosis.
Kafka’s strange stories have earned their own adjective, Kafkaesque, to describe a world where mindless bureaucracy destroys the mind and body and numbs the soul.
Max Brod, Franz Kafka’s boyhood friend who became his literary executor, was also, like Kafka, a Jewish Czech lawyer and writer. Brod famously defied Kafka’s requests to burn his unpublished work, and instead gathered as much of it as he could and arranged for its publication. “As far as my memory and my strength permit, nothing of all this shall be lost,” he vowed shortly after Kafka’s death.
Brod fled Prague in 1939 for Tel Aviv, where he died in 1968. He escaped on the last train as the German army rolled into Czechoslovakia, taking with him two suitcases, one filled with Kafka’s manuscripts, letters and diaries. During the Six Day War, Brod, concerned for the safety of Kafka’s manuscripts, transferred the most valuable to Switzerland for safekeeping in bank vaults. The Brod Collection is believed to be mostly in ten different safety deposits in Geneva and Tel Aviv, as well as in Ester Hoffe’s humid, cat infested apartment on Spinoza Street.
Without Max Brod, we would know nothing of Franz Kafka. Brod saved Kafka’s writings for humanity, only to leave what he had so carefully collected and saved not to the centers of Kafka scholarship in England and Germany, where his other manuscripts are scrupulously kept, but to his longtime secretary and (most certain) lover, Ester Hoffe, who hoarded them for forty years after Brod’s death, selling off single pages of letters, diaries and whole manuscripts, at random, to the highest bidder. At one point she accepted a very large sum from a German publisher, and then never sent the manuscripts she contractually promised. She never returned the money.
Ester Hoffe, a Holocaust refugee who died two years ago in Tel Aviv at the age of 101, was generally reviled by Kafka scholars and researchers, her name an anathema. Given Brod’s lifelong dedication to establishing and maintaining Kafka’s legacy, his gift of the Kafka papers to his secretary was an unfortunate choice. When she died in 2008, her two daughters, Eva and Ruth, now in their 70s, inherited the collection and decided to sell it to the German Literature Archive in Marbach, Germany, sight unseen, for one million Euros. Headlines rang out around the world: Secret Kafka Treasure to be Revealed!
Kafka aficionados, academics and researchers were thrilled. Priceless, possibly unpublished writings by Kafka would finally be available to shed new light to understanding this most misinterpreted and beloved writer. But then, in classic Kafka fashion, the plot twisted, with no path made easy. The National Library of Israel stepped in, claiming the Brod Collection as state cultural assets, a national treasure, which should not leave the country. The legal wrangling and academic outcry has been ably covered in dozens of articles by Ofer Aderat for Haaretz, which has a financial interest in the case. (Haaretz and many Kafka copyrights are owned by Schocken Books.)
So, for more than two years, the Brod Collection trial has dragged on in a Tel Aviv family courtroom, with drama aplenty, court-ordered openings of secret bank vaults, tales of theft and deception, a nightmare for Hoffe’s daughters, as if straight from Kafka’s own imagination.
When the Brod Collection first made international headlines in the summer of 2008, I was in Poland, on a six-week Kafka Project research project for the 20 notebooks and 35 love letters confiscated from Kafka’s last love, Dora Diamant, by the Gestapo in 1933. Before I embarked on the 2008 Eastern European Research Project, I wrote an article for San Diego Jewish World, “My Quest to Find a Literary Treasure,” explaining what we are searching for, and why it’s so important.
For almost a decade, I have been waiting to see the contents of the Brod Collection. In 2001, in Germany researching the biography of Dora Diamant, I first learned about the Brod Collection, and within it, the existence of 70 letters Dora Diamant wrote to Max Brod between 1924-1952. This was information vital not only for the book I was writing, but also for the Kafka Project. In one letter, written in Berlin in April 1933, Dora described to Brod the theft of Kafka’s writings by the Gestapo. Among the list of 70 letters, a stunning, four-page letter is catalogued, with the date, the return address, and a few lines describing what was taken. But, besides the Swiss lawyer who catalogued the Brod Collection in the early 1980s, no one else has seen that letter or any of Dora Diamant’s letters, telegrams and postcards written over a twenty-five year period.
I am only one of many who are holding a collective breath. The next headline you see on Kafka’s papers in the Brod Collection might announce a happy resolution. But knowing Kafka’s dark sense of humor, I doubt it.
In the meanwhile, Kafka Project isn’t waiting. Plans are afoot to follow up the 2008 Eastern European research, collaborating with the University of Silesia, Jagiellonian University, the National Library of Silesia, and the Polish National Archives in 2012. The Kafka Project is working not only to recover a lost treasure and open a new chapter in literary history, but to repair at least one of the crimes of the Third Reich. If you want to learn more about Kafka, I am presenting a six-week survey, Kafka in Context, for the Osher Institute for Lifelong Learning at SDSU, starting Monday, September 13. To register, contact osher@mail.sdsu.edu. Here’s a link for more information on the SDSU Kafka Project.
Stay tuned for the next headline!
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Diamant is director of SDSU’s Kafka Project, a journalist, and author.
Sidebar:
For further reading on this case, here are a few of the best articles covering the Brod Collection’s many twists and turns:
Huffington Post: “Kafka Manuscripts: The Fight Over Kafka”
Time Magazine: “Were Lost Kafka Masterpices Stuffed in a Swiss Bank Vault?
Washington Post: “In Israel, a tangled battle over the papers of Franz Kafka”
CBS: “Lost Kafka Papers Resurface, Trapped in Trial” CBS News (AP)
Ha’aretz: story on safety boxes being opened, another on estate executor receiving boxes.
The Guardian: “Lawyers Open Cache of Unpublished Manuscripts”; “The Kafka Legacy: Who owns Jewish Culture?”
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Conference of Presidents seeks walkout from Ahmadinejad U.N. speech
NEW YORK (Press Release)–It is anticipated that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will once again seek the platform of the United Nations to spew his hateful rhetoric, threats and bigotry as he has done on several occasions, including at the Durban Review Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, and the UN Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference.
Alan Solow, Chairman, and Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chair, of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations have called upon UN member states to walk out of the UN General Assembly should Ahmadinejad be given the opportunity to address the international body.
“It is imperative for nations to cherish the values of freedom and mutual respect and absent themselves or walk out if President Ahmadinejad speaks before the UN General Assembly. We are issuing the call well in advance of the UNGA opening session so that nations have a chance to deliberate and ample time to make a decision. President Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric has only become more extreme as have the violations of human rights under his government.
“Optimally, we would like to see Mr. Ahmadinejad denied the opportunity to speak at the UN as he violates its charter by threatening and calling for the elimination of another member state. Failing that, we believe that the disapproval and rejection of his incitement, support for terrorism and gross violations of human rights by walking out of his speech is a critical message for member states who value democracy and freedom to send,” said Solow and Hoenlein.
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Preceding provided by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
New Zealand stays restrictions on kosher slaughtering
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (WJC)–Jews in New Zealand have won a temporary exemption from a new legal requirement that animals must first be stunned before being slaughtered. Representatives of the Jewish community last week filed legal proceedings against Agriculture Minister David Carter and on Monday said said a Wellington court had ordered a temporary exemption until the case is decided next year.
Carter had announced in May that he was requiring pre-slaughter stunning for all commercial killing of livestock. About 300 lambs and 2000 chickens were commercially slaughtered according to ‘shechita’ last year. The minister later apologized to the Jewish community for any offense caused when he told veterinarians: “We may have upset a relatively small religious minority, and I do appreciate their strong feelings for this issue, but frankly I don’t think any animal should suffer in the slaughter process.”
More than half New Zealand’s sheep are killed by halal slaughtermen for the Islamic market, by cutting the throats of electrically stunned animals. However, shechita slaughter requires the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries and jugular veins to be cut using a sharp blade to allow the blood to drain out. The animal cannot be stunned or unconscious.
The New Zealand National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee first recommended a dispensation for the kosher slaughter in 2001, but most recently said it would prefer there were no exemptions from the requirement that all animals slaughtered commercially were first stunned. It said there was evidence calves which simply had their throats cut experienced pain, and it had the “strongly held” view that the cattle, sheep, goats and possibly poultry would experience similar pain.
Wellington Jewish Council Chairman David Zwartz predicted the case would be argued on the grounds that the Bill of Rights allowed for freedom of religious practice, and the requirement for stunning was an infringement of the right of Jews to observe their religion.
Other countries to ban shechita include Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, and the European Parliament earlier this year voted in favor of a new regulation which could lead to kosher meat being labeled as “meat from slaughter without stunning”.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress
Adventures in San Diego Jewish History, June 11, 1954, Part 2
Compiled by San Diego Jewish World staff
As the Psychologist Sees You
Southwestern Jewish Press, June 121, 1954, page 2
By Irving R. Stone, Psychological Consultant
“Escapes from Reality”
I believe everyone looks at himself in the mirror at least once a day and views the environment about him from his home or office several times a day. Each time he forms an opinion, often not expressed aloud to others. Sometimes, these opinions are brushed from our thoughts without further consideration; at other times they represent emotional responses which are quite disturbing.
Reality is like every one of those views and every attempt to escape reality is our way of finding displeasure I what we see. Mental hygiene requires that we face reality and not hide from it; we must not only learn to accept ourselves as we are but must accept the conditions of the external world as they exist. True, it may be difficult but if we struggle to escape reality we court a mental breakdown.
Realism allows a person to operate on a level of aspiration that will be a reasonable one for him. He will seek attainment within his capacity; the discrepancy between ability and level of aspiration will be minute or non-existent. If unrealistic, constant failures will create havoc and lead to a disrupting effect upon emotions.
Escapes from reality, like everything else, may be of different degrees. The extreme condition, where detachment from reality is complete, is seen in psychotic patients. In a less severe condition, we see the person of dull intelligence attempting to complete or even enter college; the person with an average salary trying to “keep up with the Jones’s,”; or the young man with little athletic ability fighting against the lack instead of accepting it.
Persons with physical handicaps soon must learn that they are limited in their particular condition and adopt a form of compensation which will give them satisfaction. The person who is blind resorts to sound to help him get around; the person who is deaf depends upon sight.
Often one’s interests are out of line with one’s aptitudes and we frequently see someone wanting to engage in an activity for which he is not suited. But, as long as we keep our goals within our reach, we have a chance for success. Too often we try to emulate someone else, forgetting that no two persons, except identical twins, are ever exactly alike.
In the same way, we must see our fellow human beings as they are and not as we would like them to be. This applies to our parents, our children, our friends, our political leaders, and our neighbors in other countries.
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From Where I Sit
Southwestern Jewish Press, June 11, 1954, page 2
By Mel Goldberg
The Town and Country Club requires that applicants for admission list their religion… Why?… Tempers are flaring over the “confidential list” sent out by the Community Chest to business “chief executives.” It lists business firms, the number of their employees and amounts of contributions. It also lists those who did not give. The procedure may or not be okeh, but someone certainly slipped up on cross-checking. In more than one case, people who own several business and gave their contribution through one, were listed as non-givers in the other business. This creates an erroneous impression. Fund-raisers who make up “black-lists” for public consumption, should exercise more care, before releasing them.
Bobby Beck tells about a bopster cannibal, who ate three “squares” a day… David Weissman saw a headline, “Jewish People Seldom are Problem Drinkers.” Maybe they just can’t mix a problem drink properly. Or, perhaps, the Jewish problem is stiff enough a potion for them without alcohol. … Many World War II veterans have tossed some vitriolic remarks at the Red Cross because the organization charged for services rendered at clubs overseas. Never publicized, however, was the true story. The Red Cross was compelled to charge because of a directive issued by the U.S. Secretary of War. Our government took this stand as a “diplomatic measure” to keep certain foreign allies happy, because their troops were being paid much less than ours, and it was felt that this measure would keep other troops from feeling too resentful about the better amenities supplied to the U.S. forces.
Al Perper heard of a fellow who told a faith-healer that his brother was very ill. “Bosh,” said the faith healer, “he only thinks that he is ill.” A few days later the two met again and the faith healer inquired about the “ill” brother. “Oh, he’s worse,” said the brother, “now he thinks he’s dead”. … Report from a teacher of the 2nd grade in suburban San Diego school. Session began last September with 34 students, present enrollment is 35. … There are 58 student names on her full year registration and only 6 students present in attendance were registered last September. How’s that for turnover. … Maybe it helps explain why some children have trouble spelling “cat.” … Mike Soule passes the story along concerning the hen who was gazing at a dish of scrambled eggs and muttering, “Man, dig my poor crazy mixed up kids.”
A local social service agency suggested that one of their unemployed clients, take advantage of his idle time while looking for work, by attending night school. This seemed to be a worthwhile project, since the man in question would probably have had a better chance to secure a job, with some educational background… On his next trip to the unemployment office, h mentioned that he was now attending night school, and they cut off his financial assistance because as they put it—“he was unavailable for work.”
Strange but true: there was a mezuzah on the door at the F St. Rossi headquarters … Pre-viewed the new library… It contains many new innovations in library construction and despite its simplicity and lower than anticipated cost—is definitely a showplace. Sig Stein mentioned to the chef at the 4-A Roundup that Lawrence Welk was in the dining room enjoying the prime ribs. In acknowledgment, the chef, a veteran of the kitchens asked, “Yeah, who does he cook for?”
The Navy’s withholding commissions on five Annapolis graduates, needs plenty of explaining. Since when are we responsible for acts committed by relatives. If the actions of a grandfather or an uncle, etc., are to be used as a basis of an individuals character assessment or loyalty background, then we’d better start floating a big bond issue to build bigger and better jails, ‘cause the present pokeys aren’t going to hold all the relations of unfavorable characters… We’d also like to know how it’s possible for a buy to go through 4 years in a service academy, and then suddenly, they find on his graduation, that he is a security risk.
Art Leitch, the East San Diego real estate man, has opened a new office at 6300 El Cajon Blvd….It was refreshing (in the midst of all the political harassing) to note that one of Art’s competitors took it upon himself to insert a welcome salute to Art in the daily paper…That’s real praise! We might add that we have had occasion to deal with Art for some time now, and only wish that all our business relationships could be as pleasant… He’s the kind of guy, we enjoy seeing successful.
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Personals
Southwestern Jewish Press, June 11, 1954, page 3
Mr. and Mrs. Nate Ratner and their sons, Harry and Larry, are leaving for a tour of Europe on June 25, on the S.S. United States. They will be gone approximately three months. The Ratners have been feted by many of their friends wishing them Godspeed.
Among them were Mr. and Mrs. Alex J. Newman, MRs. Ben Gordon, Jolly 16 and Mr. and Mrs. Milo Berenson Jr., Charity League, MR. and Mrs. David Frank, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Drogin, Mr. and Mrs. George Martin, MR. and Mrs. Murray Goodrich, Mr. and Mrs. Abe Ratner, Mrs. Martco Ratner; Mrs. R.M. Stone, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Newman, Mr. and Mrs. R.W. Smith, and Mesdames Sam Smith, Abe Smith, Ray Smith, Isadore Shapiro, and David Horowitz.
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Nixie and Roy Kern celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary by spending, according to Nixie, “five glorious days” at Big Bear Lake.
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Mrs. Jennie Drogin and the Bill Warners left Wednesday on a motor trip to the north. They plan to spend several weeks seeing Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.
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Showered—Bride –elect Esther Weitzman was complimented with a miscellaneous shower biven by Mesdames Charles Press, Morton Thaler, Nathan PRager and I Domnitz on June 3. Fifty five guests attended.
On June 19, Mrs. William Schwartz will entertain in her garden with a luncheon and personal shower for Esther. About 40 of Esther’s young friends are expected.
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Pre-theatre Cocktails
Several gay cocktail parties were held preceding the J.C.C. Co-operative Nursery School Globe Theatre Party on June 1q. Dr. and MRs. Melvin Karzen entertained Messrs and Mesdames Harold Reisman, Mort Lieberman, Sidney Berman, Abe Malkoff, Arthur Rubin and Dr. and Ms. Seymour Okmin.
Mr. and Mrs. Murry Luftig had as guests for cocktails in their home Messrs and Mesdames Frank L. Gegaz, George Lykos, Lester Friedman, and W. D. Smell.
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Foreign Note – Writing from Paris, Edie Press Greenberg and her husband, Dean, thank all the people in San Diego for their good wishes and wedding gifts received. Mr. and Mrs. Zel Greenberg are in Paris spending some time with them. A San Diego get-together was held when Sam and Roanne Krasner visited them from Germany.
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Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Veitzer are understandably delighted at the news that their son, Leonard, will be home from Japan the first part of July. Leonard will be receiving his Army discharge soon and plans to return to the University of California at Berkeley and his studies in Architecture.
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The San Diego contingent in Las Vegas over Memorial Day included the Jack Wyners and Al Teppers; the Harry Spatz’ and Jack Spatz’; and the Ted Naumans and Harry Sugarmans.
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Bar Mitzvah -0- Raphael Levens, son of Rabbi and Mrs. Monroe Levewns, was Bar Mitzvah at services at the Tifereth Israel Synagogue Saturday, June 5. Raphael conducted the Sabbath morning services and delivered an address. A Kiddush and luncheon followed the service.
Jay Lawrence Sugarman, son of Mr. and Mrs. David Sugarman, will become bar mitzvah tonight (June 11) at Temple Beth Israel with Rabbi Morton J. Cohn officiating. A reception will follow the services.
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Young Prexy—Congratulations to Phil Brenes, son of Mr. and Mrs. Sam Brenes, who has been elected president of Woodrow Wilson Junior High for the 1954-55 term.
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Flies to Wedding—Mrs. Betty Cohan is flying to the wedding of her granddaughter, Susan Jane, daughter of Harold Cohan. The wedding will performed on June 26.
Hostesses at a farewell party in Mrs. Cohan’s home were Mesdames Hyman Rabinowitz, Arthur Block, L. Schlesinger, Edith Segal.
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European Jaunt – Ira Fischbein and his parents, MR. and Mrs. David Fischbein, flew to New York June 7 and then by K.L.M Dutch Airlines to Amsterdam, Holland. They will then tour through Israel, Italy, Switzerland and England. They plan to return in about 6 weeks on the S.S. United States.
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New Appointment – Irving M. Stone has been appointed to lecture at the College for Men of the University of San Diego. He will teach the courses in Psychology and Education in the fall.
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Art Note—Suzanne Hutler, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Al Hutler, was chosen to hang her picture in the Fine Arts Gallery as a member of the San Diego Art Guild. Susie’s work can be viewed this week.
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Birdie Stodel to Hold Membership Luncheon
Southwestern Jewish Press, June 11, 1954, page 3
Birdie Stodel Chapter 92 of B’nai B’rith Women, will hold a paid up membership luncheon on Monday, June 14, at 12:00 o’clock at the Temple Center. Lunch will be served free to all members whose dues are paid up for the year.
The following members were elected as delegates to the District Convention to be held in San Francisco: Mrs. Morris Kraus, Mrs. Jeremiah Aronoff, Mrs. Ted Brav, and Mrs. Berwin.
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‘Nite at Ball Park’
Southwestern Jewish Press, June 11, 1954, page 3
Morrie Douglas and Alvin Cushman won season baseball passes at “A NIte at the Ball Park,” sponsored by Temple Beth Israel Men’s Club and Sisterhood on June 2.
Awards donated by Morrie Douglas, William Erichsen, Milton Roberts and Bill Starr were won by top ticket salesmen: Lillian Rosenbaum, Rose Weinberger, Sid Posin, Sam Sussman, Dick Silberman, Sam Berger and Al Brooks.
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Z.B.T. Mothers’ Invite
Southwestern Jewish Press, June 11, 1954, page 3
Zeta Beta Tau Mothers’ Club Card Party is Saturday, June 12 at 8 p.m.at the Beth Israel Temple Center. In addition to cards, they will be entertained by the fraternity members; there will be door prizes and refreshments will be served. Donation is $1.00 per person and a good time is assured all who attend.
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Cradle
Southwestern Jewish Press, June 11, 1954, page 3
Cantor and Mrs. Joseph Cysner announce the birth of a daughter, Pamela Rochelle, born May 29 in the Quintard Hospital and weighing 6 lbs, 4 oz. Big sister, 5 year old Charlotte Susan, is delighted with the new arrival.
Grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. David Nagler of London, England, and Mrs. Chaja Cysner of San Diego.
In honor of naming the baby, a Kiddush is being served after Sabbath morning services, June 12, at Tifereth Israel Synagogue. The community is most cordially invited.
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Mr. and Mrs. Harry Schonfeld and 18 month old daughter, Rochelle Anne of Pomona are happy to announce to all their San Diego friends, the birth of Benjamin Allen, on May 19. The husky young man weighed 7 lbs 7 oz.
San Diego grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. David Hurwitz and Mr. and Mrs. Sam Schonfeld.
A bris was held in the Schonfeld Pomona home on May 26 with MR. and Mrs. Seymour Saltzman acting as godparents.
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Classified
Southwestern Jewish Press, June 11, 1954, page 3
Companionship and home for elderly lady. HO-9-7358.
Mature woman wanted as baby sitter in College area. References. JU 2-5364.
Room for Rent in a very nice home. Cooking privileges. ½ block from bus. Call before 11:00 a.m. or after 65:00 p.m. AT-4-6586.
For Sale – Paisley shawl, lace, antique, gold jewelry, fine china. Phone BE 9-7340.
Woman Will share modern cozy apartment with working woman. Everything furnished. Near bus lines 1 and 2. AT1-2102; AT-1-7869 after 6 p.m.
Driving to N.Y. about June 20. New Chev. Will take 1 or 2 riders to share driving aned exp. JU2-6429 after 5:30 p.m.
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Calendar
Southwestern Jewish Press, June 11, 1954, page 3
June
12th—ZBT Mothers’ Club Card Party-Temple Center -8:00 p.m.
13th—Beth Jcob Men’s Club “Golden Nugget” Nite – B.J. Center – 6:00 p.m.
13th – Tifisra Men’s Club June Dinner—6:30 p.m.
14th –Birdie Stodel Luncheon – Temple Center -12 noon
14th –Lasker Lodge –Variety Show-Temple Center – 8:00 p.m.
17th—Bay City B.B. – Garden Luncheon Paryt –4525 48th St –12 noon
19th—Fox Lodge Card Party – Beth Jacob Center – 8:00 p.m.
20th—Pioneer Negba Cloub Donor Dinneer—6:00 p.m
26th—Y.J.C. Installation-Admiral Kidd Club
27th—J.C.C. “Lucky Nite”—Beth Jacob Center – 6:30 p.m.
29th – J.W. V. Aux. Membership Tea—4565 Norma Dr. – 1:30 p.m.
30th—City of Hope Aux. –Anna Shelley Memorial Luncheon.
July
4th – Y.J.C. Picnic—Presidio Park
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“Adventures in Jewish History” is sponsored by Inland Industries Group LP in memory of long-time San Diego Jewish community leader Marie (Mrs. Gabriel) Berg. Our indexed “Adventures in San Diego Jewish History” series will be a regular feature until we run out of history.
Curtsies, tips of the hat and other lost gestures
By Natasha Josefowitz, Ph.D.
LA JOLLA, California–There are gestures belonging to another time that we don’t use anymore. There were ways of functioning on a daily basis that would seem foreign today. We relied on objects now obsolete. We all have our lists of nostalgia.
I remember those wire baskets for the washed lettuce. We stood on back porches and swung them in large arm circles to get the water out centrifugally. To flush a toilet we had to pull on a chain, and I remember the day I grew tall enough to reach it by myself.
All men wore hats and tipped them to salute a woman in the street or kissed an extended hand. Ladies wore gloves, and girls curtsied.
There were no readymade clothes in Paris in the twenties, or anyway, none that my mother would buy, so there was always a seamstress living in a garret who would sew clothes we would pick from photos of runways, and I had to endure what seemed like endless fittings. Hats too, were made to order. And as for shoes, I remember the minutes we stood under the x-ray machines in every shoe store and watched our toes wiggle, no one suspecting that we were getting an unhealthy dose of radiation. Homework was mostly hours practicing good penmanship and every night our shoes were placed outside our bedroom doors to be found shined by morning.
We got a bath once a week, but bidets were used daily. Hair was washed once a month, rinsed with carefully accumulated rainwater and chamomile tea—to give hair a shine—with endless minutes of brushing, a ritual followed by sitting with wet hair on the balcony to dry in the sun.
Our sewing machine had a treadle worked by foot, and I liked to sit under it as a child and move the treadle up and down while my mother sewed. Our maid did the laundry using a corrugated washboard, then put the wet clothes through a ringer and ended up drying them on a line strung from wall to wall in the kitchen or outdoors when we were in our summer home. She also used to hang the rugs on the balcony and beat the dust out of them. Apparently the carpet sweeper did not do a proper job. We also used to air our clothes after they came out of mothballs. Springtime meant bright cotton slipcovers to go over the satin and brocade chairs and sofas. And whenever we went away for the summer months, mother draped the furniture in sheets.
We went either to the beach in Brittany or to the mountains in Switzerland. Husbands came on weekends and also took the month of August off when the whole of Paris shut down. We always went away with family and friends, so there were babysitters available when the rest of the family went on excursions too arduous for the children.
Cars and taxis had running boards for easier entry. I could use one now especially when getting into SUVs. Buses had a cord near the ceiling that we pulled whenever we wanted to get off. The cord activated a bell that rang by the driver. This was very efficient; the bus kept going until someone was ready to leave. Cobblestone streets were everywhere, and I remember when the first asphalt road was built to circle the city. How amazed we all were at the smooth ride.
We had an ice man that brought a large block of ice (to place in the correctly named “ice box”) that lasted all week, dripping slowly into a pan that was changed daily. We also had a coal man who threw coal down a chute under the building. His face was black with coal dust. We left empty glass milk bottles outside the kitchen door, and every morning there were eggs, butter, and milk with its heavy layer of yellow cream at the top.
Sundays, we took our dominical walk, Mother and Father ahead (the governess had her day off) and the children running behind with hoops, roller skates, and scooters. We always stopped for tea, a croissant with a bit of chocolate inside for my brother and me. We were also treated to one-penny black licorice rolled in a pinwheel with a little red sugar candy in the middle.
I don’t miss any particular thing, but I miss some of the forgotten gestures–the genteelness of the time. I miss the little girl with the long red braids tied with a large bow, the innocent age, the time between the two world wars.
I was six years old when Mother gave birth to my brother in 1933. I remember her saying that it was not a good idea to bring a child into the world at that time, as there were already ominous rumblings in Germany. Six years later, we were refugees in America, trying out new gestures, new behaviors, getting into new routines that our grandchildren will also remember with nostalgia.
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Josefowitz is a La Jolla based freelance writer. This article previously appeared in La Jolla Village Voice.