Race

If you look up the word “race,” you will find quite a few entries which can broadly be grouped into two:

• ·       a contest of speed
• ·       a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics

These two meanings made it the perfect title for a film about Jesse Owens, winner of four gold medals in track in the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin.

Jesse Owens, born in 1913, was a young man whose amazing talent became apparent by the time he was in high school. The movie begins as he leaves his boyhood home for Ohio State University, where he joins the track team. The movie makes no attempt to soften the rampant racism with which he is confronted every day in everything he does. Even after winning those four gold medals, he continued to be shamefully treated by many whites, remained prohibited from sharing common spaces with white students, and was never invited to the White House to receive honors along with his fellow Olympic medalists.      

While limiting the movie to that relatively short period of his life before and just after the 1936 Olympics (Jesse Owens died in 1980), the filmgoer does not learn anything about what happened on his return to the United States. Although very well-known and cheered when he earned those four gold medals, once he returned he was just another African American, subject to all the same discrimination that had long been a part of this country, and, listening to some of our current politicians, appears to continue to this day.

After the games, he was barred from participating in further amateur sports competition, and was not much welcome in the professional sports world. By the end of 1936 he was racing against horses in Havana just to make some money. Rather than crowds of 100,000 in Munich, he was lucky to appear before 3000.

Watching this movie gives much pause. Part of the story involves the many Americans who did not believe our country should have participated in the 1936 Olympics in Germany. There was never a complete consensus but majority opinion supported participation and most athletes here and around the world did participate, with small numbers of Jewish athletes remaining at home. The movie makes clear that leaders of the Black community here in the United States tried to convince Mr. Owens to stay at home, and that he was really torn by the decision. Of course it is easy to admire his decision in retrospect because, from the viewpoint of the Nazis, he did the worst possible thing: he prevailed against the Germans. It would have been a much darker story had he not run so well.

I cannot help but wonder how I would have acted had I been a young adult in the late 1930s. Even in the 1950s and 60s I remained in a Caucasian cocoon. It was not until going to college in the early 1970s that I thought about people of other races. But just because more people of color were being admitted to schools that had been predominantly white did not mean that there was any meaningful interaction between the students. I remember at the time I was confused and disappointed that the Black students on campus tended to keep largely to themselves. Seventy years was not long enough to erase the negativity stemming from the years of slavery. Here we are at well over one hundred years since slavery was abolished and still wrestling with the fallout.

Although this movie did not get very high scores on Rotten Tomatoes, I still recommend it, because I think it was well done and, from what I have read, fairly accurate. If I have gotten either the details or the message wrong, please do not hesitate to share your thoughts.

Love,

Rebecca

Call me a cockeyed optimist

After spending the last few frigid days confined to quarters, we had a chance to see Michael Moore’s new documentary film, “Where to Invade Next.” We have seen almost all of his films, so we have long realized that he can be a bit loose with the facts and biased in his approach, but the audience is always left with something to ponder or discuss.

“Where to Invade Next” is no exception. He starts with a cartoon in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff are asked a simple question: why has America spent so much money and lost so many lives and wars since World War II? Rather than answering that question, he travels around the world trying to glean solutions to some of the non-military problems with which the United States is suffering.

He visits eight countries, studying different aspects along the way, and here is a very brief summary of what he finds:

Country	Service	Highlights
Tunisia	Health care	Government manages health care; the film emphasized women’s health issues
Finland	Education	The excellent public schools in Finland have been discussed quite a bit in recent years
Norway	Criminal justice	Local law enforcement with emphasis on rehabilitation, very few guns
Germany	Social services	Government provides excellent social support for families
Portugal	Drug use	Government has decriminalized drugs, provides extensive rehabilitation services
Iceland	Gender equality	Government, with persecution and imprisonment of “white collar” crimes
Slovenia	Education	Government provides free college education
France	Nutrition	Government provides high quality, delicious, and nutritious school lunches

The film is beautifully done, with many breathtaking scenes of country sides, quaint cities, workplaces free of tension and schools filled with happy and healthy children. It is certainly a very interesting topic and he makes a compelling argument. At this point you are probably waiting for the “but….,” and here it is: I just wish he would be a bit more honest. By painting such a rosy picture of life in these other countries, I am left wondering about what he is not showing us. He does, at least, throw in one encouraging point at the end of the film, reminding us that during various times in our history we have done a better job of addressing some of these issues. We need to get back to those ideals.

It will be a long road ahead. United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had barely breathed his last before every one of the Republican presidential candidates insisted that they would block any nominations put forth by President Obama.

Oy.

Love,

Rebecca

Taking note

For as long as I can remember, Barry’s mother (may she rest in peace) kept one of those “At-A-Glance” calendars on her dresser. She used it to keep track of appointments with doctors and items that needed to be addressed on a periodic basis, such as quarterly tax payments. Early each year she would purchase birthday cards for family members and slip them into the appropriate dates for mailing.

Every fall I would order her the calendar for the next year, which I did this past fall. Even at that time I remember thinking about whether she would need or be able to use the calendar for 2016.

This morning I received this email:

   ATnAnGLANCE

It’s your life. Take note.

Dear TERRY ROSENSTEIN,

Your current subscription status with AT-A-GLANCE is: UNSUBSCRIBED which means that, unfortunately, we cannot contact you via email regarding the expiration of your dated planning products.

However, we want to inform you of a new management feature which allows you to only receive emails regarding the expiration of your planner. This option restricts all promotional emails, leaving you with a tidier inbox.

To update your account status to receive only expiration notices about your planner, please click here and select “Renewals” for your AT-A-GLANCEsubscription.

Sincerely,
The AT-A-GLANCE Customer Account Team

I was struck by the manufacturer’s tag phrase, “It’s your life. Take note.” Losing a close friend or relative does make us take note of our own lives. I don’t think that’s what they meant, but there is never a better time than the present for us to stop and count our blessings.

Love,

Rebecca

A new picture

It took a while to get it all together this year, but finally we have a new family photo!

We were up in Sharon for the weekend, a trip we squeezed in by driving just before each of the two storms. We made what turned out to be a wise list minute decision to leave New York on Thursday evening rather than risk being unable to drive due to snow on Friday. As predictions for the second storm were moving the onset earlier and earlier, we decided to get up very early this morning and head back to New York. There has only been a dusting here but they were predicting quite a bit of snow along the route from New York to Boston. So once again we have dodged the bullet, so to speak.

Under ordinary circumstances we would have just driven back yesterday. But we did not want to miss Maya’s first “piano party,” also known as a recital. This effort to perhaps decrease the fear of performing that many children and adults experience is touching, but I can say without doubt that Maya was not fooled. Simmie told us that she had a wonderful conversation with Maya on Sunday morning. Maya said that she would not make any mistakes because she practiced so well. Simmie asked her what she would do if she did make a mistake. They talked through the possibilities and she decided she would simply pick up where she left off and go on playing. She apparently did have a small glitch in her first piece, but not being familiar with it I did not catch it. She obviously handled it very well. Having played piano for many years and performed in many concerts, I can say that being able to bounce back from a glitch is at least as valuable as being able to play flawlessly, since no one is able to do the latter all of the time.

Four students performed, ranging from Maya through a young woman pursuing a master’s degree in music. Maya did beautifully. She was poised and calm, sat at the piano with perfect posture and hand position, and played three short pieces, the third a duet with her teacher. After the students performed, the teacher served light refreshments and then performed for those who wished to stay, which Simmie, Maya, and I did. Maya was watching very intently for the first few minutes before climbing into Simmie’s lap and falling asleep! She really does put all of her energy into her playing. Of course the nap may have also been the result of going to a sleepover party on Saturday night.

Wherever you are, stay safe and warm!

Love,

Rebecca

Free to speak at last

I have struggled to write these past couple of weeks. Each day, I ran a script in my head but when I sat down to write I could not seem to get the words to come. This new day of a new week of a new month seems an auspicious time to try.

Barry and I met on the first day of classes my freshman year (Barry’s sophomore year), outside of a Differential Equations class. Although we had some common friends and would run into each other occasionally, we did not start seeing each other until the spring, when I would come back to my dormitory room and wonder why this longish-haired guy in a flannel shirt seemed to always be sitting in front of my window.

By the time we left for our respective summers “at home,” his in New York City and mine in West Hartford, we were definitely a couple, and tried to see each other as often as we could, traveling back and forth on the bus or train between New York and West Hartford.

Barry’s mother ע"ה (may she rest in peace), and I got off to a rocky start. I still remember the first time I met her, at his parents’ lower Manhattan apartment on a high floor of a new building. I had awoken early and went to the living room to see the view and found his mother there. She started talking about Barry and told me how she imagined someday he would meet a nice girl across his laboratory bench and they would fall in love. What was I, chopped liver? Why did she think I was there? I took this to mean that she was not especially impressed with me. Only later did I realize that it had nothing to do with me, it had only to do with her little boy growing up and leaving home. So although she had said something that seemed a bit rude, it was more an expression of her being a mother than anything particularly objectionable about me.

It turned out I was probably correct. By the time we got married, and particularly once we had children, she seemed comfortable enough with me. Reflecting on this now, from the perspective of a mother-in-law, I understand how challenging it can be to navigate this territory with a grown “child” who you did not raise but you love because your child loves him or her. From that grown child’s perspective, she or he is more or less stuck with you, and there is no shortage of mother-in-law jokes that reflect this.

The years went by. Barry’s mother developed a very close relationship with our daughters as well as her other two granddaughters (children of Barry’s brother). Living in different places, the two sets of girls did not spend much time with each other growing up, but listening to what they shared at the funeral made me really appreciate what a nice and close relationship she had with them as well.

When I was diagnosed with CNS lymphoma almost 4 years ago (yes, it really has been that long), Barry and his brother decided that it would be best if their mother did not know. There were a number of reasons, and at the time it seemed the right course. Perhaps because I was not in the habit of going to see her often, she fortunately did not seem to notice that there was a long gap between my visits; I don’t think I saw her until close to a year after the diagnosis.

As most of you know, the disease and treatment left me at about 2/3 my pre-cancer weight, and most people seeing me for the first time looked noticeably shaken by it. I knew my mother-in-law’s eyesight was getting worse, but it was clear she could still see well enough to have noticed. So before my first post-treatment visit Barry had asked me to just tell her I had been dieting. But Barry’s mother, for whom a change in weight was always the first thing she noticed about any of us, did not say a word, not to me, not to Barry, not to the girls. For as long as I knew her, she commented openly on weight gains, perhaps not to the subject directly but to other relatives. How odd for me to be insulted that she did not comment about a weight loss!

The months and years continued, and because her eyesight continued to fail I never expected her to notice after that, and she did not. Still, I wanted to tell her about what had happened, largely because of the unbelievably loving care her son had given me during those darkest hours and since. I never had a chance to do that.

I know many of you reading this will think or say “if she didn’t know then, she definitely knows now.” I am not sure what I believe happens when we are gone, and it is hard to imagine that there isn’t something left of each of us out there. Still, I am sorry I did not push harder to tell her.

I want to express my deepest appreciation to the Rabbinic Team at Hebrew Institute of Riverdale:

Rav Steven, with far too little sleep you were kind, patient, and knowledgeable as you walked us through and made it happen

Rabba Anat, for your comforting presence and amazingly kind words

Rav Avi, thank you for taking time from your winter break to spend with us

We were supposed to have left for St. John yesterday. When all this started a number of weeks ago, we decided to cancel our trip. I guess we will finally find out just how well trip insurance works. And on a very bright side, we will not miss our Maya performing for the first time in a small recital this coming Sunday. Let’s just hope the weather holds out to let us go!

Love,

Rebecca