Memories and Memoirs | New Yiddish Rep

A Bitter Sweet New Year

Malky Goldman — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 19:47:29 +0000

It’s a new year!

Just a few years ago, it was new years eve, I wanted to hold on to the year that just passed. I remember 2018, going into 2019, I was shocked that I didn’t want the year to be over. I felt as if time was running away from me and I had so much I still wanted to accomplish.

But last night I felt different. The minute the clock hit 12 I took a deep breath and felt my heart expanding and oxygen going straight to my brain. This year… ah…what a year. I had so many thoughts of what went wrong, what I’ve lost, what worked well, things I did that I would have never done if this didn’t happen. The thing I can’t remember is what life was before all of this, and that frightens me. My brain feels so different. When I see something as simple as someone coughing while watching some tv show my heart skips a bit. Or two strangers shaking hands makes me run to wash my own. I don’t remember how it feels to walk into a room of people and be calm, or see family and loved ones and have full trust. There is always something between me and everyone and anything, like a partition… but how was it ever different? I can’t remember. Just last year for New Years I was in a large room half drunk sweating, hugging, kissing, loving, coughing from laughter, and now that life, that person, is all strange to me and feels like a novel that I read rather than a life I’ve lived. What was also different this year is that on new years I usually take out my notebook and start making lists and wishes of what I want to accomplish, then I get into productive-and-slight panicky mode. There is so much to do, I’m expecting so much of myself. But this year I’m strangely calm. I’m happy that 2020 is over. And whatever tomorrow, next week, month, this year brings I don’t know, but on my end, there is no list, no resolution. I’m just ready for 2021.

Here is my letter to the passing of time:

Dear new year, I know I’ve been too hard on you for the last 20 years, and I get it, you gave me hints in 2019 that I’m asking too much of you, and you acted out in 2020. But this year I’ll take every moment as it is. Please be kind to me.

Zaidy

Bunia — Wed, 27 May 2020 19:33:52 +0000

I don’t want my grandfather to die.

I’m just not ready. I know, when is anyone ever ready to let go forever? But not now, it’s the worst time. I haven’t gotten time to change him: my grandfather. To make him happy with me. I’m just in the midst of destroying every remnant of the relationship he thought he had with me and I haven’t gotten enough time to rebuild myself and come back and make him love. Me. Nothing was ever enough. Him and I couldn’t seem to ever have happiness. Not at the same time for sure.

So far, his last spoken words to me were when I rang the bell. I needed to pick up something from the house. “It’s me,” I answered to his “who is this.”

“Why did you say ME?” He asked, avoiding eye contact when I got upstairs.

“What do you mean?” I asked

“farshstaist doch vos ich main, es iz nisht dir.” he replied. “You understand what I meant- it isn’t you.”

Damn. I had even put on a long skirt with long sleeves. Okay, my toes were showing. But still, NOTHING is ever good enough for him. The family calls it high standards, I call it his disease. He projects it onto me, his childhood trauma and anxiety. His illness he calls religion. I have it too, and I feel helpless. Because there is nothing I could do to cure him. I can only save myself and drop his god, the god of my fathers.

I walked out of the house thinking that perhaps I had closure and I’m ready for him to die because to him, I was already dead. And there was no way for me to say I’m here, even in a long skirt.

But I was wrong. I’m not ready. No, not like this, and it’s not even because what will I say after, I’m not ready for me.

Yesterday he went into cardiac arrest. My grandfather is recovering, but even if he does, will I be able to go back to the olden days? Just sit, shmooze, and sing together? Is there a way to break through broken relationships, deep mistrusts, and be able to be light in spite of fundamental opposing values?

Yesterday at 2 am, I woke up in a panic. Was my grandfather thinking of me through his sedation? I just felt darkness, and I needed to know he’s alive. I texted a few of my aunts to ask about him.

It’s hard to swallow my pride and ask about him. Do they blame me for Zaidy’s stress? For his unhappiness? For his pain?

I’m not so innocent; there is no one who I hung up the phone on so many times. Five months ago I blocked his number. Okay, I asked for it. On one occasion he thanked me for coming to a cousins Simchah, and hoped to soon come to mine.

“You will be tzniusdik, so you will be happy, un ale velln zich freien mit dir, everyone will be happy with you.” I got fed up, and tested him. “Will you still come if he isn’t jewish? He can convert.” No, but then I would have to be frum, that wouldn’t work.

Okay, I probably won’t go for that. Truthfully, I never dated a non jew, but I’m not oppose to it ideologically. I just wanted to wake him up, that an event of mine would probably not have a mechitzah or Jewish music and only speeches by him. It would’t be a cookie cutter format like he has in his mind. And would he still be a part of it? Of my life?

“Bunia, do muzt gein tzu a psychiatrist, nemen a pill, es iz mamish nogeyah du zolst gein vos shneller.”

I hung up. Because that’s my limit. I won’t interact with that.

After a number is blocked, they can still leave voicemails. My grandfather would leave me weekly voicemails with long speaches of how mentally ill I am, how people who have such thoughts take medication. Sexual thouths? Sleeping with a goy thoughts? Frei thoughts? I don’t know exactly what thoughts he thinks I have, but I think I understand his idea of the root of mental illness. Avodas Hashem, the most attainable is the opposite of illness. Frei equals crazy and childhood abuse and neglect can be chasidish. I think we might have the same idiom, we only switch around the words. We cope differently.

To him, leaving yiddishkeit, is leaving life, a clear symptom of mental illness.

Lately his attempts to regain contact with me sounded more desperate. But still, like at the pace of a snail trying to stop a ticking bomb. “Ich gei dir nish zogn vi medarf zein.” I wont tell you how one must be. Just tell me if you are alive,” his voicemails said.

It’s weird, I see prayers for Rabbi schwei, in the news. Everyone say Tehillim. So many relatives. But some say to me that Zaidy only cares about me, that is also my fault, because they also mention that they don’t like talking with him because all he does is divert the conversation to ask about me. I hear that every time there is a simcha, instead of being happy, they say he reacts disappointed that it wasn’t this Bunia. It’s always been like that. and I’m not even saying tehillim. Sure, my thoughts are with him, and perhaps his attachment to me is not only because of being the first grandchild and the first to carry his mothers name. Maybe it’s also because me, because I talked to him like a human; I never treated him like a torah puppet.

I’m going with my Bubby to see him tomorrow. I’m nervous, because every time he or my grandmother were ill in the past, he would call me and say he’s dying, I need to get married to make him happy. I would find out if they were sick enough or not. I hated when they use illness to guilt me. Force me to listen to Yiddishkeit speeches, and help them perform all the frum ocdness customs which are hard to do while sick… Starting three years ago, if they were sick, I stayed away, even when my relatives tried begging that Zaidy asks for me. I wasn’t engaging in the Zaidy is sick now come make him happy, because you will regret it when he passes.

Tomorrow I show up, he wasn’t awake to ask for me, but I don’t know what scarres me more, if he’s awake or not. What will he say to me? Will we make peace? Who wins the stubbornness contest? What will his legacy for the family be? Will his control over the minds of his children be stronger or weaker after? Will it bring the family closer or apart? Is there anything he can say now that will help? Is there a way I can ask him to say anything that can promote unity and individuality in the descendants? I need time, because I’m not even ready to talk with him at all. And who am I even. I’m his back stabber. Literally, I’m told that, by my father, when I show emotion towards him with the complex relationship that we have. That’s what you do, when you are not tznius, you stab your grandfather and why do you even cry when you don’t regret it.

He is sitting on the bed post-extubation. He can’t speak yet but his face lights up in joy when he sees me. In that moment there is no “now you come?” He lifts his wired hand to his forehead in a salute motion and I don’t exactly know what that means if it’s like the good morning nod the Rebbe would do for the goy or if it’s thank you I knew you were a ment ch at the end of the day, or just something nice he knew I would like. Because it would be the only simple acknowledgement I remembered from him.

Eishes Chayil

Bunia — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 19:45:38 +0000

Eishes Chayil, a woman of strength, of value. The song on repeat repeat repeat as this skirt is being cut, pocked, crotch created. These lines of poetry viscerally cut me and I feel alive. The memory of this same tune in many homes and countries but always my voice in silence. The silence that made me feel safe in place. Reading, memorising studying and deconstructing these words with meforshim for the first time in high school. Shamefully, later teaching them.

I’m suddenly aware how problematic implications in these phrases hit me like first second and third waves of feminism as if for the first time. This beauty of a piece highlights and preserves the common main source of shame for women which is of never being good enough. It hurts more and I love it.

For those of us who have tried to live up to this superhuman character described in this song and gotten pretty close, the results are an unhealthy empty shell and super unattractive. A shadchan suddenly calls, “I saw you in pants and I thought of you because all the others look the same.” But Eishes Chayil was a lie because now my time has more value than to spend it with a stranger from a good family. And my inability to idealize men as much as i used to it saddens me. Closeness which I craved, now I see weakness_ their source of shame, and my idols are not as strong. It’s unsettling where to lean?

Always thought out, my reaction nerve disabled. Piha Pascha Bechochmo Vesoras Chesed al Leshona, kiss my ass. But still my most fluent language is in clothing, Kish mir in tuch…whatever. I only ever heard Yiddish speaking men say, it’s disgusting. Kiss my ass is maybe dumb but for some reason implies power. And mixing around languages helps integrate and embody the self.

Eye roll to those who thought my pants a literal joke and ain lonu reshus lehishtamesh bohem elo lirosom bilvad?! Objectifying still. The strength it took to wear them, rather did create an aura of a candy that nobody dares to touch.

And as I navigate through the margins of Jewish circles and loop around to some other artistic circles, I become painfully aware of the long term lingering effects of segregation and otherness. The compartmentalizing of masculine and feminine I hear all the time, and we need women to sing because women's voices are beautiful. As if men’s voices are unattractive. Did you even hear yourself? I wanted connection. To break through. I ask to examine. How dare I question a singular uncommon man's advocacy of Kol isha in the semi ortodox world?! And as I go through the five stages of feminism, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, I'm grateful that I can use other languages too now beside clothes.

Bubbe Maises באבע מעשות

Rochelle — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 03:38:29 +0000

My grandmother was a child of war and terror. As a young child in 1940’s Jerusalem, first under Ottoman Rule, then under the British Mandate she was kept indoors and hidden from sight. She was my great-grandmother’s miracle baby and my great-grandparents did everything in their power to keep her safe and fed. According to her traumatized account of her childhood, she spent most of it hiding out in bunkers as bombs fell. “My parents wouldn’t even let me go out to the chatzer*, instead I had to use chamber pots,” she would say to illustrate her point. First there was the War of Independence, then the First Arab-Israeli War, followed by The Suez Crisis, The Yom Kippur War and the Six-Day War. Thus, most of her childhood and adolescence were marked by the constant threat of complete annihilation, which compounded the already dire conditions of the Jews of the Old Yishuv.* Poverty, hunger and want were the norm, although my grandmother never complained of lack of food as her parents went hungry so that she could eat what meager food they had. However, my great-grandmother lost all of her teeth and had to wear dentures by the age of thirty due to lifelong malnutrition. Still, when my grandmother wasn’t bemoaning the trauma conflict and war had inflicted upon her during her youth, she would tell stories of piety and saintliness. By all accounts, my great-grandfather was a gentle scholar who was both wise and kind. An erudite man, he would learn with his only child, an unusual practice in their community, as girls were generally not taught Talmud. My grandmother bonded with her father over the study of Torah and would doubtless have become a renowned scholar in her own right, had she been born a boy. My mother speaks fondly of spending most of her pre-school days playing with her grandfather who also possessed emotional intelligence and nurturing skills. (My grandparents opted not to send her to pre-school.) Her favorite game was pretending to be the proprietor of a store and my grandfather would play along and pretend to be her customers after returning home from giving his daily lecture to other Torah scholars. My mother says that her grandmother took care of her physical needs and her grandfather fulfilled her emotional needs and my mother felt even closer to him. And I always knew that I would have borne his name, had I been born a boy. My grandmother spoke proudly of her lineage. She was an 8th generation Jerusalemite, descended of the Prushim, who were the first wave of Jewish Settlers who arrived from Lita (Lithuania) and who were strict adherents of the Vilna Gaon. The Vilna Gaon was to the Jews who are now referred to as Litvaks, what the Baal Shem Tov was to Chasidim. They were both considered contemporaries and great Rabbis who held opposing beliefs about the best way to practice Judaism. The Baal Shem Tov believed joy and good deeds were most important, while the Vilna Gaon believed that Torah scholarship and strict adherence to Judaic Law were the best ways to fulfill G-d’s commandments. The Vilna Gaon is also credited with inspiring the great Yeshivas of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Lithuania as well as the modern day Yeshiva culture, although it was one of his students who established the first one. The Prushim called themselves thus because Porush means to separate and their community kept itself completely separate from the Chasidim. Therefore, to date, I am related to at least half of the people in Jerusalem, as most of the old families have remained there and their offspring have married each other. My grandmother had an excellent memory and could recite all of the names of all of her grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on for many generations back. Israel’s current Deputy Minister of Education and former Knesset member, Meir Porush, looks eerily like my mother’s brother and is a distant cousin. I struggle to reconcile my love for my grandmother and all of the righteous ancestors she revered and remembered with all of the issues upon which I fundamentally disagree that Israel’s current Right Wing faction espouses. I know enough to know that many of these people whom I consider to be ignorant and brainwashed are also my relatives. If they saw me in the streets of Meah Shearim in jean shorts and a tank top, they might throw bleach at me, but if I showed up in modest attire, they’d be the first to welcome me in with genuine warmth, open arms, and food merely because my grandmother was Shifra Hirshler and a Braverman einikel (grandchild) and the great-granddaughter of Reb Avraham Shaag. And in the ancient cobblestoned streets of Jerusalem near Batei Ungarin, where she grew up, that is the epitome of street cred. My great-grandfather was the product of a blessing by no less an illustrious personage than R’ Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, a famed Rav of Jerusalem. It was a story my teachers would tell in generalities, not knowing the particulars. Apparently, among other Rabbinical duties Rabbi Sonnefeld performed, he was also the city’s mohel.* Once, he knocked upon the wrong door on his way to perform a circumcision. The woman who answered the door said, “The esteemed Rav must be mistaken, because I have only been blessed with daughters.” “How I wish I would have at least one son who would be able to recite Kaddish* when I die,” she lamented. “Don’t worry,” the Rav reassured her, “in a year, I will come back and it will be the right door. “ And lo and behold, a year later, the woman had a son. Thus, the teacher would usually conclude the tale triumphantly. The story was supposed to illustrate the Rabbi’s powers of prophecy and his direct connection to God, which allowed him to supersede the laws of nature. My classmates never thought to wonder whether the story was myth or fable. They also didn’t stop to wonder who that boy grew up to become or whether in fact he ever existed. However, I knew from my grandmother, that the story was indeed true and that my great-grandfather was that boy. 1 Courtyard which housed the buildings’ shared outhouses. 2 The first Jewish settlement in Israel after the destruction of the Second Temple. 3 People who originated from Lithuania who were vehemently anti-Hasidism on religious grounds. 4 Founder of the Hasidic Movement 5 The Rabbi who performs circumcisions. 6 Mourner’s prayer to elevate the soul of the deceased to a higher level in heaven. Generally recited by the mourner’s sons.

Memories of Marsha P. Johnson

Assimilated Amy — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 06:41:40 +0000

A friend of mine called me about a month ago and said she’d been scrolling through her news feed and had come across something she thought I might find interesting. ”Do you know who the Governor is naming a Brooklyn park after?” She asked. It took me barely a minute to hit on the answer. “Marsha P. Johnson. Am I right?” “Bingo,” my friend affirmed.

I first met Marsha P. Johnson in the late 1980s at the iconic NYC experimental theater The Theater for The New City. Marsha and I had been cast in a new Hot Peaches musical called Concentrated Camp. The Hot Peaches was a drag theatre company founded in the early 1970s by playwright/lyricist and collector of downtown characters, Jimmy Camicia. The company was known for its farcical romps, outrageous costumes, outrageous personalities, and gay political content. Jimmy’s shows explored the many issues affecting the LGBTQ community (a term that, back in the day had not been invented yet) with a particular emphasis on the plight of the drag queen.

I’m not sure how I ended up in the troupe. I am not nor have I ever been a drag queen as far as I know. However, soon after my husband and I had met Jimmy Camicia through a director friend I found myself draped in boas, sequins, and fake eyelashes, singing songs with titles like Chicks With Dicks and Pink Cupcakes. The Hot Peaches rehearsal process was a notoriously haphazard affair and it was especially so when Marsha was involved. She was a street queen-diva par excellence and being punctual was no concern of hers but making an entrance was. She’d stride into rehearsals hours late featuring a wide and glorious smile on her face donning outfits that were beyond. Her ensembles were adorned in a cacophony of tchatkes that consisted of a myriads of plastic flowers, rhinestone everything, sequins, Christmas ornaments, costume tiaras, and an array of found objects she had picked up from the streets of New York.

At the time of our meeting, Marsha had long been a fixture of the downtown New York scene. She had wracked up an impressive list of accomplishments. Andy Warhol had photographed her, she was a political activist who had spent years advocating for the rights of her drag queen sisters and others in the gay world. Legend had it that on June 28th, 1969 Marsha had been one of the first to throw a shot glass at the NYC cops thus going down in history as an initiator of the Stonewall Riots. The Stonewall Riots now recognized as a turning point in the battle for gay rights erupted after decades of harassment by NYC cops who had been given Carte Blanche to raid bars known to cater to gay and drag queen clientele. The Sodomy Law of New York afforded law enforcement the license to arrest those they’d deemed “deviant”. With Marsha at its helm, the Stonewall riots were a catalyst in dissembling New York’s stringent anti-homosexual laws. Unfortunately, Marsha’s activist activities did not pay the rent and she’d often have to walk the streets to make a living.

The Marsha I knew during my Hot Peaches days was not the first person I’d imagine to go on to gain worldwide acclaim of nearly mythological proportions, and be hailed as a saint of the LGBTQ community. The Marsha I knew was an eccentric character, warm-hearted, and slightly mad- sometimes a bit more than slightly. I have vivid memories of her performances with The Hot Peaches. She never remembered her lines or blocking. She’d improvise with whatever was in her head at the moment. There was a ditzy I Love Lucy quality about her and even though, when she sang, it was in the key of Z, her natural comic timing made her performances work. I never could figure out if her off-kilter stage persona was intentional or not. Offstage she had a free association way of communicating. Much of what she said was difficult to decipher but every so often she could be crystal clear, coherent, especially when it concerned gay rights issues.

The last time I saw Marsha was in the early 1990s during a Hot Peaches gig in London. We had just completed a month of performances and were set to return to the states. After the last show Marsha came up to me and my husband in a frantic state asking if we would please travel back with her to New York. She seemed scared and desperate, and we quickly changed our tickets to go back with her. The day we left London Marsha was dressed in male attire. This was the one and only time I saw her wear men’s garb. She looked uncomfortable in her too tight pinstriped suit and bow tie. She told my husband and I that she was wearing male drag because she was afraid of being harassed by airport security. We thought she was perhaps, being overly dramatic. After all, things were different now than back in the old Stonewall days, weren’t they? All went well with security at Heathrow but when we arrived at customs in New York, Marsha was flagged down. A bunch of macho customs officers demanded that she open her bags. They searched through her luggage and every time they came upon one of Marsha’s drag pieces they laughed, snickered, and made demeaning remarks. My husband and I were furious. Marsha, however, just wanted to get through the ordeal. In the cab we shared back to the city Marsha stayed quiet. I never saw her again.

It was sometime in the summer of 1992 that Jimmy Camicia called to tell me that Marsha’s body had been found floating in the Hudson River. The police, he said believed her death to be a suicide and were quickly wrapping up her case.

In the years following Marsha’s death many of her friends and fans have remained convinced that Ms. Johnson was murdered. In 2017, a documentary entitled The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson chronicled the LGBT activist Victoria Cruz as she forged her own investigation into Marsha’s death. At the films end no definitive cause for Marsha’s demise was established However, there questions were raised as to whether Marsha’s marginalized status as a black drag queen left the police uninterested in pursuing all possible leads. I guess some things never change.

Over the years, in memoriam, Marsha has become famous, an inspirational icon for the LGBTQ community. Movies have made about her, statues have been erected in her honor, university courses are dedicated to exploring her place as a pioneer in the history of the gay movement, and soon there will be a park named for her. Last month she graced the cover of Time magazine as one of the “100 most influential women of the year. To be honest, her belated fame has oft times baffled me. Out of all the fierce and fantastic queens of her time, why her, why Marsha?

Marsha was, undoubtedly a fiercely unique individual, a mixture of quirky, crazy, and profound. A natural comedienne and an on the front lines, unrelenting, and outspoken gay activist, she was unabashedly who she was. With her commitment to proudly embrace her gay and transgender identity, she was a non-binary warrior and she was ahead of her time. As she once said. “We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are”. So, to answer my own question, why her? That’s why.

If only she was around to witness her fame and glory. She would just plotz!

The Six Feet Between Us

Elie Benhiyoun — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 14:02:30 +0000

For the lovers disrupted by the lumbering ghost of Corona.

A tribute to human affection and contact, torn away from so many temporarily and beyond.

But for the six feet between us,

I would place my hand upon your hand.

I would throw my arms around your arms.

I would hold you close to me.

I would pass my fingers through your hair.

I would feel your softest parts pressed into mine.

I would goofily shoo you away, tapping your forearm without thinking.

I would gaze at your skin, seeing the complexion no lens can capture.

I would listen to you whisper, feeling your breath waft over my eyes like a gentle wind.

I would walk towards you, knowing in a moment only our clothes would separate us.

I would lie by your side, worrying about tomorrow but not this moment.

I would whisper into your ear, wishing I had popped a mint first.

I would feed you mouthfuls of delicacies, for once ignoring its worth in calories.

I would hand you that thing, brushing your fingertips with mine.

I would tell you about that guy, watching your eyes grow wide.

I would drink in your giggles, noticing how your mouth closes mid-smile.

I would change my plans if you were coming over.

I would get that shirt you like pressed for our night out.

I would love how the folds of your dress drape over my leg on the subway.

I would taste your dessert cause I never order my own.

I would snuggle up next to you on the Uber back home.

I would get in your way in my tiny Brooklyn kitchen.

I would read to you hardly caring if you listened because at least you were near me.

But for the six feet between us.