Miss Weisman

Saturday Feb 2

by


Enjoyed Installation Banquet
of Maccabean Camp at
Greenberg’s Roumanian
Casino, and in company
of Miss Weisman.

Sent home today $5.00

—————–

Matt’s Notes

This must have been quite a night for Papa. Not only was he installed as an officer of a B’nai Zion chapter he helped found, he did it in front of Miss Weisman, a woman who seemed to be an object of long-smoldering affection.

I wonder if the “longing to see Miss Weisman” after a “two-year lapse” he spoke of two days earlier (when she was a supporting player in the most dramatic and bittersweet episode of Papa’s year) was in part triggered by the approaching installation banquet. Perhaps the prospect of attending such an event without a companion attenuated his sense of loneliness and made him need to see someone important to him, or perhaps, in inviting “Miss Weisman” to see him celebrated and honored, he sought some kind of denouement to their romantic relationship.

Either way (if I’m right) I don’t think he knew why the urge to see her struck two days before the banquet; it just welled up and, as a romanticist, he saw any resulting satisfaction or poignancy as part of life’s natural theatrical sweep.

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Additional Notes

I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of rituals, speeches and food the Maccabean installation banquet would have featured, but I don’t have much information yet. Since it took place in Greenberg’s Roumanian Casino, about which I have no information, my mind turns naturally to Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse as a point of reference. Thus, I think the banquet must have been a crowded, noisy affair, with schmaltz on the plates and schmaltz in the air, as it were. Then again, B’nai Zion’s mission was serious and important to its members, so maybe the night had both sober and boisterous moments.

I did find one Jewish banquet menu from the 1920’s at the New York Historical Society, but it’s for the Temple Beth El Golden Jubilee Banquet and Ball, which, as a major celebration for a well-endowed Reform (i.e. liberal) synagogue, would have been very unlike Papa’s event. The menu certainly doesn’t reflect what Papa would have eaten at his own grassroots organization’s banquet (for one, it appears to contain both dairy and meat dishes, which would not have been kosher, both literally and figuratively, for Papa).

Anyway, since I have the information I’ll stick it up here for your enjoyment:

Temple Beth El Golden Jubilee Banquet and Ball at Hotel Biltmore

February 16, 1924

Fruit Cocktail

Cream of fresh Mushrooms a L’infanta

Celery – Salted Almonds – Olives

Cassolette of Sea Food Thermidor

Barised Sweetbread Montglas

String Beans au gratin – Potatoes Louisette

Royal Squab on Toast

Salad Palm Beach

Bombe Praline Fraisette – Cakes

Demi Tasse

Note that Temple Beth El that later consolidated with Temple Emanu-El, which occupies a much-admired building on East 65th Street.

Thursday Mar 6

by

Tried to see my lawyer after work
as per appointment but he was
not at home

I went to Miss Weisman
delivering the banquet picture
I spent there 2 hours in con-
versation with her,

Later me the manager
of the Success School Mr. Lubow
at the Parkway Restaurant
accidentally, he came over to
my table!

After a brief talk about my
brother in law, he declared he
would drop the whole matter
that he would not sue and
declared the incident closed

————–

Matt’s Notes

So, here ends our subplot about the dastardly Mr. Lebow — head of the Success School and the very man about whom Papa tried to see his lawyer earlier in the day — and his mistreatment of Papa’s brother-in-law, Phil. Since I have trampled on his memory already, I’ll keep it going and assume he only dropped the matter of Phil’s tuition (remember, he kicked Phil out of school and tried to collect tuition anyway) because he was drunk, fresh from a visit to an opium den, or feeling flush because he had just burglarized an apartment.

He couldn’t have been all bad, though, because he knew where to go for good chopped liver. The Parkway Restaurant, where he ran into Papa, must have been the very Allen Street Roumanian schmalzateria Calvin Trillin pines for in the “Mao and Me” chapter of The Tummy Trilogy. Like Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse, the only such restaurant I’ve ever been to, the Parkway is said to have had singing waiters and pitchers of chicken fat on every table, though I expect it didn’t strive for such novelty in 1924. Incidentally, the photo Papa brought to Miss Wiesman was from a banquet he attended with her at Greenberg’s Roumanian Casino. This means he ate Roumanian food at least twice in the span of two months, making his mere survival until spring something of a miracle1. Papa finds more ways to win my admiration every day.

Anyway: A trip out to Brooklyn to see his old flame, a happy ending to the Success School Saga, and a nice piece of chicken (or maybe a veal chop) at the Parkway. Not such a bad day for Papa.

————-

Additional notes:

1 – Quoth Trillin:

The standard line about Romanian-Jewish cooking is usually credited to Zero Mostel, a great fan of the Parkway: “It’s killed more Jews than Hitler.”

I hope to learn more when I get my hands on another Trillin article from 1974 in which he profiled the Parkway in more detail for the New Yorker. Perhaps it’ll reveal if the Parkway Restaurant and the Parkway Palace, which Papa referred to earlier, are one and the same.

————-

My mother writes:

I still wish I knew more about the elusive Miss Weisman. If she was an old flame and Papa took her to banquets and brought her pictures of their evenings together, why was she still Miss Weisman? Why not Eva or Sally or whatever her first name was? Such formality. Well, she couldn’t have been too smart if she didn’t see Papa’s worth and grab him for herself.