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Maccabean Meeting

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Matt’s Notes

As my legions of readers already know, Papa belonged to a Zionist fraternal society called Order Sons of Zion (a.k.a. B’nai Zion) that, like many immigrant-oriented fraternal and mutual support organizations of the day, provided its members with essentials like life insurance, a credit union, and burial services. When his chapter formed back in January, Papa lobbied to nickname it “The Maccabean” after the Jewish warrior heroes of old. His fellow members initially objected, probably because such a nickname seemed too warlike, but Papa, who detested the popular image of Jews as weak and bookish and sought to counter it wherever he could, eventually prevailed.

Papa’s desire to promote the image of the “muscle Jew” was, of course, not his alone; an entire subset of the Zionist movement geared itself to the same purpose, and, not surprisingly, the Maccabees found their way into the nicknames of more than a few clubs and organizations. Here’s a 1925 image of an Eastern European Jewish soccer club called “The Maccabees,” courtesy of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research:

And, just for laughs, here’s a 1918 photo (from the same source) of a scene from an Eastern European Yiddish production of the Longfellow play “Judah Maccabee”:

home – radio

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Matt’s Notes

This page of the diary has a printed notation at the bottom that reads:

A SUGGESTION – Time to order your diary for next year.
For duplicate of this book order by number in front.

If Papa took this suggestion, we don’t know about it. This is the only diary we’ve got, and this is the only month we have left.

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Opera Carmen
at the Metropolitan

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Matt’s Notes

It’s important to note that movies and radio, while ascendant in 1924, had not yet displaced live performance as the preferred form of entertainment in big American cities. When we see Papa going to the opera almost as much as he goes to the movies, we should remember that, while he was a true opera lover, his frequent visits to the Met were probably less unusual than my own frequent visits to the Film Forum.

Those who crowded in with Papa to see Carmen on December 5th certainly got their money’s worth. Though Irving Kolodin, in his The Story of the Metropolitan Opera, describes Ina Bourskaya as “rather dull of voice for leading roles,” the New York Times found her a “gay and vivid” as well as an “animated and vital” Carmen. Then again, the reviewer’s focus on her energy and appearance, as opposed to her voice, might be something of a veiled criticism, but I’m sure Papa didn’t begrudge her the many curtain calls she enjoyed that night.

Opposite her as Don Jose was the great tenor, Giovanni Martinelli, who was a third of the way into a storied 33-year Met career. (Martinelli had been in the unenviable position of overlapping with Caruso, but he made the most of it. “Many tenors were called to the Met” in the Caruso years, wrote the New York Times in his obituary, “but no others were chosen to stay…Only Mr. Martinelli survived the days of Caruso’s glory and emerged as an artist and personality in his own right.”)

Here’s a little snippet of Martinelli singing Don Jose (opposite Geraldine Ferrar) courtesy of YouTube:




And here’s a clip of Martinelli singing La fleur que tu m’avais jetee from Carmen, this time from archive.org.

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References:

INA BOURSKAYA AS CARMEN.; Again an Animated and Colorful Heroine of Bizet’s Opera. (The New York Times, December 5, 1924.)

Giovanni Martinelli, The Tenor, Is Dead; Giovanni Martinelli, Met Star 33 Years, Dies (The New York Times, February 3, 1969.)

The Story of Carmen at Metoperafamily.org

[no entry today]

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A visit to Blitz on 23rd Street amidst the Christmas decorations we contemplate the Zionist dream and the cause so dear to us. The doorways are made for giants and the rooms likewise, the smoke from Blitz’s pipe gathers up there away from our heads and obscures the patterns stamped on the ceiling. Clouds inside it seems to me a little world inside with its own weather, we shake hands and hug underneath it.

Blitz has small black eyes so sharp and kind and I think again he is clean shaven, he has always been clean shaven but still by some trick of the mind I remember him with a full beard, he seems even now to have a beard though he does not, the wisdom and tradition shadow his face unseen. Always he holds a journal in his hand, pencil at the ready to record new thoughts, I am flattered as ever when he stops to write down something I say, an idea he has not himself had, I suggest to him we invite the pastor of the church to our ball.

“Don’t sit back in that chair, Harry, the back legs keep breaking” he warns me and there are no other chairs in the office so I perch.

He worries still about Goldberg and we have an interesting discussion about other speakers for the ball, other choices. He has a list all good people, leaders we know but each one is engaged or not right for the occasion. Maurie practically famous will be in Baltimore for a lecture about his book, Joseph may extend his visit in London and so on. Blitz puts the list aside and says how about you Harry why don’t you speak at the ball?

The request is a surprise and then I remember I must call up Jack I have not yet told him of H’s suggestion for Saturday evening. I have never seen such a girl who would make such a suggestion to a man, a hotel room a ghost hunt but is that not the quality I so admire in her, so unafraid so part of these times? I forget Blitz’s warning and lean back in my chair and the legs shake and protest and I catch myself just in time, a jolt rushes over me and I stand up suddenly and I share a laugh with Blitz.

“Think about it Harry, people look up to you” he says still smiling and he grasps my shoulder as he would if the chair really had broken, as if he had really tried to prevent my fall.

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[Note: This post is a continuation of group started on Dec. 7]

Weddings of Brickner
and Jack Breidbart

Especially enjoyed
Breidbarts wedding at
Regina Mansion where I
was an usher.

[Papa accidentally wrote his December 20th entry on the December 18th page of his diary, so there’s nothing on this page but some ink smudges and a notation that reads “See page 353”.]

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Matt’s Notes

It’s hard to imagine how Papa managed to attend two weddings on a school night, especially if he was in the wedding party for one of them, but we’ll have to take his word for it. Perhaps Mr. Brickner’s affair was close enough to Breidbart’s wedding at Regina Mansion (according to the book Jews of Brooklyn, Regina Mansion was a catering facility at 601 Willoughby Ave in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood) to allow Papa to walk from one to the other.

Jack Breidbart has been one of my favorite characters in Papa’s diary, though I’ve always seen him as a rakish, incorrigible bachelor buddy, someone Papa can always count on for a good time. It seems dramatically fitting, then, for us to see him married off and headed for the next phase of his life in the diary’s final pages. Did Papa, as he stood there in his tux and enjoyed Jack’s good fortune, wonder for a moment or two when his turn would finally come?

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Update 12/21/07:

My mother posits:

Papa may not have gone to two weddings on the same night. I think he was recording the events together, since he had not written in his diary for several days.

Christmas Eve.
at Rifkis and then
with Clara B. at Sophie
Zimermans house,

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Matt’s Notes

Christmas obviously wasn’t that important to Papa as a religious holiday, so he probably mentions it here due to its more secular implications: an early exit from work on Christmas Eve, a day off on Christmas Day, and chance to stay up late visiting Rifki and Sophie Zimmerman (whoever they are) in the company of his cousin Clara Breindel. While he eventually learned to make other holidays like Thanksgiving his own (in a pattern typical for Jewish immigrants like Papa, certain American holidays didn’t make their way entirely into his life until his child, a.k.a. my mother, brought them home from school) I expect he remained only incidentally interested in Christmas throughout his life.

It’s worth noting that Papa doesn’t mention Hanukkah in his diary at all — evidence, perhaps, of its unimportance to Jews of earlier eras. (I’ve never known a time when Hanukkah wasn’t a major gift-giving holiday, but most Jews I know consider its popular elevation to Christmas-like significance to be an obvious and even unseemly contrivance.) Then again, if we consider that he argued to nickname his chapter of B’nai Zion, the Zionist fraternal organization to which he belonged, “The Maccabean” after the Jewish warrior heroes of the Hanukkah story, we might conclude that Hanukkah meant at least something to him. In fact, he didn’t write his his diary for the three days surrounding Hanukkah’s December 22nd start, and as we’ve learned by now his diary silences often signaled some kind of emotional struggle: When Papa was a boy, did his his father, the religious school teacher, thrill him with tales of the Maccabees and their exploits? Did Hanukkah, despite its insignificance to the Jewish community, trigger in Papa a longing for home? Was this longing even more difficult this year because his father died only a few months earlier?

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Update 12/25

My mother says Papa always told her stories about the Maccabees on Hanukkah, confirming (perhaps) that Papa may have heard those same stories from his own parents.

[no entry today]

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[no entry today]

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Matt’s Notes

No entry from Papa today, but we can picture him taking a good, long look at the morning papers on his day off. The Christmas edition of the New York Times has what seems like an unusually large complement of macabre stories, with tales of a crashed plane, a sunken boat, and a wrecked train accompanying more typical accounts of auto accidents and crimes gone awry. So follow me, if you dare, to look at some of the headlines that might have caught Papa’s eye:

• SAMARITAN IS ROBBED.; Stoops to Aid Man Feigning Collapse and Faces Pistol.
• EIGHT PERSONS DIE IN LONDON TO PARIS AIR EXPRESS CRASH; Plane Bursts Into Flames as It Dives to Ground After Leaving Croydon.
• CROWD SEES WIFE STABBED TO DEATH; Woman Attacked on Her Way to Work in Upper Broadway Delicatessen Store. SAY HUSBAND CONFESSED Police Doubt His Story That He Used Fountain Pen — Couple Had Separated.
• GUN GOES OFF; WOMAN DEAD; Casper Schmidt of Middletown, Conn., Charged With Manslaughter.
• HEARSE BURNS AT HOSPITAL; Auto Backed Against Heat Pipe and Gas Tank Explodes.
• SLAYS THE WOMAN HE TWICE MARRIED; Randolph Man Kills Her After Abduction Charge Following Recent Divorce.
• WHOLE FACULTY DIES WHEN STEAMER SINKS; Twenty-nine Russian University Professors and Their Families Drown Off Odessa.
• HOLIDAY SHOPPER KILLED BY A TAXI; Wife of Theatre Treasurer Is Run Down in Broadway at Eighty-first Street.
• Two Are Crushed and Burned under Train When Auto Skids Through Gates at Crossing

Some of the less gruesome stories of interest to Papa might have been:

• BIG PARADE FOR SMITH.; Over 3,500 State Troops to March at Governor’s Inauguration. – Papa admired New York Governor Al Smith’s pro-labor policies and had rooted for his nomination during the 1924 Democratic Presidential Convention. As an activist in both labor and Zionist causes, Papa took a keen interest in politics even though he was not yet a voting citizen.
• 500,000 GERMAN RADIO FANS.; Only 2,000 a Year Ago — 100,000 New Ones a Month Now Expected. – Papa was an early radio enthusiast, as we well know by now, so I’m sure he would have have followed any news about the developing broadcast industry with great interest. (This day’s paper also carried an account of the first-ever Christmas service broadcastfrom St. Paul’s Chapel in New York over WEAF, one of Papa’s favorite stations.) It’s odd to think there was a time when I didn’t know this about Papa, but it was a real surprise when I discovered it back in January. I suppose it’s normal, but I must say I’m getting sentimental about the early days of this project as Papa’s diary reaches its final pages.
• NEW YEAR’S WEEK OPERAS.; ” Falstaff” Revival and “Meistersinger” Among Ten Performances. – Papa had attended performances at the Met quite frequently toward the end of 1924, and there’s no reason to think he didn’t keep it up for the rest of the opera season. Some of the productions mentioned in this article that he might have been looking forward to include “Falstaff,” “Mesitersinger,” “Parsifal,” “Fedora” and “Aida.”
• RUSH TO SEE ‘THE MIRACLE.’; Police Halt Stampede in Cleveland — Seat Sale Over $250,000. – This article refers to the road tour of a high-profile theatrical extravaganza that Papa caught at the Century Theatre earlier in the year. (He called it “the most stupendous production I’ve ever seen” at the time.) The Times article likens the “stampede for the box office” to “the scene…which takes place prior to the initial struggle of the baseball world’s series.”
• UNIONS TO SPEND $1,000,000 ON HOMES; Needle Trade Organizations Plan to Erect Block of Model Apartment Buildings. – Though Papa has written mostly about his Zionist activism in his diary, he was an equally enthusiastic labor activist and would likely have known about this story — a planned low-rent housing complex in the Bronx for members of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the Furriers’ Union and the Cap Makers’ Union — before it appeared in the paper. In case you’re wondering, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. eventually took over this project, and the results was a low-cost cooperative called Thomas Garden Apartments at 840 Mott Avenue (now called Grand Concourse) at 158th Street.
• ROBINSON UNDERGOES A SECOND OPERATION; Manager of Brooklyn Robins Is Reported in Good Condition at Baltimore Hospital. – Papa was a big baseball fan and seemed equally fond of all three New York teams (though I am reluctant to acknowledge the statistical evidence that hints at his preference for the Yankees in 1924). I’m sure any scrap of baseball news would have been welcome on this cold and snowy day, even an account of Wilbert Robinson’s pleurisy surgery.