The poems in this post are part of a special section, curated by Ori Z Soltes and Robert Bettmann, The Jewish Experience.
Curses & Courtship
for my grandparents, Portia Heyert and Roy Perry
My grandmother called her future husband her “big Mick”
in a letter to her best friend;
my grandfather called himself “Roy the goy”
to her shocked Jewish relatives and friends.
The things their divided family & friends must have said to each other.
To my grandparents?
The tough words and ugly slurs that were used in Depression era NYC,
to ward off crossing cultural boundaries, keep folks in their separate boxes:
Mick. Goy. New York: everybody together, cheek by jowl, knowing and
competing with neighbors by naming each other ‘other.’
She: 5’1”, he 5’6”; he called her “Shorty.” She: culturally Jewish, raised atheist
in the Bronx. (Her father gave her an Italian name: Portia. Easier
to pass as non-Jewish. Not that Italians
had it easy. He’d thought easier. He’d fled Russian pogroms,
knew his name’s dangers, had suffered for the prejudice against his ancestors’ religion,
the ruling classes’ restriction codes – wanted better for his daughter,
taught her that names matter, told her she was named
for the brave woman in Shakespeare who spoke for mercy.)
She joked
with that Scottish-Irish red-headed elevator boy who became her “big Mick”
from the first time they met in her bookstore on Waverly Place,
using even others’ caustic words as a bridge to bring them together.
Being Othered
after reading Natasha Trethewey’s “Enlightenment”
When what’s true for you is always counted out:
denied, attacked, to be driven off,
driven away, forced out.
But what I remember (it’s so hazy now, not even like
my experience, but I know it was me)
when I was thirteen
how in L.A., where my dad still lived, to Jason’s friends
I wasn’t Jewish enough, because I didn’t speak Hebrew,
didn’t go to Temple, didn’t get bar mitzvahed
but in the rural small town where mom moved us to
I was too Jewish just by existing,
having my last name suspected,
making me at odds with everyone,
with their accusing questions
for the monster in the zoo
Is it true Jews believe they are the Chosen People? Meaning,
how can your freaky people be so stupid not to know only Christians
go to Heaven, all your people go to Hell?
hearing the gunfire every Sunday morning
from the other side of the valley, our new neighbors explaining it
that’s just the KKK teaching their kids how to shoot
the attempts to convert me,
unbelieving any other faith than theirs
could be respected
the nightmares in high school: dreaming the Klansfolk in white hoods
were gathered outside in the middle of the night, the house already on fire
me too late, too slow, to get to my baby sister’s room in time to get her out.
that time after college, when I couldn’t comprehend
how my family still kept pushing me
to move back to that little town.
How later, the most famous local Klansman, a former Grand Dragon
was driven out by his own money troubles
after his conviction in the wrongful death lawsuit.
Decades after I’d got so used to being othered, after I learned
to accept all of me as others couldn’t, with that internal self-acceptance
that has lasted longer even than the hiding habits I’d developed to protect my family then,
now, walking my sister’s baby girls through another angry neighborhood,
Trump signs and confederate flags,
my three year old niece holds one of my hands as the other
pushes the infant’s stroller, nursemaid dog on leash, our hardy crew
of walkers staying carefully off the edges of the roads
without sidewalks as cars race too fast around the mountain curves.
Daniel H.R. Fishman, a native Californian – on one side the fifth generation raised in California, and on another the grandson of a New Yorker – is a writer from a family of writers. His book of poetry and creative nonfiction, Everyday Sublime, was published by Garden Oak Press. His work has appeared or is forthcoming from California Quarterly, the San Diego Poetry Annual, the Paterson Literary Review, The Walrus, Cherry Blossom Review, and Bear Creek Haiku.
Featured image in this post: Bookstore in Greenwich Village @ 1030 PM (4592975331), Paul Sableman, creative commons via wikimedia commons.