Poetica Magazine

Well what can I say; I am one of seven daughters of a Tsarist father and Mother who survived the Holocaust but barely survived their daughter’s teenage years. My grandmother, who lived to her late 80’s (her real age was never known to me or my sisters), managed to get by without ever having any surgery; my mother, who is now 79, has never had any surgery. So, here I am, a reasonably healthy 51-year-old woman with a ruptured disk and nerve pain that curls my hair and makes me weep. I opt for surgery, and lo and behold, have an abnormal EKG. I go through the battery of heart-related tests and I am cleared for surgery. I tell no one about the heart irregularity, but it slips and I immediately receive call after call from my mother. You see, telling one or more of my sisters is a pipeline to my mother; I don’t care how often or how strenuously I request that the news of my imminent surgery or heart irregularity not be relayed to her, she finds out. So, the calls begin; the first message is friendly, cloying me into returning her call, “Debbie, I heard that you may have had a heart-attack, I know it’s not true please call me back.” I know this brief prelude, is merely a ploy to suck me deep into the abyss that is my mother. The next five calls are decidedly less friendly and have a sense of urgency; “Debbie call me [low sobbing sounds accompany this] I am worried about you. Debbie for G-d’s sake call me” etc.

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So, I finally muster up the courage to call her and confront the surgery issue; she tells me she is against it, she tells me (this is the ultimate threat) that she is coming to the hospital like it or not…much to my husband’s chagrin. I finally tell her it’s going to happen, accept it, and fine, come to the hospital. I do make the final move of deception for my husband’s sake, and tell her that the surgery is a couple of hours later than it actually is…smart move and one that may ultimately save my marriage. This is outpatient surgery, no heart transplant, kidney removal or potentially life-threatening move on my part. As luck would have it, the hospital makes a boo-boo and after surgery they move me to a room; my mother has decided it is because of some underlying medical condition or glitch during surgery. Despite the fact that I am up and around attempting to decipher the hospital’s error, she is pretty certain that I am in imminent danger and is crying. I send her home because the last thing I need at this point is a crying mother and an inept hospital; I can only handle one breakdown at a time.

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The following week I spend speaking to my mother who cannot handle the fact that I am seemingly okay, and even a little bit better than that - I am walking and in almost no pain. This cannot be true and is a twist of fate for my mother, who is certain I am lying to her; insists on coming over and, after finagling a matzo ball soup ransom for her visit, I allow it to happen. Unfortunately, a visit means a clean house, so I am forced to overexert and help my hubby clean; we prepare a lunch as well. My mother and her liege (husband Bob) show up; she has brought her own lunch; a hard-boiled egg and piece of bread in a napkin. When she sees I am alive and kicking and a lunch is readily available she is thrilled. The daily calls go on for the better part of a month until I am recuperated, and am able to drive to her house to personally strangle her.

I like to see the reaction I get when I tell people that I am an Irish Catholic Jew. I don’t espouse either faith so it’s more for shock value than anything. I consider myself spiritually eclectic but that’s another story.

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Bloodlines don’t lie though. Bessie Kahn, my maternal grandmother, was born April 3, 1899 in New York City. Her Jewish immigrant parents were poverty-stricken and unwed, so when she was about two months old they deposited her in a white cradle that sat in the foyer of the New York Foundling Home. The cradle had been placed there by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul for mothers to anonymously leave their babies. Though it must have been a difficult decision for her parents, undoubtedly they hoped that the orphanage would open the door to a better life for their daughter. Because the foundling home was run by Catholic priests and nuns, they wasted no time in baptizing this Jewish baby and bringing her into the fold.

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When Bessie was just over two years old, she and 13 other children from the orphanage boarded a train bound for the Midwest to meet their adoptive families. They were part of The Orphan Train movement, which was so named because of the nearly 200,000 orphaned, abandoned and homeless children who were delivered by train to their new families between 1854 and 1929. Bessie got off the train in Frankenstein Missouri; she was adopted and brought up by the Gentges family. Her 61-year-old adoptive mother renamed her Rose and raised her as a devout Catholic.

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I can’t help but believe that my grandmother always felt a sense of abandonment, so perhaps that was why her union with my Irish grandfather produced 10 children, 39 grandchildren, 74 great-grandchildren and who knows how many great-great-grandchildren. Every one of the children and grandchildren was raised in the Catholic faith, which was largely due to Grandma’s influence. She was the most devoted Catholic I’ve ever known; her faith was steadfast and profound. I am sure of this...had she been raised Jewish, Grandma would have approached Judaism with the same passion and conviction that she had for Catholicism. That’s just the kind of person she was.

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So here I sit as I often have over the years, wondering what it would be like to live and breathe Jewish tradition. Questions run through my mind: What traditions could I have experienced? Which could I learn about and practice now without subscribing to the faith? Am I entitled to do this? Is there a nice Jewish family who would ‘adopt’ me and teach me their ways? Even though I’m technically considered Jewish, there’s a part of me that feels no sense of belonging. It’s like having a membership to a club but not being able to walk in the front door. Or owning something but not being able to use it. Or receiving a license to practice medicine but not being allowed to practice it. It’s a part of me that I don’t know how to express. There’s a certain irony in knowing that while I don’t have a close connection to the culture, there is enough Jewish blood running through my veins for me to have been sent to Auschwitz.

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It’s not like I was raised without tradition. There was plenty of that in my growing up household, much of which revolved around food, holidays and gatherings. We always joked about having been dealt double the guilt as a result of our Catholic/Jewish roots. I feel though like I’ve missed out on embracing the Jewish part of my heritage. I’m not angry about it...just a bit regretful I suppose. So instead of having a grandma who made me matzah ball soup, my grandma filled my bowl to the rim with her hearty turkey and rice soup. And instead of baking challah she lavished upon me the world’s best cinnamon rolls. No doubt Bessie would have gotten the same satisfaction and contentment Rose did as she watched me savor every spoonful, every bite.