First Stop in Morocco: Casablanca

One of my all-time favorite movies is “Casablanca,” considered by many to be the best film ever made. So, when our temple planned a Jewish heritage tour to Casablanca and Morocco, I eagerly jumped aboard. So did Gilda (though she is not as big a fan of the 1942 film). Another 33 intrepid travelers to the casbah and beyond joined our mid to late February adventure. 

Let’s dispose of several myths. First, a casbah or kasbah, is not a romantic hideaway in an Arabian town, a common misperception based on a line of dialogue (“Come with me to the Casbah”) that has become part of folklore but was never said by Charles Boyer to Hedy Lamarr in the 1938 movie “Algiers.”

A casbah is a fortress inside a walled enclosure where a ruler resided, much like a keep in European castles. It is not a warren of dark, crowded alleys where merchants hawk goods of varying quality and families live above the mercantile fray. Those are commonly known as souks; in Morocco they are called Medinas. 

Second, Rick’s Cafe in “Casablanca” was a figment of Hollywood imagination, though an enterprising entrepreneur opened a movie-inspired Rick’s Cafe restaurant and bar in Casablanca in 2004, even featuring a singing pianist named Esam, the closest name to Sam the owner could find. Like moviedom’s Captain Louis Renault, authorities would be “shocked, shocked” to find there was gambling inside the modern Rick’s Cafe, though local Muslims rounded up as usual suspects could escape punishment by claiming to be Jewish Moroccans, Jews being excluded from Islam’s prohibition on gambling. 

In 1950, some 300,000 Jews lived among Morocco’s near 10 million population. But waves of emigration, mostly to Israel after its founding in 1948 and after wars in 1956, 1967, and 1973, left only a remnant of Jews, perhaps a trifle more than 2,000, in Morocco while the general population grew to near 38 million. Casablanca is home to the largest contingent of Moroccan Jews.

The film’s background story of desperate Europeans converging on Casablanca to obtain travel visas to Lisbon and beyond to escape the Nazis was pure fiction, as well.  

The hub of escape intrigue was Tangier, not Casablanca. As our tour guide Mokhtar explained, the background story of Casablanca could not have happened there. Victor Laszlo could not have gotten out as German troops, not the Vichy, controlled the city. 

Life in Tangier, on the other hand, was similar to what was depicted in the movie. Situated at the southern tip of the Straits of Gibraltar, Tangier was declared an international zone because neither the Allies nor Axis adversaries wanted to cut off transit into and out of the Mediterranean Sea. Refugees flocked there to secure passage to freedom. 

To Hollywood, Casablanca became a more salable name for a film. The 1946 Marx Brothers caper “A Night in Casablanca” capitalized on the city’s fame, while Bing Crosby and Bob Hope chimed in with “The Road to Morocco,”  also in 1942. 

Mokhtar, our licensed guide of inestimable knowledge of Moroccan history and culture, fluent in several languages, with a quick wit, darting eyes and expressive smile that tolerated even the most mundane tourist inquiries, explained that Casablanca means “white house,” a reference to the white buildings throughout the city. Cities along Morocco’s long coastline have many white buildings as white keeps facades from being degraded by sunshine. 

Casa, as the city is called by locals, has become the commercial, cultural and financial center of Morocco. It also has the second largest mosque in the Islamic world, exceeded only by that in Mecca. And it is home to seven functioning synagogues, though it is difficult for each of them to muster the required minyan of 10 adult males for congregational services.

The focus of American Jews on their heritage has mainly been to central and eastern Europe, first on the migration of their ancestors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, then, sadly, to the tragic annihilation by Nazi Germany and its henchmen of families members left behind.

Yet Jews have lived in Morocco for more than 2,000 years, arriving some 600 years before Mohammed’s disciples spread the teachings of Islam. Morocco has sheltered numerous prominent Jewish scholars including Maimonides. It hasn’t always been a bed of roses but recent history with the kings of Morocco have been among the most positive of their time in Morocco. 

During World War II, Morocco came under French Vichy control. When the Nazi-aligned government sought to identify Jewish Moroccans for eventual transport to death camps in Europe, King Mohammed V refused. His successors have maintained unofficial but extensive relations with Israel. 

Israelis from Arab countries, for example, cannot go back to their homelands, but Moroccan Jews in Israel can return to walk in the neighborhoods of their youth or visit cemeteries where their ancestors are buried, gravesites maintained with the assistance of the Moroccan government.

(Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of blogs on Morocco and its Jewish heritage.) 

Today's Public Service Announcement

Do you know what the pressure is for the municipal water that flows into your home? 

It should be between 40 and 60 PSI (pounds per square inch) but if your attention to this important detail is anything like mine was, you are facing potential disaster. Unchecked water pressure is like unchecked blood pressure. No outward symptoms. High blood pressure can cause heart attacks or strokes. High water pressure can burst pipes and flood your home. 

A recent routine maintenance visit for our hot water heater revealed water pressure of 100 PSI. The water pressure reducing valve was quickly replaced before any calamity could occur. 

We acted expeditiously because of what happened six or so years ago in our niece’s remodeled kitchen. When Julie came home from work one afternoon she found water cascading down from a second floor bathroom. A pipe had burst. Her recently remodeled kitchen required a complete redo, as did her adjacent dining room. 

Now, to be completely honest with you, Julie’s flood was traced to the absence of any water pressure reducing valve. Years of unchecked water pressure exacted its toll that fateful day. 

There’s no telling how long my pipes would have lasted at 100 psi. For sure, however, they’ll last longer at 50 psi. 

In case you’re wondering, our shower has lost some of its force. It’s a small price to pay for greater peace of mind.  

Karlovy Vary Now and Then

 An offshoot of the war in Ukraine has been the antipathy bordering on anathema Czech citizens have for Russians since the invasion a year ago. It is particularly apparent in Karlovy Vary, a spa town that for centuries catered to the wealthy, particularly Russian aristocracy and well placed commissars (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/world/europe/czech-russia-karlovy-vary-tourists.html?smid=em-share). 

Gilda and I visited Karlovy Vary, perhaps more commonly known to Americans as Carlsbad, in January 1998. We were driven there by our host, Václav Kašpar,  the vice dean of the University of Economics, Prague, who had invited me to Prague to deliver a presentation on American retailing. 

The Czech Republic was emerging from the sphere of Soviet Union-Russian influence. Capitalism, spearheaded by retailing, was a vital area of interest. 

As we drove the approximate 80 miles west to Karlovy Vary, the greyness of winter could not obscure the reality that life under the Soviet Union’s thumb had sapped the countryside of much of its splendor, a truth that became more apparent as we entered Karlovy Vary and toured one of their spas. Perhaps Russians would accept dilapidated treatment rooms and baths, but by Western standards the spa left much to be desired.

No doubt in the decades since our visit Karlovy Vary has upgraded many of its facilities. 

Most prominent in my memory of our stay in Prague was the experience of my presentation, a speech I had given several times in other European cities and in America. Back then I used a carousel of some 140 slides to illustrate American retailing. 

The half-circle auditorium was filled. It was set up like a theater, with seats banked upward to just below the ceiling. Above the top row there was a booth for the audio-visual staff who had taken my slide carousel for projection to a screen behind where I stood on the stage. I was given a remote clicker to advance or return to a slide.

Shortly after beginning I glanced at the screen to make sure the slides were in sync with my script. They were not. They were two ahead. I pushed the return button. Nothing happened. I pushed again. Nothing happened.

Seeing my distress, the A/V staff assumed my clicker had frozen. So every time they saw me press the clicker they manually advanced the slide carousel. As I was continually trying to go backwards, they were moving the carousel forward. While I would be talking about Walmart, they would be displaying a slide about Macy’s, for example. 

I soldiered through my hour-long presentation, relieved that the consecutive translation at least let my audience hear my words. I had stopped trying to sync the slides after realizing it would never happen. 

Václav apologized for the technical mishap, presented me with a commemorative medal from the university and arranged to take Gilda and me to Karlovy Vary the next day. 

Upon our return to Prague, an added bonus was a visit to his mother’s residence. A widow, she had an apartment in the central city that reflected the grandeur that once was Prague’s. 

It had parquet floors throughout the three bedroom apartment, with high ceilings and large windows. It was furnished with dark brown bureaus and tables. 

It was an apartment certainly too large for just one occupant. Indeed, Václav, his wife and son lived with her until they opted for a more suburban home of their own. 

For Republicans, It's Miller Time, All the Time

 Seems “It’s Miller Time,” all the time, for the GOP. 

A New York Times profile of one of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s BFFs had this to say about primo lobbyist Jeff Miller: “Miller’s place at the intersection of power, money, influence and access has made him one of the most important behind-the-scenes figures in Washington” (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/us/politics/jeff-miller-lobbyist-kevin-mccarthy.html?smid=em-share).

Now, there’s nothing improper about Miller’s derring-do, if you accept the validity of our lobbyist culture. And there can be little doubt Miller has clout, as he numbers among his clients “Apple, Anheuser-Busch, Dow Chemical, General Electric, the Wall Street giant Blackstone, Occidental Petroleum, the drugmaker trade group PhRMA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.” 

What struck me about his access, his closeness to power in Washington, is his last name. Miller seems to be a repetitive surname among Republican consigliere. 

Take, for example, one of the more strident advisors to Donald Trump during his presidency—Stephen Miller. He was a senior advisor and director of speechwriting, as well as being a bulldog defending Trump immigration and repressive policies on newscasts and talk shows. 

Then there was Jason Miller, another Trump ex-senior advisor, this time focusing on his failed re-election campaign.

No doubt I am missing other Millers with Republican bonafides, but the one that immediately jumped to mind, considering my age, is William E. Miller, a former congressman from upstate western New York, whose conservatism so impressed Barry Goldwater that the Arizona senator chose him to be his vice presidential running mate in 1964 against President Lyndon Johnson and Hubert H. Humphrey. 

The Goldwater-Miller ticket lost badly, but it did succeed in pushing the “Southern Strategy” that has been Republican dogma since Democrats pushed through liberal voting rights and social welfare programs in the early 1960s. Seeds of the eventual success of the conservative strategy focused on white voters could be seen in the fact that in 1964 Goldwater-Miller won the following states: Arizona, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_E._Miller).

Also for geezers like me, William Miller stood out as one of the first real people to be highlighted in American Express’ wildly successful “Do you know me?” advertising campaign. Stores and restaurants might not have recognized the retired politician, but they would gladly accept his AmEx card. 

In other words, money talks. 

****************

As long as we’re on the subject of politics, Republican style, heres’ a letter to the editor of The Times submitted by Tim Shaw of Cambridge, Mass. Tim’s commentary is a response to a Times article on Trump’s chances to secure the GOP presidential nomination in 2024 (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/us/politics/rnc-trump-2024-election.html?smid=em-share):

“Lately there have been many reports of Donald Trump’s imminent political demise, but despite the predictions he remains a dangerous opponent and a formidable campaigner.

“His power has always come not from politicians but from ordinary people who see him as a bigger, more successful version of themselves. However inarticulate he sounds to the rest of us, the message his base hears is always clear.

“Many of his handpicked candidates lost in 2022 because of their own failings; his appeal to the MAGA base appears undimmed.

“He is a fighter, with the constitution and mentality of an alligator, striking back ferociously when attacked. He has no regard for the truth, but he has realized that millions of voters don’t either.

“Certainly none of the sorry bunch of Republicans mentioned in your article have anything like his power on the campaign trail.”

I couldn’t agree more or said it better.

50 Years of NY Times Headlines Marking Our Marriage

When Gilda and I stepped out of the Madison Jewish Center on Brooklyn’s Nostrand Avenue an hour or so after the clock chimed 12 times heralding a new day—January 29, 1973–we hugged each other ever so tightly, surely because we were now husband and wife but, equally important, the ground was covered in several inches of fresh snow, the first measurable snowfall in 320 days.  

Until this week, the end date for the longest number of days New York City went without measurable snow of at least 0.1 inches in Central Park was January 29, 1973. We newlyweds were among the first to slush our way through the first snow of the season. 

Seems our fiftieth wedding anniversary is linked to some other auspicious micro and macro happenings that day. Did you know that “CBS Sunday Morning” debuted that day? (Perhaps that’s part of the karma that makes the newscast one of our favorite TV shows.)  

On a more global level, the front page of The New York Times on January 28, 1973, our wedding day, was entirely devoted to the cease fire agreement signed by the United States, South Vietnam, the Vietcong and North Vietnamese, ending what had been America’s longest war. Concurrently, the military draft was ended, replaced by an all volunteer force. 

One of the mementos of our anniversary celebration Saturday night was a bound volume displaying the front pages of The Times for each of the last 50 January 28s. Purists might argue that the news reported those days actually transpired a day earlier, but let’s not look this gift horse in the mouth. 

Reading through the year by year front pages revealed how similar news can be. “Scores dead and thousands stranded as Midwest faces more snow” was the headline in 1978. 

A headline four years later could just as well be from a few days ago: “City will add 400 to night patrols in subway trains.”

Thomas L. Friedman was reporting from the Mideast in 1983. His front page report: “The ordeal of Lebanon goes on as three foreign armies dig in.”

Jump to 1989 for stories that evoke news of today: “Effort to ban assault rifles gains momentum,” while two headlines spoke to Afghanistan’s hold on our attention: “Bush says U.S. will seek a role in Kabul’s post-Kremlin stability,” and, “Rough road out of Kabul for Soviets.”

The Super Bowl this year is nearly two weeks away, but in 1991 The Times trumpeted, “Giants win Super Bowl with nail-biting finish.” 

Progressives have lamented Supreme Court rulings in 2013 and 2021 gutting major portions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Here’s a headline from 1992: “In retreat, Supreme Court limits scope of ’65 Voting Rights Act.”

Electric cars are now in demand, but in 1994 the paper reported, “Expecting a fizzle, G.M. puts electric car to test.” Nine years later, the headline purred, “Hybrid autos quick to pass curiosity stage.”

For the first time, as noted in 1998, “First Lady {Hillary Rodham Clinton} attributes inquiry {into President Bill Clinton} to ‘right-wing conspiracy.’”

2003 was the year The Times warned, “College loans rise, swamping graduates’ dreams.”

New technology in 2010: “With its tablet {the iPad} Apple blurs line between devices.”

No resolution yet, but in 2013, “Senators offer a new blueprint for immigration.” A year later, “Backing in G.O.P. for legal status for immigrants.” 2021 update: “Immigration plan raises hope, but reality cools expectations.” 

Our wedding date comes the day after International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In 2016, “Letter reveals plea for mercy by (Adolph) Eichmann,” an architect of the Final Solution. He was sentenced to death by an Israeli court. Four years later: “Auschwitz survivors warn against silence in face of new perils.”

2020 was Year 1 of Covid: “Feeble health system in China strains to combat deadly virus.”

Though this year’s front page could not make it into the bound volume, the lead headline for January 28, 2023, expresses the sadness, anger and, yes, unimaginable depravity, engulfing our nation: “Held and beaten by Memphis police as he cried, ‘Mom.’”

It has been a truly momentous 50 years.  

Fifty Years, Half a Century, and Counting

The first time I became aware of Gilda’s existence was in June 1969.

We were attending a meeting organized by the incoming president of Brooklyn College’s House Plan Association, an organization of more than 80 social clubs, each with a maximum of 35 members. House plans were similar to fraternities but, given BC was a commuter school, they did not provide residential accommodations. 

Aside from being president of Knight House, I was the editor of “Calling Card,” the HPA newspaper. Gilda was president of Russell House. She also was the first female ever elected to student government.

Meeting in the basement of a single-family home, I sat in a chair at one end of the room. Gilda sat on a high riser couch on the other side of the basement.

After the meeting she asked if I was interested in her contributing articles on student government. Sure, I replied.

Over the summer we went our separate ways, I to be a division head counselor in a summer camp outside Albany. Gilda stayed in Brooklyn. She was a seamstress in a Greenwich Village clothing store, making, among other garments, a cape for Frank Sinatra. In the Village she spotted a poster for a three-day concert in the Catskills. She bought four tickets to Woodstock which she ultimately gave to a friend who never made it to the music festival because of the massive traffic jam on Route 17.

In September I entered my senior year. Gilda was a junior. Every so often we’d meet in the Calling Card office in the basement of LaGuardia Hall, during an HPA meeting, or see each other at our respective house plan tables in the Boylan Hall cafeteria.

In early December, as we were both standing at the mailbox cubby holes in LaGuardia Hall, Gilda made her move. Invited to a pre-Christmas party at the Brooklyn Heights home of one of her political science professors, she asked me to accompany her. I agreed, but only if she would go with me to an HPA co-sponsored concert featuring Tom Paxton and Dick Gregory the week before. Being a Tom Paxton fan, Gilda quickly accepted my terms.

(A slight digression—Dick Gregory was a late replacement for Mort Sahl. Ticket prices were $2.75, $3.25 and $3.75. As editor of Calling Card my $3.75 tickets were comped. For those wondering or amazed at my knowledge of the ticket prices, I checked my bound volume of Calling Card issues, a birthday gift from Gilda in 1971.) 

Thus began our life together, formally consecrated in marriage 50 years ago, January 28, 1973. 

As my friends and family know, I’ve been the prime beneficiary of this union. I’ve had a front row seat to Gilda’s development as a wife, homemaker, mother, grandmother, nurse, nurse practitioner, and community resource. To support my contention I offer two blog postings from 2019: 

https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-tribute-to-gilda-on-her-70th-birthday.html

https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2019/01/my-my-fair-lady-for-46-years.html 

A ChatGPT-Free Blog About French Class

For the record, you can be assured, or disappointed, that everything you read in my blog is written by me, not by a ChatGPT program. 

This bold new world of artificial intelligence written communication is unsettling to a traditionalist like me. As someone who labors, or at least tries to, over everything that goes out under my name, I am saddened that human endeavor is being superseded by bytes, especially when programs are supplanting schoolwork. 

Not that I was a purist when it came to taking shortcuts for completing homework assignments. In the 15 or so minutes before the start of classes of my elementary school sixth grade there was frenzied activity as classmate after classmate copied the homework assignment completed by one of our peers, the same boy each day. What made the activity frenzied was our benefactor’s almost indecipherable handwriting. 

I can also recall mining my brother’s essay for an eighth grade critique of Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People.” 

And for a general science project as a high school freshman I offered the results, with pictures, of an experiment in home incubation of fertilized chicken eggs. Notice I said “offered,” not that I actually ran the experiment. No, that was the work of Marty Riss two years earlier. 

Science was never my bailiwick. It was to Marty. He became an osteopath. I became a journalist, a profession that disdains plagiarism.

My reliance on copying other students’ homework ended when I went to college and began working on one of the college newspapers. 

Gilda, on the other hand, never relied on someone else’s brain power. Except for one truly amazing deception. She was an excellent student in all subjects but had no ear for foreign languages.

She had taken three years of French in high school. She had passed the Regents exam. But she openly admits she almost immediately forgot all of her French and thought she would never need it again. 

Unbeknownst to Gilda, Brooklyn College required every student to be proficient in a second language. BC tested everyone in their chosen language to either exempt them from additional classes or assign them to an appropriate level. 

The test was multiple choice. Knowing she would place poorly, Gilda breezed through the test by simply circling A, B, C, or D in consecutive order throughout the test. Amazingly, she ranked among the highest scorers and was assigned to an advanced French literature class. 

She delayed taking the course for two years but, realizing the class was required to obtain her degree, she enrolled in it during her junior year. By then Gilda was part of Russell House, one of the school’s most desirable social organizations.  

Talking about her French class dilemma with another Russell House member Gilda found her savior, a French major. They agreed on a plan of action. 

For a two-part midterm test on Sartre, Gilda would use her multiple choice strategy for the initial section. French literature tests, however, included an essay component. For that part Gilda’s friend would create an essay, Gilda would memorize and submit it.  

Now, you’re probably thinking, how could her friend possibly know what the teacher would ask about Sartre? You’d be right. She didn’t know. But the friend reasoned that her essay would be so cogent on the writings of Sartre that the teacher would look favorably on it even if it did not exactly relate to her question. 

She was right. Gilda received a B on the full test. But she was not yet out of the woods. Complimented on her essay and knowledge of French, Gilda was asked by the teacher why she did not speak up in class. She replied she was too shy to talk in class. 

Anyone familiar with Gilda knows that is not the Gilda they know. 

For the final exam she repeated the ruse. For the class Gilda received a B. 

To this day the only things Gilda remembers from French class are “Où est la bibliothèque?” (Where is the library?) and “Quelle heure est-il?” (What time is it?).