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?). 

Food Edition and a Trumpian Thought

Gilda’s always trying to get me to sample new restaurants, particularly those with a Latin flavor. So I went on the Web site of her latest suggestion, a Venezuelan restaurant in Mamaroneck, and the first offering under “Starters” was “classic Hummus” encompassing warm pita, cucumber, carrots, cherry tomato. 

Gee, I had no idea Venezuela stretched all the way to the Middle East!

Zabars pastries are overrated. By me. Though not by the birds that frequent the feeders in my yard.

For hosting her and her husband for several days Gilda’s sister sent us a thank you package of Zabars goodies which included a pack of fruit filled Hamantaschen, the triangular hard dough cookies associated with the holiday of Purim. 

Multi-problems: Gilda does not like any fruit-filled pastries. I’m okay with such delicacies if they in fact are delicious. Zabars’ Hamantaschen did not meet that standard. 

They lacked “ta’am”—taste. Flavor. Neshama—Jewish soul. 

The birds, however, devoured them after I extruded the fruit from the hard pastry triangles. 

The birds in our yard are international in their tastes. They similarly have enjoyed crushed Chinese fortune cookies and always make a meal of leftover rice regardless of country of origin.

Back to Zabars. I’m partial to black and white cookies, the round confection with equal parts chocolate and vanilla icing. I tasted one from Zabars. It was like eating sawdust. 

I resisted trying the soft rugelach in the gift pack. I prefer crisp crescent-shaped rugelach. Our daughter Ellie has from time to time made them for us. 

I was about to give up on the goodies from the Upper West Side of Manhattan emporium when I cut into a chocolate babka cake. Scrumptious! My appreciation of Zabars restored, I’ve been enjoying a slice of chocolate babka for the better part of a week. 

Brown Eggs: Anyone who has gone to the supermarket during the last half year knows egg prices have cracked the hen house ceiling barrier. The price of a dozen eggs is nearing double digit dollars.

If you’ve monitored egg prices you might have noticed that the least expensive eggs often are the brown ones.

My theory is there’s a degree of prejudice involved in egg purchasing. Shoppers prefer white eggs over brown ones. So to move brown eggs off the shelf grocers sell them for less than white eggs.

You’re probably thinking I’m a little daft. That’s okay. Journalists often look at the seamier side of life with and without obvious evidence. 

I’ve been buying brown eggs for about half a year. They taste just fine.

The Trumpian: During my professional career, the start of a new year always meant the beginning of trade show season, the first one being the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. 

Nowadays, CES has expanded beyond traditional products such as computers and video/audio equipment. What many news outlets concentrated on this year was the introduction of high end toilets with features including the ability to analyze a person’s health based on their deposits.

My warped mind wondered if one of the new models might have enabled the simultaneous shredding of documents without clogging the pipes. I’d call it The Trumpian.

What Will Kevin Do Now to Make US Better?

Now that he is Speaker of the House, what are Kevin McCarthy’s plans for making America better?

Specifically, how will he curb homelessness? How will he make housing affordable to middle class and working class families? 

How will he make healthcare more accessible and affordable? 

How will he make safe, clean water available to all? How will he make the air we breathe safer and cleaner? 

How will he reduce our dependence on fossil fuels? 

How will he invest in repairing infrastructure throughout our land?

How will he represent to the world America’s commitment to freedom and human rights? 

The title Speaker of the House implies a position of leadership, of advancement of benefits, not a retreat. 

As Speaker he is a representative of a nation beyond his conservative Bakersfield, Calif., district. 

How will he respond to the majority of Americans who favor a woman’s right to make her own health decisions, including the right to choose an abortion? What action will he take in support of the majority of Americans’ belief that more gun control legislation is needed? 

Oh, I am not so naive as to believe McCarthy will do anything but try to advance the fringe agenda of far right extremists in the Republican Party. He might even be willing to shut down the government and reject an increase in the debt ceiling limit if such actions would keep the extremists from ousting him as speaker, for his ultimate allegiance is to his aggrandizement and not the integrity and standing of the United States.  

We know he will agree to investigation after investigation of alleged misdeeds by President Biden, his family and members of his administration, even if such probes have no basis in reality or possibility of improving the lives of everyday Americans. 

Perhaps he will establish a new January 6 special committee to tell the Trump version of events. Of course, that might expose Trump, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani et al to cross examination under oath by Democrats on the committee, so I guess that idea is a non starter. 

Poor Kevin. He was handed the ceremonial speaker’s gavel but truly has little of the power of the office.    

McCarthy—Not a Good Name for a GOP Leader

Comedians and pundits are having a field day lampooning Kevin McCarthy’s quest to become second in line to the presidency. His naked obsession to be Speaker of the House of Representatives has become an exercise in futility and self-neutering.  

The American tragedy we are witnessing is much more than the story of an ambitious politician thwarted by radical forces he helped cultivate and shield from recrimination for conduct unbecoming any elected official. What makes this a national crisis is that the Constitution bestows upon the Speaker the opportunity to ascend to the White House if misfortune strikes not once but twice, to the president and vice president. 

By backtracking on his immediate condemnation of Donald Trump for fomenting the January 6 assault on the Capitol, only to kneel before the insurrectionist-in-chief two weeks later in Mar-a-Lago, McCarthy has shown himself to be a pol without scruples or backbone, someone so in pursuit of power that now he has negotiated away almost all of the prerogatives of the Speaker. That such a politician could possibly be responsible for leading our country, for negotiating with domestic and foreign leaders, is a chilling possibility to consider.

The dysfunction exhibited by House Republicans runs deeper than just McCarthy’s embarrassment. Among the more important duties of the House is the power to declare war, to pass an annual federal budget and to establish a debt ceiling so that government can operate and world financial markets would not be plunged into free-fall madness. 

Whether it is McCarthy, Stephen Scalise or any other Republican sitting in the Speaker’s chair, the future of the House during the next two years under GOP control is clear. Expect investigations of President Biden and his family, of his cabinet secretaries and executive appointments. Expect passage of any legislation, especially budget matters, to be linked to budget cuts in social welfare entitlement programs and in our support of Ukraine. 

To be honest, those were the expectations way before McCarthy’s self-immolation. Aside from basking in the memory of how pleasant and functional their rule in the House was under Nancy Pelosi, Democrats may be beneficiaries of the Republican mess. By showcasing their legislative record 2021-2022 against that of the Republicans in 2023-2024, Democrats might enjoy solid election results the next rime the House and Senate are at stake. 

But two years of McCarthy-led extremism is a hefty price to pay. 

Republican. McCarthy. Investigations of government personnel. Where have we seen that shameful combination before? Ah, yes, the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954 that ultimately exposed Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy as a charlatan. What’s that old saying?, “The more things change the more they stay the same.” 

Here’s a Wikipedia summation of the dramatic 1954 hearings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army–McCarthy_hearings 

Shining an Inside Light on Antisemitism

 As Gilda and I stood in chilly Times Square Monday evening at a rally to “Shine a Light on Antisemitism” coordinated by UJA Federation of New York, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, American Jewish Committee of New York, Anti-Defamation League New York/New Jersey and the New York Board of Rabbis, my mind kept mulling past and present discriminatory acts against Jews. 

I don’t mean by Kanye West or the Proud Boys.  Or Donald Trump. By Nazis, tsars or Communists. By a Greco-Syrian king (it is, after all, Hanukkah), by churches, by the Ku Klux Klan. By schools and businesses practicing restrictive admission policies. By landlords and real estate holders locking out housing opportunities. By the individual who has no moral compunction to attack a Jew simply because the opportunity presented itself on the street. 

They and many more antisemites are easily identified. No, what I couldn’t get out of my mind is the question, Can a Jew act antisemitically to another Jew? Was it happening even as I stood at a rally with placards proclaiming “We stand together” and “Fight Jew Hatred”?

Let’s not dodge the issue any longer—policies being proposed in Israel by a new government coalition, some already in effect from prior coalitions, are patently discriminatory against Conservative and Reform Jews, against secular Jews, against women, against Jews that do not practice Judaism in the same manner as the Haredi, the ultra Orthodox, do. 

Jewish sages taught that the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, and the Judeans conquered and exiled, because of internecine conflict among Jewish sects, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes. 

Such a teaching should instruct greater understanding of differences today, but discrimination and restrictions exist. Sadly, not every Jew is willing to openly discuss this topic. 

The other day a high school classmate from the Hebrew day school I attended—it was called a yeshiva but shouldn’t be confused with the extreme Orthodox establishments of today that barely touch on secular studies; back in the 1960s my school was a bastion of liberal democratic principles and profoundly Zionistic—my classmate wished all of our classmates a happy “Chanukah” along with the hope “that we experience the true meaning of the Chag [holiday] and continue to be a shining light to the entire world.”

Never one to pass up an opportunity to express my viewpoint, I commented back to the group, “Let us all hope that we Jews continue to be a shining light to the world though news from Israel continues to display a diminishing light in terms of religious tolerance, civil tolerance and democratic principles.”

 

He avoided entering a dialogue “because we differ quite a bit regarding religion and politics.” Sadly, no one else among my hundred or so classmates on the email exchange voiced an opinion. How chilling that basic human and religious rights were being ignored or were thought to be too sensitive a subject to discuss. 

My wife and I, practicing Conservative Jews, as well as those who follow Reform and Reconstruction Judaism, are not accorded the same religious rights and benefits as endowed on Orthodox Jews in Israel. Indeed, all Orthodox Jews are not equal in the eyes of the new Israeli government’s ultra Orthodox ministers. The rites of conversion, circumcision, marriage and divorce are not universally recognized and respected by the Haredi across all Jewish sects, including those practiced by many Orthodox believers. Access to the Western Wall and prayer there by women are restricted by the Haredi. 

What we are witnessing is a theocracy in the making in Israel. 

Classic forms of antisemitism encompass acts of discrimination—physical, verbal, regulatory—against a person or group identified as Jewish in religious practice, physical appearance, in name or heritage. The Haredi are going one step further—they are not recognizing the inherent Jewishness of those who do not believe as they do. 

So, can a Jew act antisemitically to another Jew?  Apparently, if they don’t consider that person to be Jewish. 

What they do not realize is that the act of dehumanizing your opponent, in this case dismissing their Jewishness, ultimately dehumanizes oneself. 

I have been admittedly harsh in my analysis. But not alone. With the announcement of a new government by Benjamin Netanyahu with extreme religious and right wing members holding key ministerial positions, AJC issued a deeply reflective and hopeful congratulatory statement:

“Due to AJC’s long-standing working relationships with Israeli government officials on shared priorities, as well as our profound admiration and respect for Israel’s vibrant democracy and civil society, we trust that Israel will continue to uphold the values that have allowed it to stand out as a beacon of freedom in the Middle East, and as a source of pride and spiritual sustenance for the Jewish people as a whole.

“AJC will continue to work closely with the Prime Minister and Israeli policy-makers to help ensure that the inflammatory rhetoric that has been employed by some members of the governing coalition—rhetoric unrepresentative of Israel’s democratic values, its role as a homeland for all Jews, and its unwavering quest for peace—will not define the domestic and foreign policies of the new government.

“We firmly believe that the Jewish and democratic State of Israel will continue to embrace all Jews regardless of their beliefs or practice; that it will strive to live up to its promise of equality for all its citizens, regardless of religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity; and that it will continue to pursue prospects for peace.”