Memories of a Bible Contest, Russian Vodka and a Ponytail

Every now and then contemporary events reported in the media evoke memories of my past. So it was with last Tuesday’s New York Times article about a Bible quiz of the Tanach, the Jewish Old Testament (BTW, The Times refers to the Jewish Bible as the Tanakh, but I prefer a transliteration of the Hebrew that is more gutteral, hence the “ch” ending  of Tanach with a sound similar to the beginning of the Yiddish word “chutzpah”). 

Anyway, to return to the present and memory at hand, here’s a link to The Times article: https://nyti.ms/2kDSObW.

Fifty-seven summers ago, as an 11-year-old, I competed in the first Bible quiz at Camp Massad Aleph in Tannersville, PA. I was well prepared for this endeavor, having attended six years of intensive Jewish instruction at Yeshiva Rambam in Brooklyn. Of course, all the other contestants my age had similar preparation, though not from Rambam. They came mostly from other Brooklyn Jewish day schools: Yeshivah of Flatbush, or Yeshiva Eitz Chaim, or Yeshiva Bialik, or Shulamith, an all girls school.

Preliminary testing of the 300 or so campers culled the finalists down to three boys from my age group. Years before feminism took hold, camp administrators realized it would be wrong not to have a girl among the finalists. 

She sat next to me on the stage in front of the assembled camp. I can’t remember her name. Nor do I remember any of the questions. I do remember we were the two final contestants and that she answered a question that stumped me. 

For her victory she received a large Bible. As the runner-up, my Bible measured half as large. Same complete text, but in a much smaller font.

Za zdorovje: The Russian toast “for health” is a cruel joke these days, given the outbreak of deaths from tainted vodka. As reported in The Times, a cheap substitute for vodka presumably made from ethanol actually contained methanol which is deadly.

At least 76 unsuspecting drinkers in Irkutsk have died from imbibing the lethal mixture. (https://nyti.ms/2m9doBx)

It is not the first time bad vodka has killed Russians. When Gilda and I took a river cruise from St. Petersburg to Moscow back in 2010 we were told about the time Mikhail Gorbachev tried to cure excessive drunkenness by limiting the sales of vodka in state-run stores to one bottle a month. Thirsty Russians resorted to distilling their own brews. But their vodkas exceeded the safe 40% alcohol levels and many became ill or died.  

Ponytail Down: Two weeks ago during a monthly poker game, Gregg asked aloud if I was still retired. Told I was, he wondered, again aloud, why I didn’t have time to get a haircut. 

Normally a reliable reader of this blog, Gregg had missed or forgotten the December 29 posting in which I wrote I was growing a ponytail to fulfill my wife’s request. Alas, my curly hair becomes a Jewfro which is not, as Gregg diplomatically observed, always appealing. So last week I told Gilda my valiant try at a ponytail would be sheared away. 

While sitting in the haircutter’s chair, I was reminded that about 30 years ago she was set to cut the ponytail that our son Dan had grown during day camp. “Set to cut” because upon further inspection she spotted an all-too-common invasion in any camper’s hair—lice. 

An application of Rit resolved that problem. A week later Rosie clipped off his tail which for many years he kept in a clear plastic storage bag. 

The Sound of Music

Fifty years ago, two days ago to be precise, the film version of The Sound of Music debuted. It became, arguably, one of the most cherished films worldwide. Heck, even my Jewish high school, the Yeshiva of Flatbush, arranged an outing into Manhattan so we could see the novitiate nun-cum-governess-cum-wife and her once brooding widower-employer-cum-husband outsmart the Nazis by leading the Von Trapp family on a climb over that mountain leading to Switzerland. For many in my class it might have been their first exposure, albeit by celluloid, to the insides of a church and the black clad ladies who toiled within. 

Anyway, it’s merely a coincidence that The Sound of Music is being celebrated this week. I’ve brought it up because of an interview Gilda and I heard Wednesday morning as we drove to Manhattan. The Outlook program on BBC World Service talked with Joanne Milne of Gateshead, England. For the first 39 years of her life, Milne was deaf. Last March, after cochlear implants were inserted into her head, she was able to finally hear (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7LcNUxcQ8Y).

Among the first sounds she heard was Imagine, the John Lennon song. Which made me wonder, what music, what song, would I have chosen for that intoxicating, unimaginable moment? I immediately thought of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, perhaps because it was the alma mater theme of Camp Columbia, the camp, incidentally, I attended when The Sound of Music premiered in 1965. 

If you’re so inclined, let me know what music you would have picked.

Speaking of Sounds: Did anyone else who watched Bibi Netanyahu’s speech to Congress Tuesday notice a loud thud just as the Israeli prime minister completed his first reference to Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons? To his credit, Netanyahu didn’t react. He simply plowed ahead with his dissertation. 

Speaking of Thuds: While writing this blog at my desk Wednesday morning I was startled by a loud thud coming from the window behind me. A large clump of snow had fallen from the roof above to the roof of our extended dining room. It also bent a gutter out of shape. Comparatively speaking, that’s little damage from this winter of non-stop agony. Oh, the joys of being a homeowner!

Where’s the Outrage? In the last few days we’ve been treated to revelations that Hillary Clinton used a private email account while she was secretary of state, leading to a continuous barrage by Republicans that she was undermining the integrity of her office and the country.

At the same time there was nary a word from them about a more troubling disclosure, that former General and ex-CIA director David Petraeus will plead guilty to illegally providing classified secrets to his mistress, that he lied to the FBI and that he left national secrets in his home (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/03/david-petraeus-plea-deal_n_6792344.html). 

Elementary Ties

Many people use Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites to keep abreast of, or catch up with, relatives, friends, acquaintances or business associates. I mostly rely on the old fashioned conveyers of information: traditional media including newspapers, magazines, radio and television.

Take, for example, a column by Nicholas D. Kristof in the NY Times last Thursday. Entitled “Waiting for Mitt the Moderate,” the Op-Ed piece listed several of Romney’s foreign affairs advisors including Dov Zakheim. Some might recognize that name as a former Defense Department official in recent Republican administrations, most prominently identified as the analyst who shot down support for Israel’s internal development of the Lavi jet fighter in the late 1980s.

I know Dov as a masterful Talmudic scholar from our elementary school days at Yeshiva Rambam in Brooklyn (modesty does not keep me from saying I was no slouch either in the ways of our learned sages). He delivered the English valedictory address at our graduation ceremony in 1962, along with being the co-winner of a Hebrew Department scholarship.

Lest you think Zakheim was a unique performer, our class of 31 boys and 13 girls (yes, this was a co-ed, Orthodox Hebrew school—my, how times have changed!) had several notable achievers.

One of our more interesting classmates was Alan Zelenetz. He was a good graphic artist. To amuse us, he would eat chalk and paper. Perhaps that was the source of his creativity juices. After becoming a rabbi and a junior high school principal at the Yeshiva of Flatbush in Brooklyn, Alan became a film producer and comic book writer. He co-created the Alien Legion series for the Marvel Comics book imprint Epic Comics. He also co-founded Ovie Entertainment, an independent film production company.

Alan’s cousin, Arnold Saltzman, is a rabbi as well but is probably more well known as a cantor, composer and recording artist. At Rambam, Arnold’s voice was head and shoulders better than any other. Indeed, he was a child singer with the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Dennis Prager stood taller than anyone in our class. Dennis and I continued our association through high school at the Yeshiva of Flatbush and Brooklyn College. While the rest of his high school mates were learning compulsory French, Dennis quietly taught himself Russian. He was, you might say, a gifted student. It was in high school that Dennis met future rabbi Joseph Telushkin, his co-author of several books on Judaism (I knew Joe before Flatbush—we bunked together in Camp Massad Aleph for four or five years in the late 1950’s). Today Prager is a well-known conservative columnist and radio talk show host.

Michael Shmidman is a rabbi, too (is there a pattern here?). He's now the dean of Touro Graduate School of Jewish Studies. I don't know how tall he is today, but as a youngster he was short. Still, when it came time to pick our school basketball team, the coach chose him over me. I exacted some measure of unintended revenge the following spring during a class outing softball game. Michael was pitching for his team. I batted a ball right into his stomach, hard enough to double him over and end the game.

Yeshiva Rambam closed the doors to its elementary school in 2005 but it's nice to know my classmates still can make the news. Of course, they don't always do so in a positive light. One of them, who shall remain anonymous, is a major New York City landlord not known for the beneficent treatment of his tenants.

By the way, in case you’re wondering why I have not included any updates on the girls in my class, it’s not because they have not done anything noteworthy. But under their maiden names their accomplishments did not show up in any of the social media I consulted.