STARTING FROM WHERE WE ARE
BENJAMIN, ROBERT
STARTING FROM WHERE WE ARE ROBERT BENJAMIN It was all there: the sights, the sounds, the "feel," even the tastes and aroma. The atmosphere in the neighborhood never failed to arouse the senses and...
...This community asks questions about Jewish identity...
...Three or four men would debate the issues of the day while the news dealer acted as the referee...
...It was difficult to walk, not only because of distance, but the architects of the "drive-in" neighborhoods" often omitted sidewalks...
...Is it really the desire of our social critics to produce guilt feelings for "abandoning" the "old neighborhood" lifestyle...
...Families move from one city to another...
...Robert M. Benjamin is Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa...
...Everyone is not excited about Passover...
...On Friday afternoons the aroma of chicken soup was a reminder that this was not a day to play ball on the street...
...In fact, boys always kept yarmulkas in their pockets for just such occasions...
...At first a few families moved to the suburbs...
...Help was needed to prepare for Shabbat...
...One of these concerns is Jewish identity...
...The atmosphere in the neighborhood never failed to arouse the senses and produce a deep and lasting impression...
...The closest thing to the old delicatessen was the sleek new restaurant that boasted of "old time" decor...
...Making new friends, adjusting to new schools, arranging schedules so as to participate in sports as well as attend Hebrew classes are main concerns...
...In these cities questions of Jewish identity are asked with a great sense of urgency...
...One could easily "drive in" and obtain whatever service was required...
...I live several miles from the synagogue and still, I am part of a real, authentic, Jewish community...
...Walking to school was an important part of the neighborhood experience...
...Davenport, Iowa...
...All residents were part of a neighborhood that encompassed their lives, provided all their needs...
...Pictures of "Momma and Poppa stores" excite a nostalgic nerve but they do not point us in the direction we are traveling...
...The community is "out here...
...Cars were always parked on the streets but everyone seemed to walk...
...Kanigel, there is...
...Although separated by several miles of farmland, telephone poles, railroad tracks and interstate highways, the children of Davenport, Iowa, along with those from the suburbs of New York, the coastal cities of California, the lake-front of Highland Park, Illinois, the Delta of Mississippi or the exurban reaches of virtually every city in the land, are linked through common experiences...
...At the delicatessen there were the characteristic aromas of pickling spices, homemade soups and roasted meats...
...It is not the "walk fhrough neighborhood" of the past...
...The new challenge was to steer the large food cart through a maze of boxes and special displays...
...There was no alternative, no choice...
...Most of the people spoke Yiddish...
...The "formal" practice of religion, synagogue attendance, preparation for holidays, study of classical texts, were part of the total neighborhood experience...
...On busy corners, especially around newsstands, meetings of "great importance" took place...
...Rather than walk to the store, residents would "drive in" to the bakery, the supermarket, the drug store and even the synagogue...
...Huge parking lots surrounded even larger shopping centers...
...In the 1950s and certainly by the early 60s a radical transformation took place...
...Synagogue affiliation was rarely a topic of discussion, except when a youngster insisted that the one he attended for his bar mitzvah studies had the strictest Hebrew teachers or the rabbi who preached the longest sermons...
...There was never a refusal...
...On the way home for lunch the radios blasted "The Romance of Helen Trent" and by three p.m...
...And Rosh Hashanah is not in the air breathed by these youngsters...
...The school bus now transported students to their classes...
...My neighborhood is not "Jewish...
...On Shabbat and other holidays, when most of the stores were closed, sanctuaries were filled with worshippers and the strong voice of the cantor filled the air...
...When it was necessary to obtain a particular service the family vehicle traveled to the appropriate service-rendering organization, business was conducted, and the family car returned to the well-insulated home...
...Off the main business streets synagogues frequently broke the symmetry formed by the look-alike apartment houses...
...it was known what each family was having for dinner...
...There were no more street corner conversations...
...Small, devoted groups poured over ancient texts with unswerving diligence and devotion...
...Children no longer joined in the morning minyan...
...Not infrequently students would, literally, be grabbed by someone in front of the synagogue and asked to form part of the minyan, the required quorum for prayer...
...It didn't seem to make much difference...
...most people are tired of being made to feel guilty or "less Jewish...
...and Billings, Montana...
...Questions of Jewish identity remain...
...The answers, whatever they may be, may not conform to standard sociological patterns, but this does not deny that "out here" there is a living, viable, identifiable, Jewish community...
...For instructional purposes it does not begin from where we are now...
...Through all of these experiences, indeed because of them, Judaism, or more accurately "Jewishness," was never really questioned...
...Even the synagogue developed an identity as a service-rendering organization...
...No longer did family-owned shops line the streets...
...The sights and sounds of the "walk through neighborhood" faded into memory...
...But as long as we restrict the application of the terms "neighborhood" and community" to a scene from the past we will not be able to affirm the fact, and it is a fact, that the neighborhoods in which we now live are the Jewish communities of the present...
...Instead, the modern synagogue is often "across town...
...The smell of warm bread and rolls almost magically lured customers to the bakery...
...It cannot merely serve as a romantic reflection of the past...
...Even the neighborhood aroma was different...
...There is, Mr...
...Some people may not like what they see...
...We deodorized the air, vented the kitchen and then closed the windows so the air conditioning would not escape...
...Yet a romantic return to the past only covers over the pain...
...The atmosphere in the "walkthrough neighborhood" did not usually generate questions of Jewish identity...
...These questions are not only asked in the "drive-in communities" of our largest urban centers but, even more frequently, they are posed by people in such places as Johnstown, Pennsyl»v vania...
...Sioux Falls, South Dakota...
...The context of the "drive-in community" does raise such questions...
...Happy Days" makes a fine television series...
...The distance between places was greater in the suburbs than in the "old" neighborhoods...
...Start from where you are...
...They are real questions asked by people who are truly concerned about the Jewish community...
...it does not identify the cause...
...It offered life-cycle ceremonies, religious school, Shabbat and holiday worship...
...Few identifying signs were needed...
...Even the tall, Irish cop would greet the residents with a hearty "Vos machst du...
...The sights were those of small, family-owned shops, several bakeries, delicatessens, book stores, newsstands displaying the local dailies as well as the Yiddish papers, and, of course, the corner drug store, complete with soda fountain and candy counter...
...The supermarkets were not geared for visiting...
...reality is often painful...
...The women would crowd into the shops, visit with neighbors, buy a few hot rolls, reach into the pickle barrel or taste the lox to see if it was fresh...
...Starting from where you are" should be the guiding phrase of those who wish to respond to the needs of the contemporary Jewish community...
...A children's story cannot be set in a community that no longer exists...
...If educators, writers of children's texts, and those who produce adult education outlines and resource material for synagogues started with questions that are really being asked, we would at least be responding to current needs...
...From the drug store it was chocolate syrup and hand-packed butter pecan ice cream, licorice sticks and Havana cigars...
...A work might begin with such sentences as "Rosh Hashanah was in the air," or "Everyone was excited about Passover...
...Just open your eyes...
...Neighbors attend church...
...Then businesses began to relocate and synagogues bought property in what seemed to be remote areas...
...He then asks, "But will there ever be, out here, a true Jewish community...
...Each home became a separate unit...
...Professional educators, parents, indeed all who are concerned with the future of the Jewish community are in need of resource material that responds to questions of Jewish identity...
...It is the "drive-in community" of the present...
...In "The Moving Story of The Jews" (moment, December 1979) Robert Kanigel states, "The Jewish Community Center has come to Owing Mills (Maryland) and surely many Jews will follow...
...We cannot return to that setting...
...As a large, service-rendering institution, the synagogue is required to confront some very special needs and concerns...
...It was now possible to make a bank deposit, drop off the dry cleaning, buy film for vacation trips and deposit books at the library door without ever leaving the car...
...But even as the need increases, much of the available material still addresses a neighborhood setting that no longer exists...
...On warm, summer days a different type of conversation could be heard through the open windows of the synagogue...
Vol. 5 • April 1980 • No. 4
