The Spice Box

...Think of the tax magazines with rabbis as contributing editors...

...In my head I could hear the heavenly trumpets...

...If fork...

...Just a minute, sir," I said and proceeded to empty out the pockets...

...Above all he rendered in a way that was uncritical and wholesome, the family life of his generation...

...A customer walked in and handed me a suit...

...only slightly...

...There's one restriction: people motivated to worship the golden calf are not allowed—boy, have they tried—to form their own private charitable organization for their own private benefit...

...Riding les-the chance to show offhls eons...

...I suspect Exchange...

...What more could be asked of our country In the area of Inducing philanthropy...

...Their escort was Cap-ialn Colbuss, second in command to the Admiral, and he guided them—three months out of Leningrad, six months out of Kiev—through the missile guidance rooms, the weather and satellite monitoring rooms, the whole works...

...So, at the appointed hour, a couple of dozen new Immigrants to America moved past the million or so people who were waiting In line to view the assorted vessels tied up In Boston harbor, and were treated to a private tour of the nuclear carrier JFK...

...In 195S, he published an article in Commentary entitled "The Dialect Comedian Should Vanish," where he argued that "to mimic broken English is as painful to the immigrant as mimicking a limp is to a cripple," and admitted that he had deliberately expurgated dialect stories from his own routines...

...Barbara Cohen, the artist, had painted a series of pictures of elderly women on the benches of Ocean Park, where Anna Berman had spent much time In her last years...

...By the 1960's, as he achieved national prominence, Levenson adjusted his material still further...

...Colncldentally, Temple Israel of Boston had planned Its first Shabbat service In Russian for that same weekend, a way of welcoming the 800 or so Russian Jews who've come to Boston during the past few years...

...He always talked about the way things used to be—and are no more, or have been submerged, and not easily observed...

...But it is my duty to return your money...

...Be sure to include your name, address and telephone I number...

...I remembered, too, that young Abe later became President of the United States...

...Look son, silverware, Howe waved If Hebrew conilicte with his hand furiously, was football practice, I guess duly recognized and then you'll Just have to give up blurted out the fatal word: Hebrew...

...J. Press...

...Perhaps I would ultimately be rewarded for my honesty...

...THE SPICE BOX Phrases my family never taught me In World of Our Fathers...

...That is a wise decision, at least for the beneficiaries of Jewish charitable enterprise...

...He thanks me In his Introduction, and he Included one of my poems In his Appendix, Just between Wlesel and Brecht Still, Kurzwell's book is the book In the field...

...The follow- Macaroni salad and/or trig Hat la full of English macaronl-and-cheeee...

...I had already had one disaster when I steam-pressed a white Jacket that contained a chocolate bar with nuts...

...Qcopell" The class broke "Dont worry about that C Into gales of cruel laugh- m math...

...More than that, it offers an opportunity for a radical rediscovery of a Jew's individual Jewlahneas through the vehicle of personal history...

...Moshe Waldoks turned it down dramatically, taking two steps back to make sure my father could get a clear view of the sterling character of his son the President...

...By the time Shirley made contact with the thrift shop, it was too late...

...the I newspaper was reporting I on the work of a local I artist, and the photo-I graph was of a portrait I title artist had painted...

...Dock alders...

...For example, those who are not only anonymous to the community but also are anonymous to the institution receiving the gift might be entitled to one and a half times the value of their contribution, and so on down the Malmonldean scale...

...This time he represented the antithesis to the vibrant energy of the newly emerging "sick" comics (Shelley Berman, jacket...

...In this way, the human condition of avarice could be harnessed with the Jewish virtue of anonymous charity...

...Invitation Readers are invited to submit material for The Spice Box...

...We are one...

...he was, Howe jumped at Charity Ball...

...Danny Slegel Tales of the tax man 1913...

...We could require that there be no testimonial dinners to honor the philanthropist lest the tax deduction be lost...

...Dan Levenson Sam Levenson Sam Levenson was born nostalgic, on December 11, 1911...

...It presents all the necessary technical Information for proper genealogical research, but that is only a minor aspect of what It achieves...

...After alL what do ter, Ooopel is Yiddish for those teachers know...

...A correct identification Is required, and an imaginative explanation, which our Jolly editors will judge...

...Twenty-five words or less Readers who can identify this man and tell why he is smiling are eligible for a special prize—a Bill Aron photograph, suitable for framing...

...As one Boston attorney recently remarked about the substantial unpaid pledge of a man who died before the plaque was affixed, "IVe got someone else who wants that room...

...What is this tax law...

...It began, of course, with Roots...

...Social Regiswr-, heard...

...Help, anyone...

...It Is a body of law which attempts to cover all aspects of human activity, commercial and social, religious and secular, charitable and venal...

...What's yours...

...In the history of the Jewish people, the period from 1913 to the present is but a semicolon...

...Third Degree hold objects, and being Mason...

...To insure the success of his anecdotes, he would often burst into laughter while telling them—he was the first to admit this—prompting his audience to accept, without reservation, his nostalgia as their own...

...Before I became involved in Jewish organizational life, I thought that plaque was what a dentist took off your teeth...

...A liberal and a universalist, he was a public servant, working as a schoolteacher (he taught Spanish) In Brooklyn...

...Sam Levenson Have you seen this painting...

...But In that period a body of law has been created which, in size only, equals If not exceeds the combined Torah, Talmud (Babylonian and Palestinian), the Shul-chan Aruch, the Ram-bam, Ramban and the collected writings and speeches of the editor of this and every other Jewish magazine...

...The following selection is taken from Levenson's In One Bra and Out the Other, published in 1973...

...Depending on length, we'll pay from $5 to 150 for material that is accepted...

...Dialect humor had been synonymous with Jewish humor since Vaudeville...

...At a terrible cost to the makers of plaques we could Induce Congress to give a premium deduction for anonymous contributions...

...Athletic Club, "No the bright, overachlever seconds for me, thanks...

...Side by side with the normal developments In the law as society changes, there have been the tax lawyers and tax accountants always pushing to expand the scope of philanthropy and to give content to the familiar conjunction in the Anglo-Jewish press—"Industrialist and philanthropist...

...This may sound extreme," he continued, "but it is my belief that any Jew who, in humor Filial Pride One day the ghost of Abraham Lincoln paid a visit to Papa's tailor shop while I was there helping him...

...To the proponents of the "big bang" theory of the creation of our universe, that same period Is no more than an atomic particle of the Ink used to make the semicolon...

...gooa doc First, my bias: Arthur Kurzweil, author of From Generation to Generation: How to Trace Your Jewish Genealogy and Per so nal ? Istory (William Morrow, 1980) Is my close friend—a student and a great teacher of mme...

...This Is not a book for people who like to look on Great Meanings as a hobby, another tehatchke to fill the time of living...

...Sir, this is yours," I said, remembering how young Abraham Lincoln had walked three miles through the woods to return the change a customer had forgotten on the counter...

...Sammy the pickpocket" my brothers called me...

...After-The teacher asked the dinner drink...

...Think how your unsolicited mail might shrink...

...To our mutual surprise I found a ten-dollar bill in the or otherwise, strengthens the misconceptions and prejudices against his own people, is neither a good Jew nor a responsible human being...

...Over the years, probably more than any other defined group in American society, Jews have taken advantage of the tax laws to perpetuate various aspects of Jewish life, taking full advantage of the difficulties which mere mortals have In defining what means Jew, Jewish or Judaism...

...imagine walking the streets of DobromlL smelling the smells of the marketstalle, sitting in the heated give-and-take of Zionist debate at the turn of the century, the decrees, the sound of rushing hooves at the onset of a pogrom...

...It Is with those Jewish concerns, religious, cultural, social, ethnic and moral (and possibly some combination of one or more of them) that this and subsequent articles will deal...

...At moments, his lyricism Is astonishing— particularly when he shares his thoughts on visiting cemeterlea...

...As new forms of activity are proposed, new laws, regulations, rulings, cases and articles are published...

...Instead, It Is a book for those who wish to fulfill the dictum, "In every generation each Jew is required to see himself as if it was he who had left Egypt"—our individual Egypte, and the collective Egypte of the Jewish people—and the arrivals at our collective and private moments of revelation, our Slnals...

...Young man," turning to the interpreter, "I want you to get ready to take my place...

...teacher held up a piece of Cocktail fork...

...theyVe so smart, how My problem differs come they ain't rlchl...

...Being intangible, nachas or koved are not considered sufficient profit to the contributor to violate the requirement that the donor not profit from his own contribution...

...In the making of those decisions and the challenging of those decisions, some Jewish concerns are at issue...

...Her mother, S Anna Berman, had died I two months earlier...

...His selection of readings at the end Is extraordinary...

...On May 16,1980, Shirley Lisa of West Los Angeles was startled to find a picture of her mother on the front page of her neighborhood I newspaper...

...Not that it lacked the broad authenticity of the immigrant experience, but that, once again, Levenson stood alone...

...I turned it over to the man with a flourish...

...But this is America...

...Who could tell...

...Winter certain common house- vacation...

...Sam Levenson was a true product of postwar American Judaism...

...he has "found" more than a hundred relatives who were destroyed in the Holocaust, and has thereby helped restore their Immortality...

...Maybe America was now ready for a Jewish President, Honest Sam...

...Hie numerous quotes from Jewish sources are supportive and moving...

...Then there are rulings of the Internal Revenue Service which are the answers to the questions of taxpayers who are unable to apply the divine wisdom of the IRS to their moral problems...

...His nostalgia became increasingly pareve...

...he died on August 27, 1980...

...Whatever the motivation of the donors, the combination of the principles of Jewish charily and the Internal Revenue Code have happily combined to produce an explosion of Jewish charitable activity, from athletic facilities at community centers to departments of Jewish studies at universities...

...My job was not only to press pants but to go through the pockets first to make sure they were empty...

...Waldorf salad...

...Arlene S. Uslander Hello, America Last spring, the tall ships came to Boston, as part of the celebration of Boston's 350th anniversary...

...Material cannot be returned...

...Now I know better: Plaques are what make the upper levels of Jewish philanthropy go...

...Kurzweil, the Jewish Arthur, demands imagination from the ln-search-of-aelf researcher: imagine your grandfather coming over at the age of 13...

...Bonfire...

...He put his arm around my shoulder and said "My son, what you have Just done makes me proud to be your father-but I'm ashamed to have such an idiot for a son...

...Coincidence: the Jewish chaplain of the JFK, and the captain of the task force—Louis Colbuss—came to worship at Temple Israel, met the Russians, and Invited them to visit the carrier the next day...

...My suggestion for the name of the new organization to lobby this through Congress Is ANWAR—Allied New Wealth Against Recognition...

...Prior to 1969, you could sometimes actually make money by giving to charity—a negative on the Malmonldean scale...

...words my family never 'You'll have your whole taught me or combine.- life to work Now la the Hons of words (each fa- time to play baseball after miliar enough) I never school...

...I cannot accept any reward for honesty...

...We reserve the I right to edit all sub-I missions—ideas, notes, i curiosities, what have you...

...Think how many evenings could be freed...

...I loudly announced: "Thank you, kind sir...

...Leo-expertise...

...Levenson was taking a stand against the comic styles of Myron Cohen, Leo Rosten's H*Y-*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N, and others...

...The two sisters, aware that somewhere there is a portrait of their late mother crafted not from a photograph, but from life, are searching avidly for the owner of the painting...

...The customer was quite impressed and offered me a dollar reward I Mort SahL Lenny Bruce), who reflected in their work the tension and anxiety of the contemporary American and Jewish experience...

...No wonder I ended Seat, as in "on the Stock up the way I did...

...Prep eehool...

...the painting of her mother had been sold to an anonymous customer, and Barbara Cohen had dropped out of sight, moved to a small community In Northern California Colncldentally, Shirley's sister, Fern Dunn of Skokle, had been searching through the family album for a photograph of their mother from which a portrait could be painted...

...What causes the failure of most of these attempts at tax exemption Is the fact that the perpetrators sought their own financial benefit...

...my parents would have been unsecreUy pleased: Sanford Plnaker ¦ft...

...Kurzweil himself has been dreaming of his forebears (and his descendente) for ten years...

...young scholars to identify Cotillion...

...In the same way that Jewish studies began to blossom on campuses throughout the country because black activists made loud demands for black studies, so, too, the Jews have now begun to surge to their personal archives for sources In the wake of Arthur Haley's book and its television version...

...That could become the most important social force unleashed to this decade...

...I have the answer...

...Scurrying around are the hundreds of scholars and non-scholare whose comments on the law, regulations, rulings, cases or merely on the articles of other scholars or non-scholars fill the pages of monthly magazines...

...See the resemblance...

...Then there are the thousands of decisions of various courts Involving either taxpayers who did not bother to ask or, if they did ask, decided to challenge prevailing Interpretations...

...In many (but not all) of Its aspects, the tax law makes conscious decisions on social and economic policy...

...But when the line hair...

...Not only does he know the mechanics of family tree research (he Is alibrarlan by training), but he is the most eloquent spokesman for making Jews Jewish through this land of work...

...With them came also the JFK(alrcraft carrier) task force...

...The man left with the money...

...poignant story of his Onion eoup, made from first day In kindergarten, onion eoup mix...

...The Internal Revenue Code, ever changing, has spawned a set of Regulations which explain (or try to) and Interpret Its provisions...

...During the late 1940's and early 1950's, when he was establishing himself as a Jewish humorist, Levenson was a crusader for a particular brand of • Jewish humor: warm, i without sharp edges, and unsophisticated—a Jewish humor that easily ingratiated itself into the newly emerging middle-class Jewish America— and far beyond...

...At tour's end, Captain Colbuss spoke to the group through an Interpreter, a 15-year-old new American: "My grandparents came to this country in steerage from Odessa, and my grandfather, who died the year before I was born, could not have imagined that his grandson would be standing here today, with the rank he has and on the ship this is...

...He will be remembered fondly for his boyish laugh, the Innocence of his delivery, and his staunch support of family life and values...

...I According to the news I story, the portrait was I part of an exhibit at a I local thrift shop...

...And he shows us how to start on our own search...

...He would take an old joke, a reminiscence, a poem—often less than hilarious, and deliver it with sincerity and kindness...

...drawers are emptied, old photos dusted, cemeteries visited...

...Jewish Charity, oar, Til Take The ltoyar" Congress has made the basic decision that privately supported charities are to be preferred to government control of all so-called charitable functions...

...he was a firm supporter of that great tenet of Jewish liberalism: public education, and he drew upon his years of teaching as the basis for his early routines...

...Zeydes and Bobbes are Inundated with questions surrounded by tape recorders...

...Papa was duly impressed...