The Latner Method
Bluestone, Naomi
THE LATHER METHOD Who is Helen Latner, and why we should care. NAOMI BLUESTONE One day about a year ago, one of those Japanese businesses that continually threatens the stability of the American...
...No one talks of anything but the war...
...She treats with due consideration the small questions sent, recognizing that behind each issue of social protocol there is a wealth of symbolism...
...It will elicit tears that have not been shed by Jews since the "Bintel Brief closed down...
...By reinforcing norms, maintaining social continuities and emphasizing the proper way to handle confrontation when families congregate unwillingly, she is keeping Jews together as Jews...
...In seeking to advise people on the troubles that mar significant events in their lives, she unfailingly projects the basic Jewish values of common sense, respect, pragmatism and fair play...
...A footnote at the close of this woman's column notifies the reader that she is the author of the newly-published book by Schocken entitled The Book of Modern Jewish Etiquette...
...Mauve, fuschia and puce, 1 thought, good literary colors...
...The schism between Orthodox and Reform is not merely a clash of impersonal political movements...
...The first child is soon to arrive...
...Yet somewhere there is a woman making a meal, finding fuel for cold nights, seeing that the children do their lessons, stolidly working around the war and sewing curtains, or planting potatoes, or writing journals...
...I turn immediately rearward to look for her, chronically annoyed that she has been relegated to the hindquarters...
...I respect her because she recognizes, like a good psychologist, that people hurt most in ordinary situations, as well as at the time of significant life events...
...Let's trust the dust jacket will confirm for once and for all the definitive existence of this woman, and will set to rest my fears that she is a non-existent syndicate...
...Latner brings people together...
...Take, for example, the ongoing issue of kashrut and the blind emotionality it engenders in all who have even heard of the concept of separating milk from meat...
...NAOMI BLUESTONE One day about a year ago, one of those Japanese businesses that continually threatens the stability of the American economy printed a full-page marketing questionnaire in the New York Times...
...Her present husband has no objection to lying next to his wife and her former husband, all cozy-like...
...She then goes on to discuss Spanish and Israeli surnames "that don't sound Jewish either, by your narrow standards...
...Let him know also that you do not approve of his attitude towards his brother and niece...
...Why not discuss it with the prospective parents, she suggests...
...But Latner knows their hidden agenda...
...Her husband is dead for 15 years now, and he lies in one of the plots...
...It seems to me that in the old days, letters dealt with the problems of young people who were ashamed of their parents and grandparents...
...and acknowledges that the son may get support from his rabbi...
...Rabbis and teachers who have struggled with these issues unsuccessfully have taken consolation in policy statements, leaving the resolution of individual suffering to the women...
...Unlike the Jewish communal leaders of today, who debate endlessly who is a Jew, what is a Zionist and whither the fate of the Jewish people, Latner is right on the firing line when individual Jews get caught in the reality of these communal identity crises...
...She undertakes a thorough discussion of the ramifications of graveyard visitation by survivors of conjoint families and wishes the writer many years of happiness before her advice must be acted upon...
...Short of rejecting him completely, there is no way out except to maintain a formal, separate relationship, which you should let him know you are continuing only so that YOU are not the ones who are responsible for breaking up the family...
...There I look for the latest thought and commentary from the woman who is doing more to cement the wounded Jewish community back into a cohesive whole than all the male leaders who delineate its fragmentation...
...My husband and I would like this child to be named after one of our parents...
...The older son is ultra-Orthodox, the younger one ultra-non-practicing...
...The older son must stop this tyranny...
...If you could join the work force, which occupation would you choose...
...Latner deals with what she has...
...She suggests some re-distribution and re-acquisition of grave sites to make visitation easier, when the sad day comes...
...How does your older son reconcile his behavior with the commandment to honor his parents...
...In fact, they are seeking a form of absolution for a less well-defined emotional conflict that is only superficially related to religious observance...
...Not for Latner the homilies on tolerance of other people's religious fanaticism...
...Preserve yourself, she seems to be saying, you are only human...
...You will only suffer further by trying to make peace between the two, if he does not respond...
...Latner wrote...
...Am I allowed to do such and such...
...How insensitive can you be...
...Naomi Bluestone is Associate Professor of Community Health at the Albert Einstein Medical Center and a resident in psychiatry at the Creed-moor Psychiatric Center in Queens...
...Now is not the time for polemics on intermarriage, how you failed your child, the evils of co-ed dormitories...
...The name sprang from my unconscious like Minerva from the head of Zeus...
...and grinding out columns weekly...
...With a sudden chill, the thought crosses my mind that Latner, like Carolyn Keene, is not a real person but a syndicate, a group of men writing under a woman's name, Dr...
...Her "An Existential Crisis on the Long Island Railroad" appeared in these pages in June 1981...
...If this tactic does not work, you will have to deal with your pious son as you have in the past...
...And she speaks right to it...
...If they no longer need to know how to pass for native, they need to know how to deal with the effects of having done so...
...I believe that another major service provided by this woman is the public forum she offers for vindication, the acknowledgement of societal wrongs acknowledged nowhere else...
...Latner prints letters which spell this out in terms of Greek tragedy...
...Now the reverse is true...
...Does it really matter how the invitations should be worded when the father is divorced and remarried, and the mother has retained the husband's name...
...Undaunted, Latner rushes in where rabbis fear to tread...
...Is smoked fish on paper plates not kosher enough for some religious people...
...I was very hurt and upset by their actions...
...If this is so, then couldn't they have waited until they left to eat their sandwiches in their car, and just have taken some drink with us...
...Perhaps the Yom Kippur confessional is a good time to confront the pious son with his pride, arrogance and stiff-necked anger...
...Don't waste time feeling hurt...
...In the aggregate, her answers provide a picture of a people struggling to deal with its sense of loss and reconstruction...
...Yet, she is a realist...
...Today people need advice on what separates a Jew from others, how one can stay a Jew with so many non-Jewish relatives, and how to feed 120 people, only one of whom is kosher, at a simchah...
...Both sons live in different cities, and how long can they go on juggling their visits so that they need not meet up with each other...
...And I hope someone will tell her that there is at least one woman in this country who thinks she is more admirable than Nancy Reagan, Jackie Onassis, Farrah Fawcett or Billie Jean King...
...Have we all not been awash in reaction to this rudeness and rejection, this implied criticism and guilt generated by holier-than-thou attitudes...
...Latner replies that this is not a religious matter, just a personal thing between family members, as far as the English name goes...
...What...
...She merely points out that the son will marry someday, quite probably, and then where will his poor wife lie...
...She makes everyone give a little...
...Whether or not it is appropriate for the grandmother to walk behind the son-in-law...
...He had a Jewish mother and was studying for conversion to understand Judaism better...
...Do what you have to do...
...They have every right to practice their observance as they see fit, but not to blatantly offend others by behavior that proclaims, 'No home and no accommodation is kosher enough for me!'" Ever quick to bind up wounds, however, she later goes on to advise, "If you ever invite them again, don't make it at mealtime, set out a fruit plate, and relax...
...But by the way, she adds, if you are talking about a Hebrew name, perhaps now is a good time to discuss the child's religious upbringing, perhaps to talk to a rabbi...
...On some level, this must be understood by the writer as well as the reader, since the request is sent to Latner, and not to the rabbi at home...
...Helen Latner, I thought...
...She introduces Jewish customs, new and old, where none were considered before, and weaves in Jewish history and tradition for Jews who have forgotten, or have never come to know it...
...Who stands to the right of the bar mitzvah boy in the receiving line, and what position should be taken by the second wife at the head table...
...Who among us has not felt rage, frustration and bewilderment at this paradox of piety and pompousness...
...She calls 'em as she sees 'em...
...Unlike the two Jewish sisters of the mid-West, whose reputations were built on witty responses to middle-American concerns, Latner keeps building a Jewish civilization with each response she constructs...
...But it is offensive and rude for them to flaunt their observance to this extreme, . . . going into another room to eat their own food, as if your presence would contaminate it...
...it asked women...
...Singlehandedly, this woman takes chaos, grieving, guilt, specters of excommunication, and forces people to go on...
...Are all of you familiar with this woman's column...
...she asks ingenuously...
...Helen Latner thinks that this woman is involved in some unresolved Oedipal thing with her son, although she is too polite to say so...
...Deceptively simple, these concerns of protocol, positioning, precedence, rank and order...
...When they arrived they sat in another room and ate sandwiches that they'd brought, and wouldn't even join us for a drink from plastic cups...
...Is it superficial to want to know who accompanies a daughter down the aisle...
...The older son will have nothing to do with the younger one, who is divorced from a gentile wife and is the father of a six-year-old daughter...
...They (the parents) may not realize that you DO care about the faith in which the child is raised...
...Recently they came to visit from one to three p.m...
...They need no reminder of the role they have played in their own destruction...
...Which woman alive today do you admire most...
...If she had not existed to develop this personal forum, I suppose we would have had to create her...
...For centuries Jews have been discriminated against because they had 'Jewish' names...
...As seen from the above letter, it is not uncommon for people to send problems to Latner couched in terms of religious permissibility...
...Note that the parents in their letter have made no overt mention of their dissatisfaction with their son's choice of a mate...
...Your son is marrying a gentile...
...They haven't seen him in over a year now...
...On October 25, 1981, for example, she published a letter from a woman who · was dissatisfied because her Italian son-in-law had refused to change his name to one that sounded more Jewish...
...The day she sat down to advise her first Jewish grandmother being invited to a Catholic church for the wedding of a grandchild, a hearth was lit for Jews living out the struggle of assimilation and intermarriage...
...The generals command, the politicians betray, the soldiers fight, the children run weapons, the houses blaze...
...Latner answers letters from distressed readers posing problems of Jewish etiquette and social protocol...
...Have you any suggestions as to how this could be done...
...This couple may be very Orthodox, but they certainly aren't very polite, or even considerate," she replies tartly...
...In case you don't know her, please be introduced...
...The hurt he has caused you and his brother is very deep indeed...
...I hope the leaders of our community will listen to her, and humbly, instead of sending challenging letters that imply she is usurping the rights of the rabbis...
...We realize the child is not considered Jewish...
...What is your favorite color...
...She has agreed to raise the children as Jews...
...She never lets readers forget the future, or the consequences of their actions...
...Perhaps I romanticize, but in thinking of Latner's work, I am reminded of a world at war...
...No time was wasted in response...
...Helen, help...
...It is but one of many books that I shall probably never have time to read, not even if they move it to the philosophy shelf...
...Now is the time for assessing strengths and weaknesses...
...I'd prefer to know as little as possible, and continue to believe that there is among us one woman who has established a rai-son d'etre which she'll confinue for as long as she is needed...
...Impossible, I reassure myself, no man could do what this woman does...
...wouldn't give to be a housewife, I thought...
...And unlike more disciplined therapists, she occasionally barks...
...Such a woman is Helen Latner...
...Life is with people...
...In dealing with Jews in conflict with other Jews, Latner is quick to distinguish between religious issues and personal ones, between items of ceremonial significance and those that are best left to both parties' desires...
...We all know there are some extremely observant people who will not eat anything in the way of prepared food outside of their own homes or a certified glatt kosher restaurant...
...The parents, caught in the middle, are tired of the balancing act...
...On September 13, 1981, she discusses the following letter, reprinted in its entirety: "A young relative and her fiance are very Orthodox...
...The search for etiquette, derech eretz, the right thing to do, is a search for an identity...
...Here is an example: A woman and her late husband purchased four grave plots...
...Longing to keep peace in the family at all costs, the parents finally rebel...
...Where will it all end...
...Our forefathers needed advice on how to acculturate, assimilate, adapt to a new world...
...You're the expert...
...Her parents are not raising the roof...
...Is it kosher, the writer asks, for her to use the plots for herself and her new husband, too...
...How are you going to handle this one...
...Parents who know nothing of Judaism are embarrassed by gentile sons and daughters-in-law who ask questions they can't answer...
...Have Jews in any century been so preoccupied with place...
...Am I wrong, or were their actions in poor taste...
...Go get 'em, Helen...
...What's more, if you changed the spelling of your family name (which I am not printing here) only slightly, it would become a simple Italian word meaning 'dear' or 'beloved.' So much for your stereotyped ideas of appropriate names...
...Although at first blush she appears to be simply a Jewish "Dear Abby," making copy of tri via or familial malcommunications, I enjoy digging beneath the surface of her discourse and studying the metaphorical significance of problems such as gifting the bar mitzvah boy, seating guests at weddings where nobody is speaking to anybody else and dealing with ultra-religious put-downs on significant family occasions...
...I have two sons," begins one heartbreaker...
...And maybe she could save the fourth for her son...
...What does Helen Latner think...
...She avoids platitudes, clich?s or current wisdom...
...In that case, see him and his family separately...
...How will you conduct yourselves so as not to lose your son...
...Like a good administrator, she teaches readers to list attributes: The girl is willing to take instruction...
...One woman's son, for example, is married to a non-Jewish girl...
...I have been Helen Latner's growing fan since her column first began appearing in The Jewish Week, a parochial tabloid that comes faithfully to my home as a small harbinger of Jewish communal ferment...
...Once, when the younger son was to have arrived with his little child for a visit with the parents, the older one packed up his family and took off, rather than have them be contaminated by the presence of their non-Jewish cousin...
...1 informed them that I was serving smoked fish and would provide paper plates and plastic eating utensils...
...How can you work with what you have...
...Now: What can be salvaged...
...If readers who stumble on it are moved to share with me their discoveries about the real Helen Latner, please, I beg you, don't...
...Impasse...
Vol. 7 • November 1982 • No. 10
