Read Online My Old Neighborhood Remembered by Avery Corman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Avery Corman
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principal intention was for us to stand up on the day of our bar mitzvahs and chant properly.
Our Hebrew School teachers, humorless, pinched men, older than our regular school teachers, suggested that God was looking down on us and observing our dedication to the task at hand, if you could believe that and I didnât. The instruction was strict, unrelenting, with a likely continuity to the yeshivas of Eastern Europe, except it wasnât Eastern Europe, it was the Bronx and seemed inappropriately rigid. In my Hebrew School we were moved around in the classrooms. If you answered incorrectly you were moved back and could move all the way to the last row, last seat in the room. If you answered correctly you moved up. Classes were held in a floor below the synagogue, sliding doors defining the separate classrooms. No girls. The concept of bat mitzvahs didnât exist in the neighborhood. If I close my eyes and think back on those classes in Hebrew School, I am tense, restless, and just getting over the chicken pox.
In Sunday School we were told tales from the Old Testament, the story of the Jews presented in dry reportage as if true. âDo you know what the word, history, means?â my teacher said. â His story.â I found it all hard to believe and that was a crucial difference between me and the Catholic kids I knew. They seemed certain in their belief. They seemed to really believe the biblical stories they were taught.
The largest issue between Jewish and Catholic youngsters was that we were told by our Catholic friends that the Jews killed Christ. The idea was passed on by the nuns who taught in the parochial schools of the 1940s, naive themselves in that era of backward thinking. It was understood by the Catholic kids that in biblical times our people did it. We killed Christ. The undercurrent from that thought never went away. In anything resembling a discussion of religion with our Catholic friends we were always off balance, lacking the information for refutation. We felt we were viewed negatively for this historic and monumental crime. In adult life I appeared on a television panel discussion with a priest from the Bronx of my childhood who said regretfully that the nuns were teaching in Catholic schools then that the Jews killed Christ.
We Jewish and Catholic children from the neighborhood when we were older and better informed might have discussed intelligently the known history of the life and death of Jesus and resolved the issue between us, but we were no longer there. We had scattered.
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BARBER SHOPS
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The barber shop was a reflection of the neighborhood as small town, our link with a Norman Rockwell image of American life. In the barber shops on a Saturday men would sometimes wait for up to an hour reading newspapers and magazines and chatting â politics, sports, complaints. They were in a manâs domain, copies of Police Gazette strewn about.
For a child, being taken there by a grownup was not good. Being old enough to go by yourself, having been given the right amount of money for a haircut and tip, was also not good. The wait was excruciating. The talk in the barber shop had nothing to do with you and you could not possibly have an opinion the men or the barbers would listen to, even on something you knew about like sports.
When you were little you had to endure the embarrassment of being propped up on a booster board so the barber could get at you without straining his back. When you were older the barber cut your hair short for the summer, making this decision without your having a say in the matter. Eventually, you were old enough to have opinions about the way you wanted your hair cut and you asked for pomade and fussed about how your pompadour looked.
Like the shoe repair stores, barber shops were exclusively run by Italian-Americans. On a Saturday afternoon in the shoe repair stores and barber shops and through an open window here and there, the Texaco-sponsored
Our Hebrew School teachers, humorless, pinched men, older than our regular school teachers, suggested that God was looking down on us and observing our dedication to the task at hand, if you could believe that and I didnât. The instruction was strict, unrelenting, with a likely continuity to the yeshivas of Eastern Europe, except it wasnât Eastern Europe, it was the Bronx and seemed inappropriately rigid. In my Hebrew School we were moved around in the classrooms. If you answered incorrectly you were moved back and could move all the way to the last row, last seat in the room. If you answered correctly you moved up. Classes were held in a floor below the synagogue, sliding doors defining the separate classrooms. No girls. The concept of bat mitzvahs didnât exist in the neighborhood. If I close my eyes and think back on those classes in Hebrew School, I am tense, restless, and just getting over the chicken pox.
In Sunday School we were told tales from the Old Testament, the story of the Jews presented in dry reportage as if true. âDo you know what the word, history, means?â my teacher said. â His story.â I found it all hard to believe and that was a crucial difference between me and the Catholic kids I knew. They seemed certain in their belief. They seemed to really believe the biblical stories they were taught.
The largest issue between Jewish and Catholic youngsters was that we were told by our Catholic friends that the Jews killed Christ. The idea was passed on by the nuns who taught in the parochial schools of the 1940s, naive themselves in that era of backward thinking. It was understood by the Catholic kids that in biblical times our people did it. We killed Christ. The undercurrent from that thought never went away. In anything resembling a discussion of religion with our Catholic friends we were always off balance, lacking the information for refutation. We felt we were viewed negatively for this historic and monumental crime. In adult life I appeared on a television panel discussion with a priest from the Bronx of my childhood who said regretfully that the nuns were teaching in Catholic schools then that the Jews killed Christ.
We Jewish and Catholic children from the neighborhood when we were older and better informed might have discussed intelligently the known history of the life and death of Jesus and resolved the issue between us, but we were no longer there. We had scattered.
----
BARBER SHOPS
----
The barber shop was a reflection of the neighborhood as small town, our link with a Norman Rockwell image of American life. In the barber shops on a Saturday men would sometimes wait for up to an hour reading newspapers and magazines and chatting â politics, sports, complaints. They were in a manâs domain, copies of Police Gazette strewn about.
For a child, being taken there by a grownup was not good. Being old enough to go by yourself, having been given the right amount of money for a haircut and tip, was also not good. The wait was excruciating. The talk in the barber shop had nothing to do with you and you could not possibly have an opinion the men or the barbers would listen to, even on something you knew about like sports.
When you were little you had to endure the embarrassment of being propped up on a booster board so the barber could get at you without straining his back. When you were older the barber cut your hair short for the summer, making this decision without your having a say in the matter. Eventually, you were old enough to have opinions about the way you wanted your hair cut and you asked for pomade and fussed about how your pompadour looked.
Like the shoe repair stores, barber shops were exclusively run by Italian-Americans. On a Saturday afternoon in the shoe repair stores and barber shops and through an open window here and there, the Texaco-sponsored
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