Growing into My Genes: A Genealogical Memoir

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A book like this could not have been written without the incredible parents and grandparents and family with whom I have been blessed. I cherish the memories and the gifts of past generations and the continuing love and support of my wife and children. My wife told me I reminded her of a little old Yiddish grandfather when we met and dated 50 years ago and she has continued with great patience to listen to my Yiddish songs and jokes and the stories about my youth and my grandparents. On several occasions throughout our 45 years of marriage she has observed that she felt that my ancestors were living in our home, but she didn’t mind because it brought me pleasure. More than anything, it has been her support and encouragement and advice that have helped me not only to meet my life challenges with some degree of grace and dignity, but also to bring this project to fruition.

I would be remiss if I did not mention my deep gratitude to my son Joel and son-in-law Michael Gluck. These outstanding young men have stood with me from the outset. As a near technological idiot, it was only because of their technical support, from editing to layout and publication and much more that I was able to finish. They have been incredible! Despite our very warm relationships of the past, I feel that this joint effort has brought me even closer to both of them. Moreover, I believe they understand that they also have played a significant role in preparing something of great potential value for their own children and descendants.

Finally, I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of two individuals who provided additional important contributions: Roberta Handel, my first adult education writing teacher, who encouraged me to write from a more personal perspective, to integrate my penchant for humor into my short stories and to begin memoir writing; and Ferne Mittleman, of the Western New York Genealogy Society, who helped me not only to appreciate and to navigate the large number of valuable and frustrating data bases and web sites, but also to identify the old-country hometowns and family surnames.

Happy are the righteous! Not only do they acquire merit, but they bestow merit upon their children and their children’s children to the end of all generations…

- The Torah

CONTENTS

Ghost Whisperings and Epiphanies: Listening to the voices of my past

Introduction to My Family

My Blue Heaven

My Very Own Yiddish Greek Chorus

Escaping My Criminal Past

Crime and Punishment in Junior High

The Family Quiz Show

Belle Rudin: The Belle of the Ball (1910-2009)

Humor, Sex, Justice and Other Facts of Life (According to Mom)

• My Mom The Jewish Swinger

• Mom Fixes Up Her Grandson

• Mom’s Day in Court

• Mom Attends Synagogue Services

• No Sex in Heaven

How I Met My Future Wife and Won Her Hand

• My First Boy-Girl Party

• A Bird in Hand

The Neon Sign That Changed My Life

The 3 Mentors

• She’ll Be Comin’ Round The Mountain

• To My Aunt Shirley On Her 100th Birthday

• Barnacle Bill

Father’s Day, 1956

How Grandma Helped Me Get Academic Tenure

Genealogy Appendix: Completing My Family History

i. Understanding Genealogical Research-Tips and Pitfalls

ii. Summary of Socio-Historical Background

iii. The Role of Yiddish in Our Ancestral Culture

iv. Nathan and Fannie (Slatkowitz) Rudin Family History

v. Joseph and Mamie (Pollack) Schwartz Family History

Conclusion

GHOST WHISPERINGS AND EPIPHANIES: LISTENING TO THE VOICES OF MY PAST

For a long time I did not understand when or why I decided to assemble this collection of reminiscences and genealogical materials. My life and the lives and experiences of my parents, grandparents and ancestors did not seem that unique or exemplary to warrant any special attention or recognition. Yet memories of my youth and questions I had never thought to ask my grandparents have been rumbling around in my subconscious mind for decades.

This probably partially accounts for my life-long interest in Yiddish. Whenever I hear, speak or see Yiddish, I sense that I am in the presence of my grandparents. I know that many others feel a spark of nostalgia upon hearing a long-forgotten Yiddish word or phrase, but what I experience is more than nostalgia; it has always been closer to a deep yearning that seemed to defy any rational explanation. Similarly, when I was blessed with a son and a daughter, I knew I had to name them after these same grandparents. Incredibly, each has inherited some of the characteristics I most loved in my grandparents.

The feeling that I needed to know more about my ancestors intensified over the years. I wanted to learn additional facts about their pre-immigration lives, and I wanted to be able to place their lives in the context of the Ashkenazic cultural heritage. Concomitantly, and almost incomprehensibly, my ancestors just wouldn’t leave me alone. In a way, they were like visiting apparitions from a distant past who kept reappearing in my dreams, pestering me to get better acquainted with them and to tell their stories. A confluence of life-altering events occurring in the last decade finally precipitated my capitulation, and I embarked on the fascinating voyage to my past. I had no idea where it would lead me. This volume represents, from multiple perspectives, the products of my voyage to this point, including the personal impact on me.

Several separate and serious medical prognoses beginning in the late 1990’s left me both dumbstruck and disabled. A major heart attack at the age of 55 caused irreparable damage, which was expected to result in my death in 1-2 years. I was told only a heart transplant might save me. I had to retire immediately and wait for the transplant, never able to return to work. Almost concurrently a long-dormant neuromuscular disorder progressed to the extent that I was afflicted with a growing paralysis and a weakening of my central nervous system. For years this disease was misdiagnosed and inappropriately treated. It was eventually diagnosed as ALS (AKA Lou Gehrig’s disease). Much of my time in the last decade has been spent in and out of hospitals and visiting specialists in three states regarding both of my illnesses. I didn’t know which disease to worry about more. Despite my growing frailty and grim prognosis my wife and I have tried to adapt and continue to treasure each day. The ongoing warmth and support of family and friends has helped us immeasurably along the way.

After the normal period of anger, rage and grief I had considerable time to think about my youth in Detroit, and the conditions, people and circumstances influencing my development. Since I had been pretty much of a workaholic throughout my academic career, I felt especially frustrated. Rather than yield to despair or self-pity, and despite my handicaps and diminishing energy, I sought productive outlets. Despite my dismal health prognosis, my wife and I ignored conventional wisdom that we rent an apartment in Cleveland to be near the best source of medical care; instead of waiting for the worst to happen, we decided to winter in Sarasota. Here we became addicted to sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico, bird-watching and other never-ending natural delights.

During the first five or six years of my disability I performed extensive volunteer work, especially as a literacy tutor for immigrants and, for five years, as a volunteer with the American Cancer Society. As my energy level declined I turned to more sedentary activities; thus I began to write children’s stories, and I studied and attended workshops on the role of humor in our lives, particularly as it affects health and healing. Building on my lifelong love of Yiddish I enrolled in an advanced college-level Yiddish course and even taught beginning Yiddish in my living room. I am now beginning my fourth year of teaching seminars on Kafka. I started writing memoirs and began to study genealogy as well. Throughout this entire period my ancestors grew restless and appeared in my dreams even more frequently.

My epiphany came when I enrolled in a series of adult-education writing courses, ranging from creative to personal writing. When one of my favorite instructors at the Jewish Center in Buffalo assigned the task of writing about our earliest memory, I recalled for the first time in nearly 60 years an incident between me and my maternal grandmother occurring when I was about three-and-one-half years old. The images were so vivid and the memories so moving that I began to weep. They, in turn, evoked a flood of other childhood recollections. At that moment, about five years ago, I suddenly knew what I had to do. Thus I began to record these memories and to incorporate them into short stories. For the first time I sensed a growing conscious awareness of the extent of the influence and inspiration I derived from my family and heritage.

I began to research more fully the conviction implicit in Jewish tradition that we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, that their skills, talents and values are handed down to us, and that our past is always with us. In case our virtues or accomplishments are insufficient to warrant the fulfillment of our prayerful entreaties, various traditional prayers invoke the names of prestigious and virtuous ancestors, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Leah, Rachel and Rebecca. Moreover, in accordance with the concept of Yichus, a kind of ancestral pedigree that was an important component of Eastern-European Jewish culture, the moral, spiritual and educational achievements of a potential spouse’s ancestors were often considered more valuable than material success.

Growing up in a Yiddish speaking home and partially raised by my Yiddish speaking grandparents from Eastern Europe, who were also for many years my inseparable buddies, I easily learned the basic rudiments of Yiddish and heard about these traditions and a great deal more about life in the old country in general. It took more than 35 years to grasp the significance of what I already knew. In the process of recording my memories, I also began to contact dozens of mostly distant relatives in a desperate search to learn more about my family history. In some cases I had to resort to begging for clues, old family pictures, documents and reminiscences. It soon struck me that between my own memories and the stories and materials I collected from relatives, I was quickly becoming the repository for a great deal of valuable information. I realized that I was perhaps the last of my generation who might have the clues, interest and skills to research this past and to capture and record not only factual information, but also something of the nature, character and context of the lives of my ancestors.

I devoted my diminishing energies even more seriously to telling their stories. The more I wrote, the more memories I began to recall and the more I incorporated from family lore. I returned on several occasions to various relatives to share information I had gathered about our collective past and often this evoked in them additional memories. After one or two years I felt that I had pretty much exhausted my limited research base and I began to read more about the growing interest in family history research. While this should have been a logical starting point, I simply did not anticipate at the outset how far my effort would take me. In any event, it ultimately led me to the broader field of genealogy, which until then I had studiously avoided due to anxiety about my inadequate computer skills. I quickly learned how foolish I had been. Genealogical research became the perfect complement to my writing, and, ultimately, the tool to help me more completely illuminate my family history and unleash the power of my past.

The results of my efforts have far exceeded my initial expectations. Not only have I been able to discover many facts and details regarding my ancestry, including the names of ancestral home towns and the old country surnames of two branches of my family but, quite unexpectedly, I have also learned a great deal about myself. Indeed, this process has helped me to identify and embrace the profound influences of my youth and my cultural and religious heritage. It has now become possible for me to understand myself, my parents and my grandparents with newfound candor and complexity. Not only have my efforts helped to bring these beloved ancestors back to life, but I am also now able to discern how much of their characteristics and values have been transmitted to me and my children.

Another unexpected by-product of my work has been the acknowledgement and support I have received not only from friends and family, but also from wider audiences. I have established or reestablished relationships with long-lost relatives which have been quite fulfilling. Many of the individuals I contacted were delighted with the information and materials I shared, and thrilled to