MILLIONS OF CATHOLICS
AND SOME JEWS

 
When my kids were young, every Chanukah I would take them to the various Jewish bookstores around town to buy decorations and Chanukah books and toys, just so they would get used to these places. At Frank’s Hebrew Bookstore, I thought I was in Poland: tallisim (prayer shawls), spice boxes, yarmulkes. A photo of Koufax on the wall — that would have helped.

Also, I drove my kids to the Christmas lights at General Electric’s Nela Park. That was a family tradition, started by my parents in the 1950s. Why not? Lights is lights.

Yiddishe Cup used to play holiday parties at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. We would stroll table to table. Just about everybody asked for Christmas carols.

Hey, I didn’t start Yiddishe Cup to play “Silent Night.” I said no to all Christmas requests. We would play “Hava Nagila” or tunes from Fiddler on the Roof, if asked. Dick Feagler, a renowned Plain Dealer columnist, gave us the thumbs-up for staying Jewish. Dick apparently liked our Full Cleveland approach. (Full Cleveland meant polka, klez, bandura, tamburitza, salsa. All good.)  No rock for Dick.

After strolling to about 10 tables, I cracked; I couldn’t take any more “What? You don’t do Christmas songs?”  We played Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad.” Christmas in Spanish was OK.

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My family went to KlezKamp in the Catskills during Christmas week for more than a decade. At first I couldn’t get my wife, Alice, to go. We had young kids and she didn’t want to schlep them. One year I took the two oldest kids and went without her. I spent a lot of time in the hotel game room and swimming pool that year. That chemical vat, a k a pool, was only slightly larger than a half dollar, and you had to coat yourself with 100-proof skin cream or get a rash.

The kids and I went to New York City afterward. My daughter, Lucy, then 5, made me carry her everywhere. We didn’t get too far. We went to Popeye’s on Times Square for dinner.

When we got back to Cleveland, Alice said at the doorway, “The kids look anemic!”

Alice, we had beans and rice and lemonade at Popeye’s! (The kids hadn’t been too crazy about the borscht and herring at KlezKamp.)

Alice has never trusted me with food, or childrearing for that matter.

The following year Alice came with us to Klezkamp. All five of us. Alice was a folk dancer and exercise nut; however, Jews at klezmer conventions are not typically exercise freaks. Alice found a nearby indoor tennis court which was so dusty the balls turned black after one set. It was like playing in a parking garage.  We went skiing on Christmas. I thought the slopes would be empty, but no, a lot of Asians and Jews from New York City were there.

We snuck over to The Pines resort for ice skating. That place looked like a staging area for a Borscht Belt revival movie. We had a good time checking out trivia contests in the lobby. I’ve got nothing against middle-class Jews. I am one.

My family kept going back to KlezKamp every Christmas. Ikh khulem fun a vaysn nitl. (I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.) And every year Alice would complain: “I can’t believe we’re going to KlezKamp again!”

Jack Stratton, Merlin Shepherd (kneeling) and Lucy Stratton. KlezKamp 1993.

Finally, after 12 years, the brainwashing was complete; the kids knew more Yiddish than oy vey and farklempt, and they knew a lot about klezmer music, and Alice could have, by then, taught the dance classes. And I had met all the old klez guys: Max Epstein, Felix Fibich, Danny Rubenstein, Velvel Pasternak. Paul Pincus, Leon Schwartz, Ray Musiker, Ben Bazyler, Sid Beckerman, German Goldenshteyn, Howie Leess, Elaine Hoffman Watts.

They’re probably all dead now.

I paid my dues.

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“Merry Christmas” is OK with me. Beats “Happy Holidays.” I once went to a West Side house for Christmas and about 12 Ukrainian girls walked in and caroled us. And they were in full regalia. That was my most Christmas-y experience – until this year.

I went to Mass yesterday. Midnight Mass (which was actually at 4 pm for AKs like me and families with young kids). Joint was jumping. St. Ann Church, Cleveland Heights. A field trip. Park Synagogue’s senior rabbi, Joshua Skoff, led the outing.

The priest prayed for the well-being of the pope, Cleveland’s bishop, etcetera, on down to the “millions of Catholics” throughout the world. Millions — that word hit me. We Jews don’t bandy millions around lightly. That’s some big tent those Catholics have.

I miss KlezKamp. I like the small-ball game of Judaism. Only 15.8 million of us, and we all know each other!

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