In a message dated 3/27/02 4:56:49 PM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes:
On Tue, 19 Mar 2002, Ralph Walter wrote:
> As far as I know, the point (so to speak) of leaving a rock is to show that
> somebody has visited the grave, which is a Mitzvah (generally translated as a
> "good deed," but there's also an element of righteousness involved in showing
> respect for the deceased by visiting his/her grave). My coreligionists are
> invited to chime in here, and make me look full of shit, as usual.
I personally don't limit the practice to coreligionists. For example, in
Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford CT, when I came across the grave of Thomas
Gallaudet, founder of the first school for the deaf in the Western
Hemisphere, I felt moved to find a pebble by the side of the drive and
leave it on his small monument as a sign of respect. I did not do the
same at J.P. Morgan's large tomb in the same cemetery.
> inclined to think that this was an indication of the extent to which my
> father's family considered themselves to be high-class assimilated German
> Jews,
Explanation for those who might have trouble following this: For decades,
there was considered to be a gulf between the German Jews (arriving in the
U.S. mostly pre-1870) and the Eastern European Jews (arriving in the U.S.
mostly post-1890), so much so that they belonged to different synagogues
and generally disdained one another. The Holocaust and suburbanization
pretty much erased this distinction after 1945.
The esteemed Litvak Mr. Kestenbaum may THINK this distinction was erased, but it wasn't among the JudeoKrauts who came here after 1870, or among my relations whoo came here in 1940, or in my father's aunt who (barely) survived the war in the Privileged Ghetto of Theresienstadt, and continued to look down her nose at the surviving Litvaks and Galitzianers she ran across in Germany after the war.
In one of the Jew Classes I took in college (the purpose of which, as far as the future architect was concerned, was to meet eligible [or at least potentially friendly, if you get my drift] young ladies of the Hebrew persuasion), the teacher explained the heirarchy of European Jews by telling us about how he had met his in-laws (I think they were of Hungarian descent) for the first time, and they were excited that his name was Wiener (which means "Viennese" in German). So they asked whether he (i.e., his parents or at least ancestors) were German. He said no, and they said, "Oh, you must be Austrian, then!" and he said no, again. Then he must be Hungarian, which although 3rd best, would be OK, because they were of the Hunky persuasion. The answer to that was also negative. Then they asked if he was Polish, and the answer was again no. Finally, with as little disdain as they could manage, they asked if he was Russian, and he finally said yes. The future mother-in-law's response was "Oh, that's too bad." In any case, the Dutch Jews were considered to be even higher than the German Jews (although I'm not sure the German Jews would agree completely ), on the theory that the Dutch Jews were descended from those who were run out of Spain in 1492, and the Spanish Jews were the creme de l creme.
> As above, perhaps my coreligionists will chime in, and you'll get to
> see them looking down their noses at my wannabe, trying-to-pass Kraut
> ancestors.
Hardly! My Kest[e]nbaum/Weintraub ancestors came to NY from Budapest,
Hungary, in 1895. Hungary is something of an anomaly in Eastern Europe
because at the time it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and German
was the offical language. It appears that my relatives tried to shade
themselves over into being earlier-arriving German Jews, and to pretend
that the Yiddish they spoke was German. In other words, they were
trying-to-pass *AS* Kraut. My chess champion first cousin grew up (in
Culver City, as you know) thinking that our Budapest-born mutual
great-grandfather Benjamin Kestnbaum was actually from Germany.
See above. For the benefit of our new colleague Mr. Mordo (and anyone else who may have forgotten this fascinating tidbit), Larry refers to Culver City (where the Hollywood movie studios used to be) because I am a native of that locale. But I could never play chess worth a damn.
Happy Matzoh to all, and to all a Suessen Pesach.
Ralph