Jerry Ochs

I believe Rick Steiner could have turned these roughly 100 recent messages into a Netflix original program.

Paul Simons

Yes Jerry. Rick would have made it into another "West Side Story". Who was the big female star back then? Ursula Andress? Maybe it could be done today as an animation with Ursula Android playing - who? Who was the big male star? Jack Nicholson? OK, I guess he could play me, that would be OK. But in all seriousness there was a thing called "The Gent-Jew Rumble" which was about to begin at the Frisch's restaurant on Reading Rd near the Twin Drive-In - maybe Dave Dunkleman and Dick Goettle were going to square off, I'm not sure - but as I remember it somehow, for some reason violence didn't happen. I could be wrong but that's how I remember it. Also Jon I remember one time giving Sue a ride home and met her pops and yes, the nicest, kindest people on earth. Just the fact that she'd accept a ride from a total nerd like me, and that her father would engage in conversation- amazingly open-minded, non-judgemental people.

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Heavens to Mergatroyd! I rather doubt if even Diane Potashnik would have gone for stoning my beloved grandma on the absolutely inconceivable happening of her taking a taxi to synagog. She would have - and did - stay at home if she wasn't up to walking. Exodus is brutal, as were many primitive religions, and I'm thinking way before the birth of Jesus. The laws of the time were meant to keep people from "straying" as a conscious effort. When I think of stoning as an ancient practice, the crime that comes most quickly to mind is adultery. Primitive religions that were more flexible, well, how many are around nowadays? To remind you: adultery is still punished by stoning in several Muslim theocracies, and Islam is rapidly taking over the world as a, if not the, dominating religion. I'm just saying.....

That said, I do want to make it clear that in the present-day State of Israel, when the super-righteous ultra-Orthodox exit Sabbath prayers on Saturday, go home and have a nosh, then go out and throw rocks at cars for traveling on the Sabbath, the stone-throwers are arrested and prosecuted in a civil court of law. If they cause the death of someone as a result of this horrendous, savage stone-throwing, they are charged with some form of murder ( like reckless endangerment). So while modern Israel has its stoners (pun NOT intended!), they are frowned upon.

Guys, I always knew I lived in a bubble in high school, but I see now I really didn't understand a thing. After reading the extent to which Reform Jews of the 1960s, the parents of my classmates and friends, went in for Christmas with such enthusiasm, and yet did nothing to instruct their children (i.e. our generation) about Judiasm by example, it now makes sense to me how Judaism is well on its way to disappearing as a religion in America. When Jews were persecuted, the religion flourished, even during the Inquisition, surprisingly. Yet when Jews are treated with respect, as in post-WWII America, Judaism falters and Jews adopt the customs of the majority in order to fit in and feel comfortable. This forum was talking about fitting in recently regarding dating; well, fitting in is fitting in in many ambiences.

Although I respect everyone's life choices, to be absolutely honest, I do not understand why many of my high school friends, who were forced to attend Rockdale Sunday School until 16, or the like,  but whose families celebrated the whole 9 yards of Christmas, did not join the Jews for Jesus movement later, when young adults. They were Jews who had no trouble with acknowledging the divinity of Jesus, so what was holding them up? Why didn't Reform Judaism jump wholesale in to Jews for Jesus movement? What did the non-Orthodox Jews do instead? They splintered into several other "streams" of Judaism, none of which include Jesus. Reconstructionist Judaism, Humanistic Judaism, and Progressive Judaism all popped up after I had left America in 1969, so I am not at all familiar with their tenets. I may even have forgotten a stream or two.....

I have never been able to wrap my head around "Jews for Jesus" from their get-go. Either one is Jewish and doesn't believe in the divinity of Jesus and belongs to one of the now-many streams of Judaism...... or not, in which case you are some form of Christian and no form of Jewish. If someone could logically explain that to me, I should be grateful. It just isn't logical to me. I just want a logical explanation. 

Laura Reid (Pease)

 I have to admit I laughed out loud at Jon Singer’s message pertaining to English Leather, Susie Lovett and the RT formal....I’m sure she was impressed.  We were good friends in high school, and I run into her occasionally, usually at the airport as we travel with our grandchildren.  Admittedly when we first became friends I was amused with her relaxed demeanor as a “preacher’s kid.”  As a Presbyterian myself, a few steps down from being Episcopalian, I was always nervous to go to church with her.  A couple of times I blurted out “debts/debtors” instead of “trespasses”; she said it was no big deal, so I relaxed.  Great family.

I find this whole discussion about religion very interesting.  I must have been very naive during this time in my life, thinking we were all one big happy family.  I was not aware of any religious bias/tension/prejudice,  I credit being a student at Walnut Hills with a respect for all religions.  We have a grandson who will be a freshman at Walnut Hills; he moved here from Denver where he went to a very white private grade school.  He told me the other day how much he likes his present school......”lots of different religions and races, just like the world, but I’ve NEVER worked so hard!!”

Steven Levinson

Judy, I attended Rockdale Temple's religious shcool through 12th grade, not because I was forced to, but because I wanted to.  My mentor through the high school years, the future rabbinical giant Bill Cutter, substantially shaped my worldview into what it is today.  In our 11th grade Comparative Religion course, his working definition of religion (western religion, at least) has stuck with me to this day -- humankind's attempt to know the unknowable and control the uncontrollable.  That explains a lot.  So does Rabbi Cutter's 1962 explanation of the anthropological functions of prayer --  (1) petition, (2) praise; and (3) thanksgiving -- as a form of magical thinking that serve to give people the impression that they are manipulating the forces that impact their lives in such a way as to alter environmental and interpersonal and personal outcomes, i.e., control the uncontrollable.  So Bill Cutter, who later married me and Lynn and, 31 years later, my son and daughter-in-law, made me the atheist I am today.  But he also cemented the fact that I am proudly Jewish, as are the millions (probably) of athiest Jews.  The fact that, by learning history, I enjoy Christmas as a secular holiday does not transform me into a Jew for Jesus, which is for me a nauseating prospect.  Monotheism, polytheism, they're simply Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.  What's really important is what we do to make the world better, not what we believe as articles of faith in a illusory attempt to know the unknowable and control the uncontrollable.

Nancy Messer

I attended Rockdale Temple's religious school also but through Confirmation year (10th grade).  I remember loving the building itself.  It was so grand and ornate - especially all the stained glass windows.  Of course, when I got bored during services I'd lean back in the pew and count the light bulbs in the chandelier.  Those things were huge so it took awhile. 

Our mother was very strict about observing Jewish holidays only.  We never had anything to do with Christmas - no decorations, tree or religious observance of any kind.  Since this was the norm to us I thought all Jewish families did it this way.  I loved the Christmas assemblies at school since I really liked Christmas carols although I wasn't thrilled with singing about Christ the Lord, etc.

My mother's whole family was very strictly Jewish.  I'm glad they lived out of town because they believed we could date only Jewish individuals.  When my brother becames engaged to a Catholic, the relatives sent a family member to town to convince my brother to change his mind.  The relative told him that they'd rather he marry the worst Jewish whore than a Catholic.  Of course, my brother had nothing to do with those relatives ever since.

Paul Simons

This is just a few words to explain to Judy and agree with Steve. It doesn't matter what one believes, what matters is what one does.No clearer example of this is needed than that in our country's history some Christian preachers, all professing a love for Jesus, defended slavery, and some were abolitionists. Currently you have some very wealthy and prominent Jews linked with a corrupt enterprise, and others opposing it, but all united in devotion to the success and survival of Israel. Enjoying Christmas for the idea of peace, and the music, and the tree doesn't make one less a Jew, any more than conducting a Wagner symphony in Jerusalem made Daniel Barenboim less a Jew. And being able to quote from Exodus didn't make Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King any less a Christian who dearly loved Jesus. We're lucky, most of us can control what we do with ourselves spiritually, with our minds and bodies, and I for one wish it was that way for all, in all areas.

Philip Spiess

So, Judy, Jesus is out preaching to the multitude:  "Let one who is without sin among you cast the first stone!"  Immediately, a large rock comes hurtling out of the back of the crowd and smacks Jesus right in the temple [no pun intended].  He wipes off the blood with the sleeve of his robe and looks to the back of the crowd to see who threw the stone.  Seeing, he shakes his finger and mutters, "Some day, Mother!"

Perhaps the preceding will explain why I'm currently team-teaching an Adult Education course at my church on "Hell and Damnation."  I, more historicaly inclined, get the "Hell" part; my partner, one of our country's diplomats in the Middle East and more theologically inclined, gets the "Damnation" part.  If you don't have a clear idea of how the Christian church took the primitive myths on the Afterlife of the 2,000 years prior to Christ and built them up into an impressive fear-factory entitled "Hell" over the 2,000 years after Christ, get a copy of the recently-published The Penguin Book of Hell (2018, curiously styled one of the "Penguin Classics") -- or, if you have little time and little money to invest in the project (or little inclination to read much at all), ask me to send you electronically a copy of my one-hour lecture of two weeks ago, "What Do We Know of Hell and How the Hell Do We Know It?," a fact- and fun-filled pageant of 4,000 years of hellish history.

[Oh, and Jon Singer, do they still sell "English Leather"? It was my bouquet of choice when going on a date in college.]

Jerry Ochs

Phil: I assume that joke was immaculately conceived.

Philip Spiess

Jerry:  Oh, God!

Bonnie Altman (Templeton)

Steve,  Bill Cutter influenced me too. I consider the 11th grade class one of the best I took; however, I am a mystic, not an atheist.

Dale Gieringer

   Philip -  I learned all I needed to know about Hell from a booklet that I found  lying on the sidewalk at the bus stop on Gilbert Ave & Victory Pkwy where I caught the #4 bus home.  It was printed by some Catholic order circa 1947 in the style of a catechism.

     The passage I recall asked "Where is Hell?"

    The answer:  "While no one knows exactly where Hell is located, we can be certain it is somewhere near the center of the earth."  
      As you have noted, John Cleves Symmes debunked that theory long ago.

Jerry Ochs

How can women embrace any religion that portrays them as being impure, or as temptresses, or as lesser beings?  

Philip Spiess

Dale:  Just an indication of more traditional silliness.  Thomas Hobbes, in the fourth part of Leviathan, "Of the Kingdom of Darkness," points out that Hell could not be both a bottomless pit and contained within the globe of the Earth.  Much more to the point is the devil, Mephostophilis, in Christopher Marlowe's play, Tragicall Historie of Doctor Faustus (ca. 1589), who, neither tempter nor liar, says, when asked by Faust why he is out of Hell, says, "Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it. . . . / but where we are is Hell.  / And where Hell is there must we ever be. . . . .  / All places shall be Hell that is not Heaven."

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

One of my sons has pointed out to me several times how rapidly, in our time, information and knowledge are discovered and disseminated, thus history itself is happening so quickly that we can barely keep up with it, let alone the bigger issues of life. When my late mother was born in 1912, there was no telephone, car, or airplane, much less internet, and when she passed away in 2007, well.....

It's hard to be a Jew. There are 613 mitzvot, which are not "good deeds" (as in "You did a real mitzva by bringing Mrs. Cohen to vote."), but commandments found in the Torah. There are 365 negative commandments (e.g., Thou shalt not murder) and 248 positive (Honor thy father and mother). 

Being a Jew in America of the 1950s and 60s was REALLY hard. On the one side, there were all the temptations constantly around us in society at all venues and situations, and further, not only did practicing Jews have those 613 commandments weighing on us, we had to abide by the "commandments" of the Christian society in which we lived: Anyone remember the Sunday closing laws? Practicing Jews could not shop or do errands on Saturday, our Sabbath, but on Sunday, which was, for practicing Jews, akin to a "weekday", one could not accomplish a thing because it was the Christian Sabbath, and everyone who was anyone was Christian.

Practicing Jews had begun decades before the 50s and 60s to "relax" the commandments, but still be able to remain Jews. Rise of Reform Judaism. From the middle of the 20th century, theologists and thinkers from within Reform Judaism observed American society, the rapid changes starting to take place that I began with in this polemic, and began to lay the foundations for yet another change in Judaism, such as described by Steve talking about Rabbi Cutter. 

I think of myself as a half-baked sociologist in general, but tend to get passionate when defining "Jews". The basic problem is that just about everyone, Jews and non-Jews, think of Jews as being defined as a religion. However, Jews are a nation and not a religion - and this is NOT a result of the founding of the State of Israel! The words "am yisrael", which is translated as "people (OR "nation"!) of Israel" has referred to the Jewish people for a very long time, and there is nothing "religious" in this.

Based on this, Reform Jews did not have to become "atheist Jews" as Steven defines himself, since religion has been taken out of the equation. Steve, Paul, Nancy, Barbara, Jon and I, all of whom identify on some level as being Jews, even if it only meant taking on antisemitic hooligans in the locker room in high school. We belong to the Jewish NATION. Again! This is not to be confused with the State of Israel, which is in many aspects a theocracy that is hated by the overwhelmingly secular population. So we go back to these new streams of Judaism I mentioned previously, Humanistic Judaism and Progressive Judaism. The latter particularly, which believes in "tikkun olam", "repairing the world", making society a better place for everyone in the world.

Have to end NOW!

Steven Levinson

Bonnie, Bill Cutter's 11th (and 12th) grade classes would have been arid without you.  Remember the Chasidic mysticism midnight class (12th grade, I think) by candle light at my house in Clifton?

Philip Spiess

Judy, I really thank you for your comments on Judaism.  As a Christian who has consorted for years with Jews of various ilks (mostly Reformed, I think), and as one who taught "Introduction to Judaism" to 5th Graders of various persuasions, and as one who continues to contemplate and tries to interpret the Old Testament of the Bible (as well as the New) for my church's Adult Education classes, I continue to learn, even at my advanced age.

I have often remarked to friends from various parts of the country that Cincinnati was one third Protestant, one third Catholic, and one third Jewish, and that this created its (to me) unique culture.  (This is based on no statistics whatsoever, just my understanding of the city's history.)  Cincinnati, is, of course, the founding center of Reformed Judaism, courtesy of Rabbi Isaac M. Wise in the 19th century, and Plum Street Temple, one of Cincinnati's outstanding architectural landmarks, is its home.

I have understood, since my days at Walnut Hills, that the term "Jews" constitutes both a religion and a nation of origin, and that some Jews I know embrace both, and some just embrace one or the other.  I think that the many comments on this topic from our classmates cover the entire spectrum of belief and practice on this subject, and, again, I am pleased to be able to continue to learn.

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Phil: You weren't being serious about Cincinnati being one-third Protestant, one-third Catholic and one-third Jewish, were you? It could feel like that at times, I'm sure. I remember being told that Bond Hill School just about shut down for Yom Kippur, there were so many Jews at the time my sibling and I were there.... In spite of this feeling for one day during the year, and your many Jewish friends, I very much doubt that Cincy was one-third Jewish.

Steve or Bonnie: Would you please share what you remember about that Chasidic mysticism class by candlelight? I doubt that I know a thing about this subject. Better late than never.

Philip Spiess

Judy:  As I said in my post, my "general" statement was based on no statistics whatever.  What I really meant was that those three groups had played pretty much equally prominent roles in the history of Cincinnati.

Steven Levinson

Philip, I suspect that your impression regarding percentages came from the WHHS demographic, which was often described as one third white Christian, one third black, and one third Jewish, which I think was roughly true.  During the time we all were growing up, the belief was that Cincinnati's Jewish population numbered about 25,000, which made the Jews' influence on and involvement in civic life quite disproportionate.  In any event, the number of Cincinnati Jews, as a percentage of the total municipal population, was quite small, as I'd bet it is today as well.

Judy, the Chasidic mysticism session was Bill Cutter's attempt to create an accurate simulation of what the practice actually felt like.  It was quite effective and great fun.

Philip Spiess

Steve:  I don't disagree at all with your comments; I think you're probably correct in what I was remembering.  But my point really was about the impact that the Jewish population had on the city of Cincinnati -- certainly in the 19th Century (the fact that most of the Jews were also German should be considered in my statement).  The lengthy biographies you sent me several years ago of some of your own family's Cincinnati ancestors certainly address the point that I'm making about impact.  I think the memorial to my statement is that mighty architectural corner on Plum Street (and where the hell did those plums come from, anyway?), offering three of the greatest architectural monuments in our city:  (1) the Richardsonian Romanesque City Hall (norhwest corner, typifying the Protestant whites); (2) the Greek Revival St. Peter in Chains Cathedral (southwest corner, typifying the Roman Catholics, both Irish and, later, Italians); and (3) the Moorish-Gothic Revival Isaac M. Wise (a.k.a. Plum Street) Temple (southeast corner, typifying the Reformed Jews).

And I see I've neglected any statement about Cincinnati's historic black population, which, though historically buried, had a strong impact as well, which I will address another time.

Laura Reid (Pease)

Paul,

I am bringing a group of museum docents to Philadelphia to tour the Barnes, Philadelphia Art Museum, then on to Winterthur, Longwood Gardens and Brandywine.  I need some travel info.  Can we travel by train or do we need to rent a bus and driver?  We were there nine years ago before the Barnes moved downtown but we didn’t go to Winterthur......can you give me some advice?

Thanks, Laur

Bonnie Altman (Templeton)

Steve, I don’t remember the midnight lesson at your house, however, I would have loved it. 

Steven Levinson

Philip, points well taken.

Steven Levinson

Bonnie, maybe you missed it.  Midnight was, after all, pretty late!