Friends, Lovers, and Other Paraphernalia

By Ray S. Skop

My book spans six decades of life in America. It is
a Jewish Forest Gump and describes my adventures
incorporating the political and historical events of
the time. I am 68 years old.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462844128

Book preview

PROLOGUE

What a weird feeling it is to drive by the cemetery and see your mom’s bench with her name emblazoned on it. Here she is ninety-five years old, sitting next to me in the car. I know that I will cherish the time remaining with her. My, I will truly miss this grand old lady. I honestly could say she is my best friend.

Well, I have survived almost seven decades. I feel like I have lived three lives. And now as I approach my neilah or twilight years, thankful that I inherited my dad’s youthful skin, I am resigned to the fact that nothing lives forever.

CHAPTER ONE

THE BEGINNING

Young Morris walked by his uncle’s coffin which was opened for the mourners to view. It was at that moment that he decided to devote himself to God and become a Rabbi.

The year was 1920 and it was the period known as the roaring twenties. Morris was raised in an orthodox home by two Russian and Polish immigrants, Abraham and Flora Necha. Abraham served in the Russian army and was able to leave with his bride Flora and immigrate to America. They settled in Cleveland Ohio and Abraham etched out a meager living as a tailor. They had five children, Morris, Miriam, David, and twins Archie and Myrtle.

After graduation from Ohio State University, Morris entered rabbinical school in New York, at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion. Being very poor, Morris’s parents and siblings all chipped in to finance his career.

One day while walking to class Morris decided to stop by the nearby New York Art Institute, to see what the young art students were up to.

It was at the art school that Morris met Rachel. She was finishing up a portrait when her art teacher, the famous Saul Raskin, critiqued her work. When Raskin finished, Morris boldly walked to Rachel and said, Boy he sure is overly critical of your work. Rachel turned and looked at the handsome, undernourished rabbinical student and said. Is this love coming into my life? Morris replied who knows, you never can tell. After this brief introduction, Morris and Rachel began a long courtship as they decided to wait for marriage until Morris completed rabbinical school.

Rachel came from a large family. Her parents, Usher and Mary were also Russian immigrants. Usher owned some apartment buildings in the heart of Manhattan and opened a paint store. Mary cleaned the apartments and took care of her six children, Ruby, Esther, Syd, Rachel, Anna and Billy. Billy, the youngest, left home at fifteen and became a famous trumpet player who worked with the Harry James Orchestra.

Rachel, being gifted with a natural beauty, decided to enter a beauty contest. Her long, curly auburn hair and hazel eyes had won her first place.

Soon the day came for Morris to graduate and be ordained as a Rabbi. It was not long after that Morris and Rachel were married. Morris was quickly offered a pulpit in Orlando, Florida in 1938.

It was now the winter of 1940. A bone chilling cold front swept through the central Florida town of Orlando. Before Mickey Mouse moved in, it was supported mostly by citrus growers. The landscape of its inhabitants was mostly pure white, although there were small segregated sections. One of these sections consisted of a small black community near Church Street. Orlando also claimed a small Jewish population which provided membership to a new synagogue called Congregation Ohev Shalom—Lovers of Peace. Unfortunately peace was not in the cards in those times as WWII and the Nazi war machine were in high gear.

The newly hired, young Rabbi Morris, his wife Rachel who was four months pregnant and eighteen month old daughter Shirah were huddled around the wood burning fireplace listening to the war news. Suddenly the broadcast was interrupted by a news bulletin. The body of a black man was found covered with tar and chicken feathers in the outskirts of Orlando.

Suddenly the phone rang. It was the Civil Liberties Union requesting the Rabbi to come immediately to the murder site to be a witness to this heinous crime. As the Rabbi approached the scene, the dead man’s wife and baby son were crying and kneeling around the man’s body. He heard the sheriff turn to his deputy and say, Well looks like we gotta find some hole to bury another nigger!

The Rabbi was appalled by the indifference and prejudice that abounded. He immediately went to the local radio station WHOO and made a heartfelt plea to the residents of Orlando.

Shalom Uvrachah—peace and blessings friends. A savage murder has been committed and a family is now left alone without a husband and a father. We must stop this ignorant prejudice as we are all brothers under the skin.

The whole town listened as the rabbi poured out his heart. Unfortunately some of the listeners were the very same perpetrators who laughed and responded by saying, We’ll fix that nigger-loving Kike priest.

Friday night approached very rapidly. It was the eve of the Sabbath in the Rabbi’s home. The traditional meal of chicken soup, chopped liver, challah, kugel, ztimes and baked chicken had been served by the devoted Rabbi’s wife, the Rebbitzin, to her family. Grace was said after the meal. The Friday night candles were flickering and Rabbi Morris was making himself ready to assume his duties as rabbi of Congregation Ohev Shalom. The Rabbi turned to his wide eyed daughter, Shirah, looked deeply into her dark brown loving eyes and said, Shirah Rannah, song of my heart, you are truly the apple of my eye. To you, my wife, Rachel, I know you are not feeling well enough to be by my side tonight as our new little dividend-to-be is kind of putting you under the weather, and with that he left his home.

It was not long after he left that the telephone rang. Rachel answered the phone but the caller hung up. This happened seven times. Rachel played the calls off and began washing the dinner dishes while her daughter played by her side.

Suddenly, an eerie chill ran through Rachel’s spine. Surreptitiously Rachel turned. She looked past the dining room, and through the bay window saw her front yard ablaze. Dozens of white hooded figures were standing shoulder to shoulder burning crosses. It was the Ku Klux Klan. Rachel immediately responded by calling the police but there was no answer (Most of them were in the front yard clad in their white sheet and burning crosses.). She was finally able to reach her husband at the synagogue but by then her husband had returned and the Klan had disbanded. This episode so unnerved Rachel that she went into labor and gave birth to a baby son, not weighing much more than the Friday night’s chicken. At four pounds, the baby was sickly. They named him Raphael, meaning God heals. This was my introduction to the world.

Although my introduction to the world was quite eventful, it didn’t take long for an unfortunate experience to happen. When I was only seven days old the ritual of circumcision was to occur. Sadly for me, the mohel, Reverend Leshinsky was ninety years old and suffered from Parkinson’s disease. Needless to say he left me sort of short handed and the episode came back to haunt me years later.

From this point forward the Rabbi made a point to educate the non-Jews that all Jews were not bad, nor do they wear horns nor drink blood on Passover. The rabbi even ended up befriending the Klan’s Grand Dragon. He became active in ecumenical causes and even invited all of the churches to his synagogue to observe the practices of Judaism.

Despite the rabbi’s many outreach efforts in the community all was not easy for me being his son. My friends and playmates were constantly cajoling me. They made fun of my thick eyeglasses, calling me a cockeyed Jap. Angrily, I would step on my glasses and break them on a weekly basis. Sometimes they would throw rocks at me, condemning me for killing baby Jesus. I could only reply by saying: Hey, I’m too young to kill anyone. But more than anything I just wanted to make friends.

Being accepted and making friends became my obsession. I would constantly sneak food out of my fridge and give it to my neighbors in an effort to buy friends. One of my good friends was Bubba. Bubba was definitely the All-American type and a great football player. He was very bright and a great friend. I knew that he was destined for greatness. Every Saturday night, Bubba’s dad would put on a pig to roast and permeate the evening air with the strong sweet aroma of a Southern barbecue. Of course, I could only peak through the hedge and salivate. It was against Judaic doctrine to eat pork. The barbecues were nothing, however, compared to Christmas time. The Ralph Smith’s would always invite me over to see their Christmas tree, fully adorned with lights and Christmas ornaments and hundreds of gifts lying under the tree. I could only go home to play alone with whatever Dad could afford for Chanukah on his rabbinic salary.

But the time finally came for me to enter school. Luckily I spent my preschool years with my sister Shirah, listening to the radio and fantasizing over Let’s Pretend, which was a radio show for kids and enacted all of the famous Grimm’s fairy tales. Shirah and I would portray the main characters of each week’s story only I was never allowed to have a main part. My two other siblings, who were too young to play a part, consisted of my younger brother, Eli Tobin and my baby sister, Adena Joy. They both served as our audience.

In those days our salvation came due to our creative imaginations. My dad only earned $5,000.00 per year and we were forced to make our own toys. I recall taking soda cans, stomping on them and I had cowboy spurs. I would also take kitchen matches, a needle, and some cardboard and behold I had a dart. I also recall taking the heads off the kitchen matches, putting it between two screws and a bolt and than throwing it on the cement floor. Bang, what an explosion.

When the time came for Mom to enter me into grade school I felt lost. How do you go to school and leave your mother’s protective womb? Well, the only answer I could muster was to have a major asthma attack. Can’t breathe, can’t go to school, but my mother nonplused by such theatrics marched me firmly off to school with the words, Son here is you’re nap mat. I’ll be right back." But Mom was gone for the day and I was abandoned with my first grade teacher, Ms. Dardin.

It is now grade one’s lunch time. I remember the gigantic sixth-grade patrol boys who stood guard at the cafeteria line. If you didn’t finish your lunch, you were sent to—Oh no—the principal. Well, once a week they served ham sandwiches and black eyed peas. I would eat the black eyed peas and bread. The patrol boy said, Hey, kid, you have to eat the ham!

I looked at the patrol boy and said, Sir, I can’t eat that ham!

And why not? said the freckled faced boy.

Well, because I’m Jewish! I replied.

He then responded, I don’t care how sick you are, eat it! I returned to my table with tears in my eyes. I finally used my brain and figured out that I could slap the mayonnaise covered ham under the long tables and the ham would stick. Cautiously, I looked around to make sure no one could see and I proceeded to stick the ham under the table. Ah, free at last.

My efforts to make friends continued. The teacher effortlessly tried to teach us how to write, making endless circles on the chalk board. Her model student and prized kiss-up was Donna Jean; my nemesis.

Class, I want you to notice how perfectly Donna Jean writes., announced the teacher. What was her secret? I studied her closely. Every day she would hold her hands over her nose and smell. I tried the same method but only got chicken scratch. Those were the days when you were given a grade for penmanship. I vividly recall the teacher marking the chalkboard with her chalk marker and making straight lines in order to draw circles. We had to do the same on our own paper. Ironically it was this practice that gave me the good penmanship that I have today.

As a rabbi’s son, I had to attend Hebrew school. My teacher, Reverend Lishinsky had a long black beard, terrible body odor and foul breath. If you didn’t provide him with the correct answer he would literally slap your knuckles to reprimand you, Hebrew school was an interval