“IF YOU COULD MEET ANYONE FROM HISTORY…”

 

There’s a well-known trope/parlor game/interview question that asks which long-dead persons you’d like to meet, have dinner with, interview, etc.

 

It’s fun to think about, and the answer supposedly reveals something pertinent about us.

 

About a month ago, someone put this question to me and I realized my older answers didn’t hold for me anymore. My old answers were Shakespeare (did he really author what is attributed to him?), Jesus (what was the historic flesh-and-blood person really like?), and Abraham (Is he in fact one actual person, or a myth?).

 

But I realized that Shakespeare would almost certainly be a disappointment. The works are far greater than the author, as is almost always the case. Jesus of Nazareth is also far greater as spiritual residues present to this day. As to Abraham, I would likely not like him at all and he not like me. Anyone who would sacrifice his beloved son Isaac and lie to his boy while climbing to the place of the intended killing (all to prove his complete obedience to G-d) is the sort of fanatic I avoid like the plague today.

 

Then, they came to me like figures emerging out of a thick fog. The people I would most like to meet and spend a day with, the people I would like to get to know and be known by, are my father’s mother and father. They perished in the Holocaust and the Nazis wouldn’t allow my father, still a boy himself, to keep even the locket he wore with his mother’s photograph.

 

What I know of them are the memories of a boy. When I asked my late father to describe them physically, he gave such a vague description that I couldn’t conjure their faces. Years later, when my father returned for a visit to Poland and found a neighbor he remembered from his childhood still living in the old building, the neighbor angrily snapped at him saying, “What Jews? There were never any Jews here.” He had hoped someone had photos of his family, but instead found complete erasure.  

 

If you believe in the afterlife, you might be telling me that I will meet my grandparents some day. You might be telling me that they are watching over me right now. I won’t argue. It’s a mystery, as far as I’m concerned.

 

But today I would choose to meet them while I’m still part of this world of action, because I sense it would inform the rest of my time here in a meaningful way.

BARBIE and ME

I was a president once.

For one whole year, I was the president of The Jerusalem Chapter of the Barbie Club.

 

This claim of life achievement would rightly strike most as dubious. But oh, what a glorious year that was.

I returned from a stay in Paris with two new Barbie dolls, one for me and a second for my best friend. The dolls included a form to send to Mattel, the dolls’ maker, to form a club. I sent it with my mother’s help (it was in English) and thought about it no more until…

 

A large box appeared a month later, with six membership cards, a book with instructions on how to form the club, and suggestions for activities.

 

At just about that time, Barbies made their appearance in the one “fancy” toy store in Jerusalem. But very few kids had them. I forged ahead and formed the club with the handful of classmates who succeeded in persuading their parents to purchase these dolls.

 

We met periodically at each other’s apartments, played with the dolls and made accessories for them.

I remember two “scandals” associated with our club. The first was when our homeroom teacher called me for a meeting to say our club was exclusionary because not everyone could join. I stood my ground. I told her anyone with a Barbie doll could join. It was The Barbie Club, after all.

Our teacher was not happy, but she didn’t have a good answer for that.

 

The second “scandal” occurred when we were busy making mini-Christmas trees for our Barbies, per the easy instructions from Mattel’s Club book. The parent in whose house we met to make these asked why we are making Christmas trees and not Hannukka menorahs.

My answer (very presidential): “Because Barbie is Christian, not Jewish.”

 

And that no-no was the end of our club and my presidency.

 

It was long ago.

 

 Pink Barbie and her Ken are now gracing the silver screen to record ticket sales.

No, I haven't seen the newly released feature film. Not yet, and likely never.

I grew up, and in my mind, I hoped Barbie did also.