By Michael Kaufman

(Note:  I was honored to be invited to read this tribute to my  father, originally published in the Summer 2010 issue of Jewish Currents, at the Second Annual Community of Jewish Writers event on Wednesday, May 11, in Schenectady.)

My father’s game was handball, basic. Not the three- or four-wall kind they have at the fancy gyms. Jack Kaufman played his handball outside on a cement court with a single wall. That was the gritty game he played as a kid in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and that’s how he still played when our family moved to the suburbs of Nassau County, and later, after he retired and moved with my mother to Miami Beach. For years she begged him to stop for fear he would drop dead of a heart attack in the middle of a game, but he never listened.

Had it not been for the Parkinson’s, he probably would have continued  playing into his eighties like his hero, Vic Hershkowitz.

The name Hershkowitz was as well known in our house as those of other great athletes my father admired: Sugar Ray Robinson (“pound-for-pound the greatest fighter of all time”), Joe Louis (“His best punch was his jab”), and Jackie Robinson (“I want you to remember this,” pointing to Robinson the first time he took me to Ebbets Field to see the Dodgers play. “This man is very special”).

And there was Hershkowitz. When he died in 2008, the United States Handball Association called him “the greatest all-around player in handball history.” From the early 1940s to the early 1960s, Hershkowitz won twenty-three national amateur handball titles. In his later years he won twelve Masters events. He was stocky and strong like my father, around 5’ 8” and 180 pounds. And like my father, he began playing handball in Brooklyn during the Depression.

“We couldn’t afford the other sports,” Hershkowitz told an interviewer. “It kept us off the streets.” My father said that too.

Once, when we were living in Oceanside, my father took my older brother Gene and me to the handball courts behind the high school and challenged us to a game. He was in his late forties then and my mother had already begun pleading with him to stop playing. Gene and I were decent enough players ourselves and we thought we’d have an unfair advantage playing him two-against-one. But he insisted and before long it was clear we were in over our heads.

He had us running all over the court chasing his bullet-like shots as he positioned himself perfectly to return our feeble responses. I don’t think we managed to score a single point. We were out of breath at the end while he had barely broken a sweat.

A scene like this can be ugly in a family . . . a father showing off his prowess and humiliating his sons. But Gene and  I loved every second of it, laughing as we staggered around the court in futile pursuit.

He was our Hershkowitz.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

Museum Village

By Carrie Jacobson

I saw old friends these past two weekends, and my heart rejoiced.

I traveled both weekends, and visited with people who have mattered in my life, changed my life, and will always be dear to my heart.

My mother never made it to the Internet, but friends of hers would print out things from the net and give them to her. One she treasured was a little word poem, about friends.

They come into your life for a reason, this piece of writing goes. They might be friends for a season, or a year, or a lifetime – the point is to treasure the friendship for as long as it lasts, and to understand that the friends who come and go are not friends you have lost, but are friends who came into your life to affect it.

My mother loved this thing. I think it gave her an out. I think it made it OK for her to see friends come and go, and it absolved her from feeling that a friend who was no longer a friend meant failure.

Like my mother, I am a person who holds on. Even when my life moves away from my friends’ lives, they live in my heart. I think of them, I remember them, I treasure gifts they gave me, memories we made together, words they said – and now, paintings they made.

So, seeing my old friends these past weekends has left me happy. It filled a place that was not empty, but needed something. It needed renewal, it needed freshening. It needed new memories.

If you’re interested in this painting, please contact me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com.

By Shawn Dell Joyce

I recently received a notice from my utility company comparing my energy usage to my neighbors. According to Central Hudson, I used 61 percent less energy than my neighbors and received a double smiley face on my report. You might think that would warm my green heart, but actually, it shows how inefficient most of our homes are.

I’m not really making an effort to be more energy efficient than my neighbors, I’m just more conscious of energy use and do a few things most people don’t…like weatherize windows, open windows instead of using the fan, and line dry clothes whenever possible. By doing a few simple things like these, I save $1,784 according to Central Hudson’s Home Energy Report.

Imagine what you could save if you really made an effort. Walden Mayor Brian Maher did just that, and committed the Village of Walden to take the “Ten Percent Challenge” issued by Sustainable Hudson Valley. This means that the Village government will measure and reduce its energy usage by ten percent, and get ten percent of Walden households to do the same.

Walden, joins Warwick, and Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, as municipalities willing to adopt simple efficiency measures to use tax dollars more wisely.  By successfully measuring, and reducing energy expenses, these municipalities are reducing tax dollars spent on energy by ten percent, and residents who participate are lowering their monthly energy bills by ten percent, saving money all around. To make it even sweeter, Earthkind is donating a solar thermal system to the municipality that reaches ten percent first. Why aren’t all our local governments participating?

In addition to the Village of Walden, the Orange County Chamber of Commerce,  and the Village of Montgomery expressed interest in joining the challenge. Several local businesses will be benchmarks, like the Walden Library and the Wallkill River School, which will have energy audits and reduce their energy use accordingly.

Jon and Kelsey Buhl are Valley Central students, Walden residents, and a brother and sister team that is setting up the challenge in their school. They committed to the challenge because “we are concerned citizens that want to help out our community in any way possible, and this project was a great way for us to get involved.”

These young people are right, and we need more stakeholders like them to help make the Ten Percent Challenge a success. If you want to join them, along with Mayer Maher, and many of the “movers and shakers” of our community, come to the next Ten Percent Challenge meeting in the Bradley Room on the second floor of the Walden Village Hall on Tuesday, May 17 at 7pm. Better yet, call you town and village board members and offer to carpool with them to the meeting.

“We’re in a new economic era. We have growing resource constraints but lots of under-employed people. If we’re going to achieve a turnaround, in economy and quality of life, we have to build upon our assets, and one of the greatest assets is the power of people who want to make a difference,” says J. Michael O’Hara, Campaign Manager, Ten Percent Challenge.

Shawn@zestoforange.com.

By Jeffrey Page
Certain politicians think we’re a bunch of blithering idiots. How else to explain some of their statements when they seek forgiveness for their sexual or fiscal transgressions?

They look mournfully into the TV camera. They lower their voices. They sob once or twice but not too loudly. They dab at a tear. They tell us they’re sorry and offer explanations that are bizarre. And that, they hope, is the end of it.

The absolute, undisputed champion of this form of “apology” is Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House who once closed down the federal government because he was furious at having to sit in the rear of Air Force 1, far from President Clinton, on a flight back to Washington.

Recently, on the subject of his adultery, Gingrich declared: “There’s no question, at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”

I knew about Dr. Johnson’s famous observation that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but now, thanks to Gingrich, I learn that love of country also happens to be the arch enemy of marriage, devotion, and honesty.

Can you hear Newt in the throes of passion informing his girlfriend, “Yeah, I love America; now let’s get it on!”

Newt, you’re telling us that America, the admittedly beautiful, is so alluring – so sexy – that your love of it forced you into the arms of another woman and she roused in you the same paroxysmal feeling in your loins that the nation did? Newt, give us a break.

Nowadays, Newt is thinking about running for president next year.

Let us now take it down a peg. Allow me to introduce Mr. Thomas W. Greto, a gentleman from South Jersey who is running for the State Senate.

The Associated Press reported over the weekend that Greto ran for a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1994 but disappeared around Election Day. It turned out that he was in jail on charges of having embezzled $400,000 from “friends and associates” in a business deal gone bad, AP said. It should be noted that Greto describes himself as a pro-business candidate and can be heard on the Internet proclaiming, “I want to restore fiscal sanity to New Jersey.”

Eventually, AP reported, Greto was found guilty of deceitful business practices, and spent two years behind bars. Get ready. Here comes Greto’s Great Gingrichism.

“It’s passé, it’s years ago,” Greto told the AP reporter over the weekend. “I know the Lord forgave me.”

Greto might hope God has forgiven him. But since God is not known to be an American citizen, and therefore likely not eligible to vote in Jersey, what Greto really needs is for the people of the First Legislative District of New Jersey to forgive him. They might not be so forgiving.

Jeff can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com

Photography by Rich Gigli

Monticello

Monticello, a 5,000-acre plantation, was the home of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia. Monticello situated on a mountaintop outside Charlottesville, Virginia.

Harpswell Sunset

By Carrie Jacobson

This weekend, the plan was for me to be off Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Heather, the wonderful woman who went to Canada with me, was getting married in Maine, at the Fryeburg Fairgrounds, on Saturday, and I was invited.

Another friend in Maine wanted to see paintings, with the thought of possibly buying one.

And I needed a break. I needed a break more than any time I can think of in the past 20 years.

Since September, I’ve been working steadily. Many weeks, I’ve worked upwards of 100 hours. Every week, I’ve worked six or seven days. I’m tired. Mushy-headed. Dull.

On Friday, I was up at 3:30, writing a story from a meeting the night before. It took me until 9 to get everything done. But then it was done.

I readied my paintings to be shown. I packed them into the van. I packed my painting supplies, I packed clothes, I packed my computer. I left the house, got the oil changed, went to the bank and then finally, lusciously, exuberantly, I was free!

Five hours later, I reached the house of my friend who wanted to see paintings.

No one was home.

I nearly left, but hung around long enough that her husband and kids showed up. My friend was in New Hampshire, helping a friend of hers who has cancer.

So I left my paintings and went out to paint.

I found this scene at the very end of Harpswell, on a finger of an arm of land that sticks out into the Atlantic. I painted FAST, I painted wild, I painted before the light faded, and the God-rays vanished, and  darkness surrounded me.

I felt as free and as happy and as utterly connected as I ever have.

How I miss that feeling!

Sometimes it seems that my life has been turned upside down. That what I should be doing is taking a backseat to what I must be doing.

But I plow through, full of energy, full of optimism, full of hope.

Meantime, if you know anyone who is looking to be a patron for an exuberant, promising artist, please send him or her my way.

Interested in this painting? Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com for price and delivery options.

By Bob Gaydos

There I was, sitting around Sunday night, contemplating my navel (a novel refuses to materialize) and trying to decide whether to write about the Royal Wedding (capitals are a must), a rather schizophrenic UFO festival in Pine Bush, the roasting of Donald Trump or the ongoing nuclear meltdown in Japan. This haphazard thought process reflects more than two decades of writing daily editorials, in which no event is ever out of bounds for some sort of comment — constructive and cogent, of course.

And yet here I am, on Tuesday afternoon, once again feeling compelled to write about the thought processes of Barack Obama, forever more to be known, to the chagrin of Republicans, as the man who got Osama bin Laden.

George W. Bush, the man who made water board a verb and who leapt before ever looking for eight years in the White House, ordered bin Laden, the al Qaeda mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, brought to justice, dead or alive. It never happened on Bush’s watch.

Obama, his White House successor, the anti-Bush who sometimes drives friends and foes crazy by insisting on discussing, debating, compromising and cooperating on every important decision, delivered Osama’s head on a metaphorical platter. Actually, we’re told a Navy SEAL put a bullet in the terrorist’s head and his body was buried at sea within 24 hours, supposedly in accordance with Islamic religious beliefs. The fact that this makes it difficult to build a martyr’s memorial to him, is purely coincidental, we are also told. Besides, the White House said, no country would take bin Laden’s body

Of course. And who cares? There must be a watery entrance to hell as well. Beyond the national euphoria and celebration of the death of bin Laden, there was, of course, the usual political posturing in comments by potential rivals of Obama. Short version: A lot of Republicans managed to praise everyone involved in the mission, except for the commander-in-chief. It’s almost as if he were just a spectator, along for the ride.

Bush and Dick Cheney were not among them, perhaps because their time has come and gone and also perhaps because they know firsthand what it took to finally succeed. They congratulated Obama. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, known for his bluntness, was also direct: “I want to commend President Obama’s Administration for its commitment and dedication to finally bringing Osama bin Laden to justice.” Perhaps coincidentally, Christie says he’s not running for president in 2012.

But it fell to the equally direct Rudy Giuliani, the politician most affected by the events of 9/11, to put Obama’s role in true perspective.

The former New York City mayor specifically praised Obama: “I feel a great deal of satisfaction that justice has been done, and I admire the courage of the president to make a decision like this because if something had gone wrong everyone would be blaming him.”

Oh my God, would they ever. For a president accused of dithering and dawdling and trying to be too nice to everybody, this was an incredibly gutsy call. Go into Pakistan, the hell with what their government thinks. Don’t bomb the compound — too risky for civilian casualties. Send in a small, specially trained force. Capture or kill Osama and get out fast. Get evidence. Don’t leave anything behind.

And yet, we also know that this order did not come without months of intelligence gathering, many meetings, discussions, debates and probably arguments. Out of that had to come an overriding faith by the commander-in-chief in the plan of attack and in the men who would be chosen to carry out the mission. Yes, this is Osama bin Laden. Yes, we can get in and out. Yes, the risks are high. No, we can’t absolutely guarantee success.

Whew! Remember Jimmy Carter’s helicopters in the desert? Blackhawk down? Heck, Remember Ike and U-2 and JFK and the Bay of Pigs? Obama is a student of history. He knew what was at stake, for him and the country and he gave the order. Do it.

That decision immediately puts him in a much different category than any one of his potential opponents in 2012. Not that he wasn’t there already.

Consider first what it took for a junior senator, with little foreign policy experience, to decide to run for president against Hillary Clinton. Throw in the fact that the junior senator is black. Consider that in the two-plus years since his election, Obama, the ditherer and dawdler, has delivered a rescue package for a seriously ailing economy, a major reform of health care that contains new benefits for millions of Americans and also trims the deficit, overseen repeal of the military’s don’t ask/don’t tell policy on gays serving, gotten a budget passed with a GOP-controlled House of Representatives, all the while dealing with a Republican Party seemingly devoid of common sense or at least some leader willing to stand up and say the birthers and the persistent nay-sayers have no clothes, never mind evidence.

Presidents supposedly have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Gerald Ford was often mocked because of his difficulty mastering this challenge, but he was seen as a sincere, good man, so the joking was done in good humor. He never got elected president, however. Obama has no difficulty handling more than one problem at a time. Indeed, his intelligence, charm and rhetorical and oratorical skills are surely scary to some Americans, especially for a guy born in Kenya. (If there are any Fox News fans reading this, that’s a joke.)

Which, brings me back to Donald Trump. One of the most amazing things to me about Obama’s ability to carry on several projects at a high degree of excellence was his performance Saturday night at the White House Correspondents Dinner. As is custom, the president gave a 10-minute or so standup routine, aimed at members of the audience. Obama’s was spot-on perfect and hilarious, skewering a scowling Trump and plenty of other critics in the audience and, in my view, outshining the professional comedian who followed him, Seth Meyers of Saturday Night Live.

Yet Obama knew all the time he was mocking Trump that a decision on getting Osama was on his agenda in the morning. Pressure? Not so you’d notice. Obama was perfect Saturday night, leaving them laughing in the aisles. He didn’t miss a beat on Sunday either, bringing America cheering to its feet.

Some people are going to say he was lucky. Maybe so. But it takes a keen mind and a lot of careful thought and preparation — not to mention a willingness to be criticized as indecisive — to be as “lucky” as Barack Obama has been. He may still drive you (and me) crazy sometimes, but look around folks. So long as the wheels in that Occidental/Columbia/Harvard-educated brain keep churning, I’m sticking with the man who got Osama.

Bob@zestoforange.com

By Jeffrey Page
Early on a morning in late summer 10 years ago, I was at my desk in the newsroom of The Record struggling over a story about the rarely improving condition of New Jersey highways.

The phone rang, an old friend calling. A minute later the guy at the desk next to mine leaned over and said he thought World Trade Center was on fire. The towers, just 11 miles away, were visible from the newsroom, which was in Hackensack. We all ran to the windows. We could see the smoke. It was the moment the world changed.

Then we gathered at the TVs. Then the other tower was hit. Then the Pentagon. Then the fourth plane went down in Pennsylvania.

I felt a creepy horror when I thought about the randomness of it, and how possible it would have been for me to be aboard one of the planes. I thought about my wife and daughter and how I wasn’t ready to take leave of them. The dread has never entirely abandoned me – and I wasn’t even among the people who lost someone on Sept. 11. I can’t begin to imagine how they deal with their losses this many years later.

And I still wonder how I would have responded as a passenger. Would I have stood up and been part of the group that tried to regain control of Flight 93? Would I have joined a charge of the hijackers? Would I have cowered? What would I have done if I realized there was no way out of this, that if I ever had control of my life I had none now? Would I have understood that I was about to die?

An editor told me to go to Newark Airport, but issued no assignment. The airport was closed. I wound up at the Vince Lombardi service area on the Turnpike. There was a view of the towers. People stood in that universal pose of profound grief – wet eyes, raised brows, hand over mouth. Ismael Koroma, a trucker from Steubenville, Ohio, said: “You can’t imagine something like this in your worst thought. Things like this don’t happen in America.” But of course, they do.

The publisher of The Record agreed that we needed to print an extra. I wrote a long story about reaction such as Koroma’s. The newsroom staff spent days, months and years covering the attacks. In doing so, we got to know scores of people the dead had left behind. We wrote their stories. Wrote their grief, wrote their rage.

Over the decade, I’ve often thought about the woman whose husband was killed and whose families – his and her own – would never speak to her again after she remarried. I’ve thought about the Port Authority commissioner from Bergen County who was expecting a lunchtime visit from the agency’s new executive director and whose last call to him was to find out what kind of sandwich she should order for him. He was killed. I’ve thought about the widows and the orphans, and even about all the cars that went unretrieved from railroad parking lots all over North Jersey the evening of the 11th. And I thought about the cops and firefighters killed at the trade center and got a germ of an understanding of the nature of courage.

Whenever I go across the George Washington Bridge I think of the Port Authority workers assigned two days after Sept. 11 to unfurl the huge 90 by 60 feet flag from the bridge’s superstructure and how a crowd of them then gathered 200 feet out on the pedestrian walkway to remember their friends killed at the trade center, and to recite the Lord’s Prayer as the smoke continued to billow from the dead towers.

And always, through 10 years of life and work, of discussion and contemplation, I wondered about the killer. No matter how seriously the cause, what are you when you order the deaths of 3,000 unarmed people? Do you still lie to your people and to your god by referring to yourself as a human being?

I’m thankful for having lived to this time, to the particular Sunday night just past when the news that I often believed would never come actually came.

He was dead.

How sweet the justice if 3,000 people could return to life if only for a moment to hear the words: The country survived. The city survived. But he is dead.

Jeff can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com.