Personal memoir on cultural upbringing and family background

4.2.12 WC: 191694 To this day I have no idea how I fell in love with literature, music and art. They are my passions, as they have been since I was old enough to appreciate these "Iuxuries"--inexpensive as they were to us--that my parents couldn't afford. I was never exposed to classical music or art, even in school where the music teacher taught us "exotic" songs like “finicula, funicula,” American songs by Stephen Foster, and an assortment of religious and Zionist Hebrew songs. (Zum Gali, Gali, Gali; Tsena, Tsena; Hayveynu Shalom Alechem.) Our art teachers tried to teach us to draw “useful” objects, like cars, trains and horses. My friends’ homes were as barren of culture as mine with the exception of Artie Edelman and Bernie Beck, whose parents were better educated and more cultured than mine. I must have picked up some appreciation of music and art from them. When I went to sleep away camp, especially as a junior counselor, I also came in contact with music and art through the “rich” Manhattan kids who had attended the expensive camp as paying campers and were now junior counselors. Several of them, who became my friends, had been exposed to culture through their more sophisticated Jewish parents. None of these peripheral contacts with culture fully explains my transition from a home barren of books, records and posters, to my home as an adult that is filled with books, music, paintings, sculpture and historical objects." Nor does it explain why none of my three children, who were brought up in my home, have any real passion for the classical arts. They are by no means uncultured. They love popular music, films, current fiction, theater and gourmet food. But they don’t have the same passion for classical music or fine art that I have. By mentioning this difference, I don’t mean to be a snob, but for someone who strongly believes in the power of nurture, exposure and experience, this generational skip poses a dilemma. Reaction is, of course, one sort of experience, and my passion may well have been a reaction to my parents, as my childrens’ lack of passion for what moves me so deeply may be a reaction to their parents. So be it. The family values that shape my upbringing focused on modern Orthodox Judaism, religious Zionism, political liberalism of the sort represented by FDR, Anti-Nazism, Anti-Communism, opposition to all kinds of discrimination, support for freedom of speech, a hatred of McCarthyism, opposition to the death penalty, a commitment to self defense and defense of family and community, a strong sense of patriotism, and a desire to be as truly American as was consistent with not assimilating and losing our traditions and heritage. My father, who was a physically strong but rather meek man, wanted me to be “a tough Jew” who always “fought back.” He urged me to never let “them” get away with “it.” By them he meant anti-Semites, and by it, he meant pushing Jews around. He taught me to box and wrestle and insisted that I never “tattle” on my friends, regardless of the consequences to me. One of my father’s brother’s was a man named Yitzchak, who we called Itchie. It had nothing to do with any skin condition. One day my Uncle Itchie took me to a Brooklyn Dodger baseball " Finding Jefferson 20 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017107