Yiddishe Mamas (39 page)

After her husband’s death in 1977, Véra continued his work, checking new editions, performing translations (for example, the difficult
Hell Fire,
into Russian), and managing all legal affairs until her death in 1991.

In 1988, according to author Tim Boxer, after doing a radio show on his eighteenth birthday,
R
IVER
P
HOENIX
and his mama, Arlyn, asked the host where they could find a vegetarian restaurant. Steve North, their Jewish host, suggested the kosher Greener Pastures on the East Side. “What’s kosher?” River asked. Arlyn explained and North learned she was a Jewish woman from the Bronx. This made River a Jew according to
halacha
(literally, “the way” guidelines to insure the continuance of Judaism as a unified way of life. These guidelines provide the basis for the system of Torah law known as
halacha).

She might well be the most famous Jewish bride who ever sat for a portrait. Dona Abigail Levy de Barrios was most likely the plump young lady seated alongside her stylishly dressed husband, in Rembrandt’s famous portrait that has come to be known as
T
HE
J
EWISH
B
RIDE
(now in Amsterdam’s National Museum). Some scholars claim the groom was one of the more colorful individuals in the eccentric Jewish community of seventeenth-century Amsterdam. Don Miguel de Barrios was born in Andalusia and, while living the life of a Spanish military officer in Brussels, also acquired success as a poet. Like many conversos, he led parallel lives. In Amsterdam, however, he practiced Judaism openly, under his Jewish name of David Levi de Barrios.

Don Miguel’s second marriage in August 1662 was to Abigail de Pina, who was descended from a prominent Moroccan rabbinic family, and whose father owned a sugar refinery in Amsterdam.

Although they were still poor, they had two children and remained married until Abigail’s death in 1686. It’s been suggested that when the aged Rembrandt painted the picture, he was at a low point in his life, and derived tremendous inspiration from the idyllic image of this loving and stable Jewish family.

Her name? Jeanne Abel. Her game, willing “accomplice” to husband, Alan Abel, legendary hoaxster. Among their many pranks, the Abels created a character named
M
RS.
Y
ETTA
B
RONSTEIN.
a Jewish homemaker who ran for president against Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and against George Herbert Walker Bush in 1986. Jeanne, who has a gift for character voices and dialects, played Mrs. Bronstein. Her motto? “Put a mother in the White House,” and her campaign slogan “Vote for Yetta and things will get Betta,” appeared in headlines worldwide. She also wrote a tongue-in-cheek book,
The President I Almost Was.
In the early seventies the pair produced two satires: Is
There Sex After Death?
and
The Faking of the President.
In 2005, their daughter, Jenny Abel, coproduced a documentary about her parents,
Abel Raises Cain.

In 1894,
A
NNIE
C
OHEN
K
OPCHOVSKY
made a bet with a Boston gentleman and set out to be the first female to
circumnavigate the world—by bicycle. The mother of three, whose cycling experience was limited to days before her historic ride, was charged to begin without funds, earn $5,000 above expenses, and complete the task in fifteen months. This resourceful lady picked up endorsements, and made speeches along the way. Not only did she complete her trip in ten months—she proved that a woman could make her own way in a man’s world. She also helped popularize changes in women’s garb, from full skirts to bloomers. Since she made the trip solo, she provided for herself, survived physical injury and mechanical problems with her bicycle—and the press took attention. Kopchovsky collected her $10,000 prize in Chicago and then rejoined her family. She died in 1947.

Is this a job for a Jewish daughter?
J
ULIA
Q
UERY
, comic, exotic dancer, stripper—and award-winning filmmaker—thinks so. Julia, the daughter of Dr. Joyce Wallace, who is an activist and celebrated for her work with prostitutes, carries her mother’s social conscience, but in a less traditional way. In 1997, Query was the guiding force in unionizing exotic dancers in San Francisco’s Lusty Lady strip club and immortalized in an award-winning documentary,
Live Nude Girls Unite!
(2000). She hails her mother a hero: “A fabulous thing about my mother is that she knows I poured my entire inheritance from my grandmother into the film, and she never once said that was a mistake … Jews [women] have a strong history of being social activists … from Emma Goldman on down.”

It’s kosher! And it’s country. And it’s written and recorded by perhaps the only rabbi to do so—
B
RUCE
A
DLER, THE
B
LUEGRASS
R
ABBI
, with help from his wife,
D
ONNA
, who is also a rabbi. Their albums,
I Choose Torah, Walk Humbly with Thy God, If It Be Thy Will,
and
Eternally Hopeful,
have been called Jewish gospel. When asked how he became interested in country music, Rabbi Adler claimed he’s been a mountain man ever since the Israelites stood at Mount Sinai 3,000 years ago! He says, “I’m ordained Reconstructionist, my congregation of eleven years is Conservative (Beth Israel). Donna is a Reform
rabbi serving as Hillel Director of Miami University, in Oxford. We live with our son, Aaron, in Cincinnati, Ohio, who is starting to show an interest in singing and playing an instrument.” He knows a lot of his parents’ songs and sings along, but as far as becoming a rabbi like Mom and Dad, he’s not quite sure about that just yet. Their songs are recorded and performed by folk, bluegrass, and gospel artists throughout the United States and available from Maplestaff Music.

Talk about odd alliances. Hitler was helped by Jews, notably his mother’s doctor,
E
DUARD
B
LOCH
. In two articles Dr. Bloch wrote for
Colliers
magazine, March 15 and March 22, 1941, entitled, “My Patient, Hitler,” Bloch described how he treated Hitler’s beloved mother when she was dying of cancer. Hitler and his sisters visited Bloch to thank him. He also received two hand-painted postcards of appreciation signed, “The Hitler family sends you the best wishes for a Happy New Year. In everlasting thankfulness, Adolph Hitler.” In 1937, a number of local Nazis attended the party conference at Nirnber. After the conference Hitler invited several of these people to come with him to his mountain villa at Berchtesgaden. The fuehrer asked for news of Bloch. Was he still alive, still practicing? Then he made a statement, which irritated the local Nazis: “Dr. Bloch,” Hitler said, “is an Edaljude—a noble Jew. If all Jews were like him, there would be no Jewish question.” In March 1938, after Hitler annexed Austria, Hitler helped Dr. Bloch immigrate to the United States. The doctor was allowed to leave for America at sixty-nine—with sixteen marks instead of the customary ten—but he got out with his life.

Everybody who works in intelligence calls her Rita.
R
ITA
K
ATZ
sometimes telephones people she hasn’t met—important people in the government—to tell them things that she thinks they ought to know. She keeps copies of letters from officials whose investigations into terrorism she has assisted.

Katz, who was born in Iraq and speaks fluent Arabic, spends hours each day monitoring password-protected online chat
rooms where Islamic terrorists discuss politics and trade tips, such as how to disperse botulinum toxin or transfer funds.

Traditionally, intelligence has been gathered by government agencies, such as the CIA and the NSA. But Katz, who heads Search for International Terrorist Entities, or SITE, has upset that monopoly. She and her researchers mine online sources for intelligence, which her staff then translates and e-mails to her hundred or so subscribers. Her client list includes officials in government, corporate security, and the media.

She has worked with prosecutors on terrorism investigations, and her work has been cited as often as twice a month in major news media. But her relationship with the government is “testy,” since she is viewed as both consultant and sometimes antagonist.

Her tactics are aggressive. For example, a SITE staffer, under an alias, managed to join an exclusive jihadist message board for months that, among other things, served as a debarkation point for many would-be suicide bombers. He gained access to their true e-mail addresses and other initial information about them.

Rita Katz was born in Basra, Iraq, in 1963. She was one of four children of a wealthy Jewish businessman. In the wake of the Six-Day War in 1958, Saddam Hussein encouraged attacks against Iraqi Jews. Her father was arrested and charged with spying for Israel while his wife and children were transported to Baghdad and kept under house arrest in a stone hut. Katz’s father was convicted in a military tribunal and executed in 1969. Rita Katz was six years old.

After living in the hut for months, Katz’s mother drugged the guards and escaped with the children. She impersonated the wife of a well-known Iraqi general, whom she faintly resembled, and managed to get the family to Israel.

Katz did her military service in the Israel Defense Forces and studied politics and history at Tel Aviv University. In 1997, her husband won a fellowship to do research in endocrinology at the National Institute of Health, and they moved to Washington with their three children. (They later had a fourth.)

When she saw an ad for an Arabic-speaking research assistant, she applied for it and got the job. Her employer was the
Investigative Project, run by Steven Emerson, a former reporter with an interest in terror networks.

The Investigative Project did undercover work at Islamic fundraisers and rallies. When she participated in particularly radical fund-raisers and conferences, she wore a burka, spoke a deferential Iraqi-accented Arabic, and sat apart from the men, eyes averted. She figured out which organizations were funneling money to the suicide bombers by volunteering to send their families cash.

On December 14, 1999, an Algerian named Ahmed Ressam was arrested as he tried to cross the border from Canada with a trunk full of explosive materials that he intended to detonate at Los Angeles International Airport. Richard A. Clarke, President Clinton’s counterterrorism adviser, called Emerson and asked the Investigative Project for a report on militant Islamic cells in North America. There was concern that Ressam was part of a larger plot, and Katz became convinced there was a single global terror network.

By June of 2001, Katz set up her own office, taking staff members from the Investigative Project. She got by on small government contracts. Some of that work, which was done for the Treasury Department, involved identifying Islamic groups that might be sending money to terrorist organizations. She also had a contract with the Swiss government and with a group of relatives of 9/11 victims who were suing Saudi Arabian officials, businesses, and charities.

Detractors have questioned SITE’s translations, claiming they always pick the most violent translation, which Katz denies. Rita believes that it’s far better to overestimate rather than underestimate the threat.

Award-winning newsman
J
OHN
S
TOSSEL,
anchor of ABC’s
20/20
specials and best-selling author of
Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity Get out the Shovel—Why Everything You Know Is Wrong,
has focused much of his energy on exposing everything from pop culture to government regulations on his “Give Me a Break” segments. This is one newsperson who has an ardent dislike for frauds, myths, and nonsense.

His dedication to exposing untruths may resonate personally. His mother, who he describes as “alive and articulate,” raised her sons as Protestants. “She claimed she wanted to assimilate and had no interest in religion,” says the acclaimed newsman, who was a member of the Congregational Church.

Then, as a teen, “I made a remark about a Jewish boy picking his nose—and my brother said, ‘what the heck do you think you are?’” He doesn’t recall his mother telling him of their family heritage. He embraced Judaism at about age thirty. He also married “in.”

“My brother-in-law is a Jewish activist,” he says. Today, he and his family observe the Sabbath and do the blessings.

S
ome Jewish mothers, like those of all religions, races, and ethnicities, have had to endure unimaginable loss—the loss of a child. Pain and grief is a unique experience for everyone. Most never truly recover, but some turn their energies into even greater activism, much like Carolyn Goodman, when her son Andrew was murdered over forty years ago by the Klan.

Mothers, particularly those from ethnic and religious groups that have been persecuted, carry the burden of more than their share of suffering, tragedy, and overwhelming loss. Jewish mothers have been shedding tears for thousands of years, as time and time again, Jews have been singled out for annihilation. Our protectiveness, sacrifice, and raw courage in the face of this is, without question, rooted in our ethno-type. It provides an understanding of who we are, and deserves enormous respect when pitted against the comic images we’re fed.

During the Holocaust, or Shoah, millions of Jewish mothers and their daughters were called upon to exhibit sacrifice and courage, the extent of which is simply unimaginable. But then, the deliberate brutality and organized murder of an entire group in those numbers was virtually unparalleled in recent history.

Regardless of the nature of the loss, Jewish mothers who are child-first have suffered incomprehensibly. And there have also been extraordinary non-Jews throughout history who risked their own lives to spare the lives of Jewish families. These stories are deeply agonizing but also uplifting, because courage and sacrifice under the most extreme conditions remains one of our most enduring lessons and legacies.