I wasn't going to go. a "Histadruth Olei America
dinner is like eating last week's left-overs. Too much "chez nous". You hear them, you'd think everyone had just been short of Rockefeller -- their maids, their cars, their mansions. I remember quite a few lived in onion-smelling apartment houses and whose idea of a great time on the town was the corner ice cream parlor.
But a "Hitachduth" dinner is also like going to distant cousins': a certain convivality in a common language, a certain unneed of effort. They know. If I say "Coney Island", they see the same crowded millions stretched along the beach on a hot summer Sunday; they smell the same smell of hot dogs and mustard and feel the same waves crashing against the shore. And if I say, "President" they think Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt. And if I say, "depression", they can hear with me the melancholy echo of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" There's no need to explain, at best by analogy which fits at best like a masquerade.
A "Hitachduth" dinner is comfortable.
So I went.
It was crowded and I finally got a seat at a table marked "Vegetarian".
Do you think I could get the regular meal here, too? I asked nobody in particular.
"Oh, yes, the waiter said it would be all right," a young voice came beside me. Black eyebrow pencil marked the outlines of her eyes heavily and occidentally-oriental; bright lipstick covered her full mouth -- a spoiled darling of television advertisement-directed education.
"Been here long?" I asked socially.
"Three weeks."
"Oh, thinking of staying?"
"Never! I never even thought of coming. It wasn't my idea."
"No?, whose then?"
"My father's. He sent me."
I tried to look beyond the mascara. I had heard of youngsters coming to Israel because . . .
"I ran away from home."
"I graduated from high school."
"All my summer money, I saved for this." "My last fling before I settle down."
But I had never heard of a father sending a girl against her will, alone to Israel.
"Why? Wasn't he Jewish?" It was a stab in the dark "Worse than that!" Her eyes were sardonic.
I looked at her again -- a child under all that makeup.
"Don't tell me you got yourself mixed up with a Negro!"
"How'd you guess?"
How'd I guess!? Innocence is fascinating. So unknowing. So ready in its complete unpreparedness for life. This "pitzkele" ready to take on the whole world. "Love Conquers All!" Right out of Hollywood. What worldly father can combat such innocent stupidity? I felt a twist of great sympathy for her father.
"My Father was lucky." she went on, "My boy-friend got sick a week before the wedding. He had to be hospitalized
and we canceled the whole thing."
"My father was lucky", she said. "Well I guess some things shouldn't be left to luck --if possible."
"And so he shipped me off to Israel and I promised to give it a six month's trial."
"What does expect you to do here in six moths -- find yourself a Jewish Sir Launcelot?" I couldn't help being sarcastic. I wanted to give her father a good talking-to.
"Well he figured if I do get mixed up with anyone here at least he'll be Jewish. But they are all drips. Jim is six feet tall, worked his way through college by prize fighting and writes marvelous poetry. What have these young Israelis got? Nothing! Just because they're Jewish!"
Doesn't mean anything to you at all? This business of being Jewish?
Why should I care -- all of a sudden?
What do you mean -- all of a sudden?
Well, the first time I saw candles on Friday night was last week. I don't think my father has been inside a Temple since his own Bar Mitzvah. Certainly he never took me or my brother. Why my parents couldn't even make up their minds about having him "Bar Mitzvah"ed.
"I'll make him a party." said my mother, "invite some friends."
"Ah, that's not a Bar Mitzvah." said my father, "You've got to go to Temple."
"Are you ready to go through all that balleyhoo?" My mother looked at him as if he were nuts, "and besides," she said, "which Temple?"
They didn't belong to any and after a few more pious words of my father's, the whole idea fizzled out. But they sure as Hell got excited about my brother's marriage!"
"His marriage?"
Yeah -- that was a good joke on them! They sent him to Europe after he got his law degree to broaden his outlook. He broadened allright. He came home married to a Norwegian blonde. My father got terribly excited and even my mother was upset. It wasn't for that that they had scraped and scrounged, so he could have an education. In trying to calm my father down, my mother said, "it could have been worse. What if we had sent him to Africa?!
"Well, I went to Africa -- right at home," she continued triumphantly. My mother went into hysterics and my father started going to Temple. He suddenly remembered that we were Jewish and he's trying to force me to remember something he never taught me.