Tag Archives: Jewish holiday

Christmas and The Rosh Hoshannah Kid

30 Sunday Nov 2014

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imageIf you have read my blog a few times, you might recall how I was born on Rosh Hoshannah and delivered by Dr. Nathan Steinberg, an Orthodox Jew. If not, you can go back to September’s posts and learn how I, The Rosh Hoshannah Kid, learned to respect Judaism because of him.

As I grew, ‘Jewish’ to me was still, as I like to say, just another ‘ISH’. And in the Second Street neighborhood in Philadelphia where my dad grew up, and where my brother Harry and I spent many happy times, especially holidays, there were Jewish people we knew well. Like Mr. and Mrs. Bellow, who ran the deli/candy store at the corner; Julius the butcher, who had some funny writing on his store window (dad said it meant Kosher Butcher); Harry Zweig, the painter and paper hanger across the street; and the Weinsteins at the shoe store where we got our school shoes (Buster Brown).

They were JewISH, we were IrISH, and some neighbors were PolISH. As it should be.

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One December day, walking with dad through the forest of Christmas trees for sale at Lamplugh’s (Irish) fruit and vegetable store, I mentioned with seven-year-old concern that it was awfully close to Christmas but Julius and Mrs. Bellow didn’t have their Christmas decorations up yet.

Dad chuckled. “Well, they’re Jewish.”

I knew that. Yeah, so what?

“Jewish people don’t have Christmas.”

How can that be? We ALL have Christmas….let’s not be selfish….we should let them have it, too.

He delivered the news that shook little me right down to my Weinstein Buster Browns:

They don’t want to.

Whoa. Unbelievable. I will never forget the shock! They don’t WANT to? Dad was a great kidder, but that’s not funny. How can they not WANT Christmas?

That was the first time I learned that Jewish wasn’t just an ‘ISH’, but a belief in God, and that Christmas was a religious holiday that had to do with a different belief in God.

Took me many years to come to terms with that but I was a little mollified when I discovered there was a Jewish holiday, Hannukah, happening around the same time as Christmas. It took even longer to grasp the fact that the two are not at all related……but still…..a winter celebration.

Now I’m ready to celebrate everyone’s winter holidays. It’s all about the return of the light to clear the darkness. Always good.

I guess that long ago revelation cleared up a little darkness for me! The Rosh Hoshannah Kid and The Big C: lesson learned!

In honor of Dr. Steinberg, the Bellows, Julius, and the others, I hang a dreidel on my Christmas tree every year, and a little bag of gelt. I think they would like that.

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Merry Christmas!

 

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The Rosh Hoshannah Kid

22 Monday Sep 2014

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Soon it will be my birthday.

Happens every year, right around this same time.

I’m not Jewish, despite the title of this post. But I was born on Rosh Hoshannah (never mind the year, in either the Hebrew or Julian calendar) and delivered by Dr. Nathan Steinberg, an Orthodox Jew, who, as he ought to be, was in the synagogue when I began my entry into the world.

I was my parents’ first child and both grandparents’ first grandchild. My mother was the oldest daughter in her family and Dr. Steinberg was their family doctor. Family doctors did everything then, bringing lives into the world, easing lives out of it, and everything in between. To mom’s family, Dr. Steinberg was a godlike, all knowing figure.

My mother always told me how very important it was that Dr. Steinberg was called out of the synagogue on Rosh Hoshannah and came to the hospital to deliver me. He was in “church” praying on a most holy day and he came because he was needed.

I had no what it meant, this Rosh Hoshannah, synagogue, Orthodox Jewish thing. To me, “Jewish” was a nationality like “Irish” or “Polish” or any other “ish” and I knew Dr. Steinberg as an austere, soft spoken, serious man with a mustache, to whom I dared not speak one word.

But mom emphasized how special it had been for him to leave his Rosh Hoshannah for me.

As I grew up, I didn’t know much more about this holiday that I didn’t celebrate but was always aware of it, even though the date was different from my birthday each year. But I learned.

On Rosh Hoshannah, Jews begin their New Year. Tradition requires that they review their lives over the preceding year, contemplate their successes and shortcomings, and prepare to enter the next year with a purpose of amendment for their wrongs and determination to continue with their righteous behavior.

A good day to be born

I learned more about Dr. Steinberg, too. He was a true humanitarian who held a deep reverence for life. No matter who the patient, no matter what the need, he tended the sick and needy in a practice that extended not just to those who could afford it, but to the inner city poor people who could not.

Now I know a little more about being Jewish, what Rosh Hoshannah means, and how the Jewish reverence for life was embodied in Nathan Steinberg.

So thanks, Dr. Steinberg, for being with me on Rosh Hoshannah so long ago. If you were here, I would still be afraid of you, but thanks. And L’Shana Tovah….

Sincerely, The Rosh Hoshannah Kid

Yes, I have the same haircut! Born with it! I was about two weeks old here....mom had only just been allowed home from the hospital. Two weeks!

Yes, I had some great hair! I was about two weeks old here….mom had only just been allowed home from the hospital. Two weeks!