Lets move through this next part of my movie relatively fast. Think of it as that part of the movie where we see credits or titles after a 10-minute opening sequence. Title of movie - “Work in Progress”, Producer – Overnight Films, Director – G-d, Star – Me, etc. etc., another 20 different production company titles flash on the screen. They all seem to be the Schools I attended, the Firms I worked for, friends and family. Everyone seems to want a credit.
Next, we see one of those aerial shots looking down on New York City. We travel quickly up the east side and cross the George Washington Bridge. Hang a right onto the palisades parkway. Palisades parkway to NY state thruway to exit 14b, Airmont road. Monsey NY. Hang a right at the light. Better if at this point we switch from aerial view to quick shots of roadside scenes, like in the opening credits of The Sopranos. Very normal looking, suburban houses, shrubbery, a seven eleven, local dry cleaners, some sort of constructions sight, putting up some strip mall. Beneath the surface of this very plain looking suburb lurks a twisted world of hypocrisy, extremism, and every so often deviance and aberrance. I don’t mean to imply that there wasn’t a great deal of good honest hard working family people. But they were living in a bubble. A bubble where they believed their town folk don’t commit crimes, their married couples don’t cheat, get caught and get divorced. They believed their kids don’t do drugs or have premarital sex. They believed a man with a title of respect always deserved this respect even in the face of flagrant transgressions that people would rather turn a blind eye to. Meanwhile beneath the surface, Wall Streeters were scheming and scamming, arsonists were burning down warehouses for insurance scams, politicians were cross dressing, kids were dealing dope, a vacation for parents meant a home filled with “kids behaving badly”, psychotic teachers who might take a slug at a kid and every so often a local night club owner would get murdered. Yes, you read all that correctly. I will address the murder in a later blog along with a couple of drive by shootings that happened while I was a freshman in high school.
What happens in Monsey stays in Monsey
The camera pans over the elementary school. For a while it was named Hebrew Institute of Rockland County (HIRC), then they ran out of money, so a family named Schreiber gave some dough, built a gym and the school became the Adolph Schreiber Hebrew Academy (ASHAR). A couple of points here. The following is an excerpt from the schools history, published on its website.
“First housed in Monsey’s Community Synagogue on Cloverdale Lane, the school was originally called the Hebrew Institute of Rockland County (HIRC). Although other day schools and yeshivas existed, it was this need to incorporate Ahavat Yisrael into their children’s education that inspired a handful of parents to establish a school that provided a religious Zionistic environment mixed with a strong general studies curriculum.
In 1956, Rabbi Irving Levy, the first Chairman of the Board of Education, encouraged Rabbi Nachum Muschel to join the Monsey community and HIRC. Over the course of more than four decades, Rabbi Muschel led the school through tremendous growth and success. During his tenure as Principal and later Dean, Rabbi Muschel created a groundbreaking Jewish Studies curriculum that continues to anchor our limudei kodesh program and remain a model for numerous other institutions. In his current position of Dean Emeritus, Rabbi Muschel’s daily presence and devoted guidance serve as a constant source of inspiration.”
I asked for an onion bagel
It was obviously a Hebrew school, sort of, I guess we called it Yeshivah, but there was another type of Jewish school that “really” was the yeshiva. Then what was my school you may ask? Well it was more like a modern orthodox Jewish school that tried to teach much of what was taught in yeshiva but do it in a way in which the kids who would one day leave the school and go out into the real world, might ultimately be able to socially straddle two cultures, the religious and secular. For me it was an utter experimental failure and today it is a full-blown ultra orthodox Yeshiva. I believe they still may whack around a kid every so often though. Quite frankly the place was a lunatic asylum and the head Rabbi was a psychotic warden, the vice principal who was quite the eccentric. Truth be told the school was the natural reaction to a whole generation that was making the break from their Jewish, eastern European, Shtetl, small one oxen town, closed and isolated world. They were attempting to adapt to the modern age here in America, many having escaped the Holocaust, and to this day over half a century later are still not much closer to resolving many of the fundamental problems resulting from assimilation. Perfect example, the uproar at the announcement of a same sex marriage in the Jewish Standard (A local publication) and there subsequent pathetic apology.
The way my grandparents lived
Editorial from the Jewish Standard
Published: 04 October 2010
“We set off a firestorm last week by publishing a same-sex couple’s announcement of their intent to marry. Given the tenor of the times, we did not expect the volume of comments we have received, many of them against our decision to run the announcement, but many supportive as well.
A group of rabbis has reached out to us and conveyed the deep sensitivities within the traditional/Orthodox community to this issue. Our subsequent discussions with representatives from that community have made us aware that publication of the announcement caused pain and consternation, and we apologize for any pain we may have caused.
The Jewish Standard has always striven to draw the community together, rather than drive its many segments apart. We have decided, therefore, since this is such a divisive issue, not to run such announcements in the future. “
50 years of progress, set back with one retraction.
This is just a taste of complex and sometimes disturbing cultural issues that have evolved from towns like the one I grew up in. As a side not, the entire town has changed over, and is now an ultra orthodox and extremely religious environment. Housing prices have dropped dramatically and I am not sure if the 7/11 made it. It is practically a foreign country, which oddly enough is how I viewed it as a kid, but I was always a bit of a forward thinker.
“They call it the holy shtetl” Gitty Grunwald - July 08
To be Continued………………
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