Compiled by San Diego Jewish World staff
J.W. V. Post to Mass Colors
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 28, 1955, Page 5
San Diego Post 185 and Auxiliary will participate in the massing of colors to take place Sunday November 6th at Balboa Park. The public is cordially invited to witness the ceremonies that will begin at 3:30. Veterans organizations and fraternal groups will parade their colors and marching bands.
Ben Snyder, Post Commander, has appointed Stan Yukon and Joe Cheiten, former army cooks, to head a kitchen detail and prepare a meatball and spaghetti dinner to be served at PM on November 16th. Members and their wives, Auxiliary, and prospective members and their ladies are invited. The cost will be 1 per couple.
Nate Shapiro is again leaving San Diego for his annual five month stay in Mexico. The meeting of Oct. 19th was closed in standing memory to Col. Ed Fletcher who aided in the organization of this Jewish War Veterans Post in San Diego.
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(Age and Education)
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 28, 1955, Page 5
Father is never too old to learn, and his sons are never too young to think they can’t teach him.
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First Meeting In New Home For Aged
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 28, 1955, Page 5
President Mrs. Wm. Moss will preside at the first luncheon meeting to be held by the Ladies Auxiliary at the Hebrew Home for the Aged, 405 (sic) 54th St. on Wed., Nov. 9th at 12 Noon.
Mrs. Vera Lehrer and her committee are working to make this luncheon an outstanding “First.” An interesting program is being planned. There will be a nominal charge of $1.00 for the lunch. For reservations phone Mrs. Forster, CO-4-8539 or Mrs. Brust, CY-5-5588.
The Auxiliary Rummage Sale was a huge financial success and Chairman Better (sic) Feller and Zelma Goldstein wish to thank the women who participated.
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Cottage of Israel
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 28, 1955, Page 5
The public is cordially invited to attend the annual Fiesta given by the House of Pacific Relations on November 5, at the Officers Club in Balboa Park. This is the only fund raising affair given during the year and the evening is devoted to dancing, colorful entertainment and serving of homemade refreshments from the various nationals represented by the House of Pacific Relations.
Tickets can be obtained from any officer of the Cottage of Israel.
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Local Leader Makes Contribution to Study
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 28, 1955, Page 5
Eli H. Levenson of San Diego will make a significant contribution at the 24th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, it was announced this week by Julian Freeman, Indianapolis, President. The Assembly will take place November 10-13 at the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago.
Mr. Levenson’s paper on the current status of the Jewish Federation, will be part of a major Assembly address by Stanley C. Meyers of Miami, “Are Community Organizations Keeping Pace with the Communities?” The address will be part of an intensive appraisal of local and overseas needs and services in 1956.
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(Abilities)
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 28, 1955, Page 5
The ability to do without ha put many a man in a position to do as he pleases.
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Book Review by Ida Nasatir: Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk
Doubleday and Company, New York, $4.95.
When in March 1951 Herman Wouk’s uniquely successful Caine Mutiny was published, he took his place among top-notch American contemporary novelists. Five million people in America and Britain bought this book; it was translated in 17 foreign languages. It earned for its author the Pulitzer prize and a million dollars in cash. With this background it is a little wonder that his vast reading audience and the literary critics would be waiting, ready to pounce upon Wouk’s next book. Here it is—Marjorie Morningstar, a long 564-page novel about which endless words have been written and spoken.
In parts, it is repetitious and verbose; in more than one sense it is a modern Jewish “Vanity Fair,” and like Thackery, Wouk is much more interested in people than he is in plot – in abundant specious people—the good, bad, the wise, foolish and humane. This novel has been advertised as being a highly romantic one, yet it is my belief there is far more satire and irony than there is romance. Some Jews will find it uneasy reading. By satirizing the vulgar and common aspects of this thing which the children of Jewish immigrants have labeled American “success,” by this very irony and satire, Wouk makes a strong plea for fresh, clean values, for discipline and virtue, for sacred traditions to be respected and revered, not belittled and mud-spattered with mockery and a new kind of “intellectual” cynicism.
What the story conveys, and often brilliantly, is the tragi-comic meeting of traditional Jewish culture and – back to that same phrase – the American “success” myth. The children of the immigrants abandon the best part of their heritage in order to take on the worst, most revolting aspects of their new environment, and Herman Woluk, who watches them, has a keen eye and razor sharp pen in describing their antics.
His story begins in the early 1930s, paralleling his own period of emergence from college into the world. The central figure is Marjorie, a nice girl, says her creator Wouk, who is also a typical American girl. She is every Sue Wilson, Mary Jones or Hazel Klein we meet on the Main and Broadway streets of all the cities in America. In this novel the “typical girl” happens also to be Jewish. She is every girl who dreams of becoming a great actress and changes her name from Morgenstern to Morningstar, every girl who willfully opposes her parents’ “old fashioned concepts” of life, who years and dreams of a dashing Don Juan, but in the end is happy to settle for a steady and reliable John.
Marjorie’s opposite is Noel Airman (he was born with the name Saul Ehrmann) the never-quite-successful musical comedy composer, handsome of profile, brilliant in conversation, amazingly attractive to women, bohemian in taste and by self-description with a pronounced mis-placed Jewish conscience. After 417 pages of insistence on marriage, Marjorie finally succumbs to Noel’s will and becomes not his wife, but his mistress. Eventually, after following him to Europe in the hope of his marrying her, Marjorie comes to see Noel as he is, a tragic weakling. She is able, upon her return to America to put her life together, fall in love with a good, prosperous Jewish lawyer, marry him and live in a nice suburb and raise fine children. If this sounds like a “and they lived happily ever-afterward” novel, it is not, instead it is one that has tremendous undertones of thought. It is a book in the deep hold of traditional values. Marjorie’s people are not very pious but they are Temple-goers and non-questioners. The basic rites of brit, bar-mitzva and wedding are carried out, with elaborate trimmings provided by New York’s very expensive caterers. Herman Wouk’s description of the bar-mitzvah in Marjorie’s family is a masterpiece. So is his Passover scene and Marjorie’s beautiful wedding, catered by the famous Lowenstien Co. for $6,500 “tips included.”
“Marjorie Morgenstein” (sic) is not an easy book to interpret. There are, for instance, all the questions it poses but fails to answer. There is the tragedy of the countless Noel Airmans who unhappily walk the earth. The one in the novel, like his counterpart in the world, did have streaks of great creative power. Why did he almost destroy himself with his hatred for everything that was decent, normal and respectable? Why was he never taught that there are extraordinary possibilities in every ordinary person? Who is responsible for the failure of the Noels? Parents? Teachers? False standards?
Then there are very disturbing questions for us as Jews. Why are so many afflicted with the desire to escape that which constitutes a tremendously rich heritage and substitute for it something cheap, shoddy, artificial? Why are so many floundering, hopelessly lost?
There are in this long novel many Jewish intellectuals – for lack of space I could not present them – but they’re here, some truly gifted, others are mental giants whose brain is so good they can out think an IBM machine, they direct enormous businesses, they can with eae and facility explain the complicated differences between Gothic and Romanesque architecture. Indeed, there is no end to the limits of their knowledge—knowledge about everything except Judaism. Why? With colossal ignorance, the question from Mike Eden (born Michale Einstein, he is the mysterious man Marjorie meets on the Queen Mry en route to Europe) is not even surprising. “Marjorie,” he said, “wasn’t it hilariously funny and deeply poignant for my grandfather, he was of German descent, to have changed his name from Einstein to Eden? Think of it The one name that is certain to last for the next full 20 centuries wasn’t good enough for my family because it sounded too Jewish!”
Finally, there are the men of science who would not dare to discard a new theory until and unless a through investigation was made, even though at the end of years research it might be useless, yet, these same brilliant Jews when presented with an established heritage, and a valuable mass of accumulative, positive knowledge, do not spend an hour of one day’s time to study and learn for themselves, to discover whether this which is their’s (sic) ought to be accepted or rejected. Why?
Well, as I said before, these and other equally profound questions are asked but they are not answered by Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar.
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Hadassah Plans “Presentation Ball”
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 28, 1955, Page 6
Mrs. Robert S. Strauss, Hadassah Medical Organization Chairman, will be in charge of the November 16th Hadassah meeting to be held in the El Cortez Hotel at noon. Charge for the delightfully planned luncheon meeting will be $1.50 and reservation may be made with the Chairman or her Co-Chairman, Mrs. Sidney Siegal or Mrs. Edward Binder. The feature attraction will be Mrs. Max Nussbaum, of Los Angeles, who will present the Hadassah Story –1955 to her audience.
Mrs. Louis Solof, General Chairman for Hadassah’s Presentation Ball has selected Mmes Sam Cohen and Fred Leeds as Committee Co-Chairmen. Mrs. Cohen will be in charge of all ticket sales to the gala event which will be sold at $2.50 each. Mrs. Leeds heads the Credentials Committee and she will be most happy to hear from any Hadassah mother who has a daughter who will be 16 years of age prior to March 1, 1956 or who has not passed her 19th birthday by April 1, 1956. She may be contacted via phone at AT-4-5255. Mrs. Charles Feurzeig, Mrs. Alfred Bobroff, Mrs. Rodin Horrow, Mrs. Arthur Gardner and Mrs. Allan Hoffing are all heading individual committees. Hadassah will present to the community not only the young debs, but will present a dance which will highlight the social season. Theme of the event is “Winter Wonderland.”
Mrs. Harold Elden departed last Monday for Chicago and Hadassah’s 41st Annual Convention where she joined Mrs. Harry Felson, local President, in a round of convention activities.
At the last Board Meeting of the local chapter, Mrs. Anna Prinzmetal of the Southern Pacific Coast Region of Hadassah, Israel Bond Division, was a guest, to spur the sale of Israel Bonds. The Chapter is offering its full support to this great enterprise.
Mrs. Harry Snyder received a certificate honoring her recent efforts on behalf of Hadassah in raising a large sum for Hadassah Medical Organization. A square foot of space has been inscribed in the Medical Center at Ein Kerem in her honor.
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Lasker Lodge News
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 28, 1955, Page 6
By Lou Levitt
Forty-six members of the Lodge haven’t as yet paid their 1955 dues, and Jack Spatz, chairman of the retention committee, is asking them to do so at once. So many delinquent members at this late date in the year is highly unusual and the lodge is necessarily concerned.
The fund-raising Harvest Ball to be held on November 27, with two cars being given away is meeting with a giant degree of success according to Marshall Zucker. Let’s get behind this thing and push it. If every member of the Lodge buys or sells at least 3 tickets, the Lodge will net over $1,000. We could use it.
Plans for the Annual Dinner Dance for Sunday evening November 27th, at Mission Valley Country Club is nearing completion, according to Louis Levitt and Harry Wax, Co-Chairmen. Reservations are now being accepted by either of the above chairmen, and the cost is only $8.00 per couple including a staeak dinner and an evening of dancing and enjoyment. We honestly think that this will be the finest dinner dance the Lodge has yet had, so plan on coming and make your reservations early.
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Women
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 28, 1955, Page 6
Even back in the Stone Age when women wrote down their ages, they were chiseling.
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USO-JWB
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 28, 1955, Page 6
Now Hear This! Wally Watler was married last weekend in Los Angeles. Chaplain Rickel officiated at the wedding. Wally made a special trip down from Put Mugu to personally invited “Uncle” Abe Friedman. Good luck to you and our bride, Wally.
Speaking of chaplain Rickel, he was just promoted to the rank of Commander, Sir!
Stan Shapiro writes from Japan “in code.” Guess Stan thinks the war is still going on.
Lionel Horwitz is now a civilian in Duluth, Minnesota, working for Western Electric Co. He sends his regards to all here at U.S.O.
Jordy Biener is also a civilian now. Happy, happy Jordy! He plans to settle in Los Angeles. Goodbye to Philadelphia.
We celebrated Barbara Kahn’s birthday Wednesday with a cake and a candle. Many happy returns, Barbara!
The Bobby Plesser-Bobbie Glickman wedding may be in May (no pun intended).
“French” Roy Wolf has been stranded by the Navy on San Clemente Island, 73 miles from the coast. He is in the good company of wild goats and 53 Navy men, and is begging for mail from the mainland. His address is: San Clemente, co. 670 AC&W Squadron, San Pedro, California.
Much fun was had at the Italian Luau on Sunday. Those who were not there really missed a good time.
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Easily Satisfied
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 28, 1955, Page 6
The remarkable thing about family pride is that so many people can be proud of so little.
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“What’s your idea of civilization?” novelist Ben Hecht was asked the other day.
“It’s a good idea,” replied Hecht. “Somebody ought to start it.”
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Don’t smoke in bed—the next ashes that fall on the floor could be your own.
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Adventures in San Diego Jewish History” is sponsored by Inland Industries Group LP in memory of long-time San Diego Jewish community leader Marie (Mrs. Gabriel) Berg. Our “Adventures in San Diego Jewish History” series will be a regular feature until we run out of history. To find stories on specific individuals or organizations, type their names in our search box