Jewish Essence and Jewish Existence: Aly Raisman, Pearl Perkins and the Hebrew Mamita Rabbi Carl M. Perkins Temple Aliyah Rosh Hashanah Day One September 17, 2012 I want to speak with you today about an impressive American Jewish woman. An award- winning athlete. A national gymnastics champion. Someone who worked very hard from the time she was very young to develop her native athletic ability, devoting many, many hours to perfecting her skills, eventually enrolling full- time at a gym. Given her proven talent, she was invited to join the United States Olympic team. And, because she was an exceptional Jewish athlete, she was made a member of a Jewish Athletic Hall of Fame. The person whom I want to speak to you about this morning is not the person you re thinking of. It s not Aly Raisman. It s my father s sister, Pearl Perkins (Nightingale): my own Aunt Pearl. 1
Now, I know: you have never heard of my Aunt Pearl. But since, over the past few weeks, we ve all been talking about Aly Raisman, I d like to talk to you about my Aunt Pearl - - and why you haven t heard of her. My Aunt Pearl was always athletic. Swimming was her first sport. By the age of twelve, she had won five championships. She also excelled at diving and won awards at that, too. By the time she entered high school, she had switched over to gymnastics and helped propel her high school team to the city championships. 2
When Aunt Pearl graduated high school, she won a scholarship to Philadelphia s premier gymnastics club and during the next four years she really developed her skills. At the age of 21, she captured the all- around Middle Atlantic AAU title and earned the number one spot on the women s U.S. Olympic Gymnastics team. By far the most outstanding member of the team, she was considered the linchpin, the key player to lead the team to victory at the Olympics. And had she gone, you would certainly have heard of her. But she never did. The reason is that it was 1936. As many of us know, the 1936 Olympic games were scheduled to take place in Berlin, Germany. Adolf Hitler had been in power for three years and he had promised to use those Olympics to showcase the supremacy of the Aryan race. The Nuremberg Laws, stripping German Jews of their citizenship and enshrining the discrimination of Jews into German law, had just been passed. My grandparents, Russian immigrants to this country, were disgusted by that and worried about it. What kind of a place was Germany for a Jewish athlete? 3
What kind of a place was it? Let me tell you what kind of a place it was. Here s an article that was published by the JTA, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, in September, 1935 - - nine months before the Olympics were to take place. These are the actual words of the JTA dispatch: Praha [Prague], Sept. 25 th (1935) (JTA) Reports of the death of a Jewish player [athlete] after being mobbed by Nazis during a Polish-German football match in Silesia were confirmed here today. Both the Polish and German press suppressed all news of the incident, evidently fearing its possible effect on participation in the Olympic games. The Jew, Edmond Baumgartner, 21 [--the same age as my Aunt Pearl at the time--], was one of the players on the Polish team in the match which took place in Ratibor, Silesia, [on] Sept. 15. Nazi spectators shouted, "Come out, Jew!" and "Perish the Jew!" They stoned Baumgartner, forcing the referee to halt the game twice. Finally, the mob invaded the grounds and set upon the Jewish player. He was removed to the hospital in serious condition and died three days later. That s the kind of a place Germany was. My grandparents realized, perhaps in response to this very story - - but there were many others like it - - that it was not safe for their daughter to go to the Olympics. Also, in their view, it would only be adding to Hitler s glory. They didn t want her participating in what the Manchester Guardian later called, A Nazi Party rally disguised as a sporting event. And so they did not give my aunt their blessing. 4
And that s why my Aunt Pearl forfeited her place on the U.S. team and didn t go to the Olympics that year. Without her, the U.S. team finished fifth. Who finished first? The Germans, of course. Now, there s no way to know how the Americans would have fared had my aunt participated, but what we do know is that Pearl went on to win the national AAU all- around gymnastics title in 1937. She might have gone to the 1940 Olympics, but of course they never took place! They had been scheduled to take place in Tokyo, but by this time, World War II was well underway. That didn t stop my aunt from continuing to focus on her gymnastics. In 1941 and then again in 1943 (there was no competition in 1942), she was the national AAU all- around gymnastics champion, and she won individual titles in horse and vault as well. Along came 1944. Again, the Olympic games, this time scheduled to take place in London, were cancelled. And although my aunt continued 5
to compete, by the time the next games came around, in 1948, she was already 34 years old. Her time had passed. Fast forward to 2012, and we all know the story, don t we? Our Needham heroine, Aly Raisman, takes not one but two gold medals and a bronze. She takes them for the U.S., of course, but she is also known, worldwide, wherever Jews live, as a Jewish athletic champion, a Star of David - - as the New York Post put it - - as well. Why have Jews sought to claim Aly Raisman? I think it all started with her choice to perform her floor exercise routine to Hava Nagila. We were thrilled to hear that melody, so closely associated with the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. She didn t have to do that. She could have chosen some more widely known upbeat song, something by Lady Gaga or Katy Perry maybe even Call Me Maybe! But she didn t. She chose Hava Nagilah. And that made us feel good: good that she so joyously and unselfconsciously chose this old- time Jewish classic. 6
Similarly, many Jews were heartened when Aly said that, had the International Olympic Committee observed a moment of silence in memory of the eleven Israeli athletes who were murdered 40 years ago at the 1972 games, she would have supported it. Once again, her seemingly uncomplicated unselfconscious acceptance of her Jewish identity was an object of pride and admiration for many Jews. Both my Aunt Pearl in 1936 and Aly Raisman in 2012 were identified as Jews in a world that sometimes respects us and sometimes doesn t. Each young woman, apparently entirely unintentionally, became more than a person; she became caught up in something greater than herself, symbolically representative of all of us. * * * * * * * * * * * There are two aspects of being Jewish. There is the essential and the existential. The essential consists of the teachings of Judaism: pursuing holiness, justice, peace, truth, tikkun olam the whole array of Jewish values. So much of what we strive to do as a congregation is to help each of us access the essence of Judaism, pursue Jewish values, and live out Jewish ideals. 7
But there s also the existential reality of Jewishness, about which we don t often speak, but which is there all the time nonetheless. It s our identification, our identity, as Jews whatever we believe and however we act. It s our membership in the Jewish people, whether we consciously and intentionally carry our membership cards with us or not. This came up in an email exchange I had with one of the local reporters covering the Aly Raisman fever that gripped our area in late August. The reporter was puzzled: Why was there so much attention focused on Aly s religion? After all, when it came to other athletes, people weren t commenting at all on their religion! There are a number of reasons for that, I told him, one of which is that Jewishness isn t just a religious identity. In fact, for many Jews, as we know, it is quite different from that. We Jews, I told the reporter, constitute a people and that is the core of our identity. This is not the same as an ethnic identity, for we derive from a wide variety of ethnic groups. In our own congregation, for 8
example, there are Jews who have immigrated from, or who are descended from immigrants who came from: the Former Soviet Union, Poland, Germany, England, Ireland, South Africa, Canada and Israel, as well as from Egypt, Iran, Argentina, Chile and China! (Please forgive me: I m sure there are a few other countries of origin I haven t mentioned.) Some of us are religious; others not so much. And yet many of us, indeed, most of us, whatever our religious orientation, feel a sense of kinship with our fellow Jews. And so when one of ours does so well, we all feel a sense of pride. Whether we like it or not, we may find ourselves as my aunt did and as Aly certainly has - - to be Jewish in a representative capacity. We may find that we play a symbolic role in other people s lives whether we wish or intend to or not. We may find that our Jewishness is more of a factor in defining us and in shaping our accomplishments than we might have thought it would be. Now, I think it s safe to say that most of us are not headed for the Olympics. Most of us will not have that moment of truth on the global 9
stage or anything like it - - when everyone is watching and waiting to see how we ll respond, wondering if we ll live up to the challenge of claiming our identity, the challenge of being fully ourselves. But such a moment can happen to us anyway. The other day, I saw a Youtube video of an American Jewish poet and performer named Vanessa Hidary. She calls herself the Hebrew Mamita. She tells a story in poetic form, a story about what happened to her in a bar one day. She meets some guy. He seems nice. They get to talking. It s going well. He asks her, can they get together next Tuesday night? She s about to accept, and then she remembers, Oh, I can t do that. And then she tells him why: Next Tuesday night is Yom Kippur. I ll be fasting. And he turns to her and says, Are you Jewish? Wow, he adds, You don t look Jewish! You don t act Jewish! And he means it as a compliment. And in response to that, she says, nothing. Nothing at all. This doesn t sit well with her. She said nothing but shouldn t she have said something? If so, what? Those words of his - - You don t look 10
Jewish! You don t act Jewish, she realizes, are a double- edged sword. He means well. But indeed, Vanessa is Jewish. So if she s being complimented for not looking Jewish, isn t that implicitly criticizing that part of herself - - if not that all of herself who is Jewish? The rest of the poetic work she performs is what she wishes she had said at that moment. She tells the guy that not only is she a Jew, not only is she one of her people, but she is her people. If he s criticizing them, he s criticizing her. She s not prepared to write off her identity, just to get a date. Has anything like that ever happened to you? Something like that has probably happened to each and every one of us, at one time or another. It s at those moments that we realize that we can run, but sometimes, at least - - we can t hide. Well, maybe we can. After all, plenty of people do slip away. The default, in America, is to drop out - - Jewishly, that is. It s to fade away, blend in with everyone else, and walk away from the opportunity to 11
claim our Jewish identity, get involved in Jewish life and help shape the Jewish future. The fact is, we can escape our Jewish identities - - if we set our minds to doing that. This is America, after all, and no one s going to force any of us to claim our inheritance. But, as the Hebrew Mamita teaches us, there s a price to be paid for that. Yes, we can check out but we lose something by doing so. Kiddush ha- Shem is a Hebrew phrase that literally means, sanctifying the name of God; it generally refers to acting in some way to enhance the dignity and honor of Judaism or the Jewish people even if it means risking your life. Now I m not suggesting that either my Aunt Pearl or Aly Raisman or, for that matter, the Hebrew Mamita put their lives on the line, but that phrase came to my mind when I thought about what each of them did. In standing up for themselves, they acted in ways that enhanced the 12
dignity and honor of Jews in the world. They acted in keeping with the principle of kiddush ha- shem. What about us? How can we be a source of kiddush ha- shem in the world? Each of us should ask ourselves, What does it mean for me to be a Jew? Not, What does it mean to be a Jew in the abstract? but, What does it mean for me to be a Jew? Like athletic training, this process of self- exploration and self- clarification can t be accomplished overnight but the rewards are great. Of course, we need to explore the essence of Judaism in order to uncover the meaning of our Jewish existence. That means doing some reading, and taking some classes, and embracing Jewish experiences. (Let s face it: The Shema shouldn t be the only prayer we know. And Hava Nagila shouldn t be the only Jewish song we know.) It means getting involved in a shul such as ours, and in other institutions of the Jewish community. It means that when we pursue our philanthropic and social action endeavors - - as I hope we all do - - we are deliberate and explicit about pursuing them as Jews. It means learning what the Jewish tradition has to say about all this, and claiming our rightful place 13
as members of the Jewish people. Consider this an invitation to do just that. Each and every one of us, in a modest way, is affirming our identities when we come to shul on a day like this, when we tell our employers or our teachers or our employees, I won t be in on Monday. I won t be in on Tuesday. Each of us is expressing our willingness to be identified as a member of the Jewish people and asserting that this is where we believe we should be on this day. That s an act of kiddush ha- shem, a sanctification of God s name. CONCLUSION I spoke with my Aunt Pearl s son, my cousin Gary, the other day. I asked him what it was like for his mom not to go to the Olympics. Did she have any regrets? I asked. No, he replied. She didn t. She didn t look back. 14
If anything bothered her, he said, it was the fact that, as a female athlete growing up in the 30s, she wasn t eligible for athletic scholarships. And so she was never able to pursue professional coaching for which she was otherwise eminently qualified. That conversation reminded me how much has changed since 1936. Certainly, the status of women has changed enormously. And we Jews are not as vulnerable as we used to be at least, not in the same way. There is now a Jewish state, with its own government and its own army. Not only is there a Jewish state, but Aly Raisman and her family will be travelling there in December as guests of the Israeli government. That s all very different. One thing has not changed in the past 76 years. Now, as then, to be Jewish is to be part of a remarkable people; it s to have an identity of which we can be very proud and through which we can do great things. And it s also true as it always has been - - that, to be all we can be, we owe it to ourselves, our families, the Jewish people 15
and, frankly, all humankind, to explore just what our identity our identity as Jews - - can mean. Let s not wait until the next Olympics to figure it out. Let s start today. Shanah Tovah u m tukah! May you and your loved ones be blessed with a sweet and fulfilling new year! 16