Old And New

By: Larry Gordon

This is a new story about something old. Actually, it’s a 63-year-old love story and it has a glorious and wonderful beginning, a substantive middle, and continues on to this day.

It began in a different time and place, an era that is quite different from today. I realize now how much this story impacted me in ways I could never have imagined. There are parts of the story that make me laugh; other parts that bring a tear to my eye. It might be one of the oldest and most authentic memories that remains crystal clear in my mind’s eye.

This is a story about a book my father wrote called Old and New in Israel, that was published in 1963. The book details my parents’ first trip to Israel during the early days of the state, a trip that was so successful that they repeated it each year until my father’s passing in 1989.

During the last two years, I had the book translated from the original Yiddish into English so the newer generations can read it and enjoy it. I was very young when my father undertook this project. On the very first page of the introduction, he wrote that his friends and colleagues in the world of journalism advised him to not just write about his experiences in the Holy Land for the newspaper, which will end up discarded at the end of the week. They told him to compile all these stories into a hardcover book that can be kept on a bookshelf and read over and over.

In retrospect it seems to me that their arguments worked and he eventually compiled all his experiences into that hardcover volume. So, in a sense, this might be a foreword of a memoir that recounts experiences that took place 63 years ago, and it stands to reason that I should give credit to the individuals who gave my father the original idea to write this book. I still have at least three copies of that volume and, in fact, the person who worked on the translation did it directly from one of those volumes.

Over the years, the young woman who translated my father’s book and other works for me often had to do extensive research as we searched for articles on different topics. At times, she had to peruse her way through old newspapers or the archives at the YIVO Institute, which graciously allowed her to search through their extensive microfilm files. But a hardcover volume like this is more than just a book to be read; it is also a memory to savor and relive.

This was certainly my experience with my father’s book, which has been in our lives for as long as I can remember. As many readers know, my father was a Yiddish writer from the time he was in his mid-twenties until his passing in 1989.

Now that we mark 26 years since the 5 Towns Jewish Times first went to press, and we go through the same process of deciding which stories to cover and editorialize, it’s at a time like this that I pause and reflect on my dad speaking on the phone at night with Jewish leaders and newsmakers until his ideas were properly formulated into the thoughts that he would express in his weekly column.

A few years ago, a woman from Brooklyn called me after I wrote an article about my parents around the time of their yahrzeits. She related to me that she recalled her parents very often arguing about politics. She said that the end of these debates usually came when her father said they would wait until the Yiddish paper Der Tog Morgen Journal came out at the end of the week and whatever Nison Gordon wrote will settle their differences.

My parents were so moved by their first trip to Israel in October 1963 that my dad decided to step it up a few notches and put his thoughts and impressions into book form.

Back in those days, while he was in Israel for most of the summer, he would use other people’s Yiddish language typewriters to write his articles, then he would fold up the typewritten pages, put them in an envelope, and mail them to his office in Brooklyn.

It may be difficult for many to imagine, but not only was there no such thing as internet in those days or the ability to email his articles to his American office, this also predated the fax machine. So, his only recourse was to use what we refer to nowadays as “snail mail.”

Of course, there were alternatives to just mailing his articles back to New York. And that involved finding a person who was flying to New York who he was reasonably sure would promptly deliver that envelope with his writing to the newspaper office in time for publication. In addition to finding international couriers, he also wrote at least four to five columns in advance, so that his eager audience would have enough material to read.

I don’t know what he wrote about that summer of ’63 prior to putting his thoughts on paper of what it meant for a young European-born boy to take those first steps in the Holy Land. I know he was excited about sharing his initial impressions of what it meant to walk through the streets of Eretz Yisrael in living, vibrant color.

I’m still thinking about publishing that book in its current, newly-revised English-language form. I think that part of these few hundred words can very easily serve as the introduction to the book.

I’m a bit dazzled as I sit here contemplating that I will have the opportunity to write a preface to a book written by my dad 63 years ago! What all this essentially means is that I will have the opportunity to look back at his thoughts, ideas, and impressions of the new State of Israel and try to compare how the issues that concerned him back then are not so different from the issues that concern us today.

At this point, it’s like the old adage, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” the more things change, the more they stay the same. And more than anything else, these words apply more to Israel today than almost any other country in the world.

Additionally, in retrospect, there is no question that this is where my siblings and I picked up our innate love for the State of Israel. Perhaps it was by osmosis or just something we learned by just being there and observing our father as he dutifully plucked away at his typewriter, putting all his love into words.

My father wrote thousands of articles throughout his career. He also did some ghostwriting, especially for Holocaust survivors who wanted to leave a legacy for their families and future generations. But this is the only book he wrote that solely emanated from his experiences traversing the newly emergent State of Israel in the 1960s.

My goal is to slowly read and digest the material and share my thoughts and impressions with you. I’m looking forward to it. And I hope you will too. 

Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.