I’ve thought of my grandfather even more than usual in the days since October 7th. With every anti-Semitic chant brainlessly repeated by youthful American protesters, and each time I walked past the neighborhood shul and saw police stationed at its entrance, I thought of all the cumulative hours he spent telling me, from elementary school onward, what the world really thought of us — of Jews — and how unsafe we’d always be.
He tried having these talks with all of his grandkids and most were unreceptive, preferring board games and roughhousing and Salute Your Shorts to yet another lecture about Hitler. I was the one who went home with a dog-eared copy of The Jewish Catastrophe in Europe, who watched The Sorrow and the Pity and Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie on his recommendation, and who felt guilty both times my mother hopefully asked “Is she Jewish?” about a new love interest and I had to answer “No.”*
When I got my own apartment, Papa wanted to bring me a mezuzah, but his mobility had declined enough that he rarely left the condo. “Your grandma will take care of it,” he told me several times, but she kept forgetting to buy one. We didn’t know it then, but she was already showing signs of Alzheimer’s that Papa had chosen to ignore in a bid to extend their freedom. After his graveside service we convened at my grandparents’ home for the customary Jewish deli spread, everyone sadly stuffing their faces with bagels and sandwiches as his favorite cousin, a rabbi who looked like a younger, healthier version of Papa, spoke in ponderous Talmudic riddles.
It was as my mom and aunt and I cleaned the kitchen later, relieved the droning rabbi had left, that we noticed Grandma had several unopened boxes of Cascade, which was unlike her; she never bought more of anything than she needed. In the months that followed we began to realize the extent to which Papa had diligently covered her tracks. It was a gambit that paid off for him but not for Grandma, or for her poor diabetic cat Waldo, whose insulin she either doubled or forgot to inject. Later, when I purchased a house, Grandma vowed to bring a mezuzah and forgot. She wasn’t driving by then, anyway.
After October 7th, as I walked past synagogue security and ribbons that neighbors had tied around trees, I told Crankenstein “We’re getting a mezuzah. If anyone decides to vandalize our neighbors’ houses, they’ll have to vandalize ours, too.” I knew she was excited — she’d wanted one since we moved in together — but she was too sensitive to my sadness to show it until later, when we looked at several designs and I asked which she preferred. She’s a hippie-dippie Christian, of course, and Best Friend is an atheist culturally steeped in Roman Catholicism, but I never have to worry they’ll say something hateful, uneducated or tone-deaf about the Israel-Hamas conflict, which is a rarer quality than most non-Jewish Americans might appreciate.**
Why do I mention this when I have no particular interest in discussing Middle East geopolitics? The answer will sound odd as usual: Rebecca De Mornay. The uber-shiksa actress shared her support for Israel today in an Instagram video that reminded me quite a bit of Crankenstein and Best Friend, lonely leftists who won’t be bullied into denying the atrocities of October 7 or pretending there’s anything noble about Hamas. “Why would anyone care what she thinks?” some might wonder, but if you know anything about her, one of the reasons she chose to speak out is quite obvious: De Mornay was Leonard Cohen’s partner for several years, and eventually his fiancée. Cohen, like many of us, had a very complex relationship with Israel, and if you’re a fan I’d suggest checking out Matti Friedman’s Who by Fire: War, Atonement, and the Resurrection of Leonard Cohen.
* She knew a thing or two about that herself, having angered or upset most of her relatives by marrying a non-Jew. Papa’s Orthodox mother did her best to sink their engagement, refused to attend their wedding, and only accepted my father several years later, after I was born.
** My ex’s love for me bordered on derangement, but she had a startling tendency to spout anti-Semitism without realizing it. Maybe the funniest example of that was when she argued Jews do control things and cited as an example of our privilege the fact that one of my great-great-grandfathers built several successful businesses as an immigrant while her family, which had lived in the US for generations longer, remained mired in generational poverty. This overlooked the fact that my family came here to escape pogroms, and that my grandma’s parents and grandparents were poor. Also, Ex’s family had a long and storied history of screaming “Agh, it burns!” and fleeing into the night any time they achieved, or were close to achieving, stability, which didn’t help their fortunes.