Their stories, Our parables.
In eighth grade we were given the assignment to interview and record an elder in our family. I chose my grandmother, but she resisted. Every fiber of her being rejected the idea of capturing her face, her stories, her truth on video. My father finally convinced her to participate. The resulting tape remains the most watched and valued footage of my childhood. The gentle but constant way she shook her head… how her glasses sat low on her face… the contrast of her lipstick with her gray hair… these visuals are imprinted on my memory. Here is some of what she shared:
Her mother tongue was Yiddish. My grandmother was raised as the oldest of four, and the only child who understood Yiddish. She proudly explained that no one else understood her parents when they whispered, so it was her job to worry, and she did it well. No one else understood when the commissars came to the door and asked for her father. And no one else understood her mother’s response: “He’s not here, but there are his children. You can take them if you want.” … In her seventies she shrugged off the comment as a facade - a display of flippancy to mask terror. But as a child, even my grandmother didn’t understand. Is it any wonder that she grew up to be fiercely protective?
Secrets were serious. The commissars had come because my grandfather was a rebbe. He was a spiritual leader in their village, and he refused to shelf his jewish traditions even after fleeing persecution. She grew up concealing who he was and what he did - not because it was crude or inconvenient, but because he would be imprisoned. A piece of her was always in hiding, always on the razor’s edge. Is it any wonder that she didn’t want to be interviewed?
Of course I’d heard these stories before. By the time I was in middle school, I knew the cadence of her recitation like a toddler knows a favorite lullaby. Her stories became the parables of my youth, preaching vigilance, distrusting comfort and complacency. I knew in my bones that life was perilous, so you hold tight to your family. Governments, homes, and even languages will come and go, but our people endure. The worst will happen, and we will pick up, and we will start anew.
I’ll leave you with an old folk tune my grandmother used to sing. Listen here.
Call: “Dear one, take me with you, there in a distant land I’ll be your wife.”
Response: “Dear one, I’d take you with me, but there in that distant land, I already have a wife.”
Call: “Dear one, take me with you, there in a distant land I’ll be your sister.”
Response: “Dear one, I’d take you with me, but there in that distant land, I already have a sister.”
Call: “Dear one, take me with you, there in a distant land I’ll be a stranger.”
Response: “Dear one, I’d take you with me, but there in that distant land, I don’t need a stranger.”
