Jews ,have dominated the news. This disquisition addresses what it is to be Jewish ,starting with a quote from Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old, he will not depart from it." This proverb sets the stage, the ground floor, for being Jewish. I learned that over 6000 years ago, in Genesis, a covenant was established between Jews and God. I also learned about Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, the Exodus ,the 10 Commandments, 12 tribes , Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Bris, Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah . Succos, Passover yarmulke and titses . These few illustrations are part of my story.
Jews have flourished and inhabited different territories of the earth. Jewish traditions, beliefs, achievements and ambitions have been well documented along with other stories about persecutions, pograms, conversions and the holocaust . Hebrew, Yiddish, Ashkenazic, and Sephardic translations are exhibits and describe differences in interpretations regarding our customs, traditions and rituals.
Another difference related to being Jewih relates to prayer and observance within Judaism. For example, there are the Hasidic Jews. They are the "most" religious in terms of their involvement with the Talmud, prayer, and the imminence of God in the universe; with joy and happiness within prayer. The Rebbe is the administrative head of the community and is the supreme figure of authority. There is much more but that is beyond the scope of this essay.
A second religious movement, within Judaism, are the Conservative Jews .. This movement employs historical critical research rather than traditional methods regarding matters of practice. This movement considers its approaches authentic and the most appropriate continuation interpreted with flexibility and allows greater pluralism in practice. This is the third-largest religionist grouping worldwide and once again, depth is beyond the scope .
A third religious movement Is Reform Judaism also known as liberal or progressive Judaism. This denomination emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism with the superiority of its ethical aspects ,with ceremonial ones and a belief in a continuous search for truth and knowledge. It is closely intertwined with human reason and not limited to the origins of Mount Sinai. It is characterized by personal observance regarding Jewish law and with autonomous , openness to external influences and progressive values and again an in depth analysis is beyond the scope of this essay..
Another category of Jews, can be described as being apart from these three movements and not believing in things that have a supernatural basis, religious rule, and / or some of the biblical tales as facts . This group may or may not engage in religious behaviors ,not being active members of a religious community although there are significant degrees and variations within. In essence, however, Jews can be identified by their attitude towards family, their community, a respect for life, a caring for social action, public service , a commitment to the law, medicine, a passion for science, the arts with utmost, respect for objectivity, truth and learning. Being Jewish has not interfered with becoming part ,in making contributions, sacrifices to the culture and/ or society in which we reside. .One does not have to attend a synagogue to be Jewish.
A few Jews from the past and current include: 1.Jesus 2 .Moses 3 .Karl Marx 4. Leon Trotsky 5. Baruch, Spinoza, 6 Albert Einstein 7. Anna Frank 8. Marc Chagall 9. Sigmund Freud 10. J. Robert Oppenheimer 11. Henry Kissinger 12.Madeleine Albright 13. Samuel Gompers 14. Emma Lazarus 15 Norm Chomsky 16. Levi Strauss 17, Jerry Seinfeld, 18 Steven Spielberg 19 Stanley Kubrick 20 Calvin Klein 21 Paul Newman 22 Elizabeth Taylor 23 Woody Allen 26, Mark Spitz, 27 Isaac Stern 28 Itzhak Perlman 29 Leonard Bernstein 30 Irving Berlin 31 George Gershwin 32 Kurt Lewin 33 Ralph Lauren 34 Bob Dylan 35, Barbra Streisand 36 Charlie Chaplin 37, Groucho Marx 38 Billy Joel 39 Alan Greenspan 40 Michael Bloomberg 41.Warren Hellman 42 Hyam Solomon 43. Dianne Feinstein 44 Philip Roth 45 Arthur Miller 46 Neil Simon 47 Carole King 48 Simon and Garfinkel 49 Dustin Hoffman 50 Harrison Ford ..61. Golda Meir 52 David Ben Gurion 53 Theodor Herzl 54 Chaim Weizmann 55. Alfred Adler 56 Albert Maslow ‘57 Erich Fromm 58 Louis D. Brandeis 59 Ruth Bader Ginsburg 60. Kirk and Michael Douglas 61. Carl and Rob Reiner 62 Al Jolson 63. Jack Benny 64. George Burns 65. Dinah Shore 66. Milton Berle 67.Lenny Bruce 68. Sarah Silverman 69.Chelsea Handler 70. Jackson Pollock 71 Mark Zuckerberg 72 Bert Bacharach 73 Tony and Jamie Lee Curtis 74 Eddie and Carrie Fisher 75 Jon Stewart 76 Billy Crystal.
77 Adam Sandler 78 Jackie Mason 79 Larry David 80 Sachse Baron: Cohen 81 Lenny Bruce 82 Mel Brooks 83 Peter Sellers:84 Jamie Raskin 85 Lily Tomlin 86 Steve Martin 87 Robin Williams 88 Lawrence Bacow 89 Christina Paxon 90 Martha Pollock 91 Amy Gutmann 92 Christopher Eisgruber 93 Peter Salovey 94 Linoy Ashram 95. Meyer Lansky 96. Barney Ross. 97. Mickey Cohen 98. Max Baer 99. Bugsy Siegel 100. Sue Bird .101 Dara Torres 102 Max Fisher 103 George Soros 104 Larry Ellison 105 Sergiey Brin 106 Larry Page 107, Steven Ballmer 108 Michael Dell 109, John Paulson, 109. Bernie Sanders 110 Yitzhak Rabin 111 Shimon Peres 112 Menachem Begin 113 Ariel Sharon 114 Moishe Dayan 115 Benjamin Netanyahu 116 Natalie Portman 115 Bar Refaeli 117 Gal Gadot.
Turning to sports, leads me to the Oakland-Las Vegas Raiders and Al Davis. Davis hired the first black head coach and his son Mark has a black female president, a black head coach and a black general manager . When asked why, he said, I hire the best. Al Davis was primarily responsible for the merger between the AFC and the NFC. They're now called the NFL. Sid Luckman, Benny Friedman, Ron Mix ,Crazylegs Hirsch, Sid Gilman ,Marv Levy ,Jerry Levine, Steven M. Ross, Steve Tisch ,Arthur Blank ,Julian Edelman ,Jay Frieder, Robert Kraft are a few football greats .
The co-owner of the Golden State Warriors. is Joe Lacob. Prior to the NBA, there was the Basketball Association of America, the forerunners. The first game in 1946 was between the New York Knicks and the Toronto Huskies. The first points scored in that game was by Oscar Benjamin Schetcman. Later, Abe Saperstein, founder of the Harlem Globetrotters, introduced the three-pointer into the game of hoops. A few notables from the basketball world include Red Auerbach, Nancy Lieberman ,Larry Brown, Nate Holman , Red Holzman and Amar’e Stoudemire. Currently, Dan Gilbert ,Mark Cuban are owners and the current commissioner is Adam Silver. Adam replaced my Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity brother David Stern.
As far as baseball is concerned, Sandy Koufax ,Hank Greenberg, Ken Holtzman, Gabe Kappler, Alex Bregman and Bob Melvin are relevant. Incidentally, Bob and Jim Harbaugh are buddies and Jim visited the A’s during one spring training to learn more about conditioning .
Other significant figures but not limited include Roman Polanski , Wolfgang Langhoff, Helen Berman, Irene Lieblich ,Bruno Bettelheim, Edith Balas, Hannah Arendt ,Otto Frank, Primo Levi, Daniel Kahneman, Leo Ettinger, Simon Wiesenthal, Bill Graham, Hedy Epstein, Anna Heilman, Margot Friedlander, Jack Mandelbaum, Paul Spiegel, Gershom Liebman, Max Friediger, Dov Freiberg , Viktor Frankl and others that suffered from the Holocaust
A reference to Jewish filmmaking giants include William Fox, Harry and Jack Warner, Carl Laemmle, Louis B. Mayer, Adolph Zucker, Harry Cohn , Max Steiner, Billy Wilder, Hedy Lamarr . Jews that have been awarded in all six of the Nobel Foundation's awards include: 1. Chemistry has 36 or 19% of the total 2. Economics has 38 or 41% of total 3. Literature has 16 or 13% of total 4 Peace has 9 or 8% of total 5 Physics has 56 or 25% of the total 6 Physiology or medicine has 59, or 26% of total. A few include : Imre Keresz, Rita Levi Montalcini, Arthur Kornberg, Arthur Ashkin Niels Bohr , Roger Penrose ,Saul Bellow ,Louise Gluck, Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman, Joseph Stiglitz, Daniel Kahneman, Paul Klugman, Ben Bernanke, Claudia Goldin, Shimon Peres ,Joseph Rotblat. Boris Pasternak initially accepted the award, but under intense pressure from the Soviet authorities declined it. Pulitzer Prize for fiction include but not limited to Edna Ferber. Herman Wouk ,Bernard Malmud , Norman Mailer , Allison Lurie , Geraldine Brooks and Joshua Cohen
Words that immediately come to mind about being Jewish include smart, creative, artistic, achieving and resilient. I am Jewish and spent the first 33 and three-quarter years of my life in Detroit. I was reared on the eastside of Detroit and my parents made it clear about our family being Jewish. I attended Wayne elementary school, Jackson junior high and Denby high school. The Lieberman siblings didn't attend public school on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Even though Denby had scheduled its first football game of the season on Yom Kippur in 1957, I did not go to school but I played in the game. Mitch , one of our captains, in the pregame at the center of the field, told my teammates, “Let's win this game for Frank and his Jewish holiday. “ Denby 41 and Southeastern 7. I had a bar mitzvah and attended individual Hebrew lessons with Rabbi Fisher even though I had to take three buses one way for my instruction . I graduated from Temple Beth El 's religious Sunday school and taught Jewish history and culture at Temple Israel and tutored as well. I attended the University of Detroit and have degrees from Wayne State University and the University of Michigan. I taught in the Detroit and Oak Park public school system and was a counselor in Bloomfield Hills. I also taught at Oakland community college as an assistant professor and was a graduate instructor at Wayne State University..
I attended both the Detroit Tigers , Detroit Lions games and was a fan of the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Pistons . Incidentally, I met Dave Dsbusschere, a Piston coach when we both attended and played for the University of Detroit. I married a Jewish girl, divorced and then headed out to California for the next 50 years . I am a Detroit Jew, which is my identity. My Detroit experiences as an educator, psychologist and athlete also comprise my identity and established a grounding and a basis for my experiences in California and true to the above quoted Proverb.
Despite residing in California. I maintained my relationship with my Detroit family, even though mom eventually moved to Maryland to be close to brother Ron and his family. I visited mom and she reciprocated wherever she lived until she passed just prior to reaching the age of 93. Linda and I went to numerous events with my first cousins, their children and children's children that included birthdays and multiple family reunions coordinated by cousin Shelly and sister Bev . Linda, cousins , Bev and I also attended University of Michigan football games and tailgating prior to Covid . Book signings with former teammate Ed Budde and his friend Conrad Dobler occurred along with numerous book signings with Darden, Keller, Brandstetter, Moeller, Seyferth, Betts from the second book . I attended Denby high school's 30th,.40th and 50th class reunions and have maintained friendship with high school buddy Wayne Fisk. Further, Dave Halpin and I attended a classic University of Michigan and Ohio State game on one cold Saturday in November.
PS
This Saturday is the big game. Coaches have been fired when they have been on the losing end between the Wolverines and the Buckeyes. The winner of this game goes on to play in the Big Ten championship the following week against Iowa and then play in the national college championship playoffs. Go Blue !
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