Personal memoir reflections on Jewish heritage and autobiographical intent

4.2.12 WC: 191694 may be why Jews of my generation are so influenced in their attitudes and ideology by the Holocaust. There but for the grace of God, and the forethought of our grandparents, go we. (In 1999, I wrote a novel Just Revenge, which reflected my dear feelings about the unavenged murders of so many of my relatives.) Once a person is born in a certain place, at a certain time, attitudes and ideology are shaped (in part, because luck always intrudes’) directly by family, religion, culture, neighborhood, childhood friends, teachers and other mentors and role models. Sometimes they are a reaction to these influences. Often they are a combination of both. If ideology is biography, then autobiography must honestly attempt to explore the sources of the author subject’s ideology in his or her life experiences. This requires not only deep introspection, but a willingness to expose—to the reader but also to the writer—aspects of one’s life that are generally kept private or submerged. Everyone has the right, within limits, to maintain a zone of privacy. I have devoted a considerable portion of my professional life seeking to preserve, indeed expand, that zone. But a decision to write an autobiography requires a commitment to candor and openness—a “waiver” (to use a legal term) of much of the right to privacy. I keep fairly complete records of my cases and controversies. My archives are in the Brooklyn College Library where, subject to a few limited exceptions, they are available for all to read. I have published dozens of books, hundreds of articles and thousands of blogs. My professional life has been an open book and the accessibility of my architves—containing letters, drafts and other unpublished material— opens the book even further. But beyond the written record lies a trove of memories, ideas, dreams, conversations, actions, inactions, passions, joys, and feelings not easily subject to characterization or categorization. Fortunately, I have a very good memory (more about that later) and I am prepared to open much of my memory bank in this autobiography, because I believe that the biography that informs my ideology and life choices cannot be limited to the externalities of my career. It must dig deeper into the thought processes that motivate actions, inactions and choices. In the process of self- exploration, I must also be willing to examine feelings and motivations that I have kept submerged, willfully or unconsciously, from my own conscious thought process. I don’t know that I will be able to retrieve them all, but I will try. Nor can I be absolutely certain that all of my memories are photographically precise, since my children chide me that my stories get “better” with each retelling. I believe that my actions, inactions, and choices have been significantly influenced by my upbringing. That might not seem obvious to those who know me and are familiar with my family background. Superficially, I am very different from my parents and grandparents, who lived insular lives in the Jewish shteles of Galicia, Poland, the Lower East side of Manhattan, and the Williamberg, Crown Heights and Boro Park Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods (also “shtetles”) of Brooklyn. My parents and grandparents had little formal education. They rarely traveled beyond their routes to and from work (except for my grandparents’ one-way journeys from Poland to Ellis Island). They almost never attended concerts, the Broadway Theater or dance recitals. They owned no art, few books, and no classical records. They rarely visited museums or 5 An old Yiddish expression says: “Man plans, God laughs.” 8 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017095