Usher’s Reward
By J.Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas 28x30. painted 2017 Original photograph taken: 1968 The defining moment of my great Uncle Usher’s life happened when he took the ‘hit’ for his brother Jankel (my grandfather). It was 1942 and the Nazis were confiscating all the property belonging to the Jews in their small Ukrainian village. My grandfather Jankel could not stand the humiliation any longer and lost his temper. He made the foolish mistake of beating up a young Ukrainian police officer (who was carrying out the orders). Jankel knew that the consequence of beating up a police officer would be deadly for him so he ran away. Later that day the police came to their house looking for Jankel and instead took Usher to the police station. They wanted to know where Jankel was hiding but Usher would not cooperate. They tried to coerce Usher by beating him with a bicycle chain to force the information out of him. Usher was loyal and would not betray his brother. Eventually the police gave up. Hours after the beating, Usher, along with my grandfather, my dad, my aunt Sylvia and great grandmother fled to the forest outside their village and ended up hiding there for 19 months until the war was over. Out of nine Jewish families, theirs was the only one from that village to survive the Holocaust. Poor Usher – that beating was the biggest moment of his entire life. He never married or had children. All he had was his brother and his niece and nephew. After immigrating to Canada he had no real success either professionally or personally. His greatest pleasures in life were cigarettes and Jankel’s grandchildren. Usher showed up to all of our family gatherings and birthday parties. I was only 3 when he died of lung cancer. In broken English my grandfather used to ask me “do you remember Uncle Usher?” I’d lie and say that I did. I understood that my grandfather needed to know that his brother’s life mattered.
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Usher had High Hopes
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 30x30, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 1972 Usher was my father’s uncle. He never married or had children. Usher arrived in Canada with my grandfather, my dad and my aunt Sylvia in 1949 after they survived the Holocaust. The four of them were sponsored and taken in by their brother Avrum who had moved to Montreal in 1929. Avrum was fortunate because he avoided the danger and uncertainty of life under Nazi rule and became materially successful by opening a dress factory. When the three siblings reunited, it was awkward to say the least. Two brothers suffered greatly during the Holocaust while the other was comfortable enough to buy a new Pontiac. Usher felt personally insulted when my dad, only 16 years old, was handed a broom on his first day in Canada and told to sweep the floors of the dress factory. Actually, Usher was livid and it marked the beginning of a lifetime of ‘broyges’ (Yiddish for keeping a grudge) with that side of the family. In my father’s memoirs he describes that moment: ‘This outburst of indignation at his brother was like an opening scene in a play by Tennessee Williams…Usher must have figured out that there was not going to be manna falling from the sky and sweeping his brother’s floors was the proverbial straw that shattered his dream of how it would be. The next day we moved into a nice 2nd story flat on Jeanne Mance Street at the N/W corner of St. Viateur…” One can only imagine the pride Usher must have felt on the day my father graduated from law school. Usher died in 1973. He had terrible scars on his body from the time when the Ukrainian police (under direction of the Nazis) beat him with a bicycle chain. Bar Mitzvah Boy
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 24x36, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 1974 The first Bar Mitzvah I ever attended was my cousin John’s. It was a big milestone because he was the only boy out of ten cousins on my dad’s side. The celebration was pretty lavish with a catered banquet and a live band. When I saw my aunt, uncle and five cousins sitting at the head table they looked like ‘royalty’ to me. In the 70’s there used to be this candle lighting ceremony for Bar Mitzvah boys (I have no idea when this ritual fell out of fashion). It was a way to honor 13 guests by inviting them to stand next to an awkward bar mitzvah boy and light a candle on his Torah shaped birthday cake. Every honoree marched across the dance floor to a ‘theme song’ that the band or DJ played at high volume. The Kott sisters’ song was always (you guessed it!) “We are family – I got all my sisters and me” by Sister Sledge. My cousin John, in his brown velvet tuxedo, did not look amused. Hebrew National
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 24x30, painted 2018 Original photograph taken - 2018 One of my dearest friends is Orthodox and she recently made a pithy remark to me that religious Jews never get to go on vacation – ‘they just have to keep kosher somewhere else.’ That is not something I struggle with but in the summer of 2018 my oldest child had returned home from a ‘gap year’ spent in Jerusalem. After nine months in Israel, Henry had discovered a newfound interest in becoming a little more religiously observant. He was keeping the Sabbath and following Kashrut (Jewish dietary laws). I was both thrilled and threatened. I was thrilled because when it comes to Judaism the trend is usually for each successive generation to observe less than their parents’ generation. It was so gratifying to know that my son’s connection to his Judaism defied the recent Pew Study findings. He was not on track to lose precious connections to our heritage (at least not now). These new observances were like a giant ‘Jewish mom victory’ for me – the ‘torch’ was passed to the next generation! But I would be dishonest if I didn’t acknowledge that I felt threatened by it as well. Was our son on his way to becoming a ‘baal tshuva’ (a secular Jew who becomes Ultra-Orthodox)? Would he stop eating in my house because it wasn’t kosher enough? Was he judging our lax observances? Does he think that we are hypocrites? Are we hypocrites?? Will he go on vacation with us still? Henry was home from Israel for a week and we immediately went to our annual cottage rental in Union Pier, Michigan. We were trying to regain our equilibrium as a family now that kashrut and the Sabbath were part of the equation (at least for him). Thankfully the local supermarket in neighboring New Buffalo had a tiny kosher section and we figured it out. Shabbat Afternoon with Yehudit & Gail
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 30x40, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 1977 We grew up keeping the Sabbath. Every Saturday morning, I remember putting on a dress, gathering my sticker and stationery collections in a bag and walking with my mother to shul. Sometimes the whole family went and sometimes it was just she and I. Those walks felt like an island in time - the whole world was carrying on with life as usual but we were taking break for the busy-ness of everyday and carving out a 25 hour period of rest (no phones or TV, no commerce, no driving). When we completed the 2 mile walk to Beth Tikvah I’d dart away from her, find my friends in the bathroom or sitting on the sofas in the social hall and joyfully trade fold up notecards or smelly stickers. Occasionally I’d wander into the sanctuary to hug my mom but mostly I avoided that because I was worried she’d make me sit through the very long sermon and service, where I’d be obliged to pray (which I never liked). Little did I know that my mom never expected me to sit through the 2-3 hour long service. Her goal was for me to love being Jewish and to have positive associations with our synagogue. I always wanted to go because it was fun and there were so many kids to play with. After Kiddush my parents’ friends made their way over to our pool for the afternoon. I remember generous servings of watermelon, grapes and cheese Danish and lots of cups of coffee before we got dressed again to go back to the synagogue for Havdalah services and the conclusion of Shabbat. The Matriarch in Miami
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 30x40, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 1965 To my mind no conversation about Jewish identity can take place without acknowledging the power of the Jewish mother in shaping who we are as people and as Jews. The woman in this painting is not my mother. This is Shirley. I love this image of her, soaking up the sun. I can taste the soft rye bread with seeds on the plate next to her. A ‘nirvana day’ for just about anyone. Shirley passed away in December 2018. The thing that struck me most at her funeral was the sheer force of her will. Shirley’s children described her as a woman who existed to raise a close-knit family that fully embraced both the American dream and their Judaism. Women like Shirley got involved in community work, hosting Hadassah meetings, giving time and funds to Federation and building Temple sisterhoods. Shirley, like so many ‘matriarchs’ made important decisions like joining synagogues, sending kids to Jewish camp and Hebrew school, celebrating memorable Passover seders and inviting children and their mates to weekly Shabbat dinner tables. Shirley encouraged her children to achieve in extra-curricular activities, get part-time jobs and attend the best colleges to become all they could be. She kept her family together by arranging annual cruises and Fourth of July BBQ’s. Shirley’s price was definitely ‘far above rubies’. I can say the same about my own mother and mother-in-law who continue to play this role in my family. Who were the matriarchs in yours? Shoftim (Judges)
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 22x28, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 2015 My daughter was the first girl in the history of my family to read Torah at her Bat Mitzvah. When my sisters came of age in the mid 1970’s, girls definitely did not celebrate Bat Mitzvahs at our Conservative congregation. When it was my turn in the early 1980’s, the synagogue had adopted a more egalitarian approach to this milestone. My mother offered me the chance to have a Bat Mitzvah but I was too shy to read Torah in front of everybody and turned down the opportunity. She didn’t fight me. When my daughter came of age in 2015, I was filled with pride. She prepared for her Torah reading (Shoftim) with discipline and a measure of seriousness I did not know she possessed. I have ultra-Orthodox relatives who declined to attend this service because traditional Judaism has never recognized women in this capacity. I wasn’t angry that they didn’t come to this event. I actually understand the reasons why. When you alter something after centuries of practicing it a certain way there’s bound to be a backlash from the traditionalists who want to preserve the culture and rituals in their original form. There are lasting implications when you change the tradition. My daughter understands this tension too. We did not take offense. But my daughter is more knowledgeable in Judaism than I will ever be and I know she has the tools to continue shaping the American Jewish story. I wonder what it will look like when she is my age. Greeners, Galers & Fairfield Porter
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 20x20, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 1950 I am most enamored with the paintings of Fairfield Porter. He was a Kennedy-era American artist who painted my fantasy of ‘the good life’ – genteel people of a certain lineage enjoying summer moments at his family’s historic beach house in Maine. Awash in color, Porter captured images of generations reading together on the screened porch; friends gathered in conversation on sun-washed Adirondack chairs; morning tennis matches in preppy whites. As much as I idealize this world I know that ‘my people’ did not come from that ‘stock’ or live like that. My mother-in-law once explained to me the ‘Jewish social hierarchy’ as she experienced it. There were ‘greeners’ and ‘galers’. She was a greener. I came from greeners. Galer is Yiddish for yellow and greener...well that’s obvious. These terms are used as immigration and lineage metaphors. She explained that a ‘galer’ is like a yellow vegetable that has had time to ripen on the vine while a ‘greener’, like a green vegetable, is new on the vine. If you’re a greener it means you are an immigrant from the old country and you have an accent. A galer is someone whose ancestors have been living in the new world for generations. Galers have ripened on the vine of America for a long time. Stereotypically, galers had time to build their fortunes in this country, become ‘genteel’ and take their place as part of the leisure class – they might sail or have beach homes; they play tennis. I love this image of my husband’s grandparents. There they are, two ‘greeners’, as if planted into a Fairfield Porter painting but just on the other side of the fence. It was a moment captured only a few short years after escaping the ravages of war. I love that they figured out how to insert themselves, if not in, then beside the ‘leisure class’ of the galers. They cast off their heavy clothes and the baggage of the past and had their day in the sun. Modern Shabbat
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 20x24, painted 2016 Original photograph taken - 2016 Shabbat dinner on Friday nights is one of the few Jewish rituals that I have consistently kept with my family for as long as I can remember. Just like my mother and grandmothers before me, I light candles, we join together around the dining room table to recite the Sabbath blessings and settle in for a quiet evening at home. When my kids were little it was very easy to mark Friday nights as ‘off limits’ and guard Shabbat dinner as sacred family time. But there are so many competing demands today. My daughters often have dance rehearsals on Friday nights. I compromise by lighting my candles at sundown in full view of my children so they experience the light and beauty of how Jews mark and sanctify time. The girls then bundle up to go to the studio to practice ballet for their company’s performance of the Nutcracker and return to a home that smells like challah and chicken soup and a traditional Shabbat meal. It’s not exactly how I want things to be but it works for us. The “Jew-Fro”
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 14 x18, painted 2019 Original photograph taken – 1975 Boys like the ones pictured here rumbled onto our driveway in their Camaros and Firebirds to take my four sisters to the movies, sweet sixteens, USY events and proms on a regular basis. My poor father – one can only imagine how protective he must have felt! There’s an old Yiddish saying: ‘finif techte ist nischte gilechte’ which means “five daughters is no laughing matter”. There’s a lot of wisdom in Yiddish. |