Tag: Hanukah

How to See Miracles

Published on by Laura Nicole Diamond4 Comments

My grandmother Lilli Diamond has taught me many things. Among some of the lasting lessons:

  • The Yiddish word for “stickshift” is…“stickshift”;
  • If someone declines your offer of a banana, offer him half a banana (because why would anyone in his right mind turn down a banana??)
  • Laugh every day, even if you “gotta crack your own self up.”
  • Use hyperbole to heighten one’s sunny outlook, as in “This is the best hot dog I ever had! In my whole life I never had a hot dog as good as this!”

This last point deserves explanation. A person could think such extravagant exuberance could dilute genuine emotional power; if everything is grand, nothing is. But it’s the opposite. She says it with such enthusiasm, she convinces you. She convinces herself.

(On the other hand, maybe the hot dog warranted the outburst; she eats fruit for dessert every day, and disdains those at her old folks’ home (her words) who order ice cream. And I’m thinking – Grandma, if not now, when?)

So forget the hot dog. Let’s try another example. A few minutes ago she called to tell me: “It was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me.” Let’s hear it, Grandma. “Today, when the girl went down to the dining room to get my oatmeal, they were all out. Guess what I had for breakfast? I had the scone that you brought me yesterday!” To some, a rock-hard day-old scone; to her, a Hanukah miracle.

“I know I’ve told you this before,” she said to me yesterday as we crept toward the dining room at lunchtime. We were trailing behind another lady using a walker, and a man in a wheelchair passed us – unfair advantage, he had an aide. She paused to allow herself a fit of laughter at the incongruousness of where she found herself and her self-image. “I sometimes imagine that I’m in a play,” she continued, “and I’ve gone to the Director, and he has handed me my sides. ‘You’re going to play an elderly lady. Go to hair. Go to makeup. Go to costume,’ she looks down at her outfit and starts laughing again. ‘Go to props,’ she says, shaking with giggles and grasping her walker. ‘And go live at that Belmont with all the old people.’” She is playing a role – her outside a far cry from her inner life.

I laugh with her. We may cry a little, too. But right now we stand in a bubble, no one else can come in. Not the helpful staff, nor the perplexed residents. It’s our moment. I breathe in whatever I can from her. I inhale her amazement at the ordinary moment, her ability to find something wonderful or hilarious in the midst of a depressing milieu, her determination to sustain and entertain herself, an 18-year-old spirit in a…an older woman’s body.

Hanukah Games — Yiddish Password Rules!

Published on by Laura Nicole Diamond4 Comments

And on the 6th night of Hanukah, the Jews played Yiddish Password.

When I was a little girl, my grandmother tried to teach me Yiddish. Do not be fooled. Although she was a first generation American born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn to eastern European Jewish immigrants (known to me as “Big Grandma” and “her husband”), she was a thoroughly modern Lilli. Our first lesson took place in the leather seats of her Porsche 911. “Vus es dus?” she intoned, pointing. “Dus es a stickshift.” That’s as far as the formal training got. I suspected her qualifications at that point.

Fast forward thirty years to Hanukah 2012. My extended family, including the still fabulous Grandma Lilli, gathered in the living room of cousins Liz and Mitch. You’ve heard about my extended clan of cousins – like our camp song-filled Thanksgivings. You’ve heard about my grandmother, too, and the trip we took to Brooklyn to visit her birth city and her younger sister Shirley. Shirley taught her grandchildren the wisdom, “Just because you can leave Brooklyn, doesn’t mean you ought to.”

Our Hanukah parties have a flair all their own. We used to spend hours playing football or softball on the field just outside their home. But calmer heads prevailed, and now a certain gang spends hours around Liz and Mitch’s poker table, betting and bluffing like schizophrenic Martians. Pair of 2s? All in!

Mitch has become the entertainment maven for these events. For many years he printed out lyrics for Adam Sandler’s The Hanukah Song, until the children protested that it was embarrassing to hear their parents singing “and smoke your marijuanica!” After a couple years more, we heeded their complaint and switched to singing the Maccabeats’ Hanukah versions of pop songs like Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” (“I throw my latkes in the air sometimes”) and Fun’s “Some Nights” (“StandFour”).

One exceptional year we got to crawl through an elaborate maze built by Mitch and their son Nathan. What had begun as a haunted Halloween maze crafted from cardboard boxes and duct tape in the garage, became the “in search of the first temple” maze for Hanukah, complete with a narrative about Alexander the Great conquering Jerusalem, a battle scene (using skeletons from Halloween), and a Temple Wall the kids could draw on. It was epic, until my niece got left inside and Great uncle Larry had to crawl in to rescue her. Mitch reports that he would have kept the maze but the boxes attracted termites, so that First Temple was also lost forever.

Which brings us to Yiddish Password, this year’s invention, which required far less physical labor than the maze. You may recall the old game show: in teams of two, one person sees a word that their teammate has to guess, and gives their teammate clues to help them guess. The shtick? All the words were Yiddish.

Mitch has generously put his game on YouTube, so do yourself a favor and try it. You will be surprised at how many Yiddish words you know, and how many words you never realized were Yiddish (“stick shift” was not among them). Schlemiel. Putz. Schlock. Schmuck. We’ve got all the best put downs. It’s a great language teacher, better even than Grandma Lilli could have concocted, but best of all is the laughter you’ll generate. Watching my father act out “schlemiel” was one of the funniest things I’ve seen. Meshugenah mishepuchim. Happy playing, and happy Hanukah.

Christmas Schmristmas — It’s Hanukah Envy, Baby

Published on by Laura Nicole Diamond4 Comments

Hanukah begins tomorrow night, and I’ve been shopping.

“I think the boys are going to be disappointed,” I bemoaned last night, as I pictured them opening presents that include sweatshirts and pajamas. My husband tried to console me, “Didn’t you also get them each a Wii game?” 

“Yeah, but I can’t find the box I put them in.”

Sigh. This time of year, I’m a big ball of conflict. All year long, when they ask for stuff (mostly crap), I brush them off with, “Let’s put it on the Hanukah list.” Then I forget about it. Mostly, they do, too.

On the one hand, I don’t want to encourage them to be materialistic, so there’s no iPad, no oversized heavy box laden with a massive toy that will be abandoned or busted or both by next week. But I also want them to be delighted, thrilled, ecstatic! I want them to be happy. I want them to like Hanukah. I want them not to be bummed out that they are Jewish.

Where’s Adam Sandler when I need him?

I suppose a little Christmas envy is a rite of passage for Jewish kids. It builds character. I should take heart; mine have graduated from envy to competitive Hanukah pride. The evidence? Yesterday, I surprised Emmett by taking him to the cupcake store for the first time in months. He browsed his choices and exclaimed, “There are Hanukah cupcakes!” and he picked out the one with the most frosting. The next little girl who walked in the door, whose mother and I went to Jewish pre-school together, did the same. More evidence: my sixth-grader reported that his friend was telling him all the reasons Christmas was better than Hanukah. Aaron didn’t back down, but instead gave him the whole “we’ve got eight nights” spiel.

“Oh yeah, well all you’ve got is fire!” his friend countered, referring to our menorah.

Aaron didn’t miss a beat. “Do you know how many house fires are started by Christmas trees?” I have no idea where that line of argument came from, but we’ll see how well his friend sleeps from now until New Years.

As long as we Jews live in a non-Jewish world, there will always be some Christmas envy, at least for those who see the holidays as a time for getting lots of presents. (An inverse relationship exists for those of us who do that shopping.) But that same dynamic, a match-up of holiday versus holiday, can be a catalyst to look at who you are and find strength, identity, family, community and pride. And that’s before word one about those kickass Macabbees. I can’t wait until Aaron tells his friends about them.