Retirement is an opportunity for exploration. Taking paths and then taking more. In Israel, where I first embarked on retirement for three months in the Winter and Spring of 2019, I learned that the word for path is Derekh. Hence the name of this blog.
Avid readers of my blog – yeah… I’m optimistically counting fingers on more than one hand – may remember an entry called “Unboxing Rivka” which explored a bit of the life story of my mother along with reflections on our relationship. For years, I have intended to carry out research and create a similar entry about my father.
Yesterday, my sister Laurie and I got together at her house and spent a good part of the day organizing our memories about the four family lines of our grandparents, two of which, of course, involve our father. I brought my own set of family memorabilia boxes, and Laurie laid out some of her documentation. It was a nice start to a more concerted effort on my part to bring the Dad piece to life.
The Arthur Farber Family circa 1960 in front of their carport in Lake Hills, WA.
In going over some of the materials, we found ourselves overflowing with emotions. Not a small amount of laughter and tears. And as we came across particularly poignant writings, we chose to read some of them out loud to each other.
There was one piece I am now choosing to share with you blog readers. It is the eulogy that I read – and principally wrote – four days after my father’s death. I had not read the eulogy in many many years, and was fascinated by the similarities in writing styles, and personal values and biases expressed by my 25-year-old self.
Publishing in this blog a eulogy from 46 years ago doesn’t deter me from diving into the bigger project of “Unboxing Selig” but rather provides an entrée into my project that will be carried out in the coming months.
Here then, is what I spoke in the Long Island community of Rockville Center, New York, on October 19, 1980, near the cemetery where my father’s body still lies.
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This eulogy is the product and process of family members coming together with their special memories, of excerpts from Arthur’s recent journal, and of past letters he has written to us. We see this effort as a part of our mourning, as well as our healing and our learning. Let us use this time of his death as a focus toward his life, and ours.
Arthur Sigmund Farber is dead, and we have come together to mourn and to pay tribute to his life. We have come to review, reflect and understand once again who he was, what he believed, what he fought for, and how Arthur has – and still will – affect us in our lives, in this world. And he still will affect us because Arthur Farber was a quite remarkable man.
We all felt that you know. He was more to us than a nice guy, a good and decent man.
“He had an expression-filled face,” says Amy Berger. “When he entered a room, he didn’t hide his feelings. You knew he was there.”
Andy Berger will remember most the joy of just sitting down and talking.
For Ted Yegerman, Arthur was “A soul who knew how to appreciate people and had a way of communicating that appreciation that was unthreatening and real.”
For Edith, “He was so beautiful. He was as if I would have born him.”
His sister Ruth remembers Arthur the shower singer (“The prettiest girl I ever saw was sipping cider thru a straw”), the big brother helping with homework with those terrifying and loving words: “What do YOU think you should do?”, the generous, soul-sharing man.
He was born on January 4, 1918. As a young child he got lots of love from his parents, Ida and Charles, and a large circle of family and friends. Thousands of pictures were taken from the old Graflex of a sweet-looking freckle-faced kid called “Young America,” growing up crazy about sports – and later, classical music. “Hey Artie,” his friends shouted out from the long Bronx Street. “Leidige Hesen” (“empty pants”), Grandma Zelda laughed as she bent down to pinch his tush.
With the Great Depression, life turned into a financial and emotional struggle. Arthur took numerous jobs to help meet the family’s obligations, and the pervasiveness of deprivation and human suffering had a profound psychological and political influence on him. A concern for social and economic justice grew as he took an interest in psychology and economics at Brooklyn College; and later, at the University of Buffalo and Columbia University, social work emerged as his career endeavor. “It’s a wonderful time,” he would say, “when you can find something to apply yourself to.”
It was during this time that he met his most important lifelong friend. “Why can’t the women around Buffalo be as wonderful as that Ruth Jaffe?” he told his college buddies of the women he had met at a New York party earlier in the year.
Arthur and Ruth met again after his enrollment at Columbia and within 7 months – and 39 years thereafter – they were married. Their friend Lenore Engdahl just visited them both two months ago. “Once in the kitchen,” she noted, “I saw Ruth look at Arthur with such intense love. To have such closeness for so many years is a rare thing.”
Arthur and Ruth during the war years.
Their deep all-lasting love was perhaps one of the few constants in Arthur’s adult life, for Arthur was a man of change, of flow. The overly hard-working social administrator of the 1950’s and 60’s, came home with his suit and hat, ranting about “that damn banker,” preoccupied with the travails of the workplace.
A disciplinarian of sorts, he would say to one of his less than totally receptive children, “I want this kitchen cleaned quickly, quietly, efficiently and cheerfully.” But increasingly his family interactions were of a more gentle, sometimes vulnerable and most approachable nature. Increasingly, his personal interactions with people, which were always honest, were becoming more loving, tender, caring.
He was realizing in his own life a gap between his professional goals and his own personal treatment of the people around him. He had an ability, no, the irrepressible desire to look inward, to scrutinize himself and his ideas. This desire for self-questioning combined with an enormous capacity to actually change himself and his ideas are crucial in understanding the growing mergence of his professional and personal evolution.
After the war and an advanced degree in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania, Ruth summarizes:
“Arthur acquired 10 years’ experience as a counselor in family agencies in the New York area, including the Jewish Family Service and Jewish Family Service of Long Island. In the latter he contributed to building a program of foster homes for older people.
He moved with his family to Seattle in 1955 to become the first professional administrator of the Caroline Klein Galland Jewish Home for the Aged. After five constructive years, upon strong request, he became the director of the Jewish Family and Child Service in his beloved Seattle. In 1964, he was invited to become a tenured associate professor at the University of Washington School of Social Work. He loved this opportunity to learn as well as teach. An outstanding contribution was his creation of curriculum dealing with the middle and later stages of life development. He was instrumental in obtaining a number of government grants for study in services for older people and was a founder of the respected Projects on Aging. Most importantly, he influenced many faculty and students to develop active interest and contributions to this area of work.
Other outstanding contributions included the development of seminars on Death and Dying and, more recently, an exciting explanation of the theme of wellness as a positive holistic approach to living.”
He loved parts of the academic world. His joy of life, his enthusiasm, his sharing, caring ability to communicate made Arthur truly loved by both faculty and students. In fact, he more than blossomed during his tenure at the University. Arthur Farber became much of what he wanted to be. To the extent that a university is a way station between the realities of today and the realizable visions of a better tomorrow, Arthur finally played the role he always wanted to play: the realistic dreamer.
He was an incurably positive person, but he was not naïve. How can anyone who saw people and the world as clearly as Arthur did be naïve. The world seems so flawed, and so it is. And there is so much to do. But the hopes of that man, oh the hopes were so beautiful, that he could carry us with him. We could understand the challenge and the boldness of his images and we could – and can – begin to think about what out to be instead of what just is.
But one cautionary note must be made before we end with a description of Arthur’s last visions.
Let us not canonize Arthur Farber. He would have been more than embarrassed by it… he would have resented it. Making him saintly misses an important point of his life. Dad was thrilled with the process of his own discoveries, his own changes, his own evolution as a human being. By focusing on him as a fixed person we miss a very important part of what made him so special. We miss his love of the process of life, the process of growth. And what’s more we shirk and hide from our responsibility to take control of the processes of our own lives and change them the way we wish. To deny his weaknesses and problems and foibles is to excuse our own. We must work to continuously improve ourselves and the world for which Arthur is an example.
In the Fall of 1980 Arthur and Ruth planned a sabbatical trip around the world that was to include visits to Japan, China, India, Israel and Great Britain, to study the processes of health and wellness in different cultures.
Ruth and Arthur in China during the 1980 Sabbatical.
Arthur kept a journal in which he detailed significant experiences exploring the themes that fascinated him personally and professionally; How can the quality of people’s lives be improved? What is the role of rationality and spirituality?
“I guess I keep coming back to the organizing theme of this journey or quest, “ he wrote. “Certainly, my own horizons have been widened and deepened by this experience here.”
In Israel, October 2, he wrote: “Last night at the Glickman’s my conversation with GoDe (Harry calls him “the philosopher”) brought out his view that what is needed to promote health is the spiritual dimension….”
“What is health?”, he asks in his September 25 journal entry, and suggests:
“Harmony; peace; balance; being in touch; consciousness of a certain ordered living; being in balance inside and outside and in one’s interactions with what’s going on inside and outside; being quiet and active, as Mr. G put it – if you jump from the diving board 10 feet you can go 10 feet deep in the water, if you are out of touch you can get in touch – all this independent of going to outside helpers for helping, treating, curing, healing. Can one renew one’s contact with the universe, with nature; can one be in touch with a vaster plane and plan,, visualize the vast expanse of the sea as it meets the vast stretch of the sky at the point of the horizon and breathe in and out with a consciousness of connection with our world? All this is a way of being, becoming, and restoring health.”
He was ill in Israel and at the suggestion of friends went to stay at a health-oriented moshav called Amirim, where he delighted in the process of returning to health.
On October 10, he wrote:
“It is like coming out of a stupor. I have been laid low and have been engaged in the necessary work of resting and convalescing and recovering from the end of travels in India and the beginnings here in Israel. Ruth has been a wonderful guide and companion steering me thru these half-awake somnambulant times… I have begun to breathe again and move about sufficiently to feel that I have my own body… and it is fresh to feel myself again.”
Amirim has become an important place for my convalescence and just being here has helped me on what I feel is a path of learning about myself and being more at one with life and others.”
“Dad,” I once told him, “I’m 24 years old and have answered none of the questions of life. What is its meaning? Why am I here? What should I do with my life?”
He answered thus in a letter March 24, 1980:
“You know what I think about those tough questions now that I’m in my 60’s…It’s much better for me in so many ways than when in my 20’s… Mom and I took our walk in the woods yesterday early morning and saw the first trillium… with skipped heart beats and oohs and ahhs… and little mushroom and found a delicious sunspot on a log looking at the forest and Lake Sammamish and meditated for a while in the brisk spring:
Just wanted to talk and say hello,
Mucho much love,
Dad”
In the last entry of his journal, October 11, 1980, 4 days before his death, Arthur concluded with a tribute to his father’s creative spirit, a spirit we all knew was deeply embedded in his own soul. He wrote in a firm, clear hand, with delight in his own process of discovery of life’s truths, illuminated and focused by awareness of the reality of death:
“The Sh’ma is closer and takes on a meaning it never held earlier in my life. So much has my rational self been influenced and bound by the language of my father. So that the spiritual was formally equated with what was superstitious and backward and lowly, but I know that in so many ways Charles was a deeply stirred-up, creative, soaring, spiritual soul. And why have I been fooled by his words and even more denied m own inner beauty… and search and connections with a life of the spirit.…”
We’ve done this route before of course. Many times. So many times. A honeymoon 24 years ago to Victoria, British Columbia on what we found out only then was Canada Day (their July 1 is more or less our July 4), has been regularly repeated as our anniversary present to ourselves. It is not an exaggeration, I don’t think, to say that we drove from Olympia to Port Angeles, hopped on the Coho ferry across to Victoria’s Inner Harbour, and spent a long weekend in the city no fewer than 20 times.
Greetings by The Empress Hotel in Victoria’s Inner Harbour
And we pretty much do the same thing every time. There is Murchie’s for scones, tea and coffee for breakfast or delicious sandwiches for lunch.
Funnily enough, at Murchie’s we could eat a Firenze sandwich, while we had been in Firenze not two months earlier and never had a sandwich there!
Munro’s for books.
I would buy another non-fiction piece – this time a book on cosmology – and Jean would buy her typical novel, sometimes in French and sometimes in English. This time it was Les Terres Isolees. My guess is that’s French.
We then always take a leisurely walk to Government House and its magnificent gardens, where we immerse ourselves in the scents, sounds and vistas of rows of roses in full flower; a lily pond circumnavigation with peaceful waterfowl, giant sequoias, and delicate maidenhair and bracken ferns; a stop at the loo; and an hour of reading on a bench near the apple orchard, while peering southward across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the snow-capped Olympic Mountains. In the beginning of July, you can almost count on the weather being dry, sunny with highs in the high 60s. Perfect for inhaling beauty.
There are over 400 volunteers who tend the Government House Friendship Garden, organized by a non-profit non-governmental corporation. Here’s one hard at work adjacent to the Rose Garden. This organization was initially started by the generosity of a former wealthy Lieutenant Governor who occupied the adjacent mansion and was determined to upgrade the grounds.
There is always something new to see at Government House Garden.
In the last 10 years or so, we have added a walk to Abkhazi Garden to take in its High Tea, before strolling the lush grounds. Thank you to our dear late friend Barbara Cantwell for connecting us with this magnificent and gentle place.
The Abkhazi Garden
The Abkhazi High Tea
We did all that on this trip and loved the familiarity. Yet… every trip is also different. Mostly because we are different. But also, we find ourselves interacting with different folks and recognizing that as stunningly beautiful it always is to enter the Inner Harbor and sight the Empress Hotel, Legislative Assembly, and compactly perfect urban waterfront scene, there are undercurrents of distress when one dives in deep.
Let’s start at the start.
We took off from Olympia on July 4, and while the weather forecast called for dry and sunny conditions that day, the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Port Angeles was continuously shrouded in clouds and a misting that required our windshield wipers to constantly be activated. I found myself oddly mesmerized by the proliferation of Himalayan blackberry vines through most of the route. The tasty fruit notwithstanding, its painful thorny stems and prodigious reproductive capacity have made it the most implacable invasive plant around. Even after researching its control methods when I was successfully planted in my Victoria hotel room, there doesn’t seem any practical way to stop it from taking over much of the Pacific Northwest ecotone. On both sides of the international border.
When we got to Port Angeles, the sky was still covered by dense fog-like clouds, but a look across to Canada provided a promise of blue skies to come.
From the US to Canada… blue skies await!
Sure enough, the boat ride soon provided those skies overhead, as well as winds that surrounded the ship with whitecapped waves. (Note, major foreshadowing here of story to come.)
Upon landing in the Inner Harbour, we easily passed through customs, at one point directed by a ferry employee dressed up as Uncle Sam (it was, after all, the 4th of July, replete with beard, top hat and red, white and blue everything.). After settling into our hotel room, we had dinner at Fishhook, a French- Indian restaurant that sister Laurie and brother Robie had recommended. It has become another standard – a delicious one at that – of our Victoria weekends. It was then on to something different.
From time to time, we can take in a play. Sometimes at the Belfry Theatre. Sometimes at the Langham Court Theatre, which is very near Government House. This time, we had gotten tickets to an outdoor performance on the Craigdarroch Castle grounds of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We had planned our Fishhook meal timing perfectly and walked up to the castle to find…. nothing going on. There were a few kids hitting a soccer ball around in an otherwise empty field, but no obvious place for the theatre outside.
We asked a thin, young man in a form-fitting outfit where we could find the play. He was all apologetic. “Hadn’t you seen the email?” he asked. “The play was canceled due to weather. I’m so sorry.”
We both looked up. Not a cloud in the early evening sky. In fact, we hadn’t seen a cloud all afternoon in Victoria. But in retrospect, we felt some strong winds crossing the Strait.
“When we were putting up the big top tent this afternoon, there was too much wind,” the young fellow told us. “It was a difficult call, but we thought for safety reasons we had to cancel the play.”
We told him about our experience in Buenavista de Cuellar, when we went to a circus and the stormy weather blew the tent down. We had all run out as fast as we could and knew of no one who got injured.
A woman passed by the man as we were talking, and she said that he was a terrific actor. That he was understudy for three of the characters in the play, including Puck. We were sitting down on a bench as she said it.
“Well,” I smiled and said, “since we can’t see the play and we are leaving town on Monday morning, do you think you could give us a few lines?”
He leapt at the opportunity. “How about the last soliloquy of Puck,” he proposed.
And with that… we sat back and off he went. It was FANTASTIC. Joyful. A bravo performance. A jubilant ovation from the two of us was well earned.
Then we got some personal backstory.
His name was Willow. He had always wanted a career as an actor. Growing up in the city of Vancouver, he saw that the Hollywood film industry had found a receptive setting in British Columbia in the 90’s and turn of the century. There were favorable tax incentives. The instrumentation of movie making – cameras, electronic systems and the like, had its technical needs met in the area. All but big star actors, who were imported from America, gained work in the industry. Willow said he understood the economics of needing big stars. But there just weren’t a lot of jobs for Canadian actors.
Then it all crashed down. Covid stopped much production in its tracks. And then came Trump and the politics of nationalism. Willow went into administration. He became the founder of an arts company in Victoria and arranged the relationship between the theatre group we went to see and Craigdarroch Castle. He had wished he could work full time as an actor, but as he said, “no way.” It wasn’t in the cards.
He fell in love and wanted a family with children. He would have to work outside the arts. And then…just now… he tells us that he is in the process of separating from his partner. His dreams are shattered.
Such a sweet and talented guy. We part, saying “see you next year.” And we then make sure we will get on their mailing list to know performance dates.
Finally, Jean asks Willow, “what is your favorite Shakespeare play?” Turns out it is Coriolanus. We made a mental note to be sure to read it soon, thank him so much for his performance and sharing about his life, and then walk back to our hotel room.
Jean is exhausted and retires for the night. For some reason, I was still itchy for a walk to Government Street, where I made an ice cream visit to Chocolats Favoris, and scoped out Roger’s Chocolates. The former included actual eating of a creamy blizzard-type dish. The latter was merely a research project for later purchase. My friend Barb Soule insisted that we try Roger’s cremes.
The next day, the only full day in town, we did the aforementioned march to Murchie’s, Munro’s, Government House, and Abkhazi Garden. We also walked back along the water, through Beacon Hill Park and back for a rest in the hotel. But the evening was still young, and we sought fish and chips for dinner.
Good timing! England was playing Mexico in the World Cup and we made our way into an Irish Pub while the match was on. It was so fun! The English fans were on the main floor – yes, that’s right, English fans in an Irish pub! – and the Mexican fans on the second floor. When England scored, the place erupted. We were given a great seat that had a very poor view of the big screen but a very good view of the fans. Our waitress called it the “best people watching table in the pub.”
After the match, Jean had her own chance for Chocolats Favoris – I did get a spoonful. Or two. Ok.. perhaps four. (Jean has read an earlier draft and claims I had half, but I deny it for the record and this is my blog so this is the record.) We then went to Roger’s Chocolates – didn’t get the creams recommended by Barb – but did get something for grandson Alden and his parents along with dark chocolate-covered orange peels for yours truly.
We slept well that night. Jean had put in 22,000 plus steps and I had over 18,000. (She had taken an early morning walk). On our last morning in Victoria, it was my turn for an early morning walk.
I had noticed them before, but when you are walking before 6am, the street community takes on a greater presence than those times of tourism’s peak. Victoria, beautiful Victoria, is also home to many without a home. As I walked the streets, I saw sadness and misery amongst the historical buildings and beautiful flowerpots. I saw lots of graffiti, and not a small number of damaged/vandalized signs and infrastructure. The stunningly beautiful scene upon entering the Inner Harbour by ferry is still that. But it is not a story of societal perfection. The challenges of mental illness and economic inequalities cross the international boundary just as easily as the darn Himalayan blackberry vines. And appear, in the third decade of the 21st Century, just as difficult to surmount.
We went to Murchie’s for scones and drinks one last time, walked over to the ferry, and we were off by 10:30am to the State of Washington. An uneventful drive brought us home from a wonderful weekend trip in our special place. Perhaps next year… a little Shakespeare.
Why leave home? Especially for long-distance travel. Especially for foreign travel.
For me, there are two key travel experiences that make the cost and time worth it. One is to witness superlatives not available at home. The largest of this. The most crucial in world history of that. The greatest or least or most amazing of… something.
The second reason is to experience something personal and intimate. Conversations. Small, distinctive settings. These almost always involve people. Directly or indirectly. But they too could include delicate experiences with nature. Or when I can be alone in my thoughts, in a setting impossible from home, with beauty and sanctity piercing through the humdrum dailiness of it all.
Generally what sticks with me, what I find most valuable, are the intimacies.
As we were planning our trip to Italy and France, there were a few knowns, a few priorities and a few clear uncertainties. Let’s start with the knowns and priorities, relate them to superlatives and intimacies, and go from there.
I had never been to Italy. Thus, we knew that we had a kind of superlatives “bucket list” intent to check off. Jean said that Venice was an extraordinary experience. And she also saw traveling in more small-town rural places of northern Italy as an opportunity for her to see new and spectacular vistas. I was not keen on either choice.
Venice didn’t appeal because it felt so intense, expensive and lacking in a non-tourist-oriented economy. Every Italian in the non-tourist economy would want nothing to do with us. Venice was high on the superlatives with low likelihood in the intimacies department.
Travels into the mountains of Northern Italy both concerned me due to potential cold weather (Yes… ironic given our later locations proved a problem in the exact opposite direction.) and I also just didn’t feel comfortable driving in Europe.
Our itinerary ended up being an unconventional mix of superlatives and intimacies starting with a week in Florence, an overnight in Lucca, a couple of days each in Toulouse, Cahors, Bourdeaux and Paris, interrupted by 5 days of heat-soaked barging up and down locks on the Lot River.
In two previous blog entries, I focused on the Italian learning effort in Florence and the notion of physical and mental limitations, mostly related to my aging brain and body. Below, I want to share some of the highlights – both superlatives and intimacies – which made the trip a special, positive experience. We’ll break it down by place:
Firenze/Florence
Florence is a world center for art and culture. Some of the most famous artists and museums have their presence here. What struck me as distinctive was the very prominent – even enormous – public art which dominated key plazas in the central historical area. Penises on parade. Muscles and curves and tight abs galore. The Renaissance sculptors created their vision of the beautiful and powerful human body as an ideal to celebrate. And be awed by.
We sure did walk in those plazas. We also spent a good part of an afternoon at the Uffizi Gallery. We missed Michelangelo’s David which was housed at Accademia Gallery – you needed to buy tickets well in advance – but the Uffizi had all the penises anyone could ask for. Here are some pictures to give you a sense of the monumentalism of Florence.
I always like to connect with a Jewish part of a city’s story when I get the opportunity. In Firenze, we both saw a lovely superlative of a synagogue temple, and I had the chance to go to a shabbat service and dinner with a close friend and cousin of a South African cousin (by marriage) of mine. The latter experience was at an orthodox Chabad congregation, where a speedy rabbi got a few of us through the required prayers, followed by amazingly delicious food and chats in English with folks from around the world. A brief note about the food in Florence. We ate pretty good food with our school apartment host, and when she couldn’t feed us directly, she said to go downstairs to the local pizza restaurant and order what we want from the menu. Absolutely yummy. Delicious pizza with incredible crusts. We went out for lunch at a Rick Steves’ recommended place… needed to wait in line to get served. But once the food arrived, spectacular taste at a reasonable price.
Lucca
The highlight of our one full day in Lucca was connecting with our friend, Jeffrey Collins. Jeffrey was spending a month plus in Italy, volunteering at an archeological dig site not far from Lucca. He not only joined us for the day but ended up driving us – at 3am mind you! – to the airport. Jeffrey has retired from a career as a national parks’ historian and interpretive guide. He worked, among other places, at the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, where we met up with him a bit less than 10 years ago. He helped us navigate that site then and so we were so fortunate to be able to share a day together in Italy.
Toulouse
Neither of us had ever been to Toulouse, which is famous as another center for art, architecture and archaeology. It is also the location of the primary global campus for Airbus.
We got a comfortable hotel in a great central location and spent a fair amount of time on our own, going where we wanted and resting up a bit.
In the central plaza, I witnessed the graduating ceremony of the French Foreign Legion cadets. There are only about 1200 graduates each year now with the entire force totalling only 9000 members. It looked like many of graduates were people of color, which is interesting in that the core function of the Legion had been to control French colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
The colonial French empire was vast. Algeria, Morrocco, Mexico, Crimea, Southeast Asia (Vietnam, etc.), Madagascar, Ivory Coast… and on and on. De Gaulle famously downsized the unit from 40K to 8K after WWII. At its largest, the FFL was closer to 100K troops strong. Today, we do get some nice residuals from the FFL in that the beautiful French language is still well spoken, and the colonial foods have enriched not only French cooking but the world’s. Not exactly sufficient justification for violent colonial oppression but we’re at now where we’re at.
The Toulouse area was originally settled at a civilization-forming level in pre-Roman times. There was a nearby natural source of the blue dye called Woad. Apparently, this made its manufacturers extraordinarily wealthy, until the much cheaper indigo came over from Asia.
I went to the “Museum of Old Toulouse” to learn such things, and also to take in some powerful art.
On our second and last day in Toulouse, Jean and I went to the Airbus Museum. As of late, Airbus seems to be kicking Boeings’ you know what, which I maintain is Seattle’s retribution for that aircraft maker moving its headquarters and much of its manufacturing out of our beloved Queen City. (Yeah… they call it the Emerald City now, after some chamber of commerce contest decades ago, but cool and really old locals still call it by its REAL name.)
Cahors
We took a short train ride from Toulouse to the picturesque town of Cahors, located at a deep bend in the Lot River. There we connected with our dear friend Brian Cantwell, who would function as our captain/skipper on our Lot River travels. Brian had secured a third-floor comfortable apartment for the couple of days in which we would provision ourselves for the boating adventure.
As a relatively small town, Cahors was easy enough to get around, and we not only organized ourselves for the river trip, but enjoyed good eating, visits to a local Cathedral (Cathédrale Saint-Etienne de Cahors), a famous historic bridge across the Lot, and lovely parks. There was a featured public artist, whose sculptures were all over town. The pictures below can allow you to make your own judgment about his style and execution.
On our second full day in Cahors, we were joined by Brian’s daughter Lillian and her partner Lux. The five of us would be barge mates on our river voyage. Oh yes… and one cool thing about Cahors: free public buses that went frequently and just where we needed them.
On the Lot River
It is pretty simple and mostly wonderful, really. We went up and down the river through about 12 locks. At each lock, we needed to manually open and close the upriver and down river locks by using cranks requiring perhaps 100 revolutions per lock. And then we slowly motored away until we went to the next lock. Or, for the end of the day, hitch up to a dock and enjoy what tiny historic river towns have to offer.
I’ll just share a series of vignettes (a French word, oui?) of the river experience:
You climb out of bed on a cool morning – that promised to be 95 by 5pm. You see your Lot River boat neighbor grab a leash and walk her dog ashore. You walk out of the boat and up the plank across the road to the riverfront park. Pass the sign that promises a festival of wines from the region on May 30, listen to the coos of the doves, smell the fresh air, say bonjour to all the folks you meet along the way, lift you head occasionally to take in the 17th century town you are a part of, and get your strides in before the efforts of the day are set to begin. Coffee and croissants await.
Let me tell the story of one such town visit. I sat in a church in the village of Vers. We were moored there overnight, and it was over 90 degrees at 5pm. I was overwhelmed by the heat, but lacking air conditioning everywhere, it was in this church that I received – yes, blessed – relief. Such powerful joy I fell on Shavuot, singing in that beautiful and sacred space. And that night it would be shabbat in that time zone.
I then returned to the Boat, donned my swimming trunks and waded in the river at Vers by myself, Juani in the boat and the Cantwell clan at the hotel. 95 degrees and it was relaxing and refreshing.
Here’s another story: I was sitting in a church sanctuary in the tiny village of Bouziès. There are two main attributes of my church attendance. First and foremost, it is a cool respite from 90 plus degree heat. Second, it has the most wonderful acoustics. I sung Jewish tunes and with no one to share the experience but statues of Jesus and other Christian disciples and artistic symbols. I felt a kind of rebellious spiritual elevation.
One time, we moored the boat for two evenings and took off on a taxi ride to a medieval town in the morning and prehistoric cave art in the afternoon. Juani had been there before so stayed behind, but the rest of us were treated to extraordinary cave art and… hurrah… cool temps.
Brian and I biked a bit one afternoon in the searing heat, and I bought 3 scoops of ice cream which began to cool me off, then yet another church stay advanced that restoration.
So much of this trip was also housed in the effects of world political storms. The US, Iran and Israel were at war. The Trump administration seemingly finding the best possible way to lose not only the military campaign, but world sympathies. So, throughout the voyage, there was a sense that we felt somewhat ashamed of being an American.
Jean and I told one Danish tour guide during breakfast in Bouziès, that we are embarrassed by our country and its leader. She said not to be embarrassed. Hungary was a recent example of democracy throwing out a Trump- like bad guy she reminded us. The Danish lady added, “it must be difficult to be an American now.” Yet, everyone has been kind and gracious to us. We have heard no attacks on US tourists, but we did see head shaking about US political leadership.
Then I asked the Danish lady whether she was from Jutland or one of the islands. She said the former and I mentioned that I had spent time near Thisted in northern Jutland. She not only knew that larger town but even knew Skyum and the farmlands near there at Skyum Bjerge. I told my Aage Rosendal Nielsen story (https://danielinisrael.home.blog/2021/01/03/aage/). Later, I looked him up on the Internet and saw an interview with Aage that brought back memories.
The hotel we stayed that night – to get some relief from the heat – was run by a French man with his wife from Kaliningrad. There were Asian Indians and Ukrainians working here. The Ukrainians earned money in the summer then went back to Ukraine in winter.
At another stopover, I took a walk by myself to sit and rest in the shade. I took a picture of a bee landing on a flower, sucking its nectar. The bee, of course, was fluttering quickly between various flowers on the hillside. And I thought about the staggering genius of evolution. It relies on ongoing diversity, selfish interest, and eons upon eons of time.
It took billions of years for those flowers, and those bees to help each other to survive. To thrive. And as I think about the details necessary for that particular mating, I find the time that it has taken to get to this point amazingly rapid. What then is God, if not the universal force that compels an evolving creation.
Below, you will find a series of pictures on and adjacent to the Lot River, with our friends Brian, Lillian and Lux on board, and the tranquil riverside villages and forested hillsides of southern France.
Bordeaux
We took off a night early from the boat to recover in an air-conditioned hotel in Cahors along the Lot. I found myself indulging ridiculously on pâté de foie gras– because it seemed like the thing to do, – taking some swims in the hotel pool, and generally easing myself into a less physically challenging part of the trip.
Then it was off to Bordeaux where we exchanged tranquility for nuthouse passion. The train station in town was very intense right away. So, we called for an Uber – not public transit – to take us to our hotel.
The hotel was located about a 30-minute walk from the historic area. It was a sterile, international-capitalist third decade of the 21st century anyplace. A Hilton Garden Inn. Our room was on the 6th floor.
I asked the receptionist about herring. I told him that I craved the herring in oil, that I could scoop out of a crock that I had in Paris 20 plus years ago on my first trip to Europe with Jean. He looks it up and recommends one of several Bullion-named restaurants, which he says are traditional and not overly priced places to get my herring.
We eventually got to one of those places, I ate the herring from a small plate with potato and carrot bits. Didn’t match my memory and turned out the herring was more salty and dry than oily… though I still enjoyed it.
Anyway… back to the chronological process. After checking in, we decided to walk along the river to the city center. It is blessedly much cooler than our last week along the Lot. As we approach the center, the urban intensity gets more pronounced. As does the ethnic diversity that now is France. Large numbers of folks from France’s former colonies have relocated to the country. The presence of Africans from Senegal, Ivory Coast, Niger, Congo, and elsewhere not only filled the streets and the names and languages of the businesses, but the first TV channels at the hotel were focused on Africa.
The places and people we immediately saw as we entered the historic center were folks and businesses from Lebanon and Syria. We were a bit hungry and looking for a bite before the larger herring meal to come. But found ourselves walking quickly to stay ahead of a major Palestinian Rights protest march through the streets. We turned up various blocks with the goal of separating ourselves from that protest, but I kept picking streets that the protesters were marching toward. Combined with my lack of French, I felt a certain vulnerability. Jean had picked a spot for a drink but I asked her to get up so we could separate ourselves from the chanting crowd.
Finally, we did pick a direction away from the Palestinian protesters, that led, amazingly, to a much much larger street event. It was a Pride march! Thousands of folks cheering and singing and dancing. We tried to find a place for that small bite and drink and the cafes were completely packed.
And it wasn’t only Pride that was bringing thousands of people to the bars and bistros in the city. A European finals cup match between Paris’s Saint-Germain football team and Arsenal of London was happening that evening. The importance of that match cannot be overstated, and the French revelers were eventually rewarded with a win.
Before the match started, Jean and I stopped by an English-themed pub, where she could get a hard cider and potato chips. That held us together, until a long walk brought us to the herring dinner.
The Bordeaux historic area – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – is the largest site of its kind in the world. Several towering cathedrals, impressive public art palaces, and block after block of intact multi-storied pre-20th Century residential neighborhoods. Not just many, but most of the streets are either pedestrian/bike only, or pedestrian dominated. But even in its massive size, the heritage site is densely packed with people there to enjoy themselves. Eating and drinking establishments stocked with people laughing, and gesturing, and watching other people pass along the crowded streets. OK… maybe it was just the accumulated events of Pride and football that had the bars and streets overflowing that evening, but given the ubiquitous presence of restaurants, bars, cafes, and ice cream (glaces) places, the commercial viability of a massive UNESCO site looked pretty secure.
With Jean wanting to do a bit of shopping and just hanging out, I decided to take the “Bordeaux Historic City Center Free Tour.” It was quite good, all in English, and it did provide an opportunity to provide a donation at the end, which I did. Here’s a few random things I learned on the tour:
Bordeaux has the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe – Rue St. Catherine.
A Nazi soldier actually saved the heritage of the town. When the war was just about over, he chose to blow up the Nazi munitions site. The Nazi plan was otherwise to destroy the architectural history of the city. As it turned out, the historic integrity remained intact.
A house made of wood in the year 800ce also remains intact.
There were actually 300 years of English rule in this area. But apparently the English never required the locals to give up their French tongue.
Most of the buildings are faced with Limestone, which grows very dark unless sensitively washed. Apparently, there is something about air-conditioning that impacts limestone, so that is banned in the central historical area. This is a major public health issue. The temperature when we were there was down to a mild 80 degrees or so Fahrenheit. This week as I write the blog from the comfort of my downstairs lair, the high in Bordeaux has risen to 107 degrees. Climate change is real, of course, and that temp has occurred before we even have reach July.
Bordeaux made an enormous amount of money as the center of the African slave trade for hundreds of years.
It was first settled by the Romans in Julius Caesar’s reign, 2000 years ago.
The same architect who designed Bordeaux’s stock market also designed Versailles.
Statues of Napolean and one of King Louis were constructed by them in Bordeaux, then torn down after they lost power. Are you listening Mr. Trump?
Mostly, central Bordeaux was rebuilt in the 17th century and Paris in the 18th century.
And the herring? I have a new exquisite dish I ate for lunch. I had escargo to die for. Each bite was a trip to heaven.
Pictures? You want Pictures?
Paris (Where we learn that the French are Excessively Polite (everyone says bonjour) and Spasmodically Violent (street eruptions and window smashing after football matches)
The train from Bordeaux to Paris was on a TGV. When on dedicated tracks, it travels at 200 miles per hour! It was quite fun to see the countryside speed by.
Upon arrival we took an Uber ride to the house we would stay at for three nights. It is owned by the son of our friend Emily, and Jean had secured a great deal. We could have free lodging in exchange for French tutoring by Jean to Emily in Olympia.
After a quick orientation to the house by Nicole, who functioned as a caretaker of the site, we were off on the Metro to the Sorbonne and Jardin de Luxembourg. Jean had studied at the school as a youth and hung out in the gardens. It was a bit of a nostalgic homecoming for her.
Later, we walked over to Notre Dame, perused Shakespeare and Co bookstore, metroed home to a lovely conversation with Nicole, then went strolling for a recommended neighborhood Vietnamese Restaurant. It was closed.
We searched for an alternative place for a small plate of something. Across the street was a tiny place for drinking wine and eating cheese and bread called the “Cave.” While trying to find the menu outside, a middle-aged man, 4-day growth of beard, smoking a cigarette at a two-person table, stared at us.
“What are you doing in this neighborhood,” he asked. “Tourists don’t come here.”
We explained that we were staying at the son of a friend. We just wanted a small bite to eat.
He said, “well, then sit down here. This is one of the highest rated wine and cheese stops in all of Paris,” as he pointed to a map with a half dozen stars strewn around the city.
So, we did.
He was with a bemused older guy, but this dude did all the talking.
He recommended the wine. He recommended the cheese plate. He talked about himself and his background. A lot. Amusing himself by sharing unsolicited his academic and business background. Clearly, he was a wealthy, internationally traveled Parisian, who was no longer needing to work and lived a pleasant existence as a retired nut job.
At one point I asked, “have you any interest in us at all?” To which he replied, “no.”
A 35ish woman approached, glass of wine in hand, and entered the conversation. Her husband runs the wine and cheese bar. Her young child is upstairs, and she needs to go back to him soon. Turns out she is a classical violinist. The next week involves a trip to San Francisco. I promise to try to hook her up with James Jaffe, my cellist cousin in The City. Later, I make the email connection for them both.
The wine and cheese were fabulous and hit the spot. Jean surprised and delighted the crew with her fluency in French. And I took it all in.
Oh yes, and the nutjob surprisingly paid half our bill!
The next day, after scrumptious coffee and pastries at the neighborhood boulangerie (also rated apparently one of the best in Paris), we went to the Picasso Paris museum. Yes, I know that Picasso had a long, famous and extraordinarily creative and changing legacy, but I find myself prejudiced by is evident misogyny. My son Zac points out that Woody Allen and other artists also behaved in dubius (at best) such behaviors and in a phone conversation with me asked if I still like him (even though Annie Hall is a masterpiece). To which my response was that Woody has lost several notches in my estimation, and I’m entitled to my Picasso bias.
What was fantastic at the museum was the downstairs visiting exhibit by a Californian artist named Henry Taylor. I found myself spending much time at each of his works. Yes, reading the museum’s interpretation, but then staring and searching and taking in the work with seemingly deeper and deeper affect. I was mesmerized by his art and amazed at how lively and evolving still images can be.
I will close the overly long blog entry with one additional scene that can only be in the “meant to happen” oeuvre.
When I was in Israel in 2019 as part of my retirement launch, I took a wonderful hike with my cousin Danny, his soon to be wife Shirley, and a close college friend of Danny’s named Arie. We all hit it off famously. So, when Danny heard that Jean and I would be in Paris, he suggested looking up Arie and his family. I did so and Arie could not have been more gracious and welcoming. He invited Jean and I to his house for dinner with his partner and children and offered to drive us to the airport the next day.
But here’s the amazing part. Arie and family lived literally 50 meters from where we were staying! We went around the corner from our house and … there it was! Both Arie and I were stunned by this… again, this is a non-tourist area of Paris.
We had a delightful evening with Arie, Judit and their two grown children Maya and Eital. And fascinating.
Arie was born in Israel, but after his parents separated when he was very young, ended up living with his mother in Argentina until he was 18. While his mother was indeed Jewish, she was quite secular, and Arie didn’t have a focus on his Jewishness until one day, he ran into several antisemitic bullies and was severely beaten up. He was hospitalized for awhile from the incident and it got him to thinking. “Being Jewish is a risk, whether you are religious or not.”
So, he decided to make Aliyah (immigrate to Israel), went to an ulpan to learn Hebrew and joined the IDF. Arie’s main language at that time with Spanish.
Meanwhile, Judit’s heritage was as a Moroccan Jew, but she was born and grew up in Paris. She too at an early age was moved to explore Israel for immigration. She decided to go to ulpan and there she met Arie. But for awhile Judit decided to go back to France even as she stayed in touch with Arie.
As Arie explained it, he was very much into “playing the field” at that point and hadn’t promised Judit marriage or commitment. But Judit said, ‘I’m going to make Aliyah.” She did and moved to Israel. She and Arie started “dating” again, and they just never stopped. With a first child coming, though, Judit and Arie decided to move to Paris… at least for a while. And they have been there ever since.
Our evening with Arie’s family was filled with delicious food off the grill and great conversation. Loud political talk, including clear distinctions between parents and children’s attitudes toward Israel. Rapid conversations in English and French.
The multi-national sense of the family was striking. They had passports from Israel, France, Argentina, and Canada. As the war continued between Israel, Iran, the US and spillovers into Lebanon and elsewhere, one really got a sense of an Israeli perspective. These folks were the Israeli “liberals.” Yet, regarding the war, they were appreciative of Trump’s actions if not his humanity. They didn’t like Obama re Israel. I was taken by Judit’s desire for a “once and for all” resolution on Iran. That sense that it may be difficult for many but if victory is won, the future can be better. There was a dominant, and fully understandable fear based on Jewish historic trauma.
And yet… we also did lots of laughing and life sharing. We had a lot of fun.
The next morning, I had breakfast with Arie and then he took us both to the airport.
Superlatives and intimacies experienced … through the end of our long European journey.
More than 25 years ago, Jean and I put personal adds in Match.Com, where we talked about wanting to learn Spanish. Apparently, that became enough for a first date and translated six months later into me quitting my job, relocating for nearly 3 months in Mexico for Spanish language classes, and Jean joining me for the last month in those same classes as well as home visitations with natives. Intensive language acquisition became not only our way into love, but our mode of international travel.
Since that initial foray into language travel, Jean (who became Juani to me on that first foray south) and I have returned several times to Mexico, using the same method, and immediately upon retirement I spent nearly three months in Jerusalem trying to learn Hebrew in the same fashion.
The sad reality, however, is that for me, it hasn’t been enough to truly get comfortable in any new language. Juani has followed up those experiences with ongoing Spanish fluency efforts, including her own language teaching efforts, conversation groups, and book clubs all in Spanish. She refuses to speak Spanish with me at home because I’m so poor at it and she needs a break from that kind of teaching. My Spanish, while adequate to have very simple conversations and get around while traveling, is nowhere close to fluency.
Yet that method of travel has still appealed. So, when we decided to go to Italy this last month, a nation I have never visited and a language neither of us knew, we enrolled in an intensive Italian program with the same native home stay format. This time located in the city of Florence.
The Firenze-based (Florence in Italian) program was for only one week. We had no expectations for this to be more than a mere touch of the language. Because of Juani’s fluency in other Romance languages, French and Spanish, she had major advantages over me. Yet, I enjoyed, and felt a warm familiarity, with the approach to language learning. I genuinely took pleasure in trying to keep up with the daily assignments, found opportunities to smile on the rare occasions of actual word recognition and memory, and found the language-learning process oddly satisfying in the daily moments even as I acknowledge complete long-term failure. As of now, I can’t remember 5 words in Italian!
A few particulars of the language learning experience:
Our teacher Alice was excellent. Later, in France, we also interacted with a woman named Alice. Same spelling. But a very different pronunciation than English or between Italian and French. It is fascinating how language evolves.
Fellow students were from all over the world. There was a Chinese cook who wanted to learn Italian cooking so that he could open a restaurant in his home country. A Ukrainian woman living in Spain during her war and wanting to pick up Italian as another option. An American woman – who insisted on me relocating my seat on our second day because she had to stay in the same seat all week – who was studying long-term to teach Italian. Later, by the way, we had a lovely walk into town with her. The chair weirdness, notwithstanding, she was a nice young lady. A German man… not sure why he was there. A Korean woman, classically trained pianist, whose husband was in Switzerland as a visiting professor, and she wanted to pick up Italian for the fun of it. (And yes… of course I asked her to play a few bars on the piano in the room!) An older American woman who kept asking the teacher to slow down and needed translations into English. In other words, the world was learning Italian around us.
During our daily breaks, Juani went for coffee. We found several options near the historic city center which provided a nice physical respite from the intellectual rigors.
Okay… now repeat after me these numbers in Italiano: uno, due…!
I am sitting in front of my lap top computer, beginning to type the first entry in Jean and my three-plus weeks in Italy and France. We are on the 6th floor of an air conditioned corporate-generic Hilton Garden Inn, able to look out to a view of Bordeaux’s gothic masterpiece, the Cathedral Saint-Andre in the distance, and seven of the more proximate construction cranes used in the building of modern offices outside of the historic city center. To my right flows the Garonne River, a key access for the city to the Atlantic Ocean. Tomorrow morning we take the superfast TGV train to Paris, and two days after that, fly home to SeaTac.
We are exhausted. There have been many wonderful moments, and new insights along the way, and I intend to share some of those in an upcoming blog entry or two. But as of now, what has struck me as a clear learning, is that this trip has brought forward a strong reality: As one ages, there are more physical and mental limitations that must be respected than when one is younger and more resilient. I turned 71 years old on this trip, and that which I could have managed before, became much harder this time.
To wit:
*Mental Capacity/Language Learning: Jean and I had our first bonding travel experience together 25 years ago. As a French and ELL teacher, Jean has stronger language acquisition skills and experience than I. But when I quit my job, and spent nearly 3 months in Mexico, ostensibly to learn Spanish, I pretty much met my goals. I was able to get around nicely, even have some professional conversations in the language. Jean joined me for the last month and we were both doing well in the intensive classes we took (she quickly got beyond me, but that was to be expected.)
This time in Florence, we took introduction to Italian for 5 intensive days. I worked at it and did indeed enjoy myself in the program. But two weeks later? I retain almost nothing! In the future, I need to give in to the reality that my brain just can’t retain new languages at this stage.
* Physical Comfort: The weather in Florence, and later in Lucca for one day and Cahors for another, was quite pleasant. Rain occasionally, but temps in the high 60’s to low 70s. That changed when we started our one-week boat trip up and down the Lot River.
Near record-breaking heat accompanied us for the entire week. Highs every day 90 degrees or more. There was no air conditioning on the boat, we were in cramped quarters, and part of the boating experience was to open and close river locks to make headway up or down stream. Opening and closing locks consisted of lots of physically demanding cranking.
The pairing of the heat, physical exertions and tight headway which didn’t allow me to fully stand up for parts of the trip, took its toll. I was overheated and could not find adequate relief for large portions of the trip. Jean had not experienced that heat in her same trip a year before. But by the time our week was nearly over, I needed to get to an air-conditioned hotel room a day early, just to recover.
*Writing: The above limitations have definitely affected my ability to write, record perceptions, and find meaningful things to share. That is itself a limitation I need to recognize.
But with that said… I am looking forward to a couple of days in Paris. We will meet up with a close friend of my Israeli cousin Danny, Arie, who is living with his family in the City of Lights. We have the same place to stay in our friend Emily’s son’s apartment as Jean stayed last year. I’m still on the hunt for herring in oil that I remember from our first trip together in Paris 23 years ago. And we will find a museum or two to visit. OR… do a bit less and accept the limitations of our energies on the tail end of a long and fruitful trip.
These are, as I’m confident all of you who are reading this blog will agree, particularly challenging times to be Jewish. The US and Israel are at war with Iran. Israel is actively bombing Lebanon and intermittently doing the same in Gaza and the West Bank. And generationally, there are extraordinary shifts in Jewish opinions about Israel in general and Zionism in particular. The younger you are as an adult in our country – and really throughout the world – the less supportive you are likely to be of Israeli actions or even the continued existence of a Jewish state. And the confluence of antisemitism and opposition to Israeli actions is both controversial and undeniable.
As president of the largest Jewish organization in the capital city of Olympia, and at a time when our rabbi is on sabbatical, I am finding myself approached by various congregants, asking the temple to be explicit in taking positions on politically sensitive topics, or if not taking a specific position, then asking for inclusion into the temple of what are permissible topics for discussion.
With that as prologue, I will provide below two written pieces I have recently written that relate to the general topic of governance at Temple Beth Hatfiloh, and our role in the civic life of our community. The first piece is my monthly President’s Report to the Board. The second is my speech, written down, supporting the recently passed Olympia City Council Proclamation of Jewish American Heritage Month in the city. That is followed by a picture of members of our temple and the Mayor (a Jewish one at that!) and City Councilmembers in front of the council dais.
President’s Report – May 2026 (for 19 Iyyar 5786)
Temple Beth Hatfiloh is, of course, not a political entity at its core. We are a spiritual center with a vision of serving broadly the entire Jewish community. And yet… we are all affected by civil governance and the public debates of the day. And so, I have found myself, as President, often approached by people and institutions in ways that have me/us asked to take positions or stands on civil issues.
How do we at TBH deal with global, national and local political issues and forces? What is our role, as a Jewish institution, in responding to or initiating positions, programs or other actions that can affect us as part of the Jewish people?
In these past few weeks, here are some examples of what I have been faced with regarding the “Politics of TBH.”
1. Jewish American Heritage Month in Olympia: Just want to remind Board Members, on the off chance that you will actually read this before the Board meeting, that I will be representing TBH at the signing of a proclamation in the city of Olympia designating May as Jewish American Heritage Month. I want to encourage everyone to join me at 6pmon May 5 in Council Chambers. You get a picture with our Mayor and City Council Members – suitable for framing! – and an opportunity to take pride in the recognition of our heritage.
2. A few weeks ago, I was approached by a member who wanted to talk with me about forming a group within TBH that would be explicitly non-Zionist in nature. This individual had also spoken with Rabbi Seth about that same topic. I agreed to meet with that person along with another member to discuss the question. I asked them to provide me with a statement of intent for such a group and we had a couple of extensive conversations. I also knew, as they did, that there was a high potential for such a group to be inflammatory and divisive for our TBH communi
I consulted with Kayla as to what she knew of Rabbi Seth’s intent. He had suggested that instead of a specific “affinity group,” which was their request, that establishing a book group, consistent with other similar groups at TBH (e.g., Modern Mystics) could be valuable and supportable. In my discussion with the two members, I asked whether the book group approach, part of our regular quarterly program set, would be acceptable. They agreed to that. So, they will be working with Kayla to set that up for this summer, starting after Rabbi Seth returns. He, apparently, wants to be part of that group discussion.
3. A few weeks ago, I was approached by another member of TBH. She sought Board approval of a political endorsement opposing state Initiatives IL26-001 and IL26-638. That opposition is being spearheaded by a group called “No Hate in WA State.” Rabbi Seth had indicated personal support for opposition to those initiatives, and noted the specific process in our polices for such a Board endorsement. This process include two Board votes with outreach to our general membership sandwiched in between those votes.
As of now, our existing queer peoples group, Beit Ha’Keshet, is scheduled to meet on May 13 to organize and put together the materials for Board consideration at its June 3 meeting.
4. Then there is the internal “politics” of TBH. My sense is that all of us have experienced the famous line “two Jews, three opinions.” We have our fair share of strong, opinionated personalities (yes, I’m unfortunately high up on that list). As a Board, and in our temple committees, we often deal with differences and conflicts of ideas and personalities. That is why it is so important that we have asked a group of our members to develop a Code (Brit) of Conduct policy to help guide us through those times when conflict resolution is so essential.
We are hopeful that a draft of that Brit will be ready for Board consideration in June and ready to be shared with the entire community at the Annual Meeting on June 21.
Jewish American Heritage Month
Honorable Mayor Payne and members of the Council,
My name is Daniel Farber, I live at 219 West Bay Drive NW on Olympia’s West Side, and I am proud to represent Temple Beth Hatfiloh as its congregational President. With me in the audience you will find other TBH leaders including Barbara Soule our Vice President, several Board members…. and other members of our congregation.
Unfortunately, the two rabbis leading Olympia synagogues were not able to make it tonight, but I have spoken with both, and they send their support and thanks for the proclamation. Rabbi Seth from TBH is on sabbatical and Rabbi Yosef from Chabad is celebrating the festival of Lag Ba’Omer. That festival is not a religious holiday, but rather a festive cultural event, so not to worry about this event’s timing.
On behalf of TBH, we are pleased to support the powerful statement you are considering that proclaims May 2026 as Jewish American Heritage Month in the City of Olympia. We are not only in favor of this proclamation, but also so thankful for the support that this city, its governmental leaders and staff, and its people, have provided to our Jewish community for over 150 years.
Jewish Americans have found in our beautiful city, broad freedom to worship and carry out our cultural practices. And with that freedom, that tolerance of religious differences, there have been great dividends for Olympia. As the proclamation states, Jewish Americans have been “woven into the tapestry of our community.”
For decades, businesses such as Goldberg’s furniture at the prime corner of 4th and Capital, and Olympia Supply with its humorous spokeswoman Sadie Kumquat sharing the latest weekly specials on KGY radio, were centers of commerce and community life. Jewish Olympians have been leaders in the establishment and growth of social agencies like Community Youth Services and the Dispute Resolution Center. Instrumental in the relocation of St. Peter’s Hospital and the provision of a range of medical services. TBH has been a major supporter of Interfaith Works, promoting dialog with Christians, Muslims and other faith communities.
More than once, Olympia’s voters have elected Jewish mayors, as well as Port Commissioners, School Board members, and other civic leaders. Our small Jewish community has been intimately connected with the health and welfare of Olympia almost from its founding.
But our city’s ideals of inclusion and tolerance have not always been met. We have experienced antisemitic incidents of property destruction and threats of violence at our synagogue. Antisemitic messages have been scrawled on our city’s buildings and along our streets.
It is to these realities, when our values are truly challenged, that we have seen Olympia’s city government rise to our defense. When our security has seemed at risk, the city’s police department has come to protect us. During times of difficulty, city elected officials have sat with us in our synagogue, demonstrating solidarity.
So, we are here to support and thank you for this proclamation. And also, to thank the city of Olympia for the many actions it has taken and continues to take, that advance social justice and religious tolerance for Jewish Americans and all members of our human family.
For your proclamation, we give you a hearty Yasher Koakh!, which in Hebrew sings credit for a job well done.
Thank you.
I’m the guy holding the proclamation standing beside our wonderful mayor, Dontae Payne, with temple members, city staff and council members surrounding us. Photo credit Jean Michalski Farber.
A close friend of mine, Stephen Bray, passed away almost a year ago. His wife, Diane, invited Jean and I and a number of Steve’s friends to come to a gathering at her house this week to gather our memories, reminiscences, and appreciations. That has prompted me to reflect on my relationship with Steve.
We first met outside the old Temple Beth Hatfiloh building on 8th and Jefferson in Olympia’s downtown. Our sons, Aaron and Zac, were in the same Sunday school class at TBH, and we were waiting around to pick them up when school was over. This was probably 1992 or 3.
I recognized Steve from his picture in The Olympian, where he was writing a semi- regular column about baseball in the paper’s sports section. We struck up a polite conversation which included talk of baseball in general and the Mariners in particular. But when the kids were ready to roll, we parted quickly and amiably.
The next time we found ourselves in the same situation, I asked Steve whether he would be interested in hearing the most perfect baseball story of all time. How could he respond to that question with other than a skeptical “sure.”
And here is the story.
In 1969 major league baseball first came to Seattle with the expansion Seattle Pilots. As all expansion teams, they were a pretty ragtag bunch, filled with players rejected by other squads, and unripe initiates. The Pilots played at a partially remodeled old minor league ballpark called Sick’s Seattle Stadium. It was still in the process of going from 15,000 minor league seating capacity to 21,000 when the season started in April. The outfield bleacher seats – relevant to this story – were installed immediately adjacent to the field, separated by a simple chain link fence replete with entry and exit gates to the stands.
On Sunday, June 1, the Pilots were playing the Detroit Tigers in a day game. My dad told me that he would drive me to the stadium and then take off to the office to get some work done. He would in turn pick me up when the game was over. It was a beautiful, warm, late Spring day and I brought my big softball glove. Dad dropped me off in plenty of time to find my seat during the pregame warm up period. I was 14 years old and had never played an inning of baseball and only a bit of pick-up softball at school.
The Tigers were a formidable team that year. They had run away with the American League pennant in 1968, cruised to a World Series Championship, and still possessed all the talent that got them there the year before. Sluggers Al Kaline, Norm Cash and Willie Horton led a powerful offence. Pitchers Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich were Cy Young and World Series MVP winners. The Pilot fans were lucky to get an intimate view of the champs, never mind their own lowly team.
When I got to my left field bleacher seat, the Tigers were hitting batting practice. I sat by myself, with most seats still empty prior to the start of the game. Willie Horton was at the plate, slamming ball after ball in the warmup. Suddenly, with a smooth and powerful swing, Horton sent the ball sailing out to the left field stands where I was sitting. I stood up. The tiny ball was rapidly coming my way. It was terrifying. It was coming right to me. I stuck out my right gloved hand. Straight in front of me. I didn’t move an inch to my left. Not an inch to my right. And the ball, that hard, small, spinning ball, flew directly into my outstretch glove. And… it hit the glove straight on, and before I knew how to close on it, the ball ricocheted away, bouncing from seat to seat down the stands. I watched, embarrassed and powerless, as other kids scampered for the ball and captured it.
Meanwhile, on the field, different batters were taking batting practice and fielders were taking fielding practice. About 5 minutes passed. Willie Horton by this time was in his usual left outfield position shagging balls. A high fly ball was sent his way. But this time, after catching it, he turned around and started walking to the bleachers. He was walking in my direction. And then I saw him start to motion with his hand for someone to come forward. “Who me?” I gestured. His response was affirmative and he kept walking over to a gate in the chain link fence. He waved me to come down.
I walked down to the gate, Willie Horton opened it and said to me, “stick out your mitt.” I did so. Then he slapped the ball into my mitt and said, “you’ll get it next time, kid.”
And with that, he closed the gate, turned around, and walked back out to the field.
The 1969 Seattle Pilots season was both the first and last for the team. Ownership failure and league failure to control its miscreants led the Pilots to leave Seattle and become the Milwaukee Brewers the very next year. Seattle fans – including the state’s attorney general – sued Major League Baseball and the suit was settled eight years later when Major League Baseball returned to Seattle with another expansion team, this time the Mariners. And who should be selected in the expansion draft that first year? Why Willie Horton of course.
…And that was the story that I told Steve years later outside of Temple Beth Hatfiloh while waiting for our two sons who, by the way, quickly became far better baseball players than I ever was.
Stephen and I had parenting in common, and appreciation for baseball. But over the years, we shared so much more. Stephen was everything anyone could ask for in a friend. Caring but not intrusive. Wise. Humorous and witty. He initiated contact as much or more than I did. We were close, knew and remembered details about each of our lives, and supported each other during difficult times. I miss him terribly.
Most significantly, Steve almost died of cancer at a very young age. Recovery from that, a kind of rebirth, must change one’s perspective on what is important and vital in life. And for Steve to live an extra 50 plus years after such an averted death sentence was a gift to him and so many around him.
When I heard last year that he was in the hospital and that this time, recovery was not in the cards, I penned a last message to Steve. I believe Diane said that she had the chance to read it to him before he passed, but it wasn’t clear that he was able to take it in. Nevertheless, I will end this blog entry with the final message to my dear friend:
Dear Stephen,
When I told you the story of how Willie Horton asked me to open my mitt, slapped a ball into the open glove, and told me “you’ll get it next time,” I knew it would resonate with Stephen Bray, the baseball writer for The Olympian. And 40 plus years later, our friendship has proven that out.
When one nearly dies and then lives another 50 plus years, a certain foundation of equanimity is a valued companion. And death, with its inevitability, a leveling agent. Yet, its imminence for you is still crushing to those who love you. And I love you.
You have been, for me, the greatest of friends. Genuinely interested in my life. Openly sharing about yours. A source of wise counsel. And so often, a joy to be around.
Being a good friend to others isn’t the only attribute of a life well-lived. But it’s a pretty good sign.
Goodbye dear friend. Know that you gave and received love. That you will be missed by many. That you will be missed deeply by me.
As one does, from time to time, when time itself doesn’t appear pressing, or when one is just undisciplined in the moment, I found myself glued to an hour and a half video conversation between Ezra and Naomi Klein. The latter Klein, no relation to the former, was talking about the author, journalist, political theorist and agitator, Naomi Wolf.
The two Naomis are of a similar age and profession, and in the 1990s, they came from a similar place in the American political spectrum. It would be fair to describe them then as from the intellectual feminist left. However, they no longer share a political home. Naomi Wolf has evolved to be a rather MAGA-oriented propagandist of the conspiratorial right.
The topic of the 90-minute video was an analysis of how and why Ms. Wolf evolved. But Ms. Klein also discussed the significant professional problems she has encountered by people being confused about which Naomi they were talking about. Naomis Wolf and Klein had become, over the years, doppelgangers in the minds of many, even as their politics increasingly diverged.
Which got me to thinking about the notion of individual uniqueness. Do you, dear reader, believe you have met anyone much like me? And I in turn ask myself, have I met anyone whom I thought of as my doppelganger?
My short answer is “no.” I have never met anyone whom I would find to be uncannily similar to my world view and to my personality.
But then I thought of my family and friends. Everyone feels fully unique. Dozens, hundreds, yes, thousands of people who have come in and out of my life all feel amazingly distinctive. Wonderfully distinctive.
Is that your experience? Is it your experience that the more we get to know any other person, the more we realize that there may be over eight billion humans on this planet, but every one of them is unique. And it’s not even close.
Naomi Klein certainly took some professional hits due to the mistaken doppelganger Naomi Wolf. But in studying Wolf’s evolution, Klein got some grist for her latest book on just how to explain these strange and dangerous political times.
I was searching for a particular document on my electronic storage site, when I came across the below piece I wrote more than 5 years ago. It was written for Keith Eisner’s writing class relatively soon after I had retired. For those who are also recently retired, does the below ring a bell?
Week 1: Preparation
Now that my work life has come to a satisfying close, and the accolades from former colleagues for a job well done has wafted long enough across my proud brow, it is essential to set clear short, medium and long-range goals for the rest of my life and see each day as a grand opportunity to advance those goals. Self-discipline is essential. So here are my commitments:
For my body, I will exercise every day. Stretching and warm-ups always must start the ritual. No fewer than 10,000 steps. 45 minutes of cardio. Exertion of all muscle groups.
For my mind, I will write a journal entry or other longer piece of writing each day. No exceptions. A minimum of 2 hours of free-flowing prose, with longer academic or professional pieces added based on timely ambition.
For the community, volunteering to help the needy or advance society in some fashion. 10 hours per week, minimum.
For family, I will cook and clean and support the household every day. I will always ask how my wife is doing and think about how I can improve the quality of her life as well as the lives of our children. Every day.
For recreation, I will take up guitar, improve my table tennis game, join a choir, and travel the world. I will attend to the lives of my friends, invite them to participate in grand occasions and grow closer to them in our shared lives.
Week 2: Execution
The stretching in the morning was so affirming, and the beautiful walks during the warm summer mornings made 10,000 steps a breeze. Heck, on Thursday, I even made 14,342 steps! I found that I really didn’t need to go the full 45 minutes to get my steps in. 30 is fine. How unfortunate that I strained my shoulder on Wednesday. Ouch… need to take it easy there.
I sure love to write! I did miss Tuesday’s journaling because Joe needed help with his yard. It probably is important to stop writing on shabbat, so Friday and Saturday will be no writing days. There are priorities to balance.
I’m sorting through 5 different organizations that could use my volunteer help. Several look promising. I’ll interview them next week.
I made 5 dinners and 3 lunches this week. Boy that was fun. My wife wanted to make other meals, so I let her. Nice shared work. Cleaning up was a breeze. But it’s only fair I share the duties on that as well.
Research on travel options was a gas. So many choices! Joined the choir. Looking into guitar teachers.
Week 3: Realization
Sprained my right leg. In a cast. Great for upper body strength but need to take it easy in the future. Doctor says 6 weeks before I can begin a steady regimen of walking.
Hmm… what to write about? I think I need to watch more TV to get ideas. Thank goodness the impeachment hearings are going on. So mesmerizing and the human condition is on insightful display. Much to write about there.
When I volunteer my time, I need to be sure I support what an organization is doing. After looking into the 5 organizations last week, I found serious fault with all of them. Need to investigate others.
Hard to cook and clean when you can’t easily walk around. My wife has graciously agreed to take on more of those household chores, and we have found great take-out options.
My friends and I talk about impeachment on the phone. We really agree with each other. How gratifying.
Week 4: Disillusionment
The flu has done me in. Fluids and rest, fluids and rest.
The world is bleak. Trump will never be convicted. Why write? I’m not a good writer anyway, It isn’t like there is a paucity of book writers who are better than anything I could ever produce.
I’ve concluded that you cannot really help another person. Volunteer for the needy? Any help one provides is just enabling their dysfunction. Better they live their lives and I live mine.
My wife is sick of cooking and cleaning and sick of me. I don’t blame her. What good am I anyway?
As for friends, who needs them? They only gripe that I am not the same man they’ve known for all these years.
You know, after I get over the flu, I’m wondering if they’d take me back at the morgue. It was a great job with super benefits, and we were always cracking the best jokes.
In the immediate past blog entry, titled Memories of Sarah, the city of Berkeley featured prominently. It was a critical place in forming my character as well as my son Zac’s.
Virtually everywhere I went and everyone I talked with on my recent visit triggered connections to that history. Uncle Joe used to talk about “the original Peet’s” coffee house, which was located three blocks down Vine Street from his Scenic Avenue home. So, what should I see along Oakland’s International Airport corridor? A video exalting the history of Peet’s.
A video capture at the Oakland Airport, November 2025.
Every visit to Berkeley inevitably hits my soul as a memorial pilgrimage. I connect with people and places because through those connections I find myself closer to wholeness.
I’ll continue now where my personal Berkeley history left off from the last blog entry before we move forward to the events and impressions of November 2025.
Student Life at Cal
During my two years at Cal, I saw Sarah and Joe frequently, but in some ways less often than one might have thought. School was a heavy load, and I had a full social life, at first living in Berkeley Student Housing Cooperative dorms, and later in a group house on Ashby Avenue, far across town from the Jaffes.
It was through my student programs at Berkeley, that I did get to know the city more intimately. Afterall, I was in a city planning program! Classes in school included socioeconomic analyses of Berkeley neighborhoods and an urban design concept assignment for downtown Berkeley.
In the latter class, taught by Donald Appleyard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Appleyard), my horrible graphic skills were employed on an idea that I thought pretty terrific. I recommended that awnings be a theme on a certain Shattuck Avenue block. I thought awnings would both unite the street design thematically and provide functional value during rainy weather.
Professor Appleyard, whose academic focus was urban design in general and street design in particular, had a British stuffed shirt mien about him (he was, actually, British after all), and in our design class he was being critical, with studied deliberation, about every student’s product. We were all a bunch of policy wonk-types, not graphic artists. As the good professor went from one student’s production graphic to another, he came around to look at mine.
“The awning slopes are inconsistent from business to business. And the color scheme,…” he began to say before I interrupted him.
“I know I can’t draw worth a hill of beans, but what about the concept? Do you think it has merit? Can you respond to that, please?”
To which the entire class erupted in applause. They all appreciated my gumption.
Appleyard, who wrote a book called Livable Streets, ironically died in a traffic accident two years after that Cal awning critique episode.
Which reminds me of yet another of my academic chutzpadik rebellions which somehow has stayed with me for 45 years. Toward the end of our last quarter, Professor Marty Gellen, who was younger and a bit cooler than other profs, was going on about one failed policy after another. I finally had enough.
“Marty, we have been here for nearly two years, and we have been exposed to the failures of multiple federal, state and local policy prescriptions. Can’t you tell us about one thing, one single thing, that you really believe has helped solve a problem or two?”
At that, Professor Gellen smiled broadly, pausing to consider my challenge. He then weighed in with a series of ideas cum regulations and other implementation techniques that he said made a real positive difference.
The room erupted in applause.
“Thank you, Marty,” I responded. “That was most helpful.”
Visits Home
It took me an extra 18 months after physically leaving school in Berkeley to actually finish my course work and get my degree. That challenging period is a topic for another blog entry. Or set of them. But in the years following Cal, I started my professional planning career at the City of Seattle and Island County Planning Departments, got married, had a son, and got divorced.
I wrote about my and Zac’s connections with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Joe during the period after my divorce in Memories of Sarah. It was a time when Berkeley very much began to feel like home, for my connections were not solely familial.
Zac and I would also regularly visit my Cal student friends Helen, Katrina, Mark and Janet. Especially Helen, whose home we would occasionally stay at. She had been an elected official with the East Bay Municipal Utility District and later served on the Berkeley Planning Commission. Janet, Katrina and Mark also had at various times planning jobs in the area. Berkeley’s political and policy affairs were regular topics of our conversations.
I found myself in town almost every year at least once. And those visits too had a pattern. At Sarah and Joe’s, we had TV obligations and certain restaurants to patronize. Sarah and Joe rarely cooked anything at home. I would take long walks in the North Berkeley hillsides. Playing softball on Sundays with Ray Weschler at Codornices would yield, as I got older, to mere observation. But I still to this day read his wildly entertaining game summaries. I would also visit with friends and family.
And I would always walk over to Cal and read the class descriptions on the wall of the Department of City and Regional Planning. The evolving nature of the profession – my profession – always provided insights. And it was just fun to stroll leisurely across the beautiful campus and see the scenes of youthful academics in motion.
The above visitation pattern took place for over 30 years. But predictably, time took its toll. First Uncle Joe died then Aunt Sarah. Helen sold her home and moved to a senior retirement community in Oakland. My connections to Berkeley were ebbing.
And then a happy event intervened to make Berkeley once again a central place in my heart. Zac got a job as Managing Editor of Berkeleyside, the principal local online new source in town. His partner Vicky got a job as an art curator at the Berkeley Art Museum and Film Archive (BAMFA), and they moved into a lovely little house in Berkeley’s Poet’s Corner neighborhood. Then they decided to get married and our two families celebrated the nuptials at a gorgeous winery in Sonoma County. The next year they gave us the glorious news; Vicky was pregnant with a boy, later to be named Alden.
21-month old Alden is growing so quickly and this is such a precious chance to bond with him. Jean and I have decided that we would like to be with our Berkeley family at least bimonthly if we can pull it off in the coming years.
December 2025
Zac, Vicky and Alden flew up to Seattle during the Thanksgiving holiday week. They stayed a few days with Zac’s mom and shared some post-Thanksgiving meals and walks and talks with our side of the family. It was in Seattle that Alden coined the name Gigi for Jean and “Hodo” for me. Nobody knows why I became Hodo. We were trying for Saba (the Aramaic name for grandfather that is widely used in Israel). But he had trouble with the “S” pronunciation at the beginning of a word. So… Hodo it is… at least for now.
Here they are in front of the Troll in West Seattle’s Lincoln Park.
Vicky had work to do in New York immediately after the holiday, so Zac invited me to come down while she was away to spend a week in Berkeley with him and Alden. Vicky would join us for the last day + of my stay.
The plan was for me to help Zac out a bit by strolling Alden to his childcare center, picking him up at the end of his care day, and spending evenings together. I would do a some cooking and childcare myself with my grandson, all in the interest of helping Zac out – but really any time with Alden was a pure joy.
That left most of every day that week available for my Berkeley walking adventures. And what a pleasure it was to escape the gloomy soggy dark days of an Olympia December, for a week of sunshine and highs around 60. Perfect for exploring the city’s classic haunts.
On Sunday, Zac, Alden and I went to Tilden Park and tried out the Merry-Go-Round. I think Alden was a bit unnerved by the ups and downs, but he held on fast and eventually had a good time.
On Tilden’s Merry-Go-Round
Back home, there was plenty to do. In particular, Alden was an extraordinary builder with the erector set called MAGNA-TILES.” This blog is not exactly a commerce marketing site, but these things are SO FUN. And the kind of deliberation they have produced in Alden is just magical to behold. Zac loves it too!
In the midst of creation.
Alden also loves to draw. Hodo helps with small circles.
Sunday was also shopping day, as the three of us went to Berkeley Bowl to provision up for the week. I made a heavy seafoody meal of salmon and scallops for dinner and settled into my couch bed for the evening.
Monday was a major change in pace and location. After dropping Alden off at childcare, I briskly walked over to the North Berkeley BART station and caught the train down to its southern terminus in North San Jose. Waiting for me there was my cousin Shirley Lee.
I met Shirley, and her kind, adventurous and delightful husband Dan, less than 10 years ago at the family Antolept reunion in New York. She is a relatively distant relative (perhaps a 2nd cousin with some removal involved), but we just kind of bonded right away, and Jean and I have seen her and Dan a number of times recently. Dan, who was amongst other things, an absolute train enthusiast, sadly just passed away in the last year. So, the visit with Shirley was a kind of third leg in my recent connections with folks who have freshly lost their spouses. Michael and Kathy were the other two, who I described in a recent blog entry during my trip to New York.
Shirley’s approach to this loss involved, among other things, diving into those parts of her life she enjoys. She paints. She travels for learning. She stays involved with family and temple. She plays Mah Jongg (Jean is now an addict). Well, playing Mah Jongg is too plain a name for her involvement. She has been an expert Mah Jongg teacher for decades. So, my relatively short visit with Shirley included not just a nice lunch out at a local pub, but a 20-minute lesson in Mah Jongg. Bams, Dots and Cracks y’all. I was exposed enough to get the basic drift of the game.
A thirty-year-old newspaper clipping proves Shirley’s merit.
On Tuesday morning, I brought Alden to childcare. He has advanced from the Caterpillars group of babies to the Crickets group of toddlers. The latter group is composed of 18+ months old walkers to the time they can be toilet trained. I took the opportunity to hang around for a while and see how the place operated.
They organize the day into clear and consistent segments. First free play. Followed by snacks. Followed by diapers. Followed by more free play. Followed by naptime. Followed by group activities. Diapers, naps, meals… they are all choreographed. And the caregivers seem wise, patient and loving with the toddlers. Along with Alden’s parents and grandparents and play friends, he is surrounded by love, and at his age, he really can do nothing wrong. Mischievous yes. Wrong no.
I so enjoyed just hanging out at the center. At one point, I started to read a book to Alden and five other rapt toddlers joined in, eyes wide open, hanging on every word spoken and every picture to be seen. Hugs offered by them and accepted by me.
Leaving Alden for the day is another matter. On the first day, the staff recommended that I just quietly leave. He saw me do this and started crying. Vicky recommended that I tell him that I am leaving, give him a big hug and say bye bye. The latter strategy was not only more honest but worked better. Alden said bye bye to me too and we waved at each other.
Below is a picture of one childcare scene:
Buffa with her charges.
After dropping Alden off, my first stop on a beautiful fall stroll was Saul’s Deli on North Shattuck. Even though Aunt Sarah was frightened about antisemitic attacks at this famously Jewish-style restaurant, I yearned to plant my tuchus firmly on the back bench and read a book while downing matzo ball soup and a pita sabich. Of course, in Berkeley nothing ever goes according to plan.
“So, you like books,” my elderly neighbor observed, calling out to me.
“Well, yes,” I replied.
It was kind of obvious since I was reading one, but that wasn’t the man’s objective. He and his wife had just sat down, and he wanted conversation.
“What are you reading?” he inquired.
“Stalking Elijah,” I replied. My book was an exploration of modern Jewish interpretations of the mystical tradition.
“You know, I have some books you just have to read,” was his response.
“First of all, I’m a very slow reader and it is taking me forever to get through this book. And we have just met. How do you know that these other books are so vital for me at this stage of my intellectual and spiritual development?”
“You’re funny. I like you,” he responded, and then went on to describe each book. The first was Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder. The second, Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. “But you know, this third book is what you REALLY need to read. It’s Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Dr. Peter Attia.”
“OK,” I started my reply. “First of all, who are you and what credibility do you have in making these recommendations.”
Turns out that he was Ralph Greif a retired Mechanical Engineering prof at UC Berkeley. His wife Judy would occasionally roll her eyes as he and I went on for a while trading quips, shrugging with Yiddishkeit, and challenging each other’s assumptions and predilections. She was, as they say, used to it. She was also, as it turned out, an architect and graduate from the same UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design that I attended 45 years ago.
“He does have his opinions,” I remark to his wife, “but I bet you love him a lot.”
“Yes, I do,” she responded. And Ralph added that he loved her too.
I promised I’d send them my blog entry of this encounter if he emailed me the book references. The hatched deal will soon be sealed. And by the way, the matzoh ball soup was only so-so but the sabich was extraordinary.
After Saul’s I picked up a variety of rich and flavorful scones (Juani loves their scones) and some cheese at the Cheeseboard Collective and stocked up on lactase pills at the local CVS, my favorite place to get the brand I want. My “rounds” of North Shattuck remind me of Sarah’s preference to get postage at the El Cerrito post office not the Berkeley post office because they had the best prices.
The Wednesday midday treat was a walk in the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s watershed protected lands with my friend, fellow Cal student, and former EBMUD commissioner Helen Burke. I had earlier dropped Zac off at a meeting location in downtown Oakland and Zac lent me his car for the day. After meeting up with Helen at her residence, we drove up to the crest of the Berkeley Hills along Grizzly Peak Blvd. There, we pulled over to an unremarkable widening off the road, got out and started our walk along a narrow trail that wended its way downward toward views of Mt. Diablo and into the grand watershed lands of the East Bay.
Helen, it turns out, has been on a mission for several years. She wants to keep mountain bikers off of the pedestrian-only trails that currently weave their way through the watershed. Compromises have been sought and found, providing some bike access to the wider service roads.
Here’s Helen, guarding the sanctity of the single-track from bikers. Lance in hand.
Later, we sat down for lunch at Helen’s retirement complex. An old dude at the neighboring table hears us talking about Judaism and Israel. He can’t help but stop by to provide us with his two cents. Turns out Helen’s retirement neighbor used to worship at the same shul on University Ave as Frank Greif (Of Saul’s fame). Both of them assured me that they don’t actually believe in all the hocus pokus, but they still financially contribute to the temple.
On Thursday, my stroll took me from the Elmwood District where Zac dropped me off (he needed to pick up some chocolate as a gift for an event he was about to attend), to Boalt Hall, where Cal’s law school is housed. On the exterior of Boalt Hall there are two enormous metallic plaques, one with an Oliver Wendell Homes quote and the other with a Benjamin Cardozo quote, both men towering Supreme Court figures of their times.
Oliver Wendell Holmes view of the law as leading us away from savage isolation.
Below the plaques there lies a small patio with a series of round tables surrounded by affixed rotating chairs. I sat down to do a bit of emailing on my phone at one of the tables, and next to me were two young women, one sitting down and the other standing. I couldn’t help but overhear them talking about getting drunk that last Saturday, their plans for the next night, and some detail about legal interpretation.
As they were about to leave, I said “Excuse me, but are you two law students?” They smiled and said they were. “Would you mind if I asked you a question?”
They nodded their heads and said, “no problem.”
“Given the upheaval in the last year about so much of what was seen as settled Constitutional law, including challenges to due process and executive authority and the like, do you students in law school talk about these pretty radical times for the law? And are there discussions in classes between students and professors on the topic?”
The woman who had been sitting down responded, “Yes, we talk about those things.”
“Well, then, how do you cope with all those changes? How do you think about the rule of law and the role of law given all that?”, I asked.
Her response was short and clear. “What do I think? I think you don’t give up.” And with that, she smiled and walked off with her friend.
Adjacent to Boalt Hall is the ugliest building on the Cal campus, which, of course, is where the architects learn their trade. Wurster Hall, the appropriately named home of the College of Environmental Design, is where I got my Masters degree 45 years ago. It was built in the Brutalist style. An apt name for a genre if ever there was one.
Just about every time I have returned to Berkeley since my graduation year, I have walked to Wurster Hall, climbed one flight of stairs up to the Department of City and Regional Planning’s office area, and read all the Department’s course descriptions. It has provided me with a sense of what the evolving interests and focal points are in the field, at least as seen by one elite institution. It has also provided an ever-increasing feeling of detachment and even alienation from the concerns of the department’s faculty and students.
In looking at this Spring’s course schedule (see photo below), every class presented itself as a case for what could be attacked as “wokeness” incarnate. The details of even standard statistical analysis courses use language and terminology that focus on group gender, ethnic and racial oppression.
Graduate curriculum at DCRP 2025-26
Ok, I’m probably overdoing it with the “woke” analogy, but there were actually no working men’s bathrooms in the first two floors at Wurster Hall. There were women’s bathrooms and non-gendered bathrooms. I had a case of urinary alienation.
Here’s a few pics of the lively and beautiful Cal campus, as I wended my way home to Zac, Vicky and Alden’s house.
On the way to Sproul Plaza… some sidewalk repair is in order.
Sather Gate bridges Strawberry Creek at the entrance to and exit from Sproul Plaza.
I had never noticed that Sather Gate was adorned with naked ladies.
Walking down and along Strawberry Creek.
Lots of English Ivy and a star of David.
That evening, with Vicky back from her trip east, the four of us went to dine at Middle East Market on San Pablo Avenue. Not only was the meal absolutely sumptuous, but I had never seen Alden put away that much food. He loved the bahp (Korean for rice), but also chowed down on goat meat, hummus and flatbreads.
Mama’s home!
On Friday, all three of the adults in the household had work to do. And in the evening, Zac and Vicky took off for a social visit, so I got to babysit Alden. I wasn’t thrilled with the diaper cleaning task – though Alden was most cooperative actually. But I particularly liked the process of putting him to bed. We read books, hugged a bunch. And when I leaned over and gently placed him in his crib, I took the time to rub his back and sing lullaby songs for a fairly long time until he fell asleep without so much as a whimper. It was an intimacy that brought me back 37 years to my time with Zac.
Saturday was bye bye day. After breakfast, we drove up to Vicky’s BAMPFA office. The four of us walked across Oxford Street to visit Cal’s Redwoods.
Three generations of Farbers by Cal’s Strawberry Creek banks.
Upon our parting with Vicky, the three of us strolled and walked back home. Along the way, we stopped off at the Berkeley Farmers Market and were entertained by venders and musicians.
Music at the Farmer’s Market.
It wouldn’t be Berkeley without notices at gatherings.
Or along the street on the walk home.
And for no other reason that pure joy, I’ll end this blog with a couple of pictures of my precious offspring.
Daniel's Derekh 