Kids today have got it made. ‘Specially if you’re talking about Hebrew school. Oh, excuse me, Hebrew day school. We called it Hebrew school and went three times a week. We’re talking late ’30s, early ’40s.
I wouldn’t say my old cheder was tough but the teacher was armed and the playground was an old construction site full of bricks where we played tackle football. Knock the ball carrier down on a jagged, stony surface. He won’t jump up so quick — and he won’t be near as fast the next time.
I said the teacher was armed. That’s sort of a joke, but he did carry a ruler to wake up sleepers. He called them schluffers.
The synagogue/school was downtown — before gentrification. And the bus didn’t take you to the front door of the classroom, but three blocks away.
There was no real danger, but my imaginative 9-year-old mind could draw some gruesome pictures of my injuries — as I walked alone to that bus stop at night.
Why not take the nonprofit, first-class transportation system called Family Car Inc.? Well, once in a while, it functioned. But parents weren’t chauffeurs then.
First of all, who had two cars? Pop took “the machine” (that’s what my bubbe called it) to work. Mama had no wheels for shopping or hauling kids to Hebrew school or Little League. Not only was she car-less, but she was busy at home cooking, cleaning and nurturing babies. If she had any free time she favored mah jong.
Our teacher, a nice old man, always wore a brown, pin-striped, double-breasted suit. Maybe he wore the same suit three days a week — maybe he had three suits. That was a mystery we discussed on the playground.
But on the other hand, as Tevye the dairyman would say, who could afford three suits? Maybe he hung his pin-striped, double-breasted uniform in the shower every night and let the warm water do its work.
Mr. Melamed taught Hebrew. Not conversational Hebrew, but what we called Chumash Hebrew — biblical Hebrew. And strangely enough, there was an emphasis on speed. Incentives like colored medallions were awarded for excellence. The winner would sputter a mile a minute until he finished the prayer.
We never understood his method. Maybe the heavenly auditor was in such a hurry that he might walk out on you — unless you got to the point. “Yeah, Ted, I know, but I gotta go now.” So, you better talk fast if you want to present your entire list of grievances, desires and injustices.
Strange — 65 years later, I’m embarrassed if I’m the last one standing — still muttering the Amidah. “What a slow reader,” the congregation must be thinking. They already know my minyan attendance record is not perfect “and he’s a slow reader, too.” And I know it displeases Mr. Melamed.
Talking about Mr. Melamed, I’ll never forget the afternoon some kid back-talked him. Who could forget such a drama in our sleepy classroom? Mr. Melamed corrected his Hebrew and this barbaric hooligan replied an epithet that woke up even the soundest sleepers.
Mr. Melamed, uninterested in debate, seized the criminal by his bony little shoulder and with a series of kicks to the tuches, propelled him through the open classroom door.
That was the punishment one endued no matter how fast you could do the Amidah.
Ted Roberts is a humorist based in Huntsville, Ala.