"Carolina Israelite" by Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett (2015)

I was first introduced to the writings of Harry Golden by Leonard Herman when I was 15 years old. He was the father of one of my friends when I was growing up in Brooklyn. Come to think of it, he also was the first person to expose me to Isaac Singer’s wonderful short stories. Years later; something like 40; I went to live in Charlotte, N.C. where Mr. Golden is somewhat of a legend; if only for the fact that he lived through the Civil Rights Movement here while writing about it like a liberal Jew from New York.

His home/office on Elizabeth Avenue was even burnt down in reaction to something he printed in his self-published newspaper the “Carolina Israelite” which is the tile of this book. The authors’ mother actually worked for Mr. Golden for a brief period in the 1940’s and uses the title in the way Mr. Golden meant it. It wasn’t the title of the paper as much as it was a description of Mr. Golden himself; he was the Carolina Israelite; roaming the wilderness of North Carolina espousing his views on racial and social equality, much as the Israelites roamed the desert for 40 years in search of a home.

The author does a wonderful job of chronicling the life of this enigmatic man; including his years in New York where he rose from the Lower East side selling newspapers on the corners, to engaging in some very astute stock market swindles which landed him in jail for a time. It was after his stint in prison that he began to roam, looking for a new start somewhere. For some reason he chose Charlotte, North Carolina as the place to transform himself.

As a spokesman for African-Americans he penned the controversial, and hysterically funny piece of satire called “The Vertical Negro Plan”, in which he solves the whole lunch counter seating problem which was then engulfing North Carolina by simply recommending that all seats be removed from restaurants and schools, as the only time black and white people seemed to have problems concerned seating arrangements; even on buses. Make ‘em all stand.

His friendships’ with some of the most influential men of his time are well chronicled, and the author does a great job of reviewing those relationships and even how some of them came about. His habit was to add a famous person’s name to his subscription list and then mention that they were subscribers, thus enhancing his own stature. Shades of his Wall Street days come to mind here. Surprisingly, most of those he befriended in this way actually did become friends with him. The Kennedy’s, both Bob and Jack; Carl Sandburg, who also lived in North Carolina; Adlai Stevenson; even Billy Graham all were proud to count him among their friends.

As far as Jewish-American relations go, Mr. Golden was not idle in that theater of operation. His most stunning piece of work; at least in my eyes; is his essay “Teaching Shylock”, in which he shows the reader how the “Merchant of Venice” and its portrayal of Shylock were not anti-Semitic at all. In fact Shakespeare has lampooned the Christian aristocracy in such a subtle way that people have been reading that play all wrong for 500 years. This is some accomplishment and I urge you strongly to read that piece. I will include a link to it at the end of this review.

In short, this is a wonderful book, long overdue, about one of the most underrated and unappreciated writers in American literature. It is only in the past 20 years that he has begun to be recognized as such. Lenny Herman was way ahead of the curve when he introduced me to the works of this wonderful man of letters.

Here is a link to the “Teaching Shylock” piece, which I really hope you will take the time to read.  If you are a Shakespearean scholar, or just a humble Jew like me, this piece will simply blow you away.

http://robertwilliamsofbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2014/05/teaching-shylock-by-harry-golden-1961.html

And for a review of “For 2 Cents Plain” use this link;

http://robertwilliamsofbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2009/05/for-2-cents-plain-by-harry-golden.html

"Crossing Mandelbaum Gate" by Kai Bird

The history of the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict is as confusing and conflicted as anything can be. We, today, concentrate on the events that have taken place since the formation of Israel as a nation in 1948. That is a short sighted view, focusing on who threw the first stone in the last 60 years or so. This book, written by Kai Bird, the son of an American Foreign Service Officer who moved his family from Oregon to serve in Jerusalem during the late 1950's, lays bare the roots of the continuing conflict that still ravage the region. This was a very tense time in the history of the area, a time in which Israel took control of the Sinai Peninsula and the Suez Canal. And young Kai Bird had a front row seat to it all.

What makes this book so compelling is that is holds no real bias for either side. Rather, the author explores the history and cultures of the region, looking for the reasons behind why these two cultures, who are so close in many of their beliefs, have come to the brink of annihilating one another while the whole world watches. The conclusions drawn by the author may shock you.

The Mandelbaum House, which had a gate, from which the author took the title of this book, was a house that stood on the very edge of the Northern Wall to the Old City of Jerusalem. It was built by Simchoh and Esther Mandelbaum in the late 1880's, who, having outgrown their house in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter, decided to build just outside the wall in an effort to attract, and expand, the Jewish Community.

At first things were going well, but by the 1920's the house had become an outpost, frequently attacked by the neighboring Arabs. In 1929 the house became the headquarters of the Jewish Haganah. It also became the unofficial dividing line between New and Old Jerusalem. This is the gate through which the author passed daily as a child.

Throughout the 1950's and on through the 1970's the Mideast was in the throes of all the political changes that would come to define the region in the 21st Century. The double dealing and duplicitous oil company Aramco (Arab American Oil Company) sought to carve up all of the Middle East for the profit involved in extracting the oil in the surrounding countries.(Israel has no oil reserves of it's own.)

The infighting amongst the Saudi families, the wrangling between President Eisenhower and Abba Eban on the eve of the 1956 War, which would pit the United States against the Soviet Union for de-facto control of the region, are all covered in this scholarly and researched work. Jordan's changing role over the years is of special interest, as the Palestinian refugees continue to suffer the hardships of their initial refusal to share Palestine, largely at the urging of her Arab neighbors, such as Jordan and Egypt.

The biggest surprise in the book is how the author lived, side by side, with both Israeli and Palestinian citizens, getting to know each side of the story that has come to define the Middle East. This is an engaging and informative book that will help you navigate the intricacies of that conflict.

For 2 Cents Plain by Harry Golden

There is an exhibit in the Library at University of North Carolina Charlotte on the life and writings of Harry Golden, an author first introduced to me by the father of a friend when I was about 16. Mr. Herman had several volumes of Jewish American humor and Harry Goldens "For Two Cents Plain" was among them.

In 1940 Harry Golden arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina and shortly thereafter he began to publish a 16 page monthly newspaper called The Carolina Israelite. This was no small feat in the Jim Crow South of the day. The name of the paper alone was instantly controversial, as were the subjects of his articles, which ran the gamut from satire of race segregation to the still sensitive subject of Anti Semitism and inter marraige.

One of his most remembered articles is the Vertical Negro Plan, in which he notes that since whites and blacks are not permitted by law to be seated next to one another, and since this was causing so much trouble at lunch counters across the South- why not simply remove the stools and let everyone stand together? This would violate no law and the problem of segregation would be solved.

But he had a more serious side too. He could evaluate and eviserate with a surgeons skill, as evidenced in his famous (at least to me) "Teaching Shylock." This interpretation of Shakespeare's work stands, in my mind, as the final word on what the Bard was intending when he wrote "The Merchant of Venice."

His books are at once insightful, thought provoking and in some instances just plain funny.For those who have never read Harry Golden, this is a chance to look at some writing, done by a lone journalist (typesetting and all advertisements included)who wrote and self published in the style of O. Henry. His stand against bigotry and ignorance will be with us for a long, long time.