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4.2.12
WC: 191694

My grandparents knew each other from the neighborhood even before my parents met. My
grandfathers were both amateur “chazanim,” cantors, who sang the Jewish liturgy in small
synagogues, called “shteebles.” They were slightly competitive, but were both involved in the
founding of several Jewish institutions in Williamsberg, including a free loan society, a burial
society, the Young Israel synagogue and the Torah V’Daas Yeshiva. Their day jobs were typical
for their generation of Jewish immigrants. Louis Dershowitz, my paternal grandfather, sold
corrugated boxes. Naphtali Ringel, my maternal grandfather, was a jeweler. My grandmothers,
Ida and Blima, took care of their many children. Each had eight, but two of Blima’s children died
of diphtheria during an epidemic. My mother nearly died during the influenza outbreak of 1917,
but according to family lore, she was saved by being “bleeded.”

I was born toward the end of the depression and exactly a year to the day before the outbreak of
the Second World War. I was the first grandchild on both sides of my family. Many were to
follow.

Among my earliest memories were vignittes from the Second World War, which ended when I
was nearly seven. I can see my father pasting on the Frigidaire door newspaper maps depicting
the progress of allied troops toward Berlin. I can hear radio accounts, in deep Stentorian voices,
from WOR (which I thought spelled “war”) announcing military victories and defeats. I can still
sing ditties I learned from friends (the first sung to the tune of the Disney song from Snow
White).

“Whistle while you work
Hitler is a jerk
Mussolini is a meanie
And the Japs are worse”

And another (sung to the melody of “My Country Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty”):

“My country tis of thee
Sweet land of Germany
My name is Fritz
My father was a spy
Caught by the FBI
Tomorrow he must die
My name is Fritz.”

The comic books we read during the war always pitted the superheroes against the “Nazis” and
“Japs” and I wanted to help in the effort. I decided that if Billy Batson could turn into Captain
Marvel by simply shouting Shazam, so could I. And so, after making a cape out of a red towel
and tying it around my neck, I jumped out of the window yelling Shazam. Fortunately, I lived on
the first floor and only sustained a scraped knee and a bad case of disillusionment. (For my 70th
birthday, my brother found a card that commemorated the superhero phase of my life; it showed
an elderly Superman standing on a ledge, ready to fly, but wondering “now where is it I’m
supposed to be flying?”)

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