Tagging Along MEMORIES OF A DIFFERENT THANKSGIVING WEEKEND IN A DIFFERENT ATLANTIC CITY
I
remember, back in the ’70s, when I was a teenager, going with my grandparents to Atlantic City to a hotel for Thanksgiving, where turkey was served. No. That really doesn’t seem right. Atlantic City? Thanksgiving? Turkey? By now you are probably looking at the cover of this magazine and wondering if this is Ami or the Reader’s Digest. Then you are probably looking at the byline and wondering: Isn’t this supposed to be a true-life column? Which of this writer’s grandparents would ever have spent Thanksgiving in Atlantic City? Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky and his rebbetzin? Or was it the OstroveKalushiner Rebbe? Read on, dear reader, and remain calm. You are reading the right magazine, and the author indeed is your weekly pontificator. Yes, on occasion he did accompany his grandparents to Atlantic City on
Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky and Rav Ruderman at an Agudah convention circa 1975
the last weekend in November. To a hotel where they served turkey. At least he tried to tag along. But do not be alarmed. It was not much of a Thanksgiving, and it was not much of an Atlantic City, and his grandparents did not even eat the turkey. As you must have deduced by now, Atlantic City at that time was not the mecca of hedonism it is today, a place where none of my grandparents, their children and hopefully grandchildren would spend a weekend. It was, indeed, a different world, a different time and a different Atlantic City. This trip was to the Agudah convention, the highlight of the year held in Atlantic City. It was perhaps one of the few events where Torah-observant Jews could take a break, where they could relax and enjoy, basking in the presence of the greatest sages of the generation. And there was turkey, a food that my zeide Rav Yaakov never ate on any
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day of the year, because of a family mesorah (tradition). At the convention was a mix of people from many walks of life: Holocaust survivors along with born and bred Yankees. The topics and discussions forged the future we experience today, some 40 years later. In a hotel filled with hundreds of Jews, grateful Americans whose close relatives had been slaughtered only 30 years prior, there were far more important matters to be dealt with than turkey on Thanksgiving For me, a high school kid in Yeshiva of Philadelphia, going to the Agudah convention was the ultimate escape. But despite the clout of my last name, and trying to convince myself that I was needed to take care of my zeide, I was not granted a free room. And even if I could have afforded one, the hotel was booked solid. Unlike today, when there are so many different
Photos Agudah archives
Speaking, Rav Pinchas Menachem Alter, the Pnei Menachem of Ger; seated to the right, Rabbi Moshe Sherer and Rav Moshe Feinstein