7 minute read
Illinois home to Caterpillar, Inc.
Eric Mink: Journalist, historian connected by the Brooklyn Bridge
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Selma is well known for its importance in the civil rights movement. Since the Mishkan Israel building stands in close proximity to a monumental site of the movement, the Edmund Pettus Bridge, its location provides a Jewish space for visitors today to reflect on the civil rights movement both past and present.
However, the history of Mishkan Israel concerning the civil rights movement is more complex than that of Black vs. white. Historically, Jews have been known to show support for civil rights, but such a statement does not apply to, or account for, every Jew. In the case of Mishkan Israel, a few of its congregants were members of the White Citizens Club, a group notorious for white supremacy, while others were sympathetic with the need for change.
As a Jew, I struggle to call the synagogue and its congregation segregationist, but I am also unable to call them advocates for civil rights. Therefore, it becomes fair to describe the synagogue’s position on the civil rights movement as ambivalent, and its congregants conflicted.
The synagogue’s history is fading quickly. Since Mishkan Israel is unable to gather for a minyan, the institution is no longer able to hold services. As time passes, the threat of closure becomes a little more real, and the speck of Judaism in the South weakens further.
There is a piano in the foyer, rusted and out of tune. I placed my fingers on the keys and pressed, gently willing the instrument to sing. The music filled the room and echoed down the hall; an indescribable feeling as I restored life to this house of G-d. Then I pulled my fingers back. What will replace this song? Will it be a restored community singing praise to their faith, or a cacophony of destruction, as the speck ceases to exist?
I still have hope. There is no air conditioning in Mishkan Israel, and the Alabama heat is unforgiving. But when a community becomes committed and inspired, not even sweltering temperatures can challenge them. The bimah stands tall, and three sacred Torah scrolls rest inside the ark. There are beautiful stained-glass windows, and the figures inside them smile down. Despite its recent absence, the song of prayer echoes through the temple’s halls. The Jewish spirit is resilient.
At right, a view of Temple Mishkan Israel in Selma, Ala., which the author visited on a Cultural Leadership trip this summer.
PHOTO: BENJAMIN KRUGER
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works display in circumstances like none I’d ever before experienced.
I thanked McCullough for indirectly planting the idea for that trip in my head and heart. He was very pleased, thanked me back, and we exchanged numbers and addresses. He said he hoped we would stay in touch, which we did from time to time.
The time I remember most fondly came several years later on a summer vacation to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. McCullough and his wife, Rosalee, had a home there in West Tisbury.
I called McCullough a month or so ahead of time and said I’d be coming to the Vineyard with my then-spouse, Claudia (now former spouse and good friend). I asked him if we might get together. He was encouraging about the possibility and asked me to send him the dates of our trip. We should call when we arrived, he said, to see where things stood.
We got to the island some weeks later and called the McCulloughs the next day. David invited us over for a visit and mentioned a possible day and time. We happily agreed.
And so it was that Claudia and I visited with David and Rosalee for a few hours one afternoon at their home on Music Street. They were warm, gracious, at ease, funny, smart and unpretentious. You’d have
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thought we’d been neighbors for years.
The hours passed too quickly, and we reluctantly said we needed to return to the nearby inn where we were staying. But David had saved a special treat for us. He took us out to the backyard where we saw a tidy but tiny cedar shingle shed, maybe 8 feet by 10 feet. He opened the door and led us inside.
David built it himself with lots of windows for natural light and cross-ventilation but no running water and no phone line. Crammed with bookshelves, tables, a couple of desks and a vintage desk lamp, the space was clearly made for thinking, researching, writing with a pen on pads of paper and typing on a used Royal manual typewriter. He credited it as the instrument with which he had written all his books to date.
David said he periodically would take typed pages of early versions of book sections into the house and hand about half the pages to Rosalee. Then they’d trade off reading passages aloud to each other to get a feeling for the work’s sense and sound. David often referred to Rosalee as his editor-in-chief.
We thanked them many, many times and departed.
It feels appropriate to end this remembrance with a biographical note:
David and Rosalee met as teenagers in 1951, married in 1954 and remained life partners for the next 68 years. Rosalee died this year on June 9 at the age of 89 at their home on Martha’s Vineyard. David died 59 days later on Aug. 7 at their home in Hingham, just south of Boston. He, too, was 89 years old.
Rochester: Excellence? I’ll settle for simple competence
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on Sundays, Chick-fil-A is among the leading revenue-generators in the fast-food sector. I am convinced this is not due necessarily to their food being better. I prefer a Big Mac to CFA’s assorted chicken sandwiches. No, I think the explanation lies in the superior service one offers over the other, which is keenly noticed and appreciated, even to the point of customers being willing to pull up to, at first glance, deep triple lanes of cars in the drive-thru lot.
It is refreshing that competence seems to pay off. Chick-fil-A for the past several years has claimed the No. 1 spot among fast-food chains on the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s annual restaurant survey. People are capable of noticing competence.
One wonders why more employers do not aim for greater competence. The excuse usually given these days in the food industry and other sectors is related to the pandemic and other issues, that it is hard to find any help, much less good help. Somehow this has not stopped Chick-fil-A.
One can find other examples of competence at work. But one hears few calls today for greater competence. Instead, the most competent — the most successful based on brainpower and effort — are often resented and singled out for punishment. Did someone say Elon Musk?
Competence is not the only value we should be promoting. But surely it deserves more attention than we are giving it today.
I recall many years ago, when I was campaigning against the nationwide dumbing down of education, and a progressive educator in the Clayton School District told me her goal was “mass excellence,” I had to remind her that such a phrase was an oxymoron insofar as not everyone can achieve true excellence.
At best, we can and should aim for “mass competence.” That in itself is a real challenge, but one well worth pursuing. We have a long way to go.
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