What’s the zeitgeist? - The Jewish Standard

Often our weekly papers have a theme.

And it’s almost always a surprise. I rarely plan them. But somehow it seems that there’s a zeitgeist that filters our stories for us.

This week, as has been happening a lot lately, the theme isn’t a pleasant one. It’s hate in general, antisemitism in particular. Historic antisemitism, current antisemitism, antisemitism as a stream connecting past and present — none of it is good.

History used to seem to be an arrow, moving forward and upward, since World War II. That seemed to have marked the lowest point in human history. There could be only one possible way out of it. Up. Incrementally, yes, with occasional backsliding, yes, but still up. From the white picket fences of our safe childhoods, on to adventure but always back home for dinner.

Something’s broken now.

But then I realize that it’s never good to be simpleminded.

Look at the story of Emil Bezverkhny, told on our cover. (And if I may digress for a moment, I have to brag about my success in typing his name. The order of the many consonants it holds doesn’t make sense to fingers used to English-language typing. I have no idea how to pronounce it. But I think I got it right.)

Dr. Bezverkhny was a brilliant, profligately gifted man, good at everything he touched. But none of that mattered, because he was born Jewish in Russia. His book, “The Penny Is Gone,” details his optimism and his hope, and how those hopes were torched.

But without being simpleminded, it’s also important to realize that “The Penny Is Gone” was translated by one of grandsons, with help from more of his grandchildren. The family, finally transplanted from there to here, boasts an extraordinary group of doctors and lawyers and thinkers and doers. It seems that autocrat can hold down generations, but eventually the hold weakens and talent and grit and perseverance come through and make their play.

We saw James Taylor play in Tanglewood over the Fourth of July weekend. Talk about talent and grit and perseverance. He’s pretty old by now. He’s been doing this for a long time. That’s true for his band as well. Everyone onstage looked comfortable with themselves and each other. The audience — about 18,000 of us altogether — was multigenerational; little kids walked by, holding their parents’ hands, looking at some of the elaborate candlelit dinners some ambitious audience members brought for themselves.

So there we were, on the 250th anniversary of the United States, a time that possibly always would have been fraught, because life is always complicated, but is much harder now — not personally, but for us as a country — than we thought it possibly could be. May we hope? Can we hope?

But what’s that? It’s James Taylor, singing “Sweet Baby James,” and pretty soon it’s the rest of us too, singing along with him. It’s nostalgia and it’s comfort and it’s excitement and it’s hope and it’s joy.

Yes, it’s only one evening. But that one evening generated enough joy to propel us forward with hope.

—JP

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