Thursday, January 30, 2025

My brother Steve remembers our brother Ed

Copied from Facebook (photos there, if you have access):

Ed Silberman 1953-2025
Ed and I shared a bedroom until I left for college. Our window looked over an alley into the large backyard of the house around the block. Perpendicular to the road that house was on was a road that ended there at a tee, so that headlights at night shown into our bedroom until cars turned left or right.
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There was a big oak tree full of squirrels in that yard, right up against the alley. Ed and I used to watch the squirrels run around and up and down. When we were knee-high to a married grasshopper, those squirrels could keep us fascinated for hours.
The best was at night, when we were supposed to be asleep. Cars approaching on the perpendicular road cast shadows of the leaves on the wall of our room. We called them movies and watched them as long as we could stay awake.
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If there’s a difference between me and my little brother, it’s that he kept for a lifetime the imagination and playfulness that went into pretending the moving shadows were a movie. Ed never grew out of it, and his life was the richer for it.
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When I was big enough to play football and Ed couldn’t join, he’d make up his own version that he played by himself. Of course, he narrated his game out loud with great enthusiasm. He loved announcing that he had made a brilliant touchdown, by which he meant that he had fallen to the ground. It made perfect sense, I should think. He played his game right next to the “big” boys on the empty lot at the end of the street, just a few steps off to the side so we didn’t run him over. That was his entire career in sports. When he got big enough to have to follow rules and play like everyone else, he lost all interest.
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That was the way he was about nearly everything. When he got his first harmonica, he just played around and occasionally got a combination of sounds he liked. Being the sensible big brother, I bought him a book on playing the harmonica with explanations of musical notation, exercises and simple songs. I don’t think he ever looked at it. It was all trial and error and another error and another. It was pretty painful to listen to, but eventually he was able to repeat the sounds he liked deliberately. More like music, less like chance. Eventually, it was almost all music and hardly any chance. Ed learned to play harmonica the Ed way.
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When he was supposed to learn readn, writn and rithmatic he was absolutely hopeless, we thought. I think the truth is that he simply wasn’t interested in the school way and the school materials. We thought he was going to grow up nearly illiterate, but he eventually wrote plays, songs and stories. He could do it all, but using the Ed method, not the teachers’ method.
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One thing it took me a long time to realize is how sweet he was. Taking his own path in everything didn’t get him an easy childhood, yet he was never bitter. On one visit to California, I asked him if he had forgiven dad for a particular incident when dad’s anger took him way overboard. I witnessed it and I can never forget it, but Ed did—he had no idea what I was talking about. Said straight out that he couldn’t remember it. I think that was his way most of the time—put unpleasantness aside and move on to the fun stuff.
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I think that when I grow up, I want to be more like Ed.

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Baruch Dayan Emet--my brother Ed is gone 😢

I couldn't even go to his funeral on Monday--I'm stuck at home with COVID. 😢
What a character Ed was--if you have access to Facebook, you can hear here.

Saturday, January 18, 2025

"Bad Jew" (spoken-word poem video)

Spoken-word artist Vanessa Hidary has a few words to say about being a proud Zionist. 

 


If you can't get the video to work, try clicking here.  Or paste this into your browser window/bar:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLd41tGm9-Y


Friday, January 17, 2025

Yedid Nefesh י​ד​י​ד נ​פ​ש | Kedmah: The Rising Song Piyyut Project (video)

Wonderful singing and playing by Yahala Lachmish and the entire ensemble. Check out April Centrone's solo! ❤ Enjoy!


For the benefit of those of us who have little or no knowledge of Mizrachi music, here's an explanation of Nuba: Al-Istihlal.

Saturday, January 11, 2025

It's as if Yom Kippur never ended :(

We're still singing the Unetanetokef prayer.  

"Who will live and who will die . . . who by fire, who by water, who by the sword . . . "

In Israel, folks are dying by the sword.

In the southeastern United States, people died (and many others are still suffering) due to hurricanes.

In California, people are dying (or losing their homes or businesses or houses of worship) due to wildfires.

How long?

Saturday, January 04, 2025

I'm afraid of the big, bad wolf

[Written after havdalah.]

"I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down," said the wolf in the old story.

Well, here's the thing:  

For openers, I'm about 10-15 pounds (about 4.5-6 kilos) lighter than I was about 10-15 years ago, not due to dieting or pharmaceutical assistance but due to digestive problems (IBS and SIBO--look them up).  And for closers, I'm also 4 inches (about 10.16 centimeters) shorter than I was on our wedding day over 47 years ago due to osteoporosis (thinning/brittle bones).  So whenever the wind speed gets up to or over about 30 miles (roughly 48.28 kilometers) per hour, you might as well tie a ribbon around my waist and sail me like a kite. 😀

In all seriousness, it's not as funny as it sounds--it's actually rather scary for an older person with both osteoporosis and poor balance to be blown around so hard that I have to struggle to keep myself from falling and breaking a wrist yet again.  Do me a favor and *don't* "fly me to the moon."

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