Where What When

In Memory of My Father

Professor Arnold Blumberg, z”l

During the late 1970s, my father, the late Dr. Arnold Blumberg, was declared by Baltimore Magazine to be one of the “ten smartest men in the City of Baltimore.” Certainly, through his writing, teaching, and oratory, he had gained a reputation for brilliance, but at the end of the day, that G-d given brilliance was not the main point. My father was a mensch. It was his character and true grit that stood out.

My father was an iconoclast. Like his namesake, Avraham Avinu, my father was willing to hold opinions that were unpopular, without embarrassment, if he thought they were the truth.

Thus, although he was raised in Philadelphia, a city that, Jewishly, was overwhelmingly headed towards assimilation, my father chose to readopt the Orthodoxy of his grandparents, at a time when almost no one else was headed in that direction.

As a writer of op-ed pieces in the general press, my father often proudly defended unpopular opinions. Thus, after the massacre of Moslem Palestinians by Christians in the Lebanese refugee camps Sabra and Shatila, when all liberal Jews were engaged in breast beating, my father wrote that Israel shouldn’t have to apologize to anyone. When John Lennon died and was eulogized like the Pope, my father lamented Lennon’s contribution to destroying many young lives through the glorification of drugs. It is no surprise then that one of my father’s favorite literary images was that of “Dick Deadeye,” the Gilbert and Sullivan character who spoke the blunt truth about Victorian English society, earning the acrimony of all around him.

Whenever Israel needed defending in the press, whenever a prominent anti-Semite said anything particularly spurious, my father would get numerous phone calls from people saying, “Dr. Blumberg! I hope you’ll be defending us!” and very often he did.

From his own parents, my father learned the importance of providing your children with a good education, both in school and at home. Whatever he could teach us he did, particularly by personal example.

My father was not a physical scientist, but he valued science and wanted us to appreciate it as well. I can still recall, as a small boy, my father performing simple science experiments with water, air, and flame to arouse our interest in the world around us. Over the course of very many months, my father read to us weekly from his favorite books. Anything that he saw us express an interest in, any sphere in which he thought we had potential, he would encourage.

At the end of third grade, we were sent home from school with an order form for the “Weekly Reader” summer edition. My father knew that I was a good but lazy reader. There were several different levels to choose from, and my father decided that that summer I would be reading the “junior high school level,” and that summer I did. At first it was a bit hard, but I got used to it, and I returned to fourth grade much improved.

Beyond academics, from my father we learned many moral lessons. He wanted to make good Jews and good human beings out of us.

“Work hard, and don’t look for shortcuts,” he said. He certainly practiced what he preached. After losing an eye during the Second World War, he went on to earn three degrees, with excellence, from the University of Pennsylvania.

My father taught us honesty and integrity. He would always quote his own father, a Philadelphia dentist, who told his three sons, “I don’t care what you do for a living. Be bricklayers if you want. But be honest bricklayers.”

“Be true to yourself,” said my father, “even if this at first seems like the hard route.” Life must have been hard indeed for my father in 1953. He had a new Ph.D., with a dissertation that had made waves in academic circles, but Jews were not being hired in American universities, so he began teaching history and English on the high school level, resigning himself to that being his life’s work.

In his late twenties, looking for a wife, he continuously encountered females who questioned his increasing Orthodoxy and asked him, “History? What is that good for?” Then he met my mother, who was able to appreciate him. She was his perfect helpmate, and together they grew spiritually. For six years my father taught high school, continuing to research and write history on his own time. Then, after a particularly brilliant article, he received the offer that brought my parents to Baltimore and Towson State Teachers’ College.

My father taught us loyalty. A man’s first commitment was to his wife and family. My father worked hard all day, sometimes at Towson, and sometimes at home, closed off in his bedroom sanctuary with his old, black Underwood typewriter. Yet at 5:00 p.m., he was always at the supper table, chatting happily with my mother and with the children. His evenings were devoted to family. I remember many family Monopoly games, in which we got to the part where you buy houses and hotels. How often does that happen nowadays?

As far as loyalty, over the years, as my father’s prominence as a historian grew, he received offers to teach at large, out-of-state universities. Yet he always turned these offers down. He too much appreciated Baltimore as a stable Torah environment in which to raise his family, and he had too much gratitude to Towson, to ever consider rocking the boat.

“Eat everything on your plate, even if you don’t know what it is.” My father sought to raise children who weren’t spoiled, who could appreciate food, people, books, and experiences that were different from what they were used to. At an early age he introduced us to classical music, until we began to enjoy it. Sunday night was “Daddy Meichel Night.” My father made supper. (See the beginning of this paragraph.)

During 1975 to 1976, when I was a Jerusalem yeshiva student, my parents spent half a year in Israel, during which time my father researched and wrote a book and my mother fulfilled her school psychology internship for her M.A. Friday afternoons we would walk down from Rechavia to the Kotel, where we would daven with the Moroccans, and Shabbos mornings we would daven around, but very often with the unique Italian Synagogue at the bottom of Hillel Street. Having come from the Baltimore of the 1960s, where adding “ve’atzmach purkanei – may G-d’s salvation grow” to Kaddish was still considered a bizarre aberration, davening with the Moroccans and Italians helped me to appreciate the unity of the Jewish people.

“Don’t be a self-righteous, hypocritical fool” (one of my father’s favorites sayings). However much my father’s scholarly immersion in the world of nineteenth century Western European diplomacy may have refined him and contributed to his style of speech, writing, and demeanor – and it did – my father was still put off by certain aspects of High Society during that period. “Raphael,” he said, “Victorian High Society didn’t visit one another. They would come to one another’s front doors and hand the servant a calling card, so it would look as though they had visited one another.” Or, “Raphael, when they went swimming, they made sure to put a floating book stand in the water, with an open book on it, so no one would think they were wasting their time just swimming.”

To my father, work was work and play was play. During three weeks of vacation in Atlantic City, you vacationed. Maybe you brought along some good reading matter, but it was otherwise pure vacation. You didn’t have to apologize for it. There was a time and a place for everything.

“Treat every person you meet, with respect.” When I was a boy, my father addressed my nine-year-old friends as though they were adults. He taught us to speak humbly to strangers, and to really listen to people. (This helped a great deal when I served in the Israeli Army.)

The following story illustrates who my father really was: On the Towson campus, my father gained a reputation as a defender of Israel. One time an Arab student approached my father during Ramadan, when my father was going to be giving a test at one in the afternoon. She described to my father how she would be fasting and the midday test would be hard for her. My father immediately responded, “Come in at 8:00 a.m.. I’ll give you your test privately then, before everyone else.” The girl, who apparently had expected a different response, broke out in tears, and said, “None of my other professors has shown a willingness to help me in this way.”

The last eight years of my father’s life he was retired, and my parents spent the majority of that time in Israel. For me these were golden years, when I was able to sit with my parents every day and talk to them, discussing the issues of my life and continuing to gain from their wisdom.

To spend these last years in Israel involved a great sacrifice for my parents, and for my father in particular. In Baltimore, my father was a famous historian. In Kiryat Arba, Israel, my father was an elderly man, and unknown. Yet my father’s obvious joy to see and spend time with his children and his 10 religious grandchildren, and to hear about their progress and growth, made it clear that it was a sacrifice that he considered worthwhile.

On my father’s grave marker, my mother, sister, and I quoted from Genesis 18:19: “I know of Avraham that he will command his children and his household after him, and they will keep G-d’s way, doing charity and justice.”

My sister and I felt that this verse, above all others, summed up what was important to my father. May he serve always as an inspiration to others.

Raphael Blumberg lives with his wife and family in Kiryat Arba, Israel. His book on Rabbi Baruch Milikowsky has been accepted for publication by Urim Publishers.

Top

Article List - October 2006