Lefties in cyprus

I am writing this blog from the Hilton Park Hotel on the outskirts of Nikosia (or Lefkosia, as it is actually called here), Cyprus. A lovely place. It is only a forty minute flight from Tel Aviv, but here one feels as if in a different world, more relaxed, less frenetic. At breakfast today, there was barely the sound of a single mobile phone, which was a welcome relief from the noisy conversations we are used to overhearing, and participating in.

Yesterday I had coffee with two lovely ladies, Themis (from Cyprus) and Clare (from London), both of whom are involved in marketing Dentyl pH mouthwash. We realized early on, that we are all lefties (the chances of three lefties meeting for coffee is about one in a thousand!). All three of us suffered underwent 're-education' according to the viewpoint at the time that being left handed was something that required correction. Themis' story was the most poignant. A the tender age of seven, she was required to fly from Cyprus to London to undergo assessment. Only when she returned with a letter stating that her left-handedness was completely 'incorrectable' was she allowed to go back to school here and write with her sinister hand.

In kindergarten, they didn’t tie my left hand behind my back (I think I might have recalled such instances), or send me to London, but I do remember them repeatedly taking the crayon from my right hand and putting it into my left. Last weekend, while I was looking for something else, I chanced upon my kindergarten report card, which I 'proudly' display herewith.

I must have been a pretty miserable little guy. In addition to being wrong handed, and the only Jewish in a kindergarten which prayed daily to Jesus, I was hyperactive decades before there was a 'diagnosis' for this sort of thing. Fifty years later, living in a country where most people are Jewish, being left handed is no longer a sin, and practically everyone is frenetic and hyperactive, I feel quite at home.

Nevertheless, Cyprus is a welcome respite! Last night I gave my talk on bad breath to about 150 Cypriot dentists. One of my conditions in coming was that they set up a jazz gig with local musicians. This they indeed did, with excellent musicians, but this was at the dental event itself. So I found myself playing sax, singing, lecturing for an hour, then playing sax again. Lots of fun. Nevertheless, I got the feeling that the locals prefer Greek music (eventually a Greek band came on, and they were very good).

What influenced my writing?

I already wrote you how I started writing children's books, and even asked for your opinion on my new free children's books project.

Like many other writers I am heavily influenced by other children's books. In particular, those that my father used to read me every night. I knew most of them off by heart, but like many other children, never tired of hearing the same beloved, familiar story again and again. So it delights me when I hear parents tell me that they read one or another of my stories endlessly to their kids.

Some of the children's books Dad read to me remain stuck in my brain fifty years later. First, I remember that we had two different Peter Pan stories, each by a different illustrator. This drove me crazy. "Daddy", I would plead, "which of these pictures is the REAL Peter Pan?". Disney's movie, Peter Pan appeared the year I was born (1951), and I have seen it many times. At the beginning it gives thanks to the hospital for sick children on Great Ormond Street in London. I was so intrigued that I went there to visit one time whilst in London.

The author of Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie, left the hospital the copyright of the book, play, etc. and the hospital has halls dedicated to Peter Pan, Wendy, Tinkerbell, etc. (across the street they have a J. M. Barrie museum, very interesting). But, I digress.

My sister Rena (four years younger) had another complaint. Dad used to read her "A frog went walking on a summer's day, he met Miss Moussie on the way..." The last verse went something like "And what do you think they had on the shelf, if you want to know go look for yourself..." This line drove Rena (and probably lots of other kids) bananas. She wouldn't go to sleep until Dad told her what WAS on the shelf.

Another story that Dad read us had to do with jobs. "Going up elevator, I'll go too, up up up where there's work to do." I can't find that book anywhere.

I was a sucker for Madeline ("and the crack on the ceiling had the habit, Of sometimes looking like a rabbit"), Mother Goose, Rapunzel, Hanzel and Grettel, Chicken Little and the musicians of Bremen. During later years I fell under the spell of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (I later played the part of the cheshire cat, as did Art Garfunkel, in the play), George Orwell's Animal Farm and William Golding's Lord of the Flies, and Robert Munsch's Paper Bag Princess.

So if anything that I have written seems to connect with any of the above, I immediately concede - they have been an influence on me, my writing, and my life.

Why I live in Israel

I grew up in a small city in Canada (Ottawa) in the 1950s and 1960s. There were only about 5000 Jews in a city of about 250,000. I went to a private Hebrew day school where we spent almost half the day praying and learning religion. When we stepped out of the school onto York Street, other children would taunt us, and on occasion throw stones at us. We were not allowed to sing Christmas caroles, although I recently learned that my younger sister snuck out of the house every December to help the neighbours decorate their tree. We were brought up to be separate.
I subsequently attended an excellent public high school (Hillcrest), where there were only forty or fifty Jewish students among 1,800. Many students had never seen a Jew before, and some had trouble believing that I could be one (or as my next door neighbour once asked me, "How could you be such nice neighbours, yet you killed Jesus?"). My best friend at school once told me that I was not welcome at his home anymore as his parents (of Scottish descent) had discovered that I was Jewish.
Being Jewish in Canada means being different. The moment I landed in Israel, I came to a place where everyone was the same 'different'. I no longer had to attend synagogue in order preserve my Jewish identity. So I could go to synagogue whenever I feel like it (which is rarely). I can keep kosher because I feel like it. Nobody will doubt that I am Jewish if I don't.
My children speak Ivrit from infanthood. To have a whole country of people speaking a resurrected Biblical language that is thousands of years old is a miracle in itself. So is visiting the old city of Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, and the Dead Sea.
Don't get me wrong. I love Canada. I just never felt truly at home there.
Here I do.

I see you've gone and changed your name again...

"I see you've gone and changed your name again…"
-Leonard Cohen

Names are difficult to remember. This is not only because we are more interested in having people remember our names than we are in remembering others' names. As one of the heroes of my youth, Dale Carnegie pointed out, a person's name has little to do with the person. When we are born, our parents pick a name they fancy. By the time we can read write and date, we are stuck' with our given names, whether or not we happen to like them.

My parents decided to name me Melvyn. No regular name for their first born son. They couldn't even have gone for Melvin, that would have been mundane. As with East European Jews, my Hebrew name is the name of a deceased family member, in my instance, Elimelech (or "Mailach”) in memory of my paternal grandfather.

By the time I started Hillcrest High School in 1964, my name had shortened to Mel, a considerable improvement, and with some brief intermissions, it is still the name I have used for over forty years.

When I came to Israel in 1969, the folks at the Kibbutz 'christened' me with the more common name of Yossi. It didn't stick. I then tried 'Eli', another common Israeli name, and a short form of Elimelech. But when people called me by my new name, I didn’t turn around. Back to Mel.

Nowadays with the advent of the internet, having an uncommon name is a distinct advantage. I am now corresponding with an old high school colleague, Terry Bura, who looked me up over the internet. If you google Mel Rosenberg, you find two characters. One is me. The other is Mel Rosenberg, a fictional mayor in the novels of Anne Roiphe. Not much competition, given that that other Mel Rosenberg doesn't answer e-mails. Since my books and articles are under "Mel Rosenberg", the only time you'll find me under "Melvyn Rosenberg" is on my patents (need real names there).

Terry Bura is not a common name. Neither is Hani Shukrallah. Hani was an Egyptian who studied with us at Hillcrest High School. We had animated debates (an understatement) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He was extremely eloquent. Still, I was astonished to hear from Terry that Hani went on to become the managing editor of El Aharam. I'm trying to track him down (can anyone help?) hoping that we can establish some rapport now that peace talks are underway.

So if your folks decided to call you John or Peter, and your family name is Smith, chances are that people will have trouble finding you, unless your parents have been prescient enough to call you John332 or Edw@rd.

For me, it all turned out well in the end. After all, smell well doesn't rhyme with Peter, does it? And who was it that said "A Rosenberg by any other name would smell as sweet"?

Lightfoot

Gordon Lightfoot is one of my favorite songwriters. He makes a fellow proud to be a Canadian. Two of my favorite songs are "In the early morning rain" and "Affair on 8th Avenue."
"In the early morning rain" is the classical song of getting stuck, somewhere, anywhere, emotionally or physically (or both). The guy in the song may be somewhat of a broke hobo, but it speaks to us all.
When I was a teenager, flying was extremely expensive. Flying from Canada to continental Europe cost a fortune, because of the IATA monopoly, to get a cheaper fare one had to fly Icelandic Airways to Iceland, and from there with Loftleider (have I spelt that right?) to Luxembourg. Jim Shalom and I did that once, but that's another story.

Within North America, flight was also expensive, but there were discounted standby fares for students. Which meant that you waited until the very last minute, and if the plane wasn't full, they would let the scruffy students aboard. However, if a previous plane had been delayed or cancelled (and with the Canadian weather this happens not infrequently in winter), dozens of adults with full fare would shove you aside and you would end up getting to spend the night at Dorval or some other airport.

"This old airport's got me down, it's no earthly use to me. 'Cause I'm stuck here on the ground, cold and drunk as I can be"

In the summer of 1969, as I mentioned in my previous blog, Jim and I were visiting Camp Galil in Pennsylvania when Don Kelman came down with appendicitis. I was asked to replace him, went back to Ottawa, packed, and travelled to Dorval or Mirabel (can't remember) for a flight to Philadelphia. The guy at US customs asked me if I was flying to the States to work. "I'm going to be a camp counsellor", I told him. "Are you going to make any money?" he asked. "Yes, I proudly said, fifty dollars." "Well then, young man, you can't enter our United States without a work permit," he responded. Oy vey! What a jerk I was. I never boarded that plane.

I'm a sucker for a lot of Lightfoot tunes, but my other favorite is a song about perfume, titled "Affair on 8th Avenue".

The perfume that she wore was from some little store

On the down side of town

But it lingered on long after she'd gone
I remember it well…

Kind of says it all, doesn't it? Odors can stick in our mind for decades, and remind us of otherwise long-forgotten experiences from our distant youth. For me, it's the smell of autumn in the air while, as a young child, I throw the football around with my Father or friends.
What's your best smell memory? Let me know...