I remember feeling passive and helpless when it came to dating.
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Call Me By Their Names

My parents named me Dana after two relatives they never knew – my father’s grandmother Dinah who perished in czarist Russia,  and my mother’s uncle David who drowned as a teenager in the Rockaways.

I like my name and never minded that it’s a bit uncommon, but it’s always disconcerting when people spell it wrong or mispronounce it.  And because Dana can be a masculine name as well, I certainly wasn’t happy when as a high school senior I got mail from armed forces recruiters that began,  Dear Mr Dana …

But what I really missed was not having a nickname as many in my family did.  I remember trying to give myself one a few times, but it never would stick!

My mother’s name was Jessica and she once told me her parents named her for Shylock’s daughter. but my father Arthur always called her Jess.  (See My Game Mother)

She had two brothers, the older was my uncle Milton who we called Milt,  and whose wife, my aunt Rosanne we called Rosie.  (See Rosie and Milt, the Literary Lady and the Second-Story Man)

The younger was my uncle Paul who like me didn’t seem to have a nickname, although his Hebrew name was Peretz which means Prince.  Paul’s wife was my aunt Babette who was always called Babs.  (See Aunt Babs and Uncle Paul and Still Life)

And both my uncles and my aunts called my mother Jessie, and thus to their kids, my cousins,  she was always their aunt Jessie.

Jessie & Arthur

Rosie & Milt 

Babs & Paul

Actually I can’t remember anyone calling my mother Jessica except my elegant mother-in-law Hermine.  In turn my young son who couldn’t pronounce Hermine, called her Grandma Meen.  (See Hermine’s Morning Joe)

Hermine (Grandma Meen)

Although my father’s name was Arthur he was never called Art or Artie.  Not that he was a formal guy – quite the contrary  – but he just didn’t seem like an Art or an Artie.  (See My Father, the Outsider Artist)

Actually when he was born his parents named him Albert.  But when his younger brother Stephen was learning to talk,  he couldn’t pronounce Albert and so he called my dad Obie.  And later my uncle Stephen, who we called Stevie,  and his wife, my aunt Dorothea who was always called Dede,  used the nickname Obie for my father all their lives. Thus to their kids,  my cousins,  he was always their uncle Obie.  (See Birthday Calendar and My Aunt, Dede Allen)

Dede & Stevie

But when my dad started grade school, his older sister Frances,  who was always called Fran,  insisted that their immigrant parents change her brother’s name to what she thought was the more American-sounding Arthur.  (Years later when my father applied for a passport,  my grandmother had to sign an affidavit stating that Albert and Obie and Arthur were one and the same!)  (See White Shoulders for Aunt Frances)

Fran

And my mother had her own name for her husband.   My father was a  Renaissance guy –  a scientist,  an artist,  and a self taught classical pianist,  who greatly admired the renown conductor Toscanini,  and thus my mom called him Arturo after the Maestro.

Arturo drawn by Jessie

When my baby sister was born my parents named her Laurie.   Her name,  like mine,  didn’t lend itself to a nickname,  although I called her Zuzu after a character in a children’s book we used to read together.   And Laurie was very proud of her middle name which was Frances,  after my father’s much beloved sister Fran.  (See Take Care of Your Sister)

Laurie & Me 

I had no older sisters,  but I did have an adored, older cousin Esther who had been my babysitter when I was young.  Her friends and later her husband called her Essie,  but I had a childhood nickname for her although neither of us could remember where it came from – I called her Conkeydoodle!  (As that was a pretty long moniker,  when writing to me, she shortened it to Conkey.)  (See My Conkeydoodle)

Danny,  Conkey,  Me & Eddie 

And I also had two male cousins,  one from each side of the family,  who shared the same nickname.  They were both called Ricky,  although one’s name was Eric and the other’s name was Frederick.  As I child it tickled me that I had not one,  but two cousin Rickys.

Danny,  Me,  Ricky B & Chiho 

Ricky S  (See also  My Cousin Rick)

And now they’re all gone,  but they all live on in my heart.   Call my name and they’ll come.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Minyan – for Uncle Sol

I don’t think of myself as an especially spiritual person, but after the death of my husband’s uncle Sol,  I had a religious experience.

Sol,  who died just short of his 96th birthday,  was a surrogate father of sorts to my husband,  and grandfather to our son,  and a much beloved presence in all our lives.  The night after his funeral we planned to gather at our apartment for shiva to remember him and recite the evening prayer.

Traditionally in Judaism a minyan – a quorum of ten men – is required to recite communal prayer,  so that afternoon I began to call friends and family to join us,  and to ask the men to help form our minyan.

With such short notice some of the men couldn’t make it,  so I made more phone calls.  But as I crossed names off my list and left more messages on answering machines,  I began to worry.  Would we be able to muster ten men at what was now the eleventh hour?   Would we have our minyan?

Sol had been an actor and I thought of the search for a minyan in Paddy Chayefsky’s play,  The Tenth Man.  And I thought of the countless minyans called to prayer over the long arc of our Jewish history.

Then the phone began to ring.  “Count me in.”    “Of course I’ll come.”   “If you need me,  I’ll be there.” 

We had our minyan, and that night over lox and bagels,  we toasted Sol with his favorite schnapps.

Then, as ten men stood in our livingroom to recite the evening prayer,  I felt a joyful rush deep in my soul.

Rest in peace, Uncle Sol.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Yad Vashem

I’m not a religious person but I’ve always been proud to be Jewish and deeply connected to my faith – and moreso when I’m in Israel.

The summer before he graduated from high school,  my son Noah spent 6 weeks there at a scouting program run by the Israeli army called Chetz V’Keshet  (Arrow and Bow).

My husband  Danny and I planned to spend 10 days or so in Israel during that time, and would see my few Israeli relatives who lived there,  and the many more in Danny’s family.  In fact some of Danny’s relatives had gone to Palestine as early as the mid 1930s,  and in 1941 his uncles were among the founders of Dorot, an industrial and agricultural kibbutz where we’ve stayed near the northern Negev, not far from Gaza.

Chetz V’keshet  had a strict parents visiting  policy and we could see our son only on nights when he was “on liberty”.  And so Danny and I planned accordingly.  spending time with our relatives, seeing more sights,  and touring the land.

One afternoon we went to the Israeli Holocaust memorial  Yad Vashem (A Monument and a Name). 

In the parking lot we saw a group of teenagers in uniform stepping off a bus.  We assumed they were young soldiers –  a common sight in Israel where everyone serves in the army after high school.

Entering the museum I was soon overwhelmed.   I’ve been to other Holocaust memorials before and since,  in New York and DC and Berlin,  but none could have prepared me for Yad Vashem.  It was the most powerful and the most moving – perhaps partly because it was in Israel.

On one wall were dozens of photographs of children who had perished in the camps.  I stood before it with tears running down my cheeks when  I heard a familiar voice behind me say “Mom”.   By serendipity the bus we had seen in the parking lot had just brought Noah and his group to Yad Vashem.

Wordlessly we reached for each other and embraced,  and together we cried for all the children who had no voice.

Me & Danny 

Noah

Danny’s maternal cousins/ the Ben Dovs & the Feldbrandts w Noah 

Danny’s paternal cousins/ the Be’ers,  the Gorens  & the Hermonis

– Dana Susan Lehrman