JGA July-August 09 - The Jewish Georgian

July-August 2009 THE JEWISH GEORGIAN Page 37
A Personal Memoir, part 1: Atlanta adolescence
By David Macarov
I
grew up in the locker room of the
Atlanta Braves—or, at least where the
Braves locker room now stands. Of
course, they weren’t called the Braves
when I was growing up. They were the
Atlanta Crackers. The Atlanta team was
named Crackers as a deliberate contrast to
names like the enormous New York
Giants, or, obviously, the victorious New
York Yankees.
iSeder
From page 29
—————
Crackers were supposed to be
unschooled, impolite, rather simple—in
short, underdogs, and that was the image
that the Atlanta team liked to portray,
because it enlisted a lot of sympathy. It
was also a humorous method of keeping
alive the myth that the South was still
fighting the War Between the States,
which myth had already become an elaborate
Southern joke. (“Never call it the Civil
War, son,” a grizzled veteran at the State
Capitol once said to me when I was a
schoolboy, “because it was a most uncivil
war.”)
It was true that we probably learned
more in school about that war than about
the Revolution, and certainly more than
the World War (this was before there was a
World War II), but, as I remember it, we
were taught that slavery was wrong and
that maintaining the unity of the States
was right.
The War Between the States was simply
taught as a fact of history, but there
es with each passing day; no matter where
we turn, it, or some facet of it, will forever
be there.
The question for the future then
becomes: Can religion, absent of technological
influence, especially in nations as
progress-oriented and industrialized as the
United States, ever truly exist on a mass
scale? And if the answer is no, and you
accept that technology does posses at least
some de-spiritualizing qualities, what will
all this mean for the American Jew in the
future?
In response to the first question,
Reeves is clear about one thing: whether
for good or bad, the ever-growing connection
between religion and technology is an
unavoidable condition of the future.
“Young Jews today rely on technology
in every aspect of their lives. The 25-yearold
American Jew could not imagine not
having technology; it would be unimaginable
to not have a telephone, unimaginable
to not have access to the Internet, unimaginable
to not use e-mail,” Reeves said.
And, at the suggestion that such a
future relationship may have negative
implications, Reeves showed no quit.
were still enough short stories and novels
and movies to make it seem like a glamorous
war—Jeb Stuart’s cavalry;
Stonewall Jackson’s last words; Pickett’s
charge; Francis Marion, “the Swamp Fox”;
noble Jefferson Davis; and, of course,
angelic Robert E. Lee—were familiar to
all of us. But we only put on the “proud
Southerner” guise as an inside joke. It was
all history, and rather ancient history.
“Over fifty years ago,” to a youngster,
is going back to the time of Noah. That’s
why calling oneself a cracker had no historical
connotation. Instead, its usage had
become a form of reverse snobbery.
“We’re crackers and proud of it,” had
taken on an almost sly aspect. It was a
method of deliberately exaggerating the
characteristics that Northerners imputed to
us, but which we knew weren’t there. At a
later date, “redneck” took the place of
“cracker,” but that was softened when
Governor Gene Talmadge, of the red suspenders,
began using the term “good ole
boys.” Though Yankees never knew it and
kept saying “cracker,” the really insulting
phrase was “po’ white trash.”
We never spoke of Yankees, by the
way—that was a term they used themselves.
To us, they were Northerners, or—
when we deliberately wanted to exaggerate
the differences—Nawtheners. I don’t
imagine many people speak of Southerners
and Northerners any more, and few people
still use the term “cracker,” but, on the
other hand, how many people in the United
States—except in Atlanta—discuss what
the Braves did last night, off an Indian
reservation?
“It would have been like saying, at the
turn of the 20th century, if we engage people
with the telephone, they’re going to be
less Jewish. But the telephone became
such an integral part of our society, we
couldn’t imagine how we could possibly
function without it. So I think these other
functions of technology are the same;
[young Jews] just can’t function without
them, and so, by using these tools, we are
reaching young people where they are,
meeting them using a medium with which
they are familiar.”
Still, the telephone has been around
for ages, and, in the lives of many Jews, its
use at certain times—such as Shabbat—
continues to be strictly prohibited and is
done so specifically in the name of
Judaism. So why, then, can we not prevent
other forms of technology from finding
their way into our prayers? Or, with anti-
Semitism declining and intermarriage at an
all-time high, is the increasingly closer
connection between religion and technology
merely the product of what is quickly
becoming a larger and larger pool of
Americanized Jews with a less traditional
tilt?
Only time can answer these questions,
and what either conclusion would mean
for the future of American Judaism
—————
We used to make fun of Northerners,
of course, and the trick was to do it so that
they didn’t know they were being made
fun of. For the most part, the humor was
harmless. We would show them the round
water tower in Druid Hills and explain that
it was a big golf ball—a tribute to Bobby
Jones. On showing them the Cyclorama,
the panoramic painting in Grant Park, we
assured them that the German artists who
made the memorial were later deliberately
blinded so that they could never create
another one. We always mentioned
Sherman’s retreat through Georgia to the
sea (and by then, most of them didn’t
know enough history to catch the joke),
and we showed them the Governor’s mansion,
explaining that it was the seat of the
Ku Klux Klan. Sometimes, though, we
played into Northerners’ worst stereotypes
of Southerners.
After a while, the visitor usually realized
he was being kidded, but I remember
one particularly obnoxious visitor, who
kept bragging about how much better and
bigger and more interesting “The City”
was. We became so annoyed with him that
we pretended we were going to take him to
view a lynching, to his horror. We were
evidently very convincing, because when
we paused for a traffic light, he leaped out
of the car and ran. We watched him disappear
and shook our heads at the naiveté
and stupidity of supposedly sophisticated
Nawtheners.
remains equally unclear. Either way,
though, one thing is for sure: Rabbi Reeves
has an insightful and determined perspective
on religion, its purpose, and what it
should work to accomplish. Regardless of
the future implications, he has incorporated
technology into religious practice with
the most pure and innovative intentions.
“When we were coming up with how
we would use technology for the iSeder,
some people thought, ‘Oh, are people
going to be in their own homes and connect
into the Seder that way?’ I didn’t want
to do that purposely, because then I don’t
think that you would really connect with
other people in the way that religion is
supposed to bring people together and
form community.”
—————
The girls of my generation would
never date a boy who wore white shoes in
the wintertime. White shoes were the style
in the South as well as in the North, but
Southerners wore black or brown when
winter started, and the Northerners—mostly
college boys going to Georgia Tech—
continued with their whites. White shoes
in the wintertime marked someone as not
only from the North, which was bad, but
specifically from New Jersey, which was
even worse than New York. White shoes in
the winter automatically meant no date.
When we learned that New Yorkers
never spoke of New York by name—it,
was always “The City” (“In The City,
we...” or, “One day, when I was in The
City...”) we used that to needle them, too.
Whenever a New Yorker began sounding
off about The City, we always looked
dumb and asked innocently, “Kansas City?
Jersey City? Salt Lake City?” We took
pleasure in forcing him to specify “New
York City,” and then our reply was invariably
a disinterested, “Oh, that city.”
Once we had created a good relationship
with a visitor, however, we usually
showed him the incomplete carving on
Stone Mountain, Druid Hills, the Candler
estate, the Fox Theatre, the Cyclorama,
and the Biltmore Hotel. But, regardless of
whatever else we did with visitors, we
always ended up at the Alliance.
Next issue: Good times at the Jewish
Educational Alliance
Finally, no matter where you fall on
the issue, our overwhelming reliance on
technology is, no doubt, here to stay.
According to Rabbi Reeves, Judaism can
either harness technology’s presence and
use it to persist and grow even stronger in
the years to come, or, through avoidance in
the name of tradition, neglect the needs
and demands of its future followers, while
contributing to its own end.
Reeves definitely believes technology
will be important in keeping Judaism alive.
“I think in 100 years, we’re going to have
technologies in the synagogue that right
now we can’t really imagine. I think that
the use of technology, in the process of
how we do everything, is only going to
increase.”