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I couldn't
keep my eyes off of her as we danced, and was sure, she couldn't
have noticed me. After all, I was going on 22 years old and she
was not quite sixteen. There was something about her that was
"classy" in a very Jewish and European way—and indeed my own
unconscious, which was shaped by my family's shtetl style, reached
out to her. Forget the age difference, I said, and took a few
shots from my buddies—whose names will not be mentioned—for
"robbing the cradle". But, believe me, Joan didn't look like a
child nor did she carry herself like a lot of other teen-agers. In
other words, she faked me out so well that I was drawn to her no
differently than Jacob was drawn to Rachel. And indeed, I kissed
her very early on in our relationship. (I'm forever thankful that
my good friend, Lillian Orzoff, z'l, sent Joan out, unseen by
others, to be with me after "taps." Lillian later married my very
dear friend, Ira Glick, whose three daughters all attended Ramah
Wisconsin.)
Joan and I fell in love quickly. She
is less prone to admitting how quickly, while I unabashedly admit
to about a week after first seeing her. We spent the rest of the
time through the High Holidays of 1949 seeing each other, working
out feelings, trying to understand how to protect this evolving
relationship, if necessary, through some kind of predictable
arrangement. I went to bed with Joan on my mind thinking about how
I might be able to keep this thing going with a lovely high school
girl and I, a self-deluded full-blown macho-athlete guy from
Humboldt Park, already in my twenties.
The
complicating part of the story at that time was that I had already
been accepted by the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was going to
leave Chicago for New York after the holidays. This imminent
separation preyed on both of our minds, and we spent the last few
days together before my leaving as much as we could in those days
of tight rules and parental controls.
At any rate,
Joan and I spent the next two years together on all holidays when
I could get back to Chicago, staying at her house with the full
knowledge of her parents (thank God, my Seminary credentials gave
them cause of re-assurance that I was a serious guy.) We
corresponded every day by mail, once a week—alternating by
long-distance calls which were a big thing in those days, and not
inexpensive.
The summer of
'50, I got a position as program director at Camp Sharon, the camp
of the College of Jewish Studies (now the Spertus College of
Jewish Studies) and made sure that Joan would be there as a
student. (Some of our peers at that time are known to so many
who'll read this—such as Sarah Kaminker, z”l, Shlomo Fox, and
numerous others.) I wasn't going to risk Joan having another
summer romance with someone else at some other venue! Besides, we
both felt the intensity of our long-distance "affair" and were
engaged at the end of that camp season.
We were
married at Anshe Emet, Chicago, in 1951, by Rabbi Solomon Goldman,
z”l. Joan's family, the Kombluths were members; her grandfather,
David, the 'shamash.' I was entering my third year at the
Seminary, and Joan had just been graduated from Senn High School
in Chicago. We set up a little apartment at 3111 Broadway, one of
the moshav-like venues for the young married couples of the
Seminary, Columbia, and Juilliard School of Music.
Joan entered
Hunter College and finished two years there. I was ordained in
1953, and we both returned to Chicago, where we entered graduate
studies, she in Education and Child Development, and I in Clinical
and Social Psychology. I received my doctorate and set up a
nationwide consulting company. Joan got her Masters Degree from
the University of Chicago and began a career in Child
Development. We moved to Los Angeles in 1967. She received her
doctorate after our three children were born—and I started another
office of my company.
To keep life
interesting, I've written and been involved in the production of
several feature films since—all dealing with Israel and/or Jewish
themes—and Joan's adult, family, and child-therapy practice is
still going well. We have four Iovely grandchildren and a fifth on
the way, b'h.
We still love
each other deeply and romance cannot have a better storyline. In
retrospect, from the hindsight of a couple that has been through
the whole shebang of "love and marriage," we are aware that at the
time we first saw each other, we were both a little
"pseudo-mature." But thank God for these illusions, for the life
of growing awareness that follows, and for Camp Ramah that started
it all!
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