Unlike the fictional characters on the old “Happy Days” ABC television show set in 1950’s Milwaukee, the three teenagers in this brief but richly illustrated book might be people you or your parents knew growing up. They all lived in Sherman Park and went to Washington High School, and they’re all Jewish.
“Happy (Freilich) Days Revisted: Growing Up Jewish in Ike’s America” is a collaboration between sociology professor and Holocaust scholar Jack Nusan Porter, Gerald S. Glazer, and Sanford L. Aronin. It was independently published by Porter’s own imprint, Spencer Press in Massachusetts, where he now lives.
Slim enough to read in one setting, this independently published book is a treat. It presents a slice of mid-20th century life that is broad and extensive, but also deeply personal.
Porter, Glazer, and Aronin — hereafter Jackie, Gerry, and Sandy — all attended the old Congregation Beth Israel (Orthodox) on Teutonia Avenue for a time, and Congregation Beth Jehudah when it was still on Center Street. All profited from the guidance of the Rabbis Twerski of Beth Jehudah.
Between them, they went to four different Jewish schools: the Milwaukee Hebrew Academy and the North Side Talmud Torah, both housed at Beth Israel; Harry Garfinkel’s New Method Hebrew School on Center Street (Gerry); and the United Hebrew School at the Beth Am Center, 55th and Burleigh (Jackie).
Underneath what is now a stretch of I-43 lies the rubble of what was once Jackie Porter’s first home in Milwaukee on Tenth Street between Lloyd and Garfield. The youngest of the three, Jackie was born in the Ukraine in 1944, the child of Holocaust survivors and partisan heroes.
Once a neighborhood bustling with Jews, those who could afford to do so (that is, most) had long since moved further west and north. As displaced refugees, the Porters could not leave the neighborhood until 1953, when they moved to 50th and Locust.
Yet he and Gerry, who grew up on N. 16th Street and moved in 1952 to N. 54th Street, apparently are more tolerant people for having spent those formative years in a racially and socioeconomically mixed community.
Although the only varieties of Judaism he knew growing up were Orthodoxy and left-wing Yiddish or Labor-Zionist secularism, Porter grew up with an appreciation for diversity. One only wishes that Porter had written more about his youth, but he plans to include that information in a longer book later.
Sandy, the oldest of the three, was also born out of the city, in Mayville, Wis. After moving to 55th and Chambers in 1952, he struggled to fit into his new world and sometimes played some amusing pranks.
With the tutelage of more than one Rabbi Twerski brother, he pursued a religious education and eventually moved to Chicago.
Gerry, the only life-long Milwaukeean of the trio, wrote the greater part of the book. His family was not religious when he was young, but when his grandmother, who was religious, died in 1951 and his father began saying Kaddish, he developed the lifelong daily minyan habit.
He discusses the Twerski family and effect its members had on his own life in depth. All but one of his religious friends became religious because of the Twerskis’ influence.
Glazer’s story ranges from his political activism during the first Adlai Stevenson presidential campaign, when he was only ten, to his study of Greek, to his dating disasters, to his involvement with Young Judaea and Washington High School’s extracurricular activities, to his pursuit of a career as a physicist.
He paints a rich picture of life in the Milwaukee of his youth. “In 1948, you could still watch horses pull milk and junk wagons down our street by day, and watch television at night,” he wrote.
He also offers thoughtful analysis of the dissonance between traditional Judaism and modern American culture. At times, he saw how Hebrew School, public high school, and the youth culture of the day could conflict with each other.
Anyone looking for a Chanukah present should consider purchasing this book. Perhaps if it sells well enough, they should be able to issue a second edition with an index and without the typographical errors.
Milwaukeean Susan Ellman, MLIS, has taught high school history and English composition, and is a freelance writer at work on a historical novel.
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