It is a wintry Saturday afternoon. The staff is figure skating; instructors have just finished performing for the guests. A special attraction is announced. The World’s Barrel Jumping Champion from Detroit has just arrived and will attempt to break his record at the Grossinger Ice Rink. Film crews are in place. Tension mounts as he clears twelve, thirteen, then fourteen barrels. He has run out of barrels to jump. The rink manager spies me in the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he intones. "One of the young members of the Grossinger family has just volunteered (Volunteered? I’m just there to enjoy the show!) to help us out!" Someone leads me to the ice. I panic. "Don’t worry," I’m told. "It’s just part of the act!" He shows me how to kneel, cover my head with my gloved hands, and assume the asinine position of a barrel. The introductory music blares. The audience collectively holds its breath, as do I. I wish I remembered how to pray. I peek through my fingers as the blades of the champion’s skates skim my hat. I’m a goner for sure. The audience breaks out in wild applause. The record has been broken. I have survived.

Nobody even bothers to help me up.

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It is a busy Memorial Day weekend, the prelude to a bustling summer season. Guests, in their chic resort attire, sit on the terrace watching the Director of Activities, Lou Goldstein, conduct his famous "Simon Says." I am eleven years old. I march to where he is standing, trumpet in hand, wearing an ill fitting Girl Scout uniform and cap. I know the guests want to be entertained, but this is a very important holiday. Honor must be paid to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for our country. Ever so solemnly, without asking permission, I interrupt the festivities and ask everyone to please stand. I proceed to play Taps without missing a note. As I finish, it dawns on me that I might be in a lot of trouble. What could I possibly have been thinking? I start to run away. I hear applause muffled by tears.

God Bless America.

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My mother’s closet–in the attic room we share in Pop’s cottage–has a lock to which only she holds the key. Each night as she gets dressed to play hostess to the guests, she unlocks the door and takes from the floor an oversized gray sock that holds her jewelry and other valuables. After making her selection, she then returns the sock to the closet floor and locks the door. The routine never wavers. With me looking on, she then places the key under her scarves on the right side of her top dresser drawer. She knows I know where it is and has made me give my word I will never touch it.

Why does she have to lock the door? Is she testing me? Can I be trusted? Will my curiosity overcome my sense of honor? Or will I be comfortable with secrets and locked doors the rest of my life?

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And so my week blogging for Jewcy has drawn to an end. Who would have thought that losing one’s Internet virginity could be so much fun?!

Tania Grossinger, author of Growing Up at Grossinger’s, spent the past week guest blogging for Jewcy. This is her parting post.

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Want a free, autographed copy of Growing Up at Grossinger’s?  Participate in this week’s giveaway contest! Send an email to contests@jewcy.com and at the end of the week we’ll choose five winners. Good luck!

Want to know more about Tania?  E-mail her or visit her web site! 

The post Stories from Grossinger’s appeared first on Jewcy.

The Grand Lobby of the Krasnapolsky hotel in Amsterdam was both large and ornate. The clientele sipping cocktails and champagne that particular noon exuded an air of gentility. At 34 years of age, I was the youngest by far. The mood was jarred by the entrance of a bald heavyset man of military bearing, his voice commanding instant attention. On each arm was a heavily made-up young blonde, obviously being paid for her favors. They were seated not far from my table. His fingers snapped for service after which I heard, in guttural German-accented English, "Hitler didn’t kill enough of them! If I had been in power…" I stormed out before he completed his sentence.

Later in the day, I was back in the lobby, this time to meet a fellow guest who had invited me to dinner. I had arrived early and unfortunately, seated diagonally across from me was the same man. He had two different girls now in tow, still holding court. He was obviously drunk. His rants became more anti-Semitic, obnoxious, and aggressive. Others in the lobby, most with eyes fastened on the floor, were clearly disturbed, but neither they nor management took steps to quiet him down.

My date had just arrived and counseled me to ignore him. I was having none of it. I walked over and, as politely as a I could under the circumstances, stood directly in front of him and said, "Excuse me, sir. Could you please lower your voice? I am trying to have a conversation with a friend but your voice is so loud I have trouble hearing what he has to say." With that, the ugly, by this time unkempt, fat pig jumped to attention, looked down at me with a repulsive expression on his face and said, "Are you a Jew? How dare you talk to me that way! Of course you are Jewish. Look at your nose!" And then, with seemingly no forethought, he spat at me. That disgusting, revolting, horrible son-of-a-bitch Nazi actually spat at me! His spittle landed on my left shoulder. I WANTED TO KILL HIM! The son-of-a-bitch bastard! Everything moved so quickly after that. Next I knew, my date was behind me grabbing my right arm which I had pulled back, ready to strike in an attack position. Me, who abhorred violence. Had there been a butcher knife on the table, I would have stabbed him on the spot!

I remember three things about that evening:

1. His screaming "Jew Bitch" repeatedly in German and English as two managers finally led him away.
2. The other guests politely applauding me once he was out of sight. "And why didn’t any of you speak up?" I asked.
3. Looking in the mirror on my way out and seeing the reflection of a person I hardly recognized. A person who, for the first time in her life, had wanted to kill another human being, who was almost ready to kill another human being. I remember thinking "what has become of me?"

Tania Grossinger, author of Growing Up at Grossinger’s, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and she’ll be here all week. Stay tuned.

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Want a free, autographed copy of Growing Up at Grossinger’s?  Participate in this week’s giveaway contest! Send an email to contests@jewcy.com and at the end of the week we’ll choose five winners. Good luck!

Want to know more about Tania?  E-mail her or visit her web site! 

The post How Hate Begets Hate appeared first on Jewcy.

1. Lights so dim that you can’t read the menu. I want to see the person I’m sharing a meal with. If I order beef rare I want to see if it’s rare. Sight enhances what is placed on the plate. Dancing in the dark is appealing; eating in the dark, unless you’re in bed with someone you love and don’t mind the crumbs, is NOT!
2. When you can’t be seated until your full party arrives.
3. When main dishes are served before appetizers are finished.
4. Dishes reaching the table at different times and/or being removed at different times.
5. Glasses of bottled water refilled without asking permission. Those prices, especially in today’s economy, add up!
6. Overstuffed sandwiches you can’t get your mouth around.
7. Cell phones; need I say more?

In all fairness, diners don’t always conduct themselves with the same consideration they would like servers to accord them. Here is what some restaurant owners wish customers wouldn’t do:

1. Make multiple reservations without cancelling those they can’t use.
2. Show up without reservations on a busy night, claim to be friends of the owner (whom they’ve never met) and then make a fuss when no table is available.
3. Eat more than half a dish after they have complained they don’t like it and then refuse to pay for it.
4. Sneak out for ‘smokes’ without paying the bill.
5. Let children run amok in upscale restaurants.

On both sides, unfortunately, these are but the tip of the iceberg and those who work at restaurants and those who own restaurants should be more aware. That said, however, please continue to support your favorite eateries, the ones where you treat each other well; they need all the help they can get!

Tania Grossinger, author of Growing Up at Grossinger’s, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and she’ll be here all week. Stay tuned.

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Want a free, autographed copy of Growing Up at Grossinger’s?  Participate in this week’s giveaway contest! Send an email to contests@jewcy.com and at the end of the week we’ll choose five winners. Good luck!

Want to know more about Tania?  E-mail her or visit her web site! 

The post Fine Dining is Never Flawless appeared first on Jewcy.

As of this moment I am no longer a virgin. Today I am writing my very first blog post and am delighted to have you along for the ride!

I am not a theater critic and this is not a review of An American Plan, a drama presented by the Manhattan Theatre Club currently playing at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. What caught my interest in the pre-opening promotion material was the sentence, "The play takes place in the Catskill Mountains during the summer of 1960."  How could I not be curious? I caught a performance this past Wednesday matinee. The plot involves a dysfunctional Jewish mother (beautifully portrayed by Mercedes Ruehl) who is an escapee from Nazi Germany, her equally psychologically impaired 21-year-old daughter (peerlessly acted by the lovely Lili Rabe), the daughter’s closeted homosexual swain, an African American housekeeper and the gentile ex-lover of the swain. The primary action takes place at the summer home of the mother and daughter that is located across the lake from a large Jewish resort. It was not the plot that distressed me; it was the way the Jewish resort was depicted.

I am certainly familiar with Catskill resorts. Growing Up at Grossinger’s tells what it was like for me to grow up in one. As a result, I was no stranger to what might have been considered to be certain peculiarities of Jewish vacationers, be it the activities they preferred (i.e. complimentary cha cha classes or "Simon Says" that brought people together), or the manner of dress (showing off furs and jewelry was among some ladies a competitive sport).  I am aware that caricatures and stereotypes have a basis in reality and have never been overly sensitive about my Jewish heritage. But there are certain descriptions in An American Plan to which I took offense, among them the ways Jews behaved at the dinner table. It may sound trite but people’s opinions of others are often formed by the superficial.

A favorite target was the menu and the way guests ‘attacked’ it. One could only infer from the script that all diners at Catskill hotels were gluttons, barbarians, fressers, ill-mannered, and grotesque, stuffing their faces, grabbing at the food.  

I beg to differ. Was the gourmet food served at Grossinger’s an attraction? It certainly was… and deservedly so. Did the dinner menu consist of many courses (fruit, relish, soup, entrée, dinner, vegetables, salad, dessert, hot beverage, assorted nuts and mints )? You bet it did. I have a copy of a menu that is reproduced in my book listing the dinner choices for one particular evening as "Broiled Prime Rib Steak Cressoniere," "Stuffed Breast of Veal with Peach Glaze," "Roast Shoulder of Spring Lamb with Mint Jelly," "Chicken Paprika with Spaetzel," "Roast Philadelphia Capon with Sliced Apple," "Boiled Young Fowl en Pot with Matzoh Ball and Fresh Garden Vegetable Dinner Plate." Offerings to be sneered at? I should hope not. But did our guests make pigs of themselves? No, they ate in a grown-up, civilized manner. There was none of the ugliness and crassness portrayed in the show I saw last week. I was embarrassed by the elderly Jewish audience who guffawed at each insult and for the Gentiles in the crowd who might assume that this was the way Jews probably still behave today.

None of Richard Greenberg’s (the author) verbiage regarding Jews in my estimation was vital to the drama’s plot and performance. In fact, my reservations notwithstanding, it was a most interesting show. My feathers, however, are still ruffled.

Tania Grossinger, author of Growing Up at Grossinger’s, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and she’ll be here all week. Stay tuned.

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Want a free, autographed copy of Growing Up at Grossinger’s?  Participate in this week’s giveaway contest! Send an email to contests@jewcy.com and at the end of the week we’ll choose five winners. Good luck!

Want to know more about Tania?  E-mail her or visit her web site!

The post We Don’t All Eat Like Pigs appeared first on Jewcy.