My bubbe, may she rest in peace, was one sharp lady. If she’d been born in a different time and place, she could have been president of the United States-or the world’s greatest stand-up comedian. Bubbe picked up the telephone one day to call my aunt. It was not a long-distance call, just an ordinary call from Chelsea to Wakefield, but something happened. This was back when Nixon had nominated Henry Kissinger to be his secretary of state, and the U.S. Senate was holding confirmation hearings. Bubbe’s call got connected into somebody else’s line. Two men were having a conversation about Kissinger: Yes, he was from Germany, but still, he was a Jew, and you know those Jews, and wasn’t it awful that we were going to have a Jew for Secretary of State? “So vat’s wrong vit det?” said Bubbe into the telephone. “WHO IS THIS?” “Dis is Kissinger’s mother!” And she hung up. I always wonder what those guys must have thought.
