Blogfinger

Myrna Demby-Goldfinger, American-Indian. “High school graduate.”  1938. She was about age 17 when this photograph was taken. Photographer unknown.

By Paul Goldfinger, Native-American   (This article first appeared on Blogfinger on October 1, 2012. It re-appeared a couple of times after that, and now we are reposting it  for those who missed it the first times:)

Elizabeth Warren is now. (2024)   running again  for Senate in Massachusetts.  She claims to be part American-Indian based on family folklore. Some people are skeptical because she looks like a clogger in an Irish dance competition.  Her story reminds me of my Mom:  Myrna Demby-Goldfinger.  (I gave her the hyphen posthumously. She would have liked that.)

Mom had a vivid imagination and she loved to joke, sing and tell stories. Sometimes you couldn’t be sure if she was telling the “emmis ” (Yiddish for the truth) or whether she was telling tall-tales.  It didn’t usually matter, because she was always fun.

One of her consistent  assertions was that she was part American-Indian.  Mom’s parents were Jewish, from Poland.  They came here in the great wave of immigration early in the 20th century.  Mom, who was born here, was one of nine children growing up in Bayonne, New Jersey.  Grandpa Demby was a tailor. My grandmother Helen was a little gray-haired lady with a bun in the back.  You can imagine how she kept busy, especially with six sons, every one a character of one sort or another.

All nine had alternative names such as Duke, Shmeel, Muttle, Bennie, and others, often based on their Yiddish versions.  Mom was called Malka or Mollie by her parents and brothers— and Myrna by her sisters.  Grandpa Demby and the uncles called me “Pesach” my Jewish name.

Her family was a little bit like the Marx Brothers.  I loved to visit them in their little house in Bayonne where they all shared one bathroom and they slept all over the place. The food, the music, the jokes, the hijinks, the arguments—in other words, the “shtick”—was a treat if you were a little kid.

Mom was the youngest and the favorite.  Her dad took her with him to the Yiddish theaters on Second Avenue in New York.  As a youngster she would entertain the family by singing popular American songs, but also Yiddish songs from the “old country” which often had ribald lyrics that I could sort of decipher. My favorite was a ditty called “Cockeyed Jenny”—It’s about a guy and girl.  They are lovers.  Her father catches them. Oy vey!

Mom claimed to have once auditioned for Ed Sullivan.  No one in the family would deny it, but…..I don’t know. Over the years she appeared in many amateur shows, usually as the star. When she was 16 she was offered a chance to travel with a “big band” but Grandpa wouldn’t allow it.

So Mom, who was a school teacher, insisted that she was part Indian. She told her students the same thing.  She also told them that my Dad was a secret agent with the government and that he limped because he had been shot.  He wore my old college ring, and she said that it had a secret compartment. Dad loved to play that role whenever possible.

One time we were out to dinner, and the waiter recognized her and said that she was his favorite teacher and that he loved her stories.

I always liked the Indian thing because that would make me part Indian.  I thought that maybe I had an ancestor who was a medicine man.  Mom loved the movies, especially the shoot-em-up cowboy and Indian flicks.  She rooted for the Indians.

I think Mom would have liked Elizabeth Warren.  Maybe they could have gone to tribal pow-wows together.

And here we see that Neptune  has Indians in its history.  Mom would have liked this event:

SOUNDTRACK:  No story about my Mom would be complete without music.  Here is the Yiddish tune “Cockeyed Jenny” by the Barton Brothers  (veterans of the Yiddish stage).

Sorry, but I can’t translate it.  But when my Mom would sing it to the family, they would all laugh.   If any of you can translate it, please do.      PG