William Penn Life, 2018 (53. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2018-12-01 / 12. szám
Tibor's Take with Tibor Check, Jr. A Tree for all ages OUR HOUSE is decorated thematically, and each room has its own special subject. The master bedroom has Arabic motifs: travel posters from Palestine, paintings of palm trees and reflecting pools, and metal lanterns from Morocco. The basement library/office is a map room; the walls are adorned with maps of places, near and far. The centerpiece consists of large maps of the U.S. and the world which are stuck through with pins showing the places we've been and the places we want to go. The guest bedroom is the Hungary room, featuring Unicum posters, candles from Csőt, prints of Budapest's most famous buildings...and a stack of books that sits on top of a dresser in a dusty corner. November was a transition period at our house. The remaining orange and yellow leaves in our neighborhood fell, and the morning air had a hint of the frosty chills of the winter yet to come. Inside the walls of our townhouse, my wife slowly phased out the Halloween decorations and phased in the Christmas ones. The guest bedroom closet serves as an overflow storage area, and as my wife was rustling through the boxes there, I found myself in that dusty corner, paging through a book. I grew up on the books of Kate Seredy, the famous Hungarian-American children's author and illustrator. Much like the Harry Potter movies, I subconsciously associate Kate Seredy's books with Christmastime. Each of her books are delightful, but The Singing Tree is my favorite by far. It is the sequel to The Good Master, which tells the story of an extended family of Hungarian farmers and ranchers on the Eastern Hungarian plains. My father gifted his three children their own copies of these books, in the hope that we would read these stories to our own children as he did for us. Now and again, I skim through the book and look at the finely rendered pencil and crayon drawings. Each time, I spot something that I had not noticed before—a new phrase or hidden subtext that had gone undiscovered in my childhood but, upon revisiting, is as clear as day. For those who have not read The Singing Tree, there are mild spoilers ahead. The Singing Tree tracks the course of World War I and its impact on a small Hungarian village and its inhabitants. Its principal characters are the Nagy family, a prestigious family of landed gentry known for their generosity, industry and chivalry. Along the way, their family grows as the war brings new crises and fresh horrors, but the farm remains a bastion of safety and security. Eventually, Russian POWs, German children and elderly Jews all take refuge in the Nagy household. Even though each family suffers tremendous loss, the book remains cautiously optimistic: as long as humanity learns to live and let live and celebrate our common goodness, there's no storm that cannot be weathered. One subplot of the books follows the travails of the Mandelbaum family, in particular an elderly Jewish merchant and his wife who tend their country store. The war costs them two of their three sons and brings out discrimination and loathing, but they never lose faith in their fellow countrymen or in humanity, more broadly. Seredy does a good job of ensuring that characters espousing anti-Semitic canards eventually see reason or earn their comeuppance. Seredy writes that issues of religious faith matter little in determining who is and who is not a "good Hungarian." During this season of giving, please consider the plight of those less fortunate this holiday. In the light of recent events in Pittsburgh, I have directed some of my own Christmas charity to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. For those looking to do some charitable giving of their own to support those killed, wounded or otherwise impacted in the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, you can contact the Pittsburgh Foundation at www.pittsburghgives.org. - Tibor 6 0 December 2018 ° WILLIAM PENN LIFE
