Page 255 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Reminiscences

So, when he met a well-off person, he looked for flaws, usually in
education. Papa would ask the man if he had read Nietzsche!
But my father was critical not only of Jews who had not learned
Torah. Sometimes he would meet non-Jews who had really studied
the New Testament, and could not resist teasing them. He would
refer to the story in Matthew about the miracle of Jesus driving evil
spirits from some possessed persons, while a herd of pigs stood
nearby. “From which end of their bodies did the evil spirits leave: the
mouth or the rectum?” People were both offended and angrily
amused.
Papa was very proud. When he and Mama were married, I
understand that he returned all the gifts—he did not need them.
Mama was also that way; I never knew her birthday until I was
twenty-one, and then she was very upset at being given a present
(“foolishness!”). And Papa’s way of being angry was to become silent.
Completely. Whenever something was not right—and we never knew
just what had gone wrong—there was no talking at meals.
Papa never had any formal art training. He did try to enroll in a
class—I think it was the Los Angeles Art Center at Barnsdall Park—
but the teacher rejected him. One day he wanted to practice
sketching faces, so I took him to a synagogue, where he could see a
wide variety of human types. Once inside, however, he was asked to
leave: writing is prohibited in a synagogue, and drawing appears to
fall in that category. When Papa sketched, he held the pencil between
his first and second fingers, European style, not between the thumb
and first finger, as Americans do.
Papa started carving coconut heads in the thirties. Although he
hated to admit it, he loved being admired, and his carvings were a
source of attention. After he had been carving for a while—it had
started out as a solace—it developed his perceptions. Judy introduced
him to clay, but he became disgusted with it quickly because it was
too malleable; he needed something to work against, an obstacle. As
he often said, “if it isn’t hard to do, what’s the big deal about doing
it?” Then he met Jon Raymond, the sculptor who lived up in
Topanga. He was a great big bear of a man, very warm, who took to
my father—and Papa to him—and gave him lots of encouragement
and help. That was when he really started to blossom.
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