MISS LUFTIG LOVED

Family Snapshots:

I try to fight it, but…

Some of the Old Ones still remember Morris as the life of the party, however; others describe him as a “grump.” /I suppose Dr. Morris David Liftig

these days he’d be diagnosed “bi-polar,” which would be an apt description of so many members of the Liftig clan.

Dr. Morris David Liftig (1887-1972) was my grandfather on my father’s side. Morris’ father was David, a watchmaker who My grandfather had some relations of note:

moved from New Haven to New Britain, and was a competitor of my other great grandfather in New Britain, Samuel Greenstein.

Their shops were on opposite sides of the street from each other.

Morris went to Hill House High School in New Haven, and graduated from Baltimore Dental College (the same one “Doc”

Max Rottenberg

Holliday – the 19th Century gunman - went to). Morris had entered Baltimore Medical College with my grandfather Charles Max was a cousin of my grandfather’s, although I don’t know the exact connection. He remained in Poland after the rest of the Greenstein on a “Jewish quota” which basically meant he could be educated as long as he remained unseen, but in his last year, family came over to America. Max hid during the Nazi occupation under the floorboards of a Polish farmer’s house; his wife, Morris did not have the extra $25 to complete his medical studies (tuition was $75; he had $50), so he graduated as a dentist Sasha didn’t look Jewish, obtained forged papers, and left the farm each morning to go to work. They paid the Pole every month instead.

until they ran out of money, and then the Polish farmer turned him in. Max was sent to Auschwitz and was tattooed. He came to There is a remarkable 1912 graduation picture of Morris and Charles standing over the same cadaver, with Morris’ inscrip-America after the War and lived in Hartford. They had a son named Hertzl, apparently named after Theodore. Max had a cuckoo tion in white pen: “They lived for others and died for us.” The picture tells other stories, and is one of my most precious family clock in his house in Hartford, and I loved to watch it work. Hertzl lives in Florida.

possessions. Most colleges did not accept Jews at that time; Maryland did, but had a quota system. The deal was, they’d admit the Jews, but when it came time for graduation, they wouldn’t be included in the publically noted graduation records; so in this picture, the three Jewish students out of a class of 7 had their names inscribed by Morris in the same white pen in the empty spaces

Zelig Tepper

on the “blackboard” between the “official” graduates. The University itself wouldn’t inscribe their names. The Jews wore black Zelig was my grandfather Morris’ first cousin. He was a Primitive painter in the Grandma Moses style. He lived in New Jersey cloth laboratory smocks and the Christians wore fancy slick rubber ones. The Christians were stage left; the Jews, stage right. The well into his 90s and grew more blind with every year (Morris also had vision problems: cataracts and blind in one eye, which Christians also had their arms flung over each other shoulders in a Christian brothers’ position; the Jews stood formally, more kept him out of WWI). Zelig painted scenes from his youth and from the stories of Sholem Aleichem, and exhibited them in dignified – or so I interpret from the photograph.

Washington Square Park during the “Beatnik” era. He wore bare feet and had a long white beard. My father, my mother, and I Almost 60 years later, my grandfathers sitting by our swimming pool, were arguing about their treatment while at Maryland.

visited him there. I remember he was upset that my mother walked by the side of my father, and I also remember him saying: Charlie (always the optimist) said, “Morris. At least they gave us a chance.” Morris (always the pessimist) said: “Charlie. They

“Women walk ten steps behind man,” and my mother making faces at him. He was scary to look at because he was so old and treated us terribly.”

because his eyes were dead. We have one of his paintings of a doctor visiting a sick woman, and many others have been sold to I am like my grandfather Morris in my rants about the unfairness of things; but between these rants, I am placid like my galleries.

grandfather Charles.

Morris spoke seven languages, was president of his temple, was respected and known by everyone in the Hartford Jewish community, and `was a founder of Mt. Sinai Hospital (During the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918, Jews and Catholics

Charlotte Comden

weren’t admitted to Hartford Hospital, so Morris and other Jews planned to form one hospital with the Catholics. In the end, the I was told by Charlotte Comden, who lived in Westport (married to George Comden) and who was Editor of the Town Crier – that Jews founded Mt. Sinai, and the Catholics, St. Francis, but they maintained reciprocity, and lately they have merged. Morris and the Liftigs and her family lived together in the same house in Kiev and were related somehow. She also referred to a great “secret”

six other Jews also founded Alpha Omega dental fraternity at Baltimore Dental College after Morris intentionally pledged the about my grandmother Dorothy (Zimmerman), but, try as hard as I could, I couldn’t pry it out of her. I have since found that my Christians fraternity, and it refused to let him in. Alpha Omega is now the largest dental fraternity in the world, and Morris is still grandfather Morris married my grandmother Dotty twice: once in 1910, and then again in 1913. There is also the speculation that listed as one of the founders.

Dorothy, my grandmother, was only half Jewish: That her mother Rose had let the local Russian official have his way with her Morris was probably a great man, but like many other great men, he treated his family poorly, and they returned his neglect for “permission to emigrate” papers.

with a lack of affection.

This is, of course, disputed.

Still, respect must be paid…

Charlotte became the aunt by marriage to Betty Comden of Comden and Green, the Broadway duo who wrote “Singing in

Morris kept in his possession the Liftig family samovar - Russian brass tea set - which he kept close by him throughout his the Rain” and “New York, New York.” Charlotte took us to meet Betty Comden and Adolf when we first moved to Westport and first and second marriage to Nina (Vogel) Liftig; but after Grandpa died, we never saw the samovar again – or Nina, for that mat-Inez was pregnant with Anya. I had never heard of any of her songs, because I was playing rugby in college when I should have ter - and when my father Al tried to get it back from Nina’s family, he got nowhere. Too bad. It had “Liftig” in Cyrrilic alphabet been getting a cultural education. I have always thought that Anya’s attraction to famous artists was due to this one meeting in etched into the side of the brass. It might have even said “Luftig.”

utero with Betty.

In high school I signed up for a Russian class with the aim of impressing my grandfather.

When I said, “Strasvydye!” to him on a Sunday visit, he wasn’t impressed.

“Vy do you schpeak that horrible langvage to me?” he said.

A Mitchell Liftig. (AKA: “Rich Uncle Mitch”)

On most other occasions, Morris never had an accent.

Mitch was a Broadway “angel” who lived in Westport and on Park Avenue. He and his two brothers, George and Harry, were The Liftigs always impressed me as a pretty hardened bunch: not very family oriented, and the kind that hold onto grudges, brought up in Ansonia. Mitch was in the O.S.S. during the war. He was a Major and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

turn their backs on one another, and when they walk away – you never see them again.. I also think they were prone to depression He grew his initial fortune out of selling war surplus Jeeps and other vehicles to somebody somewhere after the War. He was and dark thoughts…very Russian – and much like the dystopia Churchill describes when he says his “Black Dog” showed up out dashing, handsome, and a myth more than a man in Liftig family lore. He lived on 5 Plunkett Place in Westport, drove a Rolls of nowhere and proceeded to sit on him.

Royce and was known by all the old crew at Longshore when we first moved here. They told me he hosted one of the first nude I too, have felt the Black Dog pulling at my trousers’ cuffs, and I have apologized to Inez and my children for it.

swimming parties in the town.

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