Then, and now, I proudly identify as Black.
Dad was also proud to have a Black wife and son. He not only loved my mother, he adored Grandma Bessie as well. He was closer to his mother-in-law than he was to his own mom. He also had great respect for his father-in-law. The two men were tight.
The conflict was never between Dad’s and Mom’s folks. It was between Dad and me. His military training defined him. And he was determined to put that on me. He commanded me to make my bed every morning so perfectly that he could bounce a quarter off it. He tormented me if there was a single book, toy, or article of clothing out of place.
I was just a kid. I never matched up. He was constantly unhappy with me. Yet there were many sides to Sy Kravitz. While he was rigid, he was also rich with charisma. He had the gift of gab. He could talk to anyone. He made people comfortable.
When I was still a toddler, we started traveling upstate as a family to visit my dad’s daughters. I was excited to discover I had sisters, and they were as happy to meet me as I was to meet them. Laurie, Tedi, and I quickly fell into a rhythm, and we became family—all thanks to the gentle strength of Roxie Roker.
And how’s this for true elegance? My mom insisted that when we went on trips to the Bahamas my sisters come as well. She was going to blend this family if it was the last thing she did—and she did. The bond among the various members of my parents’ families grew deeper than anyone could possibly have imagined. My grandparents Joe and Jean Kravitz had turned a cold shoulder to Roxie at first. But it didn’t take them long to realize that the Rokers were extremely special—kind, generous, thoughtful. Sy’s folks soon grew to treasure Mom’s parents, and vice versa. It was a massive lesson in letting love conquer hate. Beyond bias was incredible joy. And many years later when Roxie had the means, she sent money and gifts throughout the family on an ongoing basis, making sure everyone was taken care of.
Grandma Jean and Grandpa Joe lived at 3311 Shore Parkway in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Here was yet another universe, Old World energy: kosher butchers, delis, synagogues. Like Dad, Grandpa Joe had his charms. He was well groomed and a sharp dresser. He had the gold chain with the chai, the sapphire pinky ring, and he smelled of cologne. Though he was in the shmata business, he wanted to be an entertainer to the point that he actually commissioned an oil painting of himself wearing a tux and singing into a microphone. He saw himself as an Al Jolson or an Eddie Cantor, Jewish singers who hit the big time in mainstream American music. That portrait hung in the entryway to their apartment, but Grandpa Joe never made it into show business. Instead, he became a tailor, which he claimed was the meaning of the name “Kravitz.”
Unconsciously, I think he nudged me toward his deferred dream. He was the first person to put a microphone in my hand. Grandpa owned a reel-to-reel and loved recording himself singing show tunes. When he got tired, he’d turn it over to me. He taught me songs from Carousel and South Pacific. I picked up the vibe and jumped right in. It was natural, and it was fun. And when the music died down, Grandma Jean kept the party going by teaching me durak, a Russian card game whose name translates to “The Fool.” We’d play for hours while I devoured her chopped liver on matzo.
Beyond the portrait of my grandpa, the centerpiece of my grandparents’ apartment was an oil painting hanging over the fireplace in the living room. A beam of light shone down on the face of a handsome young man. He was Leonard Kravitz, my dad’s younger brother, who was killed in the Korean War at twenty years old. For sacrificing his life in the protection of his entire platoon, he’d eventually be awarded a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor. As a young kid, I couldn’t keep my eyes off this painting, this shrine to a fallen son. I felt the great weight of the loss and heartache over my namesake.
That pain was the root of the resentment Grandma Jean had for my father. Dad had been the first to join the armed forces, prompting his younger brother to follow suit. I think Grandma was convinced that if Dad had not enlisted, Leonard wouldn’t have either. In her mind, my father was a cause of Leonard’s death.
I also felt a bitter tension between my father and Joe. It was not until many years later that my mother explained the source of that tension. Grandpa Joe was not a faithful husband. Dad despised how his father cheated on his mother. Back then, I didn’t have a clue about these grown-up concerns. I was just a happy-go-lucky kid hanging out in my grandma’s kitchen eating kasha varnishkes. When I became an adult, though, and started watching Woody Allen movies, I recognized my family on the screen. That was the Jewish humor that raised me.
* * *
In 1969, Dad went to Vietnam as a journalist and Army Reservist. He was gone nearly a year. I remember seeing pictures of him from Saigon. He was holding a camera and a machine gun. He would tell stories of how much he loved Vietnam—the people, the food—and how he had his own house and a maid.
Part of me was relieved that he was gone. The heaviness lifted. Dad ruled the roost. My mother’s old-school Bahamian upbringing taught her to defer to the man of the house. So, she didn’t question his authority. At the same time, Mom was no pushover. She enforced her own tough brand of discipline, making sure, for instance, that I did my household chores. But unlike Dad, she enforced with love. Dad enforced with fear.
When Dad finally arrived home from the war, Mom was happy. I was conflicted. He immediately reestablished his role as Enforcer. Part of me was grateful that he was back. But another part of me hated how he was already back on my case: Why are those socks not put away? What are all those Hot Wheel tracks doing in the middle of the floor? When Dad returned, tension returned with him.
* * *
Bed-Stuy was a welcome escape from that tension. The crazy thing is that these two living situations, though radically different, balanced me. I can’t say they forced me to adapt to any situation, or if I was born with that ability. But I can say that when it was time to go to Brooklyn, Eddie ran.
It was in Brooklyn where Grandma Bessie first started musing about my musical talent. It began at the Waldbaum’s supermarket on DeKalb Avenue. She was paying for her purchases and I was standing next to her when I started singing a melody. The cashier recognized it as Tchaikovsky. He wanted to know how in the world this little kid knew Tchaikovsky. Surprised, Grandma turned to me for the answer. I said it was something I’d heard on my Show ’N Tell, a plastic TV with a record player on top. It was a melody that had stuck in my head. The cashier told my grandmother it was a highly complicated melody for a child to memorize. I just shrugged. It didn’t seem like a big deal.
Broadway show tunes, pop songs, symphonic themes—they all stuck in my head. They gave me pleasure. But there’s a difference between pleasure and passion. Musical passion didn’t really kick in until the Jackson 5. The J5 were the game changer. They came storming out of the gate in 1969, when I turned five, the same year I was haunted by those stuck-in-a-tomb nightmares. Their early run of smashes—“I Want You Back,” “ABC,” The Love You Save”—had me mesmerized. Those hits opened my mind and heart in a way that no other music had ever done. It’s one thing to say you like a band; it’s another to say that a band changed your life.
LENNIE JACKSON