 JUNE 11 • 2020 | 5

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for openers
A Home-y Language

W

e know of “Home 
on the Range.
” We 
have been told that 
a house is not a home. We have 
seen how repairs 
go on This Old 
House.
Often what has 
not been stressed 
is the prevalence 
of basic house 
components in 
our everyday 
speech. Not until now, that is.
Do you often find that you 
need your space? You need to 

be able operate free of encum-
brances. You badly need elbow 
room or wiggle room. You have 
found on occasion that there is 
often not enough room to swing 
a cat. Breathing room is also 
vital.
A performer is known to 
work the room. However, he 
may be aware that there are 
topics that cannot be discussed 
without raising tempers; he 
must know when there is an ele-
phant in the room.
Ever been pressed for a quick 
solution to a problem? Then you 
know what it is like to have your 
back against the wall. When you 
are keenly aware of a negative 
outcome, you have seen the 

handwriting on the wall. (This is 
also true, in a more literal sense, 
if you have young children who 
are discovering crayons.)
Speaking of children, I must 
warn you to be aware of what 
you discuss at home since the 
walls have ears. Young people’
s 
actions have been known to 
drive parents up the wall. Are 
kids experiencing a “sugar 
rush?” Then they may be 
bouncing off the walls. Want to 
be in the know about teens’
 lives 
(since they are so reticent to 
share)? Then you may wish to 
be a fly on the wall.
Been shopping recently? Then 
you know that the cost of items 
may make you go through the 

roof or at least hit the ceiling. If 
you look to have a great time at 
a party, you may want to raise 
the roof.
Never fail to see a window of 
opportunity. If you are a fan of 
window shopping, do not get 
so carried away that you throw 
common sense out the window. 
If you overeat, you may develop 
a bay window; and then if you 
block someone’
s view, you may 
be reminded that you make a 
better door than a window.
Remember that “walls do not 
a prison make nor iron bars a 
cage.
” No, the saying has little to 
do with the above content, but 
there is nothing like ending with 
a deep observation. 

continued on page 8

Sy Manello
Editorial 
Assistant

A 

friend in St. Louis once 
told me that as a kid 
she thought “Pogrom” 
was a village in Eastern Europe 
because that was 
where her grand-
mother said she 
was from. 
The 1903 
Kishinev pogrom, 
a three-day binge 
of violence and 
terror during 
which 49 Jews were murdered, 
600 women were raped, 700 
houses destroyed, 600 business-
es looted and 2,000 families 
left homeless, drove hundreds 
of thousands of Jews to leave 
Eastern Europe. My grand-
mother, Yetta Schwartz, was 
among them. 
She was 16 when she left 
Romania in 1903. In the late 

1930s, Yetta’
s second born, my 
aunt Rose, married a non-Jew-
ish African American man from 
Oklahoma and moved away 
from St. Louis and the family, 
settling in Vandalia, Michigan. 
Rose was the aunt I never 
met. I looked for her for 40 
years. Now I am writing a book 
about Aunt Rose and her hus-
band, Zebedee Arnwine, learn-
ing about their lives before they 
met and their lives as an inter-
racial couple living in southwest 
Michigan. 
In May 1921, 19-year-old 
Zebedee Arnwine was living in 
Muskogee, Oklahoma, work-
ing as a farmer with his father. 
Not an hour away, the black 
community of Greenwood in 
Tulsa was attacked by a white 
mob. After nearly 100 years, 
new mass graves have been dis-

covered. Several square blocks 
were burned to the ground and 
10,000 people made homeless. 
Greenwood had been a pros-
perous black city within a city 
with its own thriving economy, 
professionals, shops and banks. 
One eyewitness account of the 
coordinated destruction of 
Greenwood was recorded by the 
lawyer Buck Colbert Franklin 
in his autobiography … “The 
building where I had my office 
was a smoldering ruin … I went 
to where my rooming house had 

stood a few short hours before, 
but it was in ashes … As far as 
one could see, not a Negro dwell-
ing-house or place of business 
stood."
One purported trigger for the 
Kishinev pogrom was news-
paper articles accusing Jews 
of killing a Christian child to 
make matzah from his blood, a 
familiar yet baseless anti-Jewish 
lie. Buck Franklin describes the 
trigger to the Tulsa massacre 
as a false accusation against a 
teenage son of a well-known and 
respected Greenwood business-
man. 
My daughters were 11 and 14 
years old on Feb. 26, 2012, when 
Trayvon Martin was murdered 
in Florida for walking through 
a neighborhood where a black 
youth was considered a trespass-
er, even though his father lived 
there. 
Another year later, on Aug. 9, 
2014, my daughter came down 
the stairs to tell us about Mike 
Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, 

commentary
‘Nothing New’

Clare Kinberg’
s Aunt Rose

COURTESY OF CLARE KINBERG

Clare Kinberg

