We are not much of a TV-during-dinner family, but for the Olympics, we gather to watch the daily recap over dinner each night. I love to watch the world come together, more or less setting aside that which divides us, to endeavor in sportsmanship and personal striving and good-natured patriotism. As each competitor takes their turn to shine, a picture of something more enduring and larger than each of us takes shape.
My intention had been to write about the Olympics this week. But then Aileen, Oheb Shalom’s librarian, asked me to review a stack of books, and the detour began. Aileen’s request on July 31 brought me to my own bookshelves, or rather to the bookshelves in the office I now occupy. There is one book that I take off the shelf sometimes, just to admire its book plate and inscription, to wonder how it ended up here and to adore it for its existence. I treasure this volume, which Rabbi Cooper left behind for me to discover, as generations before him had assuredly done. Old brown cover, embossed in gold on its binding: The Works of Josephus, History of the Jews, Illustrated (viewable here). A book plate on the inside cover, stating that it belonged to one Neville Laski (viewable here). And written in exquisite calligraphy on the inside of the first page (viewable here):
Presented to Harry Frankenstein
in commemoration of his 13th birthday
By Nathan Laski
July 31st, 1880
July 31. 144 years ago, to the day. I hadn’t noticed the exact date before, but here I was, holding this volume on the very day this Nathan wrote the inscription to a bar mitzvah boy. So, I thought, maybe I won’t write about the Olympics.
Who were Neville, Nathan, and Harry? The sleuthing began. According to the British archives, Nathan Laski (1863-1941) worked as an Indian merchant in the cotton industry for over fifty years. He retired in 1930 and devoted himself to social work, serving as chairman of the Manchester Jewish Hospital and Manchester and Salford Jewish Council and chairman of the Manchester Jewish Board of Guardians. In 1889 he married Sarah Frankenstein. No trace of a Harry Frankenstein in my online search, but undoubtedly they were related. Nathan and Sarah had two sons and a daughter. One son is Neville, of the bookplate. Online records reveal that Neville Jonas Laski (1890-1968) served as Chairman of the Manchester Victoria Memorial Jewish Hospital; President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, 1933-39; Judge of Appeal of the Isle of Man, 1953-56; Recorder of Burnley, 1935-56; member of the General Council of the Bar, 1950-56; Chairman of the Professional Conduct Committee, 1952-56; honorary treasurer, 1955-56; Judge of the Crown Court and Recorder of Liverpool, 1956-63; and as President of the Elders of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews Congregation, 1961-67. In other words, they were machers.
Sarah was no slouch, either. According to the Special Collection of the University of Southampton, Sarah was born in Manchester in 1869, mothered three children, and “was to dedicate considerable time and effort throughout her lifetime to social work in the city of her birth. Initial work confined to Jewish charities, such as the Ladies Visiting Committee and Soup Kitchen, but in 1914, Sarah Laski became a member of the Manchester Board of Guardians, and was its chairman from 1926-29. From 1926 onwards, she served as a member of the Manchester City Council, representing Cheetham ward. She was elected an alderman in 1942. Sarah Laski was remembered as one of Manchester’s “foremost citizens” for her “fine record of [40 years of] quiet, unselfish, public service” and her “wide and understanding sympathy with the problems of poverty.”
I have no idea how this book ended up on the shelves of the rabbi’s study of Oheb Shalom Congregation. Standing there, on the anniversary of its gifting to a young Harry F, I realized something else: that the historic volume I was holding was itself a history book. One which also pertains to the Olympics.
About Josephus, much is known. He lived in the first century of the Common Era, serving as a general of the Jewish forces fighting against Roman occupation until he surrendered in 67 AD to the Roman Army led by Vespasian. Vespasian took him on as a slave, and in an ironic twist, Josephus – the former Jewish general fighting the Romans – ended up serving as translator to Titus during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD and recorded the destruction of the Temple and the city. His works are crucial extra-Biblical accounts of the era including what happened at Masada and in the earliest days of Christianity. And so there, on page 669:
“How Herod celebrated the Games that were to return every fifth Year, upon the Building of Caesarea; and how he built and adorned many other Places after a magnificent manner, and did many other Actions gloriously.
About this time it was that Caesarea Sebaste, which he had built, was established. The entire building being accomplished in the tenth year, the solemnity of it fell into the twenty-eight year of Herod’s reign, and into the hundred and ninety-second Olympiad. There was accordingly a great festival, and most sumptuous preparations made presently, in order to its dedication, for he had appointed a contention in music, and games to be performed naked. He had also gotten ready a great number of those that fight single combats, and of beasts for the like purpose: horse races also, and the most chargeable of such sports and shows as used to be exhibited at Rome, and in other places. He consecrated this combat to Caesar, and ordered it to be celebrated every fifth year… Now when a great multitude was to come to that city, to see the shows, as well as the ambassadors whom other people sent… he entertained them all in public inns, and at public tables, and with perpetual feasts, this solemnity having in the day-time the diversions of the fights, and in the night-time such merry meetings as cost vast sums of money, and publicly demonstrated the generosity of his soul, for in all his undertakings he was ambitious to exhibit what exceeded whatsoever had been done before…”
As I placed the book back on the shelf, I felt a profound connection to the past, a reminder that our lives are but chapters in an ongoing story. The Olympics bring nations together for a moment, and enable individuals to shine with honor and dedication. As each athlete takes their turn in the arena, so too each of us takes our turn briefly on the world stage. It is these threads of history that bind us across centuries and continents, that unite us in our shared humanity. In this, we find our enduring legacy.