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Heart to Heart

Making New Friends

San Diego Jewish Times, August 25, 2006                                                       .

By Gert Thaler

In the course of a normal day I have had the good fortune to be introduced to many new people. A lot of those how-do-you-do’s happen at the oddest of times. Like the ones when I have tried to convince myself I really did not want to attend an event, whether it be a lecture, a committee meeting, or, even a wedding where I know the blare of the music would cause my ears to curl.

Invariably I am wrong. Hear that? I am admitting I can be wrong. I find myself enjoying a good time, and wonder of wonders, I am given the opportunity of making a new acquaintance who may turn out to be a true friend.

It happened in 1988 and many times since, but while attending my Ohr Shalom Synagogue chavurah monthly meeting two weeks ago, which occurred, as usual, at the Del Mar home of Roberta and Dr. Martin Shoman, I entered the house and was promptly introduced to the only stranger in the room, whom I calculated must be the program presenter for the evening. But more on that later.

Rishonim Havura was the first “collective group” formed when we founded Adat Ami Synagogue at its initial meeting in the Scottish Rite Memorial Building in Mission Valley. About 75 percent of the synagogue membership consisted of members of the Latino Jewish community with the remaining 25 percent made up of us local Gringos. While there were members who originated from other South and Central American countries, it was the strong participation of our Mexican Jewish community that was to be the dominant force in populating the congregation.

It was at that first meeting I sought out the one person whose name seemed to be on everyone’s lips. He knew what to do in formation of the new synagogue. He had been responsible for enlisting the services of the newly appointed rabbi. Congregants immediately elected him to the presidency, and when his term expired he remained the chairman of the board.

So it was only natural that I should approach this dynamic organizer, introduce myself by name, saying to him, “You and I are going to become great friends” and that’s how it came to be that to this day Eddy Cohen and Gert Thaler, sanctioned by their respective spouses, formed a close link that endures. We share our trials, tribulations and our joys on many a morning at a special window table in La Jolla’s La Valencia Hotel.

Long before the Cohen-Thaler bond was sealed, and in my earlier (much earlier) years, in the 1970s in a meeting that neither of us recalls, Norman Greene came into my life. As early organizers and ardent UJF workers under the leadership of the late Al Hutler and Lou Lieblich, we had formed the Community Relations Council and somehow our personalities clicked. To the present day we can be seen having a regular weekly lunch or dinner, alone or with Bobby Greene, forming the threesome in a friendship that has endured through the years and which has made their family part of the Thaler/Neiman clan, whether it be a day at the races or at first or second night seder.

If such friendships withstand such lengths in time — and there are many others I could name of my “nearest and dearest” — I never lose the enthusiasm of forming a link to a new friendship. It happened that way with me when I first met Rosie Silberman, and while it may have taken time for me and Teedy Applebaum to hitch up, we are bound together now. Joy and Harold Krasner arrived in San Diego from Johannesburg one day, went to Friday night services the next night and boom! we were in the right place at the right time and I look upon them as my “adopted kids.”

Some years ago we went on a cruise and were seated at a dinner table with Betty and Dick Sheldon, and ever since she can’t get rid of me.

Barely here a few weeks, Mao Shillman and I met and melded together and my first lessons in learning how to say “thank you” in Chinese began, accompanied by her learning the meaning of “schlep” as I described what Jewish mothers do if they have kids in school, take piano lessons on the other side of town, and need dental appointments. Mao is the one who makes gefilte fish the old-fashioned way like my mother did. She was appalled when I introduced her to a jar in the store.

Back to that chavurah meeting two weeks ago when the “stranger” turned out to be Alan Lubic, an educator, who spent nearly two hours in a discussion of the pros and cons of the United Nations, sometimes diverting to explanations of the power of the Israel lobbying organization, AIPAC, and back again to the truce that supposedly would bring a questionable peace in the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah. Certainly one of the best informed persons on his subject, Lubic conducts an ongoing course under the sponsorship of Brandeis Women’s Group, which is attended by 85 adult students.

While this is not the formation of a new close friend, I felt that he is a human being giving himself to his community to open doors of learning, and I look forward to inviting him as a speaker at a future meeting of another chavurah in which I hold membership. He is just an example of people who live in our midst and who by mere chance we come upon and reap the benefit of enriching our lives.

And, finally, I come to Hellen Soriano. Yet to shake her hand or do the usual kiss-kiss introduction stuff, Hellen phoned me two weeks ago from her home in Mexico City to introduce herself as a reader of this column. Her sister in La Jolla, Becky Adler, sends her clippings, since Hellen is a professional newspaper writer and looks to glean items of interest. I was flattered, indeed.

Hellen’s call concerned a column I had written some time ago about the plight of Cuban Jewry. She has just recently returned from Cuba where she was on a professional writer’s tour in order to become better informed on Jewish life there. Of course we immediately played Jewish geography and connected with the same Cuban people we know. Her visit to the Jewish cemetery was a highlight and came about when she discovered a Cuban cousin and her family. The cemetery has experienced vandalism, and she is looking into opportunities to revitalize it to its original condition. We commiserated over the plight of the community, the poor wages and lack of any number of necessities. She placed great emphasis on the need of women’s beauty products, creams, lotions and makeup.

I urge our readers to take the opportunity to meet new people, to give yourself the luxury of a new friend. The reward is better than vanilla ice cream on a piece of apple strudel. And the sweet taste a good friend can leave you with outshines any vanilla, chocolate or strawberry ice cream treat.

Remember the old phrase, “Try it, you’ll like it.” The friendship opportunity has no calories, contains no fats, but is loaded with pleasures.