Emory now has a full-time work-life specialist who is here to provide free of charge faculty and staff guidance in navigating the care of an adult, whether it be for yourself or someone in your family. Mary Ellen Nessmith can be reached at the number on the Caregiver Support flyer.  I have not yet met Mary Ellen, but she came to Steve Nowicki's Retirement Seminar that EUEC sponsored (and had great things to say about it) so I know she is interested in working with EUEC members.   

May 18:  Waitzman as Witness to the Horrors of War: D-Day and Beyond 

Waitzman at Fort McPherson

Lunch Colloquium, Monday May 18, 11:30-1:00 

Like so many in the diminishing numbers of those who witnessed the horrors of World War II, Mort Waitzman was reluctant to speak about what he had experienced until just a few years ago when he learned about Holocaust deniers. Since then, he has begun to share his story, as he did recently at The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta and as he will do again with his Emeritus College colleagues in this program we are dedicating to all of the Emory veterans of that war or any of the wars since. Mort will tell us of his "scariest experience," landing on Omaha beach, his involvement in the battle that liberated Saint-Lô and then in the liberation of Paris, his participation (and wounding) in the Battle of the Bulge, his presence at the seizure of Goebbels' headquarters (and at a Seder held later in that very place), and his role freeing those still alive in numerous labor camps and concentration camps (and mourning those they were just too late to save, as Nazis killed thousands in the course of their retreat). As Elie Wiesel has said, "To hear a witness is to become a witness oneself." Mort's story will help us do that, turning this Lunch Colloquium into our very own version of a Memorial Day.

More about Mort and his experiences:

(From a talk he gave in 2011):

Mort was born in Chicago in 1923, the youngest of seven children. His father was from Latvia and his mother Lithuania.

Although he was still in school when WW II began, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in January 1943, joining three of his brothers who had already enlisted.

Mort was highly trained in combat signals intelligence and secret codes. He wanted to fight the Nazis and even turned down a chance to go to Officers Candidate School after his first year of Signals School. He became a proud member of the 115th Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division (Light) and landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Mort reminded us how fast the 115th moved inland, engaging the Germans at Saint-Lô a few weeks after D-Day and being bombed and strafed almost every day on their way inland.

Mort had been in almost constant communication with the French Underground before departing England for D-Day, and because of his connections with them he was transferred to Paris after liberating St. Lo, where he took part in the liberation of that city on August 25th. In his absence, the 115th took part in the Battle for Brest in October 1944, one of the fiercest battles fought during Operation Cobra, the Allied breakout of Normandy that began on 27 July 1944.

Mort was sent back into combat in October 1944 and rejoined the 115th to fight in the Netherlands near Maastricht. That December he fought in the Battle of the Bulge, receiving a Bronze Star for valor after being wounded by a mortar capturing the City of Julich. Shortly after he recovered, he rejoined the 115th and took part in the capture of München-Gladbach (present-day Mönchengladbach), HQ of the Nazi Propaganda Minister Paul Josef Goebbels, and at this time also liberating the forced labor camp of Dinslaken. The 115th then went on to capture the infamous camp of Dora-Mittelbau, near Nordhausen, in April 1945, where the Germans were launching their V-I and V-II rockets against London.

Mort is emeritus professor of ophthalmology and physiology at Emory and is a founding member of EUEC.  He recorded a Living History video for EUEC, and that video may be seen by clicking here.  In addition to his Bronze Star, he was also awarded the Medal of Jubilee and a certificate of thanks from the state of Illinois for his participation in World War II; he was recently inducted into the French Legion of Honor.   

Click here to register for the Lunch Colloquium

Shakespeare Tavern and Lunch Colloquium

For several years now, EUEC member Gretchen Schulz, Professor of English Emerita from the Oxford College campus of the University, has organized opportunities for other emeriti (and their family and friends) to join her in viewing a production by the Atlanta Shakespeare Company, a fine group of theater professionals whom she served as Board member (and sometime Board chair) for many years and still serves as Resident Scholar and educational advisor. Last year, when a very grand total of forty one signed on to see a production of Antony and Cleopatra, consensus on the pleasure of the experience was accompanied by consensus on a complaint--namely, that there had been no arrangement made for follow-up discussion of any kind.

This year, therefore, Gretchen combined plans for a trip to the Shakespeare Tavern to see The Merchant of Venice, on Sunday evening, May 3, with plans for a discussion of the play at the Lunch Colloquium on Monday, May 4, both experiences she hoped to enhance by making copies of her Study Guide material on the play available to all. Given that the play has probably provoked more discussion--more really heated discussion--than any other Shakespeare play, she hoped enrollment for this pair of events would be high. And she hoped it would be higher still when she was able to announce that Doug Kaye, the actor playing Shylock, "the Jew" determined to claim a pound of flesh from the merchant of the title, "the Jew" finally savaged by the Christians of the play, not least in his forced conversion to Christianity, would be joining us for our discussion.

In fact, however, only twenty one EUEC members enrolled to see the play, and only fifteen enrolled to discuss the play at the Lunch Colloquium--reminding Gretchen that not everyone is up for entertainment that is at least as disturbing as it is entertaining. After all, there's no doubt that this play is disturbing--indeed, DISTURBING, with a capital D and a capital everything else. It's no wonder Gretchen entitled the Colloquium "The Merchant of Venice: Shakespeare's Unfunniest Comedy." Just how funny can a play be in which the titular character boasts about spitting on a "Jew" and kicking him, too, while his fellow Christians look on approvingly? How funny is a play in which the heroine, the clever girl-dressed-as-a-boy so common in romantic comedy, delivers a moving speech about "the quality of mercy" just before she insists the same "Jew" fall to his knees to beg mercy from the Christian court where he has sought for nothing but justice?

Yes, on the night we attended the performance, there was agreement that the play was very well done. But there was also agreement that the viewing experience was a difficult one. Even Gretchen, who has seen the play and experienced its difficulties often, could be heard muttering "no, no, no" when one of the bit players delivered his description of Shylock's distress at the loss of his daughter (and his ducats) in a nasty imitation of the quintessential "New York Jew." And John Bugge spent much of the intermission telling everyone who would listen just how "uncomfortable" he was--this even before the particularly discomfiting responses always elicited by the infamous trial scene. Of course, it may well be that Shakespeare penned the play with every intention of discomfiting his audience, and that those who perform it best perform it to do just that, or so Gretchen argues in her Study Guide material, insisting, as others have done before her, that Shakespeare's greatness in this play, indeed, in them all, resides in his refusal to write to please, period--to give us nothing but what we like or what we will. At the end of the evening, we took our disgruntled selves home, wondering how the discussion at the Lunch Colloquium the next day would go.

Well, it went wonderfully well, partly because our disgruntlement (and attendant confusions--also appropriate to the play) gave us so very much to talk about, and partly because the small number in attendance let us sit around a square of tables, facing one another, in a set up that allowed the talk to flow as freely as Gretchen had hoped it would. And then there was the fact we had Doug Kaye, the Shylock of this production, right there with us, ready to share a lifetime of experience with and insight into Shakespeare's plays and into this play in particular, a play he's performed in many times, enacting many roles before finally tackling Shylock himself, just a few years ago, in the first of now three productions at the Tavern. Doug opened the session with a brief review of his history in the theater generally speaking (beginning with roles in New York in the 60s)--and his history with the Atlanta Shakespeare Company itself (beginning in the mid-80s when the Company was still performing at Manuel's Tavern)--as Gretchen had asked him to do.

And then the questions began . . . almost all related to the issues so central to interpretation of the play, what we're meant to make of Shylock--and of the Christians' treatment of Shylock--and of the play's treatment of Shylock. Inquiring minds (and perplexed hearts) wanted to know: IS THE PLAY ANTI-SEMITIC? Or, as Gretchen had suggested in her Study Guide material: IS THE PLAY ANTI-ANTI-SEMITIC? Has Shakespeare here transcended the anti-Semitism that certainly characterized his time, inviting us to indict the Christians of the play for being UN-Christian in abusing Shylock-the-Jew as they do (and glory in doing), prattling of "mercy" the while? Not that Shylock's behavior isn't awful, as well. But Doug explained that he sees and plays Shylock as a man--not a monster, not a martyr, even a tragic hero, the extremes of the ways he has been seen and played down through the centuries--but as a whole and credibly human being, flawed as we all are, sympathetic, in some ways, decidedly unsympathetic in others. And deserving of mercy from us in the audience--mercy such as he does NOT receive from the supposedly merciful Christians within the world of the play. That's one viable view of the characters and the play, certainly. But it's only one of many viable views.

Of course, as critic Norrie Epstein has said (and as Gretchen has reported in her Study Guide material), "What else is new? . . . In its infinite ambiguity, [the play] is quintessential Shakespeare. No sooner have you reached one conclusion about the play than it's immediately contradicted in the next scene--or line." And what might the "right" conclusion be? Well, that is a riddle many have tried to solve, much like the riddle of the three caskets in the play. And Epstein isn't the only one to make this connection. Remember, she says, in the play "the [suitor's] choice [among the caskets of gold, silver, and lead] is a test that reveals the character of the chooser and not just the contents of the casket. The play sets up a similar test with its audience . . . . Shakespeare offers at least two views of every character and situation, confronting us with a variety of possible interpretations. The play supports almost any reading you care to give it, and, like the caskets, the one you choose reveals more about you than about the play." Maybe that is why so many find the play uncomfortable to deal with--so much so that they opt to avoid dealing with it altogether. But let it be said, those of us who did deal with it last week, seeing it at the Tavern and discussing it in our Lunch Colloquium (with our very own Shylock) emerged from the challenging experience much enlightened--and at least as entertained as DISTURBED (with a capital D and a capital everything else, too).

--Gretchen Schulz 

Bianchi Excellence Award

It is time for applications for the third annual Bianchi Excellence Award. The award, named in honor of the founder of the Emeritus College, Eugene Bianchi, Professor Emeritus of Religion, is funded largely by his own very generous bequest to Emory, as well as by contributions from many of his retired colleagues.

The Award is meant to advance the interests of the Emeritus College by providing its membership with financial support for ongoing intellectual activities by means of small, strategic grants to cover expenses incurred in pursuit of a broad range of activities, including, among others, research and writing, lecturing, training, development of teaching materials, and presentations at academic conferences. The Award will foster continuing professional development and thus play a significant role in building a vibrant emeritus community at Emory.

In the past two years the Bianchi Excellence Fund was able to support at least two Awards each year in amounts ranging up to a maximum of $2000 for a twelve-month term starting September 1st - the start of the normal academic and fiscal year.  

The application process is open to all retired members of the EUEC and applications must be received by May 15, 2015.

Click here to read about how to apply.

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