Gary Morgenstein: A Jewish Writer Who Insists on Giving the Jewish Perspective

May 2, 2022 by Susan Rosenbluth

By Susie Rosenbluth

What do you call a prolific playwright and novelist who doesn’t shy away from controversial topics, whose characters do not conform to any stereotypes, and who, thank heavens, has his writer’s antennae always on alert for antisemitism, even when it tries to masquerade as anti-Zionism? His name is Gary Morgenstein, a writer who eschews even the hint of what political correctness would demand, and, perhaps, for just that reason is gaining a reputation as an artist to be watched.

This fall there will be a presentation of his play, Free Palestine, the story of a Jewish teacher who faces dismissal when he insists on showing his upper-class New York prep school students both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Representing the teacher in his legal defense is an African-American attorney whose politically conservative child was brutally bullied in the same school. While the play deals with political and social issues, it is also, at its heart, an exploration of how parents deal with their children’s–and their own–vulnerability.

Although Free Palestine’s themes are dark, it is not a grim play. In fact, it is shot through with humor, light self-reflection, and bittersweet assessments.

“In these unsettling times, theater should light a path through the terror, through faith in ourselves and each other, aided by the timeliness and approved treatment of laughter,” says Mr. Morgenstein.

Rosenbluth and Morgenstein

Writing What He Knows

Like most successful authors, the Brooklyn-based Mr. Morgenstein writes what he knows. Born in the Bronx into a home not dissimilar from the one populated by the characters in his play, A Tomato Can’t Grow in the Bronx, he often tackles issues affecting dysfunctional families.

Set in 1968, the play doesn’t discuss the crises that affected the world during that tumultuous year, such as the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy or the Tet Offensive and the Prague Spring. Instead, it focuses on the calamity faced by the Jewish working-class Simms-Abrams family in their side-by-side apartments. It opens just after their son (and grandson), Elliot, was attacked by an African-American in their increasingly integrated and crime-ridden Bronx neighborhood.

The play, which was recently given a superb production by the Center Players of Freehold, NJ, holds up a mirror to the memories of what constituted Jewish life in the twentieth-century decades before most identifiable Jews relocated to better neighborhoods, streets, and suburbs in which their vision of the American dream could be played out.

Whose American Dream?

That dream is envisaged by Elliot’s father, Sammy, who works as a wallpaper hanger in the two-man firm established by his father-in-law–and next-door neighbor–Harry Simms. Sammy wants to relocate with his wife, Eleanor, and their son to a nice house in Long Island, not too far from a shul they probably won’t attend with any greater frequency than they do the ones in the Bronx.

No hater of family, Sammy would be perfectly content if his in-laws, especially his adored mother-in-law, Gladys, comes along, too, as a package deal.

Unfortunately, Sammy’s dream, which includes the possibility of financial success and a degree of independence, is Harry’s nightmare, not only for himself but also for his beloved daughter. The old man has no desire to relinquish his control over his family or to oversee a move to a place where people put on airs and the police don’t respond to a mugging by giving the victim, under full official protection, the right to enjoy physical revenge.

Tough Jews

Harry Simms is not a racist. His insistence on making his grandson bloody the kids who beat him up has nothing to do with the race of those who mugged him. It has to do with knowing how to protect yourself and your family, with knowing how to survive pain and thrive with courage.

The Simms and Abrams families are what some sociologists recognize as “tough Jews,” a breed of post-World War Two men whose fathers immigrated from Eastern Europe before Hitler annihilated that world. Many of them grew up in Brooklyn and then, as they learned working-class skills that could be turned into independent businesses, migrated to places like the Bronx, which was considered more upscale.

Not exactly criminals themselves, they didn’t think ill of the Jews who made their living by becoming racketeers. Not eager to make Aliyah themselves, they were ardent supporters of Israel and often participated in fundraisers as well as gun-running operations for the Jewish state. There is no doubt that one year before the events in A Tomato Can’t Grow in the Bronx took place, the Simms-Abrams family raised money and sat by their radios, hanging on every word they could get about the Six-Day War.

“They weren’t in favor of violence, but if shooting were to break out anywhere, especially against Jews, they’d want to be on the right side–the winning side,” says Mr. Morgenstein. “They remembered all too well the images of the Holocaust, of dead degraded Jews being bulldozed into mass graves; and before that, of frightened, huddling Jews, hiding from the Cossacks. In the United States, they were friendly with the police and made sure they retained the image of strength.”

Two Old Men and Bias

That could not be said of one of the two central characters in another of Mr. Morgenstein’s plays. A Black and White Cookie, which will premier this June at the Tank Theater in Manhattan, is prophetically set “just after the COVID-19 pandemic runs its course.”

It is the story of Harold Wilson, a gruff, conservative African-American in his late 60s who, after mandated closures, is finally able to reopen his East Village newsstand, only to be hit with a rent increase. After 30-plus years in business, it will force him to close his doors. Eccentric Jewish radical, Albie Sands, a remnant of the 1960s, has been a steady customer of Harold’s and for personal reasons (where he going to find another place that sells exactly what he wants?) and political ones, he urges Harold to fight back.

Harold’s problem is that his niece suspects the “Jew” is motivated only by money.

In the course of telling his story, Mr. Morgenstein layers in the burden of the pandemic, portraying a city struggling to come out of the darkness. He lays bare all of our unspoken racial biases, calling out society’s tacit acceptance of the stereotypes even while two obstinate old men learn to see beyond them to find friendship. What they come to appreciate is that the cream in the cookie is the purity and sweetness of our differences, signifying the ability to meet in the middle.

“While the play reflects hard truths about fear, disease, and bigotry, it’s ultimately positive and uplifting. What the world needs now more than ever is love, understanding, and faith in ourselves and each other. If these two stubborn old guys can come together, so can all of us. You just gotta believe,” says Mr. Morgenstein.

Complicated, Compelling Themes

Complicated, often troubling themes are part and parcel of his novels, too. In Jesse’s Girl, he deals with the question: How much should a parent sacrifice for a troubled child? His answer: Anything and everything.

The book centers on a floundering father-son relationship, finding roots, and re-establishing bonds. It deals with teen addiction and adoption and follows a desperate father’s search for his son who has run away from a wilderness program to find his biological sister.

And just in case you thought he might get type-casted as an author with a limited scope of interests, he has completed a three-volume dystopian political trilogy, published by BHC Press, that begins in 2098 after the United States has lost World War III to the Islamic Empire.

“Nothing Pre-Ordained about Freedom”

In the three books—A Mound Over Hell, A Fastball for Freedom, and A Dugout to Peace—America is governed by an entity called The Family, led by Grandma, and religion, patriotism, and social media are banned. The country’s former national pastime, baseball, is about to begin its final season ever at Amazon Stadium.

“There is nothing pre-ordained about freedom. This is about an America which lost democracy,” he says, explaining that he got the idea for the trilogy “one Sunday morning while my wife and I were listening to the Beatles and eating ‘everything’ bagels with a shmeer.”

Almost everything he writes has a Jewish angle and reflects his view that Jewish values, including fairness and decency for everyone (including Jews), should be incorporated into a vision of what’s right.

“I really believe there is more that unites us than divides us. Like many artists, I grew up in a dysfunctional family and sought escape by creating my own worlds. The wonder of writing is that you can make things come out the way you wish they had,” he says.