Atheists in the year 1900, my grandparents came from Poland to USA for our 1st Amendment Freedom of Religion, which includes the right to not believe

 Wadja & Janik Jendrzewski

They arrived at Ellis Island in the year 1900, both age twenty from Warsaw.  Both were dressed sharp, bright eyed, and excited to be starting a new life in the United States; there was determination and accomplishment in their every move.  The previous years they’d been regulars at the downtown cafes, where young Poles gathered to share animated talk about politics, philosophy, and the hundreds of new scientific and socio-political theories developing in their country. A near century of despotism had not stifled the Polish human spirit of creative and innovative ideas. Janik was from a Christian home and Wadja a Jewess, young adults questioning norms in a way no generation had for centuries.

My grandparents were part of the “intelligentsia” or counter culture of the 1860s to 1890s, like the hippies a hundred years later where I came of age.  

As a demographic, “the intelligentsia” were young adults coming of age at a time of great social upheaval, and, as a generation, embracing the chaos of extreme change,  thriving on it.

My grand parents came to America in the year 1900 for Freedom of Religion, which for them meant the freedom to be atheists and practice no religion. They were that passionate about the right to not believe that at age twenty they packed up what belongings they could take on a ship to New York and left behind everything they’d known all their lives.

To be free to be atheists thanks to the First Amendment in USA.

***

My atheist grandparents were part of a late nineteenth century movement known as “the intelligentsia,” a cultural movement much like the hippies of the 1970s, in which, funny enough, I was an active participant.

 Per Wikipedia

The 1870s in Poland were a time of creativity and innovation-

With self-help organizations that promoted economic advancement and work on improving the competitiveness of Polish-owned businesses, industrial, agricultural or other. New commercial methods of generating higher productivity 

They called such public service employment “organic work”

Another major area of effort in organic work was educational and intellectual development of the common people.

***

The intelligentsia like my grandparents were the hippies of the 1890s. When you went out for a day on the town in Warsaw, you could end up at an intelligentsia era “reading room”

*

Most of my grandparents friends from that era in Poland were atheists. They laughed out loud at persons who believed in the what they experienced as the authoritarian dictatorial Catholic Church, including my parents when we would visit the Jendrzewskis, To my grandparents, being religious was a sign of low intelligence. 

The added element that Wadja was raised by Jews and Janik by Christians made the couple feel even more detached from “the establishment” laws and mores everywhere they lived, Warsaw Poland or Gary Indiana. In the old country, not only were they forced to follow their parents’ beliefs, but they were never going to be allowed to marry each other. Even their friendship drew glares of disgust from family and friends in the old country.

Likely, in an ardent conversation in a Warsaw cafe, the young couple first heard about The First Amendment of USA and “freedom of religion” and I'm sure the concept of being free to be an atheist amplified their growing enthusiasm about emigrating to America.

“In America you are not only free to be any religion, you are free to believe there is no Creator God at all.” You might hear that idea in conversations at tables all over each café in Warsaw, where the Catholic hierarchy ran government and institutions with rigid authority.

*

So I was raised by an atheist Polish Jew married to a Catholic

My mom had no idea what she was getting into when she agreed in 1920s to convert to Catholicism so she could marry my dad.

Recent tweet that got me started writing this post:

My grandmother and her husband were both atheists in Poland who came to USA in 1900 as we have religious freedom here, which means right to have No Religion. They were very intellectual and kinda political about it
8:32 AM · Oct 19, 2021·Twitter Web App
@Ro….
They were both age 20 upon arrival in 1900. Since teen years they heard that US 1st Amend meant "freedom of religion" which included not believing in God. They met as adamant atheist  teenagers in Warsaw. Hmm, I should write this story... See what your tweet started

They fell in love as teenagers and dreamed of going to America where they’d have the freedom to not believe in God.

The freedom to not believe, Wadja would say often out loud, with astonished passion.

***

In late 19^th century Poland religious leaders were preoccupied with eschatology:

es·cha·tol·o·gy /ˌeskəˈtäləjē/

noun

1.    the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind.

At the café table I can hear my grandma age 19:

“Eschatology," Wadja hollers, “they keep us always in mourning as a way to control us. You can’t argue or point out injustice when people are running around wild eyed talking about the End Times.” Janik agrees.

Per Wikipedia: Mourning was part of enforced religion and dominated culture in late 1800s Poland.  

Me: The people wore black baggy clothing and stood with a straight back

***

I don't know what took my grandparents in 1900 from Ellis Island to Gary Indiana. They settled in the Lake Michigan city and opened a bakery which they ran for decades, in a quadrant of the city where everyone was Polish.

They openly called their neighborhood a ghetto. 

Today Gary has a Polish National Catholic church.

I wonder if I would find their name Jendrzewski or any info about my Polish relatives in old newspapers and other historical documents in a Gary Indiana public library. I could take a trip there, someday maybe (I'm 74 and rarely leave my house so kinda not likely….)

Interstate 80 actually is like Main Street here in South Lake Tahoe where I live today, and goes east all the way through a dozen states and straight to Gary.

My wanderlust will see me to my grave.

*

POST SCRIPT: I did not learn my grandma was part Jewish until my mom was in her eighties, dad was gone, she was living on her own in an apartment in a senior building downtown San Clemente. Suddenly it was okay to tell the family secret. To be Jewish would get Wadja more antagonism in life than being atheist, apparently, in the early twentieth century. 

*

Posted by Kay Ebeling

Producing City of Angels Blog since Jan 2007

Not just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere

 

 

They won, all I can do now is watch to see how bad it is going to get

The damage from Fox News is done no matter how Dominion turns out. Murdoch may lose a fraction of his billions, but he and his colleagues have carried out a historic military victory. They ran a decades long disinformation warfare attack on USA, we are fractured now, neighbor turned against neighbor, with assault weapons at hand... that is a propaganda coup. Most Americans don't even realize what has been done to us. And I doubt it's going to stop soon. Russia / Saudis have attacked USA with PR on our TV sets & phones. And they succeeded. (my 2 cents)

PS: Russia / Saudis = Global Oil

good thing I like being a hermit. sometimes

 Sunday: Snow, mainly after 7am. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 32. Breezy, with a southwest wind 15 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Sunday Night: Snow likely, mainly after 4am. The snow could be heavy at times. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 12. Breezy, with a southwest wind around 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Monday: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 30. Windy, with a southwest wind 15 to 20 mph increasing to 25 to 30 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 50 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 7 to 11 inches possible.

Monday Night: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 11. Breezy, with a southwest wind 20 to 25 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 6 to 10 inches possible.

Tuesday: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 31. Breezy. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 4 to 8 inches possible.

Tuesday Night: Snow, mainly before 4am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 8.

Wednesday: A chance of snow. Partly sunny, with a high near 30.

Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 6.

Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 38.

Finally. Meanwhile today Saturday: cold winds, snow starting this afternoon Avalanche warning

As Unhoused Americans die on L.A. streets, Biden makes inspiring speeches in Ukraine and Poland. WTF????

Today I watched Biden speak in Poland then watched the L.A. City Council meeting where homeless people were calling in begging BEGGING the council to do something to get them into empty motels and unused retail space because People Are Dying on the streets, several every week, in L.A. Then the council responded saying they would "expedite" policy but did not mention any specific thing they would do- I am stunned. More storms are blowing into L.A. now so more unhoused American citizens there are going to die this week. WTF is Biden doing in Ukraine right now? Makes No Sense At All to me.

HUD is an executive agency, so a President could just lay down a mandate to build housing, like Kennedy's 1962 declaration that we would reach the moon in ten years as head of NASA. Biden could mandate housing construction in every American city where people are now unhoused in shocking numbers. Biden Could Do Something about homelessness. Instead he's making "inspiring" speeches in Poland. I want to puke.

Per Anne Applebaum on Rachel Maddow last night, we've been wrong in every assumption about how war in Ukraine will go. Somehow that means we should send them more weapons. I think we are stumbling into another "forever war" and people living on sidewvillas across Europe and condos in London. So to me that means Russians always intended to forcealks of L.A. will never get housed. Interesting, when Russia first spent money on Ukraine war last year, per Applebaum, Putin did not invest in weapons. Russian oligarchs instead bought  USA to deplete more of our resources fighting them in Ukraine, but somehow Maddow et al think their buying Condos with defense dollars means Ukraine needs another half billion dollars of weapons from USA. 

(Maddow Feb 20: )

I feel like the Lone Ranger accidentally landed in a Native American theme park. I don't want USA to send weapons to Ukraine because I think we have spent enough decades providing weapons to wars of the world, Biden should declare a "moon mandate" saying "We will make sure no American is without a roof over their heads by the end of the decade." Instead we are making sure no weapons manufacturer experiences a dollar of lost profit si nce we are no longer in Afghanistan. I'm not supporting Russia but by not supporting our entry into this war I am thrown into a category with the weird mixture that demonstrated in D.C. last weekend. I wish I did not care so much

Perhaps if my own daughter was not living in an RV on an LA street right now I would feel better about sending a billion dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine. But she is so I don't. Meanwhile Thom Hartmann calls people like me "tankers" like people who would not support US entry into WW2 until tanks were pulling into London. 

Why is it either or? 

Why can't USA take care of its own before saving the world? How can we claim to be spreading democracy when our own inner cities are such a mess?

*

An unhoused resident at today's L.A. City Council meeting called in to say: "Five people in my neighborhood have died outside in the last month that I know of. Including one that I knew. She froze to death. The night that she died, there was a frost advisory and some rain. It's gonna happen again. In a few days."

***

Blogged by Kay Ebeling 

Producer of City of Angels Blog since Jan 2007

Not just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere

Searching for Other Sunshines

I used to be called "Sunshine." From 1970-1976 that was my name. There were a handful of Sunshines floating around love-ins and communes at that time. I am now Searching for others who got that name in that era to compare stories, maybe write a book. Any Sunshines out there?

I got the name at the Holy Man Jam summer 1970 Boulder Colorado. The sky had been gray for hours, threatening rain. So I climbed up on the stage and did a "sun dance" that worked. As the sun broke through, people in the crowd called out "You are Sunshine" and for the next six years, that was my name.

(Photo above is of Holy Man Jam Boulder 1970 credit Lisa Law*)

After the festival I rode off in a car packed with residents of an Integral Yoga Institute ashram in Dallas Texas. I moved into the big old house on Lemon Ave where 2-3 persons shared bedrooms. In living / dining area, we held public meetings and taught Yoga classes. I soon became a Yoga instructor / chanting and meditation leader / and for a while "housemother" running the kitchen cooking vegetarian meals for as many as 30 persons a day. I planned menus, ordering bulk sized supplies of organic grains and vegetables.

At one point Swami Satchidananda who was CEO so to speak of the IYI came to "initiate" us. Everyone was given Indian names.

Except me.

The Swami said, "I can't change your name. You are Sunshine."

Soon the group as a whole adopted more rigid rules and practices such as bramacharya, which is renouncing all pleasures of the flesh including sex. I did not want to take that step.

So I ran off with the guy who delivered 50 pound sacks of brown rice once a week.

I ended up years later in Austin, a single mother, going to college. I gravitated toward Journalism as a major and my junior year became a reporter for The Daily Texan. I wrote a few articles with "Sunshine Ebeling" as my by line. But that just did not work, being Sunshine did not give me the credibility I needed to be an effective newspaper reporter.

So I became Kay Ebeling then.

Now I often look at myself and wonder, whatever happened to Sunshine? I am not mellow or even very spiritual today. I carry a lot of stress and internal rage, especially about politics, so no one would think of calling me "Sunshine" today.

I've often wondered whatever happened to the other Sunshines? I know there were others in that strange period of U.S. culture history who got that name.

Where are they now? How did they get named Sunshine?

Email me please at cityofangelslady @ yahoo . com with your story of being called Sunshine, or that of someone else you know, so I can post a series "Searching for Sunshine" here on my blog.

Or DM me on Twitter

KayE of Tahoe

@CassandraofTro2

Or Facebook

Kay Ebeling 

*

Photo credit Lisa Law from Holy Man Jam Boulder Colorado 1970 https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_892521

-Posted by Kay Ebeling

Producing City of Angels Blog since Jan 2007

Not just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere

L.A. City Council favors luxury hotels and landlord rights in response to homeless emergency declared by Mayor Bass

The astonishing sight of displaced humans living on sidewalks in Southern California has made me a regular viewer of L.A. City Council meetings. I shake my head as I watch these high paid public servants* give undivided attention to lobbyists who show up off to the side at meetings to glad-hand, as they did blatantly right in front of cameras January 11. Then council voted to provide gazillion dollars, at least, of support to build a luxury Marriott hotel on land that used to hold a public library in South L.A..  It seems parents of students at USC can't find an acceptable place to stay when they fly in likely on private jets to visit. 

(*As of 2020, L.A. City Council members receive an annual salary of $207,000 per year, which is among the highest city council salaries in the nation. Per Wikipedia)

Apparently when the mayor declared homelessness an emergency in L.A. Dec. 14, landlords panicked at the idea they might end up with deadbeats living in the empty homes they've purchased as investment properties and rushed to get hold of city council members and convince them it's the landlords who are in crisis.

So ignore those people shivering in the cold and dying before their time due to living in tents, they can be rounded up later; quick, give the high political donors whatever they need. 

I don't see how anyone could work in L.A. government and think ANYTHING was more important than the human crisis of people living on the streets, shitting on lawns, having rats for roommates... how could a council member focus on ANYTHING but finding ways to get unhoused persons into housing. But last 2 weeks all they've done is talk about landlord rights.

L.A. City Council have spent last 2 weeks debating how to make it easier for landlords to evict people. You can watch them during meetings, ignoring members of the public who come in person to speak or call in, their voices broadcast throughout the meeting room. Throughout each meeting, council members are holding private conversations with well dressed corporate types, likely lobbyists, accepting envelopes, only returning to their seats when it comes time to vote, never even acknowledging a public speaker, even when one directly addresses that council member. One caller said, “look at Ms. Yaroslavsky, talking to someone off to the side, ignoring everything I say,” as she ignored everything the caller said.

The decision to fund the new Marriott hotel on land that used to be a public library took one meeting, where dozens of citizens Pleaded with the council to use that land for low income housing instead. However, two persons from Marriott appeared in person to speak about the jobs the new hotel would create (god how often have we heard that) and the council passed money for Marriot without blinking. 

----------

(From NBC Los Angeles) A proposed 168-room Marriott hotel in South Los Angeles cleared the City Council's planning committee Tuesday and is expected to be reviewed by the full council on Friday.  The proposed seven-story building would be located on a 34,000-square-foot, city-owned site that has been vacant since 2010. It was formerly the site of the Bethune Library and is located near USC.

Several public speakers addressed the council two weeks ago and again at Tuesday's committee meeting opposing the hotel. Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who represents the area and is chair of the committee, introduced a motion asking the council to "assert jurisdiction'' over the local planning commission's action.

On Tuesday, Harris-Dawson called the project one of “much controversy” but said the Eighth District “needs to be able to participate in the economy of Los Angeles.” “When the World Cup comes to LA, were we to go along with the folks opposed to this project, what the district would get out of that economic activity is increased traffic, people parking all through their neighborhoods, trash and everything else -- and not get one dollar of benefit from that economic activity,'” Harris-Dawson said. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/proposed-south-la-hotel-clears-la-city-councils-planning-committee/3085890/

--------------

Meanwhile since Mayor Karen Bass declared homelessness an emergency in L.A. last December, council has Not Passed One Provision to even start to solve the problem.

I am a powerless 74 year old woman who has a beloved family member living in an RV parked on a street in Hollywood and all I can do is watch, observe from my senior apt complex where my family member is not allowed to join me, scared that if I leave Tahoe to join her in L.A. and help her I will end up on the street too. So I observe like a visitor from space in horror the failure of the human race in USA as it self destructs. Much bigger a problem than I can take on... so sad I am.

As one public speaker called out at the meeting before the Marriott vote, those hotel jobs will not pay enough for a person to afford an apartment in L.A.

In response, L.A. City Council members ignored her.

*

Watch meeting where city council cowtows to Marriott and ignores desperate people pleading from audience for help with housing 

Watch above video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwjZtupgl0g

*

Watch meeting where landlord rights trump renters rights and council members openly gladhand with lobbyists during meeting while ignoring speakers from the public

 Watch above video on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtdKmcQ1WhI

*

Posted by Kay Ebeling, producer City of Angels Blog since Jan 2007. 

"Not just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere