Today, I would be diagnosed as dyslexic, back then I was just labeled as slow. But Mom also had a great rejoinder for the tough, unbudgeable moments: “Jonny, you can stand on your head and spit wooden nickels, the answer is still no.” One of the tougher instances occurred when I had difficulty learning to read in elementary school. They treated my cuts and bruises with mercurochrome and soothing words and endured night-long vigils when I had bad dreams or heard something frightening on radio or TV. Mom and Dad were tender or tough as the situation demanded. I attended Y camp in Pennsylvania (homesick as hell) for many seasons and summered at the Shore for many more. And they made sure I received a Jewish education, a bar mitzvah, and a teen confirmation in addition to my secular studies. They considered higher education and hard work as twin virtues. (Sounds so old-fashioned in contrast to today’s more fluid definitions of success.) They took care of all my material needs, being careful to teach thrift, beginning with the responsibilities of an allowance. They also imparted a sense of achievement, of setting goals, and of working to realize them. The Lazaruses are the ones who bequeathed the ethical and spiritual foundation that began to form this human being nearly 79 years ago. To be clear and emphatic, my adoptive parents are the ones who kvelled and fretted over me, not my biological bearers. Stuart, Minnie, and Jonathan Lazarus are at home in Flushing, Queens, soon after Jon was adopted in 1943. Yes, that Louise Wise Services, the one that’s been unflatteringly portrayed in recent years both onscreen and in print, the one founded by the wife of America’s most prominent Reform rabbi of the time, Stephen Wise, during the height of the last century’s progressive movement, which also saw women like Alice Chapin and Clara Spence pioneer new alternatives to a very harsh orphanage system.
Get The Jewish Standard Newsletter by email and never miss our top stories The internet and DNA testing, so important as conduits in facilitating these get-togethers, weren’t even glimmers on the horizon when I was adopted by Stuart and Minnie Lazarus as a 6-month-old from Louise Wise Services in 1942. Some of these emotionally charged meetings exceed expectations, others end inconclusively or even badly. I am aware that my feelings (many may dismiss them as falling into the ignorance-is-bliss category) go against a growing but grudging number of state laws unlocking adoption records (with certain intermediate safeguards), leading to once-unimaginable reunions. Jonathan Lazarus spent nearly 40 years at the Star-Ledger and now lends his talent and experience to the Jewish Standard.
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