Re: [Cz-L] RE: czernowitz-l digest: October 07, 2010

 Andy, you say :
 "I would feel compelled to bash them in their heads,
 to kick them in the groin, to smash them into walls ".
    I like this , how are you going to proceed ?
     Is it going to be one of the three or all three consecutively ?
Hardy
----- Original Message -----
From: "veni vici" <venivici_at_inbox.com>
To: "Czernowitz Genealogy and History" <czernowitz-l_at_list.cornell.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 3:11 PM
Subject: [Cz-L] RE: czernowitz-l digest: October 07, 2010

The exchange of messages of the past couple of days created an emotional
rollercoaster for me. It prompted me to think of two stories years apart.
Around 1961 Len Tarcher, a fellow executive at the Sackel-Jackson company in
Boston told me an interesting story about the late Leo Burnett of Chicago
who built one of the world’s top ad agencies, which he started in the middle
of America’s great depression in the 1930s. The agency created some of
America’s most memorable images, the Pillsburry Dough Boy, The Malboro Man,
etc., etc.

Leo had been advertising manager for a big oil company and when he announced
that he would leave to launch a new ad agency, they told him that he would
end up selling apples on the street, which is what many middle class people
were doing since they were too embarrassed to just beg.

For years, perhaps even today, even though Leo has been dead since 1971,
every Leo Burnett office had in its lobby a bowl of apples, free to all
visitors cooling their heels in the lobby. This, doubtlessly, was a gesture
that must have given Leo great gratification.

Tarcher told me of a friend of his who had once worked for Burnett as an
account executive in the 1950s. The man approached Burnett one day and
said, “Mr. Burnett, this may be none of my business, I’m not here to tell
you how to run your company, but I know you are Jewish and I am Jewish and
it bothers me that you have not a single Jewish account executive on staff.”

Burnett smiled and said, “You are right, it is none of your business. You
are also wrong because I do have a Jewish account executive – you!”

He then went on to explain the philosophy behind his policy. “Relationships
between our account executives and our clients are very important.
Occasionally a client will have a beef with the account man or will take a
dislike to him and will come to me demanding that we get a substitute. If
my account man happens to be Jewish I might suspect anti-Semitism and that
would get my hackles up and I’d be tempted to resist the request which would
lead to a decline in my relationship with the client and potential loss of
business.” Leo, of course, had no restrictions on staffing in the creative
or media or art departments but he avoided hiring Jews as account
executives.

>From a moral standpoint, of course, one would have to be critical of this
but from a realistic standpoint in a highly competitive business, (which on
occasions has been compared to prostitution), one must give the man credit
for being a realistic business man.

The other story the recent messages dealing with the existence or absence of
anti-Semitism in contemporary Chernivtsi takes me back to 2006 when I spent
three weeks in India pursuing co-production possibilities. A contact
arranged to have me picked up by the head of the camera department at Ramoji
Film City just outside of Hyderabad and toured through this incredible
studio and backlot combined with a veritable theme park that is far bigger
and more impressive than anything found in Hollywood.

Chatting in the car on the way home while driving through areas of
incredible poverty I told my host that I didn’t think I could ever live in
India because of the vast amount of incredible poverty which tears at the
heart.

His English was limited but he indicated that psychic survival calls for
focusing only on that which is pleasing and ignoring that which is
upsetting. In other words wearing blinders which I know I couldn’t do. But
then I asked myself what I would do if I had been born and brought up in
India? Would I become a different person and accept and ignore the
depressing aspects of that country? Would I emigrate? I don’t know.

Reading of Mimi’s experiences in Cz and those of others who were met with
similar warmth and cordiality gives me a lift but reading the account of
Yefim Rabinowitch reminds me of why I curb my interest in visiting Cz.

If I visited the house in which I was born which my grandmother built and in
which I spent my first wonderful eleven years and was met by present
occupants who were hostile and perhaps anti-Semitic, I would feel compelled
to bash them in their heads, to kick them in the groin, to smash them into
walls - and that is an inappropriate way for an 83 year old to behave.

It would land me in a Ukrainian jail and there is no profit in that. So,
like Leo Burnett, I avoid the possibility of a negative experience and stay
away from Cz.

Best wishes,
Andy

-snip-
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Received on 2010-10-08 14:10:46