What follows is a chapter from Out of Brownsville: Encounters with Nobel Laureates and Other Jewish Writers (2012). (Paperback edition available from University of Massachusetts Press.) You can read other chapters from the late Jules Chametzky’s memoir here and here.
When I saw Jules for the last time in August, he agreed this piece belonged in First too. Jules was a close reader of this magazine from the beginning, but his attentions never devolved into mindless fanship. A few months back when I went with a slim batch of posts, he let me know (through his son Robbie, who’s been my friend since childhood) that I needed to get on the stick. His straight talk gave more snap to his praise (which could be unstinting).
Jules was no macho but he wasn’t meechy. I’m reminded of a story he told a couple years ago about a party at my parents’ house in the late 50s. Jules bumped into a lordly Amherst English professor there named G. Armour Craig (who was a headache for my own dad until he got tenure at Amherst). Craig asked Jules what he’d be teaching in the upcoming semester. After Jules replied, Craig tried for a high anti-Semitic irony: “Shakespeare taught by Chametzky.” Jules told my dad to keep that bastard away from him or he’d knock him into the Anglosphere. B.D.
