Update 10-26-04

Hi,

What's this? I'm going away for a couple of weeks and purposely not taking my computer. So here's next week's update, just to keep those newsletters regular. I'll be back on the eve of destruction, uh, election.

Some stashed filler:

From Peggy Cooper Schwartz: A great story. Before I moved to Florida two-and-a-half years ago, I was a member of the Women's Israel National Political Action Committee. Several times, in Washington and at a neighbor's home in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, I met Lynda Johnson Robb and her husband Chuck Robb. When Lynda Robb spoke at my neighbor's home for a WINPAC meeting, she told how her father went to Europe on business, around 1938, and was able to negotiate the release of about 35 Jewish people. They were able to leave Europe, go to Cuba, and then -- due to arrangements made by LBJ -- enter the United States through Texas. A gentleman named Jim Novy, who was already in Texas before 1938, asked LBJ to do this, and they remained lifelong friends. To hear Lynda Robb tell this story was amazing. I think it's time that the public knew about this.

A quick follow-up, from an article by Daniel Chang in The Miami Herald: "But no one has presented any evidence to support such an allegation," says Claudia Anderson, an archivist with the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin. Anderson traces the legend of ''Operation Texas'' to a speech given by a prominent Jewish businessman in Austin, Jim Novy, during a dedication ceremony which Johnson attended, for a synagogue named Congregation Agudas Achim in December 1963.
In his dedication speech, which was recorded, Novy alleged that in 1938 then-congressman Johnson had helped arrange -- through letters and telephone calls to ambassadors and immigration officials -- for 42 Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland to obtain visas to enter America. Novy's speech also claimed that in 1940 Johnson used his political influence to skirt Texas law and help lodge Jewish refugees in state youth camps. But, Anderson says, "There is absolutely no substantiation of that whatsoever.'' Anderson did, however, find evidence that Johnson wrote letters to US embassies in Eastern Europe prior to World War II that helped expedite the immigration of Jewish refugees to America. ''I definitely believe Johnson helped Jewish people come into this country by helping them cut red tape and immigration procedures."

A related forward from Peggy, also from Daniel Chang's article: Claudia Taylor Brod never met her grandfather, Lyndon Baines Johnson. She inherited his legacy through history books, old family photos, and countless stories from her grandmother, Claudia ''Lady Bird'' Johnson, who is 91 and still lives on the LBJ Ranch in Stonewall, Texas. Among the lessons handed down were a sense of compassion and an obligation to give back to her community.
The youngest child of Luci Baines Johnson Turpin -- President Johnson's youngest daughter -- Brod, 28, says those lessons helped her realize, "That I was part of this family, part of this legacy, and with that came a lot of responsibility for what I had been given.'' Now Brod has begun to put those lessons into action at home in Miami Beach, where she has lived since 2000. To celebrate the birth of her first child in February, Brod and her husband Steven donated $10,000 to the Holocaust Survivors Program.
The gift was made on behalf of Brod's obstetrician Dr. Steven Silvers, but her interest in Judaism runs deep. Brod's husband is the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, and she herself converted to Judaism in 2003. "It was not easy to renounce Catholicism -- I went to mass every Sunday until I turned 18.'' But she has embraced Judaism's emphasis on family and traditions. "My grandfather," she says, "did some wonderful things as far as civil rights and education, and I feel it's my obligation to carry on the family legacy of civic involvement. The Jewish community is a good place to start.''
Not at all on the subject of Texas, religion, or the Johnsons, a forward from Zelda White Nichols, in appreciation of teachers everywhere: After being interviewed by the school administration, the eager teaching prospect said: "Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning. And I'm supposed to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, modify their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, and even censor their T-shirt messages and dress habits. You want me to wage a war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for weapons, and raise their self-esteem. You want me to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship, and fair play, how and where to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook, and how to apply for a job. I am to check their heads for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of antisocial behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and scholarships, encourage respect for their elders and future employers. And I am to communicate regularly with the parents by letter, telephone, newsletter, and report card. All of this I am to do with just a piece of chalk, a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, and a big smile and on a starting salary of $32,000? You want me to do all of this, and you expect me NOT TO PRAY?"

Rich