James J. Kilroy
(d.1962) was an inspector who worked in the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy,
Massachusetts.
During WWII,
the staff at the shipyard needed to increase production to turn out as many
ships as they could to help the war effort. Kilroy's job included checking the
rivets that held the ships together, making sure that they had been placed
properly and fastened solidly.
In the
course of his daily duties, Kilroy had to fit between tight spaces and often
entered very narrow areas to check the rivets, which he counted in blocks. As he
approved an area, he used some chalk to certify that it had passed his
strict criteria and left a tick as a mark of his inspection.
In those
days, workers were paid on a piecework basis and this was calculated per rivet.
When Kilroy
had left for the day, the workers would erase his tick so that when another
inspector checked the rivets, they would be counted a second time and the
workers would be paid twice for the same job!
After a
while, one of the shipyard supervisors calculated that the number of ship parts
was below the amount being paid, considering the amount of rivets being
inspected.
Kilroy had
to come up with a solution, realising that his inspection marks had been
tampered with. He could use paint instead but how would he be able to fit into
the tight spaces carrying a pot of paint?
His
solution was to re-apply the ticks, but with an additional oversized legend
stating that "Kilroy was Here" which made the tampering more
difficult. He later added the famous 'eyes and nose peering over a wall'
sketch.
The message
was clear to all the workers - "don't tamper with Kilroy's inspections!" and indeed, as a result, the tampering ceased.
In
peacetime, all ships would have been painted over, obliterating Kilroy's
artwork, but due to time constraints and the need to deliver the ships as soon
as possible to the theatre of war, they were launched with the sketches intact.
When the
ships appeared in parts of Europe and the Far East, the servicemen had no idea
about the history of the legend and soon played a game of seeing how many
locations they could spot the "Kilroy was Here" motif around the
world. Simply put, Kilroy became ubiquitous.
After the
war, the motif was replicated in locations as remote as Mount Everest and the
Arc de Triomphe.
There is
even a story that, when the Nazis found the motif on a piece of captured
American equipment, Hitler thought that Kilroy was the identity of a high-level
spy!
I've
related this story because of something similar that happened to me recently.
A few
months ago, my eldest daughter, Hadassah felt that she wanted to discover a
little more about her origins and bought a DNA kit from the Israeli based
website "My Heritage". She duly sent off the results and when they
came back, she found out that she was mostly Ashkenazi with some Sephardi
connections, due to her maternal grandmother's Greek background, which the
family traced back to Spain and the inquisition.
She asked
me to have myself tested.
Initially,
I was reluctant, not least because these tests are still in their infancy and
there is quite a lot of scientific scepticism as to their authenticity and
reliability. They are also relatively expensive.
The Black
Friday discounts duly rolled up and so I decided to take the plunge. I bought a
kit, swabbed my cheeks and returned the package to the US, just after Xmas.
And I waited....and
waited.
I'll be
honest, by now, I was quite intrigued as to the result that would come back!
(In
passing, I was almost amused when I went to post the package at a Post Office
in Edgware and the lady immediately asked me if I was sending a DNA kit.
Apparently, I'm not the first Jewish person in the vicinity to do so!)
About a
fortnight ago, the result came back. I checked online, with bated breath.
Was I 13%
Spanish, 15% Turkish, perhaps 3% Chinese....."
No, unlike
my daughter, I am, at least
according to the results....100% Ashkenazi.
And not
only that, the map they provide links me to no less than seven countries,
without a by-your-leave of individual percentages. I'm a pure Jewish European
thoroughbred!
Was I
disappointed?
Completely.
I felt that I'd been diddled out of my hard-earned cash.
I could
have used the money to pay for a very nice meal at the Aviv in Edgware (for
two, noch)!
But then I
got to thinking....
If you look
at this week's Parsha, we find our ancestors eagerly encamped at the bottom of
Mount Sinai, where-ever it may be found in the vast deserts of the Middle East.
Gd presents a set of laws to a nation, barely free from centuries' long slavery
by the most powerful empire in the known world.
In a
desert.
Ten
Commandments (literally, the Ten Statements) that literally rocked the
mountain.
(17) Moses
led the people out of the camp toward God, and they took their places at the
foot of the mountain. (18) Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke, for the LORD had
come down upon it in fire; the smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln, and the
whole mountain trembled violently.
A pretty
incredible sight.
Yet, within
five weeks, Gd is threatening to destroy the nation and rebuild a new one from
Moshe....and within two years, from the point of their departure, they are on
the verge of being obliterated once again as the spies relate their deceitful
travelogue - perhaps the first instance of 'fake news'.
If we think
about it, had Moshe not interceded, the nation of Israel could possibly have
ended its travails in the desert and the Torah might have disappeared alongside
them.
But that's
not what happened.
They
survived and the revolutionary moral code carved into those rocks (albeit a
second time) travelled far beyond the sand dunes of Sinai.
They now
form the basis of a book that is literally the DNA of the three monotheistic
religions and their message is communicated by billions of people around the
world.
My
ancestors lived amongst those people - scattered around Europe, keeping
the Jewish flame alive, through thick and thin, through poverty and perhaps a
touch of wealth, through pogroms and national wars. The self-same Torah, given
at Mount Sinai, way down south, could be located in every rivet that held their
faith together in the shtetlech of Poland and White Russia.
Before
Kilroy, the Torah - was Here.
And so,
when I think about it, although it would be nice to have a little more
information, the fact that I can say (at least if you believe the evidence)
that I am 100% Ashkenazi fills me with a great sense of pride. That, despite
everything my folks went through, here I am.
This week's
Parsha, which provides us with our spiritual DNA, reminds us that when Hashem
took our people out of Egypt, it didn't matter where in the world the Torah
ended up.
From
Anchorage to Adelaide and everywhere in-between, the Jewish People and the Holy
book that we share with the world around, have become the ultimate Kilroy!
And that
dear friends, is nothing short of riveting.
Shabbat
Shalom.
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