But I do not want to give the impression that I was what’s been referred to as an “academic bum” during my graduate school years. There was constant klal or communal activity, including a great deal of voluntary work for Agudath Israel and Torah Schools for Israel or Chinuch Atzmai, both of which entailed significant contact with Rav Aharon Kotler, zt”l. My first published articles appeared during these years.
On top of all of this, there was what may be regarded as more formal work, including in Schick’s Bakery on Thursday night and Friday until 1959 when my mother sold the bakery. It was also in the late 1950s that I began to teach social studies at the newly established high school of Yeshiva Samson R. Hirsch in Washington Heights, a delightful experience that brought the additional great blessing named Malka.
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In fact, there was much else at NYU to occupy my time. I was especially close to several professors, notably Albert Somit and Joseph Tanenhaus, whose son, Sam Tanenhaus, is a distinguished author and among much else has served as the editor of the Sunday New York Times Book Review.
Professors Somit and Tanenhaus had collaborated on a major work on higher education in the United States. When James Hester, still a young man, became NYU’s president, he asked them to recommend a graduate student who would serve as his assistant. They enthusiastically recommended me for the position; Hester demurred, the reason being that during my student days – but not later when I taught at Hunter College – I wore a yarmulke and he thought this would complicate the role he would want his assistant to play.
NYU treated me handsomely, including with what I was told was the largest fellowship then being given to any graduate student.
My recollection is that Professor Somit and I collaborated on research examining the number of books in the homes of NYU students, the thrust being to determine whether there was a correlation between the number of books and ethnic/religious background. Not unexpectedly, this research yielded the revelation that there were many more books in the homes of Jewish students than in the homes of students from any other ethnic or religious group. The January 1963 issue of American Behavioral Scientist, a long-defunct scholarly publication, has an article by Marvin Schick and Albert Somit titled “The Failure to Teach Political Activity.”
This research also formed the basis of my master’s thesis. As I did not type and still do not, meaning that a computer is foreign territory for me, that document was handwritten. As I was bringing it by subway to the person engaged to do the typing, I managed to lose it. I am proud to note that, undaunted, I sat down and rewrote the thesis and ultimately managed to get it to the typist.
By far, the more important research arose from my association with Professor Tanenhaus. In an early course that I took with him, I examined amicus curiae or friend of the court briefs submitted by organizations, including Jewish groups, in civil liberties and civil rights cases. The point of the research was to see whether these briefs added anything of consequence to the arguments submitted by lawyers for the parties in these cases. They did not.
As part of this project, I arranged to see Leo Pfeffer, the general counsel of the American Jewish Congress and probably the leading civil liberties lawyer during this period. Pfeffer was raised on the Lower East Side and was the son of an Orthodox rabbi. He turned bitterly against religion and this was evident in his legal work. When I walked into his office and he saw the yarmulke on my head, he turned hostile. We did not have a pleasant meeting.
