Arnold White
This is Bill Cohen for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society. The date is April 19, 2022, and I’m in the home of Arnie White in Bexley. We’re going to talk with him about his many, many years in the Jewish community.
Interviewer: Arnie, let’s start with your ancestors. Can you go back at all a generation or two, maybe, and tell us? Do you know where your parents or grandparents may have come from and what they did?
White: Well, I’m a first generation American. My father came from Zhitomer which is, I’m told, about 75 miles from Kiev in the Ukraine.
Interviewer: Can you spell that town?
White: I’ve seen it spelled at least 5, 6 ways. Zhtemyr, I think I saw one but it’s a known town. Anybody who would know geography. Sometimes its on CNN. It showed it as a town to the northwest of Kiev.
Interviewer: Because of the current war.
White: Because of the current war, yes, yes. He was from there. My mother was from Lithuania, but I don’t know the town. I think it’s the big one starting with a V (Vilna, Vilnius) but I don’t know. She came over when she was three. Because both of them and all of my relatives have passed, there’s nobody I can ask where she came from. A couple of stories about them, my uncle, my father’s brother was destined to be in the Czar’s army around the turn of the century, 20th century, maybe 1899, somewhere around there.
The Jews in the Russian army because Russia at the time, I think, controlled that part of Ukraine, would use Jews as what they called cannon fodder. That is that they would take all the Jews, make them look like they’re armed, sometimes to the extent of giving them wooden guns, just a piece of wood that looked like a gun, and then have them run towards the enemy. In this case, I think the enemy coming up would be the Japanese. When the enemy ran out of cannon balls, then the Russian cavalry would come and defeat the enemy. My uncle apparently was really not excited about serving in that role for the good Czar who had always been so good to Jews so he left, ran away to America.
When my uncle came, then my grandfather, I think, and my father and the rest of the family came, following that. I did not know my grandfather or that uncle because they had died before I was born. The uncle started a mattress factory here in town which later was where Yenkin Majestic had their paint store (factory). My dad told me that that used to be his mattress factory.
Interviewer: Would that have been near Fifth Ave. and Leonard?
White: Correct, that same area. My uncle had the mattress factory and then later he died. My father took it over and lost it during the war, or maybe a little after WWII. He told me that he couldn’t get springs, couldn’t get metal. The only way to get metal, he said, was to bribe the government officials to get it and he wouldn’t do it and lost the factory. I don’t know the truth of that but, anyway, that’s what the story was.
Interviewer: Let’s make sure we get the names of your father and mother.
White: My mother was Alice White. My father was Julius White. Oh, that’s a story too. My uncle was Joseph, no, I think my uncle was Jack and my grandfather was Joseph. Yes, I think that’s the way it works. My grandfather, as I say, had died before I was born. My mother was 43 when I was born so she could have been my grandmother.
Interviewer: Your mother’s name was?
White: Alice White but she was a Goldberg from Louisville.
Interviewer: Alice Goldberg,
White: Alice Goldberg from…
Interviewer: Louisville, Kentucky.
White: Correct.
Interviewer: Do you know how your parents met?
White: I know a little bit about that. Before I forget, let me tell you I grew up thinking that my name, White, came from Ellis Island when they couldn’t come up with names and they’d say your name is Blue, your name is Green, your name is White. I had always thought that until a couple years ago at the Jewish Center. I told this story and there was a couple of Russians there and I said my father said something like they told him that his name was Broden. They said, “What.” “Broden.” They said, “Okay, your name is White.” We got the name White. He said, “No Arnie, that’s not it. In Russian broden means white.” So, it’s the same thing like when I went to Spain, no Italy, I told people my name’s White. I told people my name is Arnaldo Bianco. It’s same kind of thing, Bianco, White. Broden is White in Russian, at least that’s what I’ve been told. My mother, Alice Goldberg, was in Louisville and I think she was one of five or six kids. Her mother died, no, her mother was very sick and she lived in a home for kids in Louisville with the rest of the family because my grandfather couldn’t take care of her. I don’t know if that’s the correct story or not but that’s the story I heard. Others have told me they doubt the veracity, exactly how that worked. My cousin who is the daughter of my first cousin was a psychiatrist in Louisville. She is of the opinion that my grandfather, my mother’s father was abusive and that’s why the kids were in the home because, as she looked at her grandmother and my mother, and all the other sisters, she says they all looked like people who were children of child abuse. I don’t know. That’s another bubba meinza of my family. Anyway, they lived in Louisville. During the Depression, I don’t know how, but my father either had a date with her or had some contact with her, my mother, and they started communicating. He would write love letters to her. She became fond of him, and they married during the Depression and moved to Detroit for a while, then came back to Columbus. He lived in Columbus. Some of his family was there. His sisters, I don’t know in the Depression but sometime around there, one of his sisters always lived in New York and one of his sisters moved around. The sister in New York was married and had two children. My aunt, his sister who lived permanently in New York was married to a trombonist for the symphony. He played with the Cleveland Symphony and he played with the New York Philharmonic. When he retired, he put away his sax and he never played again. After playing all those years, they said he never took it out again and never played another note. So that’s my aunt, my uncle, let’s see who else. My aunt in Louisville was married to a guy who had housing that he rented and sold on land contracts in those days, which in Kentucky law, like most states, when you can’t make a payment or two, you take back the property, no matter how many years they’ve been paying on it. He also had a business, his main business which was, he manufactured brass combs, electric combs for black people to straighten their hair.
Interviewer: Who did this?
White: My aunt’s husband.
Interviewer: This was in Louisville?
White: This was in Louisville. He had one of the few factories in America that would make brass easers. It had a handle with a cord and the brass would come out in a comb and then you could comb your hair and you could straighten your hair with the heat. Let’s see, they always used to fight. They fought all the time.
Interviewer: When you say they fought, your aunt and uncle?
White: I remember one time I was there and she threw a telephone at him (laughs). In those days the telephone weighed a lot. They just had a lot of fun. Her other sister, my aunt, again I never met because I was much younger. Remember, I’m telling you, I have the benefit of being able to tell you stories. The disadvantage is the stories are second hand or third hand because so many people I didn’t know.
Interviewer: Let’s get back to Columbus, okay. You were born in what year?
White: October 7, 1944, during the war
Interviewer: Your house was located where?
White: 1015 Bulen Avenue. I was one block from the synagogue, from the old Beth Jacob.
Interviewer: What are your memories from your early childhood there?
White: Well, let’s see, I was the first Bar Mitzvah of Rabbi Stavsky when he came to town. My mother was president of the Sisterhood. We welcomed him and I babysat at his house and took care of his daughter, babysat for his daughter.
Interviewer: Son?
White: No just the daughter. Let’s see, what else, we were Orthodox. Let’s see, I can remember two guys from temple. I don’t know why I remember this story. It’s a little one, not much. Two guys at the synagogue were both, I think, in the camps during the holocaust. They used to, both at schul and the luncheons for the Bar Mitzvahs afterwards or weddings or whatever get togethers.
They would sit across from each other, one head looking one way and one head looking the opposite way and not look at each other’s faces and talk at the side of the mouth like this without moving their lips. It was a habit that they had, I guess, developed during the camps because you weren’t allowed to talk. (audibly demonstrates how they talked). You look at them and say, “Why don’t you just look at each other and talk.” They wouldn’t do it.
Interviewer: Fascinating, another piece of history. Do you remember your parents, or others, or the rabbi when you were five or ten, or twelve? Did they talk much about the holocaust?
White: No. I mean the rabbi did at sermons. My family came from Russia. We didn’t, and we came at the turn of the century, so we lost nobody that I know of in the camps or in Germany. I don’t know if there was any family left. I don’t know if they all came here, or there were still some people. To my knowledge, my family never talked about anybody who was still there. No, I can’t help you on that one.
Interviewer: You went to elementary school, public elementary school?
White: I went to Fairwood Avenue Elementary School, Roosevelt Junior High School and South High School. I was one of the few Jews at South High School.
Interviewer: Before we get to high school, when you were in elementary and junior high, were there many Jews at your school? What was that like?
White: The Jewish population was moving eastward, and we were one of the last to move. One story I remember when I was at Fairwood elementary, a new girl came to the school. They’d come from New York, and she was dressed oh so pretty, with an umbrella, just looked like a fashion plate. Her name was Susan Wexner, Les’s sister. They came and they opened up a little store on High Street. The father then had the son working in the store. The son wanted to go out on his own, build his own empire. The father didn’t think it would work. I don’t know how Les got his money. Somebody loaned it to him, I think an uncle or a friend, or whatever. He started the store. The rest is history. I remember her coming to my school.
Interviewer: You remember Les Wexner’s sister.
White: I don’t remember Les.
Interviewer: He would have been a little older.
White: Considerably.
Interviewer: I think five years.
White: Yes. My sister was 14 years older. My brother was 10 years older. My other brother was 3 ½ years older than me.
Interviewer: When you were in elementary and junior high, early childhood, did the Jews and the non-Jews get along in your neighborhood?
White: Sure. Yeah, in high school I was class president, so I guess I got along. I was a student body vice president, class president, treasurer of the drama club, concert master of the orchestra, announcer for the band, etc.
Interviewer: Wow. You graduated South in 1962. You were one of the last Jews still there.
White: Mickey Landau, Michele Landau and I. Carol Gurevitz was there.
Interviewer: Just a handful?
White: Not that many, Marcia Mendelman.
Interviewer: There were very few Jews left. All the other Jews had then moved to Eastmoor, Bexley, Berwick?
White: Correct. That’s right. Another story about my school, South, just to tell you socio-economically, compared to my wife who went to Bexley. She started the tenth grade with I think maybe 195 kids and graduated maybe 191 kids. I started with 1800 kids and graduated with 188.
Interviewer: Say that again.
White: We started school. The school had a population of 1800.
Interviewer: The entire school?
White: Yeah, three grades, 10, 11, 12, and we graduated 188. Our class was a little less than 1,000, graduated 188.
Interviewer: Only one in five of your classmates graduated.
White: 288, I’m sorry, 288.
Interviewer: So, about one out of three graduated South High whereas 95% graduated from Bexley.
White: Right, and the principal, I still remember this, when we came for orientation, 10th grade, he said, “Look to your left. Look to your right. Statistically, one of you will graduate. I hope your class is different.” So, it’s a whole different mind set in a school where people are dropping out. I mean we lost two dozen girls in our senior semester, from Franklinton.
Interviewer: What was it like being one of just a very few Jews in a school like South High?
White: Oh, it was … it was the only world I knew. I lived two worlds. I lived in the Jewish world, spending a lot of time with AZA and then other things, and bar mitzvahs and all the rest in the Jewish world and lived what I called the secular world at South high school where I was very active in my school and my class and grades and all the rest. The two worlds practically did not have any connection to one another. I literally, I think it was on Tuesday nights we had AZA meetings and I would go to school, then go to AZA, come home, do my homework and live almost a completely bifurcated life.
Interviewer: It wasn’t a problem. You were successful in both worlds.
White: Yeah, I thought so. I don’t know how you measure success. Yeah, I seemed happy in doing both. I was concert master of the orchestra also. What time I did have, I was always busy. I was always busy, so I was either practicing my violin or I was studying, or I was vice president of the Morah of the AZA class, recruiting people to join AZA.
Interviewer: AZA, were they active at the Jewish Center?
White: Yes, the old Jewish Center.
Interviewer: The old Jewish Center, but on College Ave.?
White: Yeah, it was located where the parking lot is now. Do you recall when they decided the new Jewish Center? Were you there at that meeting?
Interviewer: I wasn’t at that meeting. Would this have to do with whether the bowling alleys should remain?
White: No, no. It had to do with where the Center would be. Bill Goldman worked for George Skestos, a developer who developed a lot of Gahanna. George said he had a plot of land way out East to form the new Jewish Center. A big battle arose between particularly those who lived in Reynoldsburg and far east, they wanted the Center to move, and others wanted it to stay here. Bill was president of the Center, I think. Whatever it is, he ran the meeting. I don’t know what his role was. I think he was president of the Center, and they had a big meeting. I mean it was packed.
The old Jewish Center auditorium was just walk out the door, standing room only. They had a discussion. It was very polite and spirited, strong feelings. It was finally decided that they would stay where they are and they would build the new Jewish Center on the parking lot to the south of the old Jewish Center, keep the old Jewish Center active until we could move into the new one. Skestos never sold the land to the Center.
Interviewer: That meeting would have been approximately what year?
White: Well, if you’d look at the cornerstone of the new Center, it was probably two years before that.
Interviewer: So, back at South high you were probably in two different worlds, the Jewish world and the secular world as you put it. What was that like for you among the Jewish teenagers who were all in Bexley, Berwick, Eastmoor? What was that like to be one of the very few kids who didn’t live in that neighborhood?
White: There was some prejudice, there was some. It was kind of like, “Where do you go to school?”, “South.” So, they had nothing else to say. I was the outsider in both groups, not an enemy, but an outsider, because I wasn’t really a part of either one but I kind of thought of it like a, what do they call them, not Mormons, the Seventh Day Adventists that they are witnesses to the world andnot part of the world, something like that. I was a little bit of an outsider in both camps. That’s what it was like for me. You know, I just had to adjust to it and keep on going.
Interviewer: For a teenager who wants to belong and, at least back then, it seemed as if everybody wanted to be the same. People didn’t want to be different, but you were different.
White: Couldn’t help it. Yeah, I was different. I was always the odd man out, but I had some friends who could overcome that, Ted Fisher. He was still in Columbus and a prominent member of the community, was a very good friend of mine and he and Barbara Tapper and I had a folk singing trio.
Interviewer: Tell us about that.
White: Ted and I started in our senior year, junior year of high school and through college we sang our way, making money and working as a trio, something like Peter, Paul, and Mary. Ted would write the arrangements. No new songs, they were all somebody else’s. I would try and get the bookings. It was two guitars and three voices. We sang for Bar Mitzvahs, for hootenannies. We sang at a bar up in Marion one summer. We had a gig there every week, every Wednesday. It was really hard because we would get home around two in the morning and I had to go to work in the morning, but it was kind of fun. We really enjoyed it.
Interviewer: This would have been after high school?
White: Yeah, 1961, I think we got started, Ted and I. Maybe 1963, we added Barbara to the group. We sang all the way through 1966, singing songs of all sorts. The Schiff family had a hootenanny in their back yard. We sang there and we did a commercial for the Schiffs.
Interviewer: Schiff’s Shoes?
White: Schiff’s Shoes. (Sings) See you Schiff Shoe man, he’s the best, something all the rest. I forget, but it went into a minor key. Anyway, we did a commercial.
Interviewer: Is this a radio or a TV commercial?
White: Radio, and it was heard in five states.
Interviewer: Folk music being used to sell Schiff’s Shoes.
White: Yep, that’s correct.
Interviewer: Because folk music in the 60’s was very big.
White: Yeah.
Interviewer: What was the name of your group?
White: The Town Criers. We tried to be a little different. We wore sport coats. We had tan sport coats with leather patches and a white shirt and a tie.
Interviewer: Even the female in the group?
White: No, she dressed otherwise. We did it, who was that group? I’m sure you know them, you remember. They had a base player who was a professor of music and a high-sounding voice.
Interviewer: The Limelighters?
White: The Limelighters. We looked somewhat like the Limelighters because they wore suits and ties, the Limelighters, that’s who it was.
Interviewer: You graduated South high in 1962 and then?
White: Then went to Ohio State. I had a scholarship and went to Ohio State. I had two scholarships, one from Ohio State and one from my school. They started a scholarship. I don’t know if the Alumni Association or whatever, but I got a couple bucks from my school, as well.
Interviewer: From South high?
White: South.
Interviewer: Your major was Economics with a minor in History. You later became a lawyer. Did you know you wanted to be a lawyer all this time?
White: No, I was not going to be a lawyer. I was going to get a law degree and be a politician. As I look back on it, it was absolutely the dumbest idea I ever had because, as I found out, I ran twice for office, once as a County Commissioner of Franklin County and once as a Court of Appeals judge. There are two qualities for politicians, not judges, but politicians that you need to be successful. One is to be able to raise money, ask people to their face to give me some of your money so I can run. The second quality you have to have is the ability to lie, to say things in a way that would be attractive to one group and something else to a group otherwise. I don’t have either of those qualities. Why I thought that preparation and competence and experience would prevail, I have no idea how I got that foolish notion into my head. It was proven to be wrong twice, but I almost knocked off the County Commissioner who had been there for many years, Robert Southwick who owned a funeral home. When I ran for judge, I ran against Albert Whiteside who had been there for many years. When I was running, in the midst of the campaign for judge, I developed cancer and had to drop. I didn’t drop out of the race, I just floated till the election. I lost the election because I wasn’t campaigning in the last six weeks which is the most critical time.
Interviewer: We’ll talk about your cancer and your health issues in a little bit. I want to make sure we fill in, maybe the late 60’s and 70’s. You did go to law school though?
White: I had a half scholarship to American University in Washington D.C., and it was a wonderful place, experience for me. I spent the first year and a half working for Senator Lausche, Frank Lausche, the long-time politician, one of the longest serving politicians in Ohio history, probably as long as Rhoads, Jim Rhoads. He was elected Senator twice, that’s 12 years. I think he was elected Governor. They were two-year terms then. I think he got elected four, five, six times as Governor and was perhaps Mayor of Cleveland before that so he had a very long experience. I went to Washington. That’s another story, I went to Washington during the summer to look for a job and to see what it would be like to go to a law school that was Methodist. Ohio State had a fairly large Jewish population and I thought, a Methodist school, I’m not quite sure. I almost got a scholarship to Notre Dame but they backed off. I can tell you that one if you’re interested. Let me finish about the other first. I went for an afternoon and sat in on a class at American where I was going to go, the Methodist school. The teacher took the roll. By the roll itself, just by the names, about half the class was Jewish. Later, when I was there, I think as a junior or senior, the Methodists gave up on American and stopped funding it because they didn’t have enough students there, it was all Jewish. The school was an amazingly high level of Jewish population, both undergraduate and the law school. At American, another interesting story to tell you what life was like in the 60’s. Notre Dame was becoming ecumenical. This is 1962.
My brother, who was a lawyer, had friends. He worked at the Attorney General’s office and he had two Catholic buddies who worked at the Attorney General’s office and who were on the committee to recommend to Notre Dame students who could take advantage of the Joyce Scholarship. This is a wonderful scholarship that they have, that the Joyce family foundation had given. It would include paying for your laundry, paying for your transportation to and from Notre Dame, books, tuition, room and board, everything. It’s a great scholarship. My grades were good, my SATs were quite good, all the activities that I did, the two guys said, “We don’t know who the Dean is going to select, but tell your brother to pack his bags.” I was pretty excited about it, but a little unsure, because being a school that was almost entirely Catholic. Oh, they also guaranteed that I wouldn’t have to go to prayers. I was really excited about it. Meanwhile, while I wasn’t looking and they weren’t either. Bishop Hartley had a guy who wanted to go, whose grades were not as good as mine, who had the SATs not as good as mine, who had practically no activities. The head of the Bishop Hartley contacted the Bishop from Columbus who contacted the head of Notre Dame and that was it. I lost the scholarship. The guys who were on the committee were so thrilled with their decision that they resigned and said, “If that’s the level that you believe in our recommendations, screw you.” They resigned from the committee to recommend students to get this Joyce Scholarship. That was how I went to Ohio
State and not to Notre Dame. Notre Dame did not become ecumenical. It never became what they told me it was going to become.
Interviewer: Before we move on, I forgot to let you talk a little about when you were younger, when you were living on Bulen, whereas many of the other kids had moved eastward. Do you remember much about the neighborhood there? For instance, Martins Kosher Foods was still on Livingston until about 1952. Do you remember its original location going there?
White: We didn’t go there. My mom went to Mendelman’s which was the other kosher (butcher) and they were, gosh I don’t know, two three blocks east of Parsons on Livingston as well. Minnie Mendelman, which I always thought that name, Minnie Mendelman, and Sid Mendelman owned the butcher shop and he was the butcher, literally a butcher in those days. I mean, he got a side of beef and the shochet came and made sure it was kosher and all the rest. He chopped up the meat unlike when you go to the store today and you look at the guy in the white coat. He doesn’t even know how to cut a side of beef, but Sid did. Sid and Minnie would fight constantly in the store, at each other. (Mimics) “Leave me alone, for God sakes, I’m trying to get my work done.” They would yell back and forth in the store. I remember that they had a wooden floor, rough wood, dirty wood on the floor, and it had a refrigerated case where the meats were, long and skinny. It’s about all I remember from it. The Mendelmans, they were very good to us. They kept a tab because we didn’t have much money. In those days we didn’t have credit cards. They just helped us out.
Interviewer: You could basically charge things without a credit card. You would owe them money, eventually you would pay.
White: Correct.
Interviewer: Mendelman’s was located where again?
White: I think about three, four blocks east of Parsons and Livingston on Livingston. (It actually was not even one block. Wager Street was the first block east of Parsons and Mendelmans was between Parsons and Wager Street on Livingston.) Martins was farther east and then there was also Hepps. I don’t know much about it, but they also had a place. On Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, we walked to schul when Beth Jacob was still off of Washington and what was that other street?
Interviewer: Bulen?
White: No, it wasn’t on Bulen. It was before that. There were three synagogues right near each other. I mean 100 yards from each other, 200 yards from each other. There was Beth Jacob, Agudas Achim and Ahavas Sholom. They were, let’s see, Carpenter and a little bit farther towards Parsons. I think it was a couple blocks past Parsons. Not only were Blacks displaced by the freeway system, so were Jews, because that was an intensely Jewish area. The synagogues were there, Schwartz Bakery was there. That whole area that is now the freeway and Nationwide Children’s Hospital, that area was intensely Jewish.
Interviewer: You’re talking about when Interstate 70, the East-West Thruway went in. That’s when it displaced Blacks and Jews.
White: Yes. The Blacks and Jews were not together. The Jews were South, the Blacks were North, along Mt. Vernon, Spring, that area. We were maybe to Main Street, yeah Main Street, South.
Tifereth Israel was off of Parsons. I don’t remember. That was before me, but it was called the Hungarian synagogue. I used to know why, but Tifereth Israel has a history of that. They were there as well. The Jewish population was there. We used to walk. As a child of 7, 8, 9 years old, we’d walk from Bulen to Parsons to go to schul.
Interviewer: Then one of the synagogues moved to Bulen?
White: Beth Jacob moved to Bulen. Agudas Achim moved to Broad Street. Ahavas Sholom was on South Ohio Avenue and then moved to Broad Street, where they are now. I remember those old ones and I remember the men were downstairs, the women were upstairs in Beth Jacob. The schul was, there’s a name for it. The balcony looked like this, three-sided balcony looking down onto the alter which, I don’t remember whether the altar was against the wall. I don’t think so. I think it was away from the wall like you’ve seen in some eastern European synagogues where the altar is actually not against the wall but sort of in the middle of the room. We would have to walk upstairs, and it was hot as hell. The women had to suffer through that because the men were downstairs where it was much cooler. They didn’t have any problems with the Mehitzah, curtains separation of men and women because the women were upstairs with the children and the men were downstairs. That’s just the way it was.
Interviewer: You were a child, so you suffered through the heat.
White: Yeah, I was too young to be downstairs. My Bar Mitzvah was on Bulen, so I had to be much younger than 13. The Bulen synagogue was built long before then. As a matter of fact, in 1957, I can tell you another story that would be of some interest. In 1957 there was the flood here in Columbus. It was a massive flood. Where you are now, it was under water. It was mostly under water. They were floating across Broad Street and Nelson Road. Alum Creek had risen that high. Beth Jacob also flooded. The basement flooded and there was three feet of water in the social hall which was down below. Because we lived so close and my mom was so active, we went there to inspect what was happening, a friend of mine and I. In those days they didn’t have folding tables for dinners, and bar mitzvahs, and weddings and stuff like that. They had tables that were made from wood, that somebody made, and then they screwed in pipe for the legs so it was a big deal when they set up. It took many hours because you had to screw in all the legs. When it was done, you unscrewed them, put the legs one place and piled the stack of wood tables in another. A friend of mine and I, Steve Schacter, whose grandson was killed in Florida in the shootings recently, a few years ago with the shooter. What’s it called?
Interviewer: The school shooting?
White: In Florida. You know, it’s a famous one. Anyway, his grandson was one of those who got killed there. Anyway, he and I and I think one other person, the wooden tables started to float, we got on the tables with mops and we were Huckleberry Fin down the Mississippi, went all through the social hall floating on these wood tables. (Laughs).
Interviewer: You were using the mops as oars.
White: Yeah. (Laughs).
Interviewer: What a memory. You graduated law school from OSU.
White: No, from American.
Interviewer: From American in 1969. What happened? What did you do then?
White: Then the war was going on, Viet Nam. I decided to become a parole officer. I had to make a decision because I still had a year and a half. The deferment for law school was over and I had a year and a half, and I had to make a decision about what to do about the war. I didn’t believe in the war. I didn’t know why exactly but just seemed to me that this was not something that America should be doing. It seemed to me like it was a civil war but whatever it was, it didn’t look right to me. I did not have the enthusiasm of people that I knew who had joined WWII where they knew why they were going to war, and they volunteered to go to war. I was not one of those. At the same time, some of my fellow Americans were doing the war and protecting the country while others were not. I could have gotten a job as a teacher. I thought, well, that’s nice, so I decided, my brother worked it out. He worked at the Youth Commission, and I found a job at the Adult Parole Authority. There’s no guarantee, even when you get a job, that you would get the deferment. So, I had this wonderful tale of another story of going to my Parole Board. What’s the board called?
Interviewer: Selective Service board, draft board.
White: Draft Board, that was the word I was looking for. I went to my Draft Board and had my meeting with them to see whether or not I would get my deferment. I said to them, “Look, if you send me, I’ll go.” I didn’t want to. I didn’t say I didn’t want to. I said, “I’ll go. I just want to tell you what I do for a living. I’m a Parole Officer with the Adult Parole Authority.” I brought my book. I said, “I’ve done some calculations here, I’ve got 13 bad check charges, 14 burglaries, 12 robbers, ending up with about 7 murderers.”
Interviewer: These are the convicts you are watching over who’d been freed.
White: Correct, on parole.
Interviewer: On parole and you’re watching over them?
White: Correct, and I’m their parole officer. I’m their PO. I said, “These 72 guys are under my, they’re my responsibility to try to get them back into society and these are some of my tools.” I took my handcuffs and deliberately dropped them an inch and a half above the table (drops something) and they kind of jumped as they heard the noise of the handcuffs hitting the table. “I could be armed but I’d chosen not to learn to carry a weapon. I’m responsible for these guys. I can arrest them. I can send them back to prison. I try to rehabilitate them. I try to help them out. If you want me to go, I’ll go. The choice is yours.” They weren’t listening to me. They were looking at those handcuffs like they were strange devices back from medieval times and they gave me my deferment. I spent a year and a half as a parole officer. I had the beginning of drug dealers. It wasn’t that big a deal in those days like it got to be when law enforcement decided to make drugs the biggest problem in the country. Reported crime is about 50% of all violations of law.
When law enforcement decides this is going to be the crime of the decade, it becomes a more serious crime than some other, not because it happens more often, necessarily, but because they arrest more people for that crime. That’s reported crime. The crimes they don’t arrest people for doesn’t get the newspaper coverage. You know that better than I do, Bill. We didn’t have that much crime, but I had a couple of guys, drug dealers, who were on my tally. It was quite an impressive time for me. I really learned a lot about what it’s like to be on the other side of that and how society treats the criminal and who gets to be a criminal. As we have later learned through cast and the new Jim Crow, we see how crime is a sociological factor, not necessarily about violating the law but creating the laws by which we can say that people are violators. As the new Jim Crow indicates, there are criminals, that Nixon needed a southern strategy. His strategy was he had to eliminate a lot of southern Blacks. Well, the Supreme Court said they could vote so now what do you do? Well, how are you going to get them not to vote? You no longer can have a poll tax. You can’t have a real estate ownership. What are you going to do to prevent them from voting? Well, put them in jail. How do you do that? Drugs, drugs, that’s the answer, so they started to make drugs a big deal. Distinctions like crack cocaine versus the white powder that you sniff up your nose were made so that the Blacks would be in prison and the Whites would not. Over a million young men went to prison for drugs and marijuana of course. Oh, marijuana, absolutely that, when we can get them all. They wiped out tens of thousands, maybe millions of the Blacks in the South, particularly. That was part of his (Nixon’s) southern strategy and Reagan went along with him. Just say no.
Interviewer: Did your time as a parole officer, did your experiences during that time push you in a more liberal direction in terms of your political thinking or were you always?
White: I probably was somewhat but not as much. I mean I was torn between Kennedy and Nixon. I wasn’t all that thrilled with Kennedy. He talked well but I didn’t think that he accomplished much. I think had he finished his first term, I doubt that he would have had a second. I do not think that anything would have been accomplished. It was Johnson who put through Kennedy’s agenda. I don’t think Kennedy could have done it himself. I wouldn’t say that I was a strong liberal. My experience as a parole officer did have major influence on me because I saw how unfair it was for many of the people that I got. It’s worse now, because with computers, you fill out the form, do you have a criminal record, you’re gone. They won’t take you. You’ll never get an interview.
Interviewer: After you left your job as a parole officer?
White: Then I went to the United Community Council. I’ve got another story. United Community Council was an arm of the United Way. The idea came up that why don’t we have the United Way raise the money and United Community Council determine how to spend the money. That way you separate out the fund raisers from those who study how to spend the money and assess the needs of the community. Walter Tarpley was my boss and was an African American who had a lot of respect in the community. Our group was about, maybe seven or eight people of a wide background. We staffed community committees who studied problems and looked at the needs of the community and then looked at how we should spend money to do it. The problem with that was that certain organizations who were fund raisers, I’m sorry, certain organizations had on their board the same people who were fund raisers at United Way. After a while, they threw away United Community Council because, in my opinion, because the fund raisers wanted the money to go to the boards they were also members of. We repeatedly, year after year, said the Bo yScouts shouldn’t get so much money. The Girl Scouts shouldn’t get so much money. The Red Cross shouldn’t get so much money, two or three others that we talked about. The Volunteers of America should get a lot more money. Goodwill should get a lot more money. The settlement houses should get a lot more money. They weren’t sexy. They just weren’t attractive to the fund raisers because they were filled with dirty people who didn’t have jobs and were alcoholics, or whatever. The people who needed the money most didn’t get the money.
Interviewer: You thought that groups working for the poor, as opposed to the middle class, should get more money.
White: Absolutely, because if it’s charity, you want to give it to the people where it would make a bigger difference.
Interviewer: Now we’re in the 1970’s, so that was United Community Council.
White: Yes. I was there for a year and a half, two years, something like that, when John Gilligan got elected Governor. Again through the help of my brother, Joe, I got a job as the chief legal services for the Ohio Department of Urban Affairs. Urban Affairs was the state government department that received all the money for the LEAA program which was the Law Enforcement Assistance Act and the War on Poverty. All the big fund money coming to Ohio other than for transportation, roads and stuff like that, the big federal monies went to this department that funneled it down to the counties and cities. My brother was in charge, who had been one of the directors of the Youth Commission. He was the deputy in charge of distributing the LEAA money, the law enforcement money. The other section was for the rural monies, for Appalachia, and another department for the model cities and the, what was it called? I forget what the other one was, but two poverty programs. I was chief of legal services for that department. The Governor then commissioned a Housing Commission, Housing and Community Development Commission, to come up with legislation regarding the housing problems in Ohio. As staff chief council, I wrote a landlord, tenant bill, a bill to create a housing finance agency, a state planning agency and one or two others that we drafted the legislation for. We had an office of about three lawyers and myself. The landlord/tenant bill, as you know, finally became law. It was modeled after the work that we had done, and I was honored at Cleveland State 20 years later for having developed the landlord/tenant bill.
Interviewer: It generally gave more rights, made it more clear that tenants had more rights.
White: Yes, it really changed 300 years of law from landlord, the lord of the land with the serfs running it, to an urban setting where a land lease is a contract between a lessor and a lessee and certain rights and benefits and certain things you can’t do as a lessor. That law, I’ve been very proud of, that I made a dent in Ohio history. The Housing Finance Agency went through lots of mechanizations, but it did get passed. The Housing Finance Agency legislation finally did pass. There is an HFA here in Ohio. The other bills did not, but that was okay. That was really a highlight of my work for the state of Ohio. Then I drafted a law that merged the Department of Urban Affairs into the Department of Development, and I was head of legal services for the Department of Development. I lobbied and was there. I’ll tell you a funny story. You probably were even there. The story, 2:00 a,m., when the third time around, Governor Gilligan was trying to get his tax bill passed, I don’t know if you remember that, income tax.
Interviewer: This was when he was trying to get a Republican-dominated legislature to approve, for the very first time, a graduated state income tax.
White: Right, correct. It’s 2:00 a.m. and we have now been defeated twice, close but not quite getting to where we wanted. The head of the Democrats in the Senate was, what was his name, from Cleveland, you remember him, in the Senate, he spoke with an Italian accent.
Interviewer: Anthony Calabrese?
White: Anthony Calabrese, he as the head of the Democrats in the Senate, on the second or third go-around, voted against the Governor’s bill. He stands up in the Senate, said, “The people of Ohio should be very proud of their elected officials. They’ve got the finest officials that money can buy.” (Laughs) Well, the place went wild. Even at 2:00 a.m., everybody was laughing because they knew who it was that got bought (laughs).
Interviewer: Did he mean seriously?
White: Yeah, oh yeah, he wasn’t joking. He was quite proud of what he had done. Finally, they got him to come around and the bill, as you know, finally passed. I was part of that effort of the governor to try to get the people to vote for a graduated income tax which the Republicans now are working very hard to undo.
Interviewer: When did you meet your later wife?
White: There was no earlier wife (laughs).
Interviewer: When did you meet the woman who would later become your wife?
White: In 1969, when I was studying for the bar exam, I worked for the City of Columbus, for Mayor Sensenbrenner, working on a project to hire kids to clean up the East Side. General Del Corso, a name from the past at Kent State.
Interviewer: The National Guard.
White: The National Guard, was good to his word. Though we had riots in Ohio, he nevertheless gave us some of the National Guard trucks to carry the garbage that these kids picked up and take them to the dump, take the garbage to the dump. He gave us the trucks that made our program work. I’m working that program, studying for the bar exam, which for most people, they didn’t work. They were just studying for the bar. I’m studying for the bar and working full time and my father is dying at Mt. Carmel. I think it’s where Riverside is now, way back when. (White Cross?) All those things are going on at the same time. The test is in July. I think, before the test, I met a guy studying for the bar, and he had one date with Marilyn Levinsky. His name was Rick Levinsky. On his second date, he asked Marilyn, she had a friend, he had a friend, and so Susan and I had our first date, blind date. We doubled with what later became the Levinskys. They got married. We got married. They had a child. We had a child. They had a second child. We had a second child. We had a second child. They had a third child. We had a third and a fourth child. They later got divorced, but we did not. So that’s how I met Susan.
Interviewer: Susan was a Bexley graduate?
White: She was. She was a Bexley graduate and was so different from me. She was a Bexley graduate. She was the oldest of the children in her family. I was by far the youngest child in my family. They came to this country in the 1880’s or 70’s. My family came much later than that. Her grandparents were born in America. I was a first generation American. Her family for Reform at Temple Israel. My family was Orthodox at Beth Jacob. We had an extremely different background. Our wedding was the beginning of a new type of ecumenicalism between Reform Jews and Orthodox Jews. Rabbi Stavsky and Rabbi Folkman, Dr. Folkman, he didn’t like the term rabbi, got together to have a wedding at Temple Israel that would be officiated by Rabbi Stavsky and Dr. Folkman.
Interviewer: Folkman was the Reform rabbi. Stavsky was the Orthodox rabbi, and they agreed to work together.
White: They agreed to work together to see how this would work. They tried it out. My wife’s brother had hair down to his shoulders. Dr. Folkman didn’t want yarmulkes, Rabbi Stavsky insisted there be yarmulkes. There was a Ketuba. Every convention of the Orthodox, Dr. Folkman was very big on putting aside such traditions and moving to a new direction and getting rid of the traditions of the past. Rabbi Stavsky was insisting on keeping things as they had been for centuries. I did not receive the Henry Kissinger award for diplomacy, but I thought I deserved it in trying to negotiate matters that I had no idea would be so complex. We eventually worked through every single one of them. Yarmulkes were provided at Temple Israel which Dr. Folkman didn’t like but the compromise was they would be optional. We did have a huppa and the Service came about, and we did get married. Both rabbis were so excited about the experience that they decided never again to do it.
Interviewer: Never to work together?
White: Well, I don’t know if they never worked together.
Interviewer: Never to officiate.
White: Right, at weddings. To my knowledge, they never co-officiated at a wedding again.
Interviewer: But your marriage has prospered.
White: Well, this July 4th will be the 51st year. We got married on the fourth of July. We started our marriage with a bang.
Interviewer: Wonderful, so at some point, you decided to be a lawyer in practice.
White: Yes, after I was with Columbus Community Council, I mean after I was with the state, while I was with the state, I decided to run for County Commissioner. I had to leave the state because there’d be a conflict of interest. I went into private practice working with Paul Thompson, in his office, thinking that, after I got elected, then I would abandon the practice of law. I knew the practice of law would be boring because I mean that I had never been in a law office in my life, (laughs) I’m being sarcastic, I had no idea what it was like to be a lawyer or to be a client, but I assumed it was boring work because it would all be the same. After 51 years of practice, it was a very exciting life to be a private attorney. Anyway, so I was there, and I ran for office. I would work till about 4:00 p.m. each day and from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. I would walk the streets of Columbus in a planned manner, in certain districts that were designated for me by my campaign manager, going door to door, knocking on doors and passing out literature. I came within a couple points of beating Southwick but lost the race.
Interviewer: The first race was for County Commissioner and another race was for Appeals Court Judge.
White: Right, but they were separated by a decade, anyway something like that.
Interviewer: At some point, you got sick with cancer.
White: Right, that was in 1988. Okay, so the first one, I ran in 1976 and the other one was in 1988, something like that.
Interviewer: While you were running the second race?
White: Right.
Interviewer: Is when you found out you had blood Cancer?
White: Correct, it’s called multiple myeloma. I went to the Doctor, Dr. Stephen Shell who had been a friend of mine since we studied for the Bar Mitzvah together in Hebrew School. He was Marilyn Shell, Marilyn Levinsky, that I told you about earlier, her older brother. Fortunately for me, he didn’t listen to me. I came knowing, as I generally do, everything about medicine. As a matter of fact, I’m going to see him today at 3:00 p.m.. I told him that I had a back ache and what I needed to find out from him is whether or not I could continue to campaign or whether he was going to put me in traction right away because the pain was pretty serious. I had no idea how much worse it would get. I had come to him about six months earlier, telling him that I had a massive infection in my arm. You can see how my knuckles stick out in my fist, if I make a fist, you can see, Bill, how my knuckles stick out in my fist. If I make a fist, you can see how the knuckles stick out. My arm was so enlarged that you could not see the bones. My wrist, as you can see, is extremely small. I have very small bones. I couldn’t button my shirt. The arm was so enlarged from the elbow to the finger tips. It was so enlarged that I couldn’t even button my shirt. It was just huge. I had come to Stephen for that, to Dr. Shell. He asked me what happened and I said, “Well, I don’t know.” He said, “Did you cut yourself?” “ No.” “Do you have any internal infection?” “Not to my knowledge, I don’t know.” He put me on antibiotics, and he said, “Please come back. Let’s find out what this is all about.” So, I said okay and took the antibiotics. They worked and I ignored him and didn’t come back. Then I came back about the back. In a stroke of genius, he put two and two together, that other doctors probably would not have done, and said, “Well, I think we’re going to do a blood test and a urine test.” I said, “A urine test, why a urine test for a backache? He said, “Well, it could be lots of things. Maybe it’s because of your kidneys, maybe this, maybe that.” “What was that last one?” “Maybe cancer.” So I said okay and I took the test and he said, he had his nurse call and say he wanted to come over. He wanted to come over to the house to discuss it. (Cries) He came over. We got the kids away and he said that I had myeloma. I said, “Tell me, what’s the story.” He says, “Well, I’ve known people who’ve lived for years with multiple myeloma.” I said, “Years, how many?” “He said, “Maybe two.” That’s how it began in 1988. It wasn’t but a few weeks later that my vertebrae collapsed, and I called him. I was on the floor. Susan called. I couldn’t get up. My legs had kicked out from under me. He came over. He was on his hands and knees trying to get me rolled over. He finally gave up. The squad came and took me away. That began a five-year battle with cancer, and I went to OSU. He referred me to OSU. They started treatment there. They began with chemotherapy and radiation therapy and the radiation was on my back to relieve the pain. My doctor was the brother of, perhaps, your teacher at Bexley. That’s Larry Metz. I don’t know if you remember him or not. Earl Metz, at one time was the head doctor at OSU. He was my doctor. We started the chemotherapy and I said to him, let me see if I can get this straight. “I’m going to take pills in my mouth and fix my back?” He said, “Yep, that’s how it’s going to work.” I took the chemotherapy. Some of it was through the mouth. Some of it was intravenous. The radiation therapy was directed rather than full-body radiation. It was just directed towards my back. Full-body radiation could be rather devastating. They concentrated that where they saw a growth and where my vertebrae had collapsed. In the matter of an hour or so, I had lost almost four inches in height. The pain was so great that I really considered it to be the end, just about ready to talk to the doctor to finish it up. The therapy worked. The radiation therapy worked and relieved the pain. I got better but knew, I had studied enough about multiple myeloma to know that it wasn’t permanent. I got better because of the chemicals but you can’t keep that up. The cancer will at some point re-emerge. My brother-in-law had read a book from a doctor, an orthopedist in Boston, who had talked about a bone-marrow transplant. She had had one herself and advocated for it. I talked to Dr. Metz about it. Dr. Metz said later, to other students, he would always have his entourage with him at OSU, it being a teaching hospital. He said that I had suffered more pain than any patient he had ever had. I took the chemotherapy and said to him, “Maybe we should take it.” I joked with him. I said, “I like seeing your face and maybe I could keep seeing it for a while. Is there anything we could do? I heard Ohio State has a bone marrow transplant department.” He referred me to them, and the doctor there, I discussed it with him. It’s never a good thing when you see a doctor and he’s shaking his head no. We’re talking about whether or not they would allow me to be in the program. I was 45. I had massive chemotherapy, massive radiation therapy. As we talked about it, I said, “Well, what were the chances of this being successful?” He said, “Oh, maybe 30%, I don’t know, something like that.” I thought, well, let’s see, that means there’s a 70% chance I’m not going to make it but that’s still better odds. I’m not a gambling man but I thought that 30% is still better than 100% or 0% if I don’t. So, I went ahead with it and my family tested for it, but my sister could not because she had already contracted cancer herself. My other two brothers gave their samples and they found that I had a match with my brother, Joe. The fateful day came and they had spent the last ten days destroying all of my white blood cells. Normally you have somewhere between 9 and 13,000 white blood cell count and I was at 245. They had, at that time, at OSU, special rooms. I called it the bubble. It was like a child within a bubble. No one could come into the room except after they surgically scrubbed. It would take them 20 minutes or so before they came into my room in prepping, just to come in. The food came through a shelf. They would use ultra-violet light and kill all the germs. That’s where I got my food. I was there for 35 days. Anyway, I made it through there. Oh, one funny story, Steve Hoffman, a friend of mine who is not very good at medical situations, came to see me. Many people would come, and they would look through the glass because I was only allowed four or five people to enter the room, my wife, none of my kids because they could be too much for the disease, but a couple of adults, my brothers. He came to see me. He was one. He was not coming in. He came to the window. I was showing him around my room and, of course, I looked awful. I said, “Here’s my gym,” which was nothing more than a bicycle that they had in the room, “Here’s my library” which was nothing more than two or three books. “Here’s my museum,” which was two or three photographs of my family. As I turned around describing to him my tiny room, I looked back. He’s gone. “Steve, Steve where are you?” I looked down. He passed out. He finally got up from the floor and he came, and he said, “I’m okay. I’m okay Arnie. I’m not very good at this kind of stuff.” That was part of the experience of being there. My fever went up to 106 and they packed me in ice. I had a nurse. I can still remember her. She was so sweet. Her husband was a doctor at Children’s. After she got off work, she stayed the night, just stayed and held my hand (cries). through the night that I was so feverish. In the morning when I woke up from that experience, they packed me in ice, all around, trying to keep the fever down. When I woke up the next morning, the code blue machine was next to me, but they never used it. Things got better. I went home and spent the next three years fighting one fatal disease after another because I didn’t have an immune system. Slowly it built up till finally here I am. That’s my story about multiple myeloma and a transplant.
Interviewer: Your brother helped you with the bone marrow transplant. He helped save your life.
White: And died of cancer. My other brother, who was not a match, died of cancer. My mother had breast cancer but that wasn’t the cause of her death. She didn’t get it till late in life. My sister died of cancer. Three different kinds. All four of us had different kinds, but all of us had cancer.
Interviewer: Today they can treat multiple myeloma better than they could back then. Back then it was still primitive compared to today. Yet you survived.
White: Yes, it’s true, but on the other hand, I don’t know anybody still alive with multiple myeloma. Every single person I’ve ever met, there may be one in St. Louis that I met once. Do you remember Jack Meislich? He’s gone. He had multiple myeloma. When I first got it, Sam Walton had it, from Walmart. I figured, well, that’s great. They’ll find out how to save him. He’s got all, he’s got more money than God, so they’ll find a cure for him, and I’ll just be able to tag along. He formed a foundation at the University of Arkansas for multiple myeloma. He died statistically about average, a year and a half, two years later.
Interviewer: You may be the longest living person whose been treated for this.
White: Yes, I‘m either first or second in the world.
Interviewer: The whole world.
White: I asked one of my residents once, they were treating me for another one of the diseases. Any fungus, any infection, I also had the problem of rejection which is another added on to the infectious diseases. One of them, I was being treated, I asked the resident, “How many of us are there? How many would you say there are that had a multiple myeloma transplant that are still alive?” He said, “Well, let’s see, there’s one in ?. There’s one in England. There’s two,” and he went through the list. He said, “About ten of you.” That was in 1988, 1990, 1991.
Interviewer: Here you are 30 years later.
White: Yeah, so I heard that there is somebody in Boston who is longer than me but I don’t know if it’s true or not. I went through multiple myeloma. I heard there may be one so, I may be first or second in the world.
Interviewer: Does this experience, I’m not quite sure how to ask this, does this experience impact at all your Jewish faith?
White: That’s a good question, Bill. Of course, like Frost, that’s a road not taken. I don’t know what it would have been like otherwise. I’m not religious. For those who like to say there are no atheists, in the cancer ward, I’m here to tell you that that’s not true, that I met others, who likewise had lost, if they had it, faith, while in the cancer ward. This notion that everybody will find their God when they’re in that situation, just not true. I would say it has impacted me and I believe it has impacted strongly my oldest son who is almost anti-God and anti-religious now. I think, from his perspective, what happened to his father, how could there be a God.
Interviewer: So, you find yourself non-religious, but you acknowledge your Jewish roots, and your Jewish heritage?
White: All four of my kids had Bar Mitzvahs. All four of my kids went to Israel, on trips, Jewish trips through the community. All of them went to Hebrew School as well as Sunday School. They all had the background of Judaism, but none of them have been religious. I think my oldest is the least religious of them all.
Interviewer: So, there can be a difference between, you can hold two ideas at the same time. One is that you can have pride in your roots and in the Jewish people while, at the same time, not being theologically Jewish?
White: Yes, I guess the notion of being religious, in the sense of Hillel, tell me what it means to be a Jew, to stand on one foot and he recites the Golden Rule. I guess it’s that kind of Judaism that I espouse because the Golden Rule has no requirement that there be a higher being. You do it because it’s the right thing to do. I’ve been reading some books on Humanism and other groups who, you don’t have to be a rejectionist, I think. I think you can just fill your spiritual needs with beliefs and with actions that just simply don’t involve God. It’s not a rejection. It’s not an acceptance. It’s just, I guess the notion of God becomes irrelevant. You do it because it’s the right thing to do. I’m writing a book right now, a novel. It takes place around 2060, 2059 actually, where religion is just dying away. Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe that’s not what’s going to happen but it will in my book (laughs). I just think that that’s what’s happening in the world today, that we are moving towards the very religious. The very non-religious, and a much, much larger group of people who find religion is just not part of the conversation. They don’t need to take, I’m one of those who don’t need to take a stand, create a fight about is there a God, isn’t there a God. If there is a God, it’s just not becoming that significant. Hitchins talks about it. Almost everything that you talk about and the goodness of the world and the way that we should live our lives, you can say that entire conversation without ever mentioning God. It doesn’t have to be part of the conversation. I guess that’s a sacrilege to those who, Rabbi Stavsky would not be pleased with my notions, nevertheless, that’s where I am.
Interviewer: You’ve retired as an attorney. You have a full life. You just played raquetball this morning.
White: And got beat.
Interviewer: We’re here in your basement art studio where you have dozens of portraits and other paintings that you, yourself have painted. You say you’re writing a book.
White: Second.
Interviewer: Second book, second novel?
White: Yeah.
Interviewer: You’ve led a pretty full life even after retiring.
White: Yes, it’s a good life. I’ve raised four kids. My wife did most of it. I’ve had 51 years of practice, argued before the Ohio Supreme Court four times. Had a case to the United States Supreme Court once, didn’t get to argue it, but it was an important case, a very important case. One of the judges at the Supreme Court said it was one of the most perplexing cases that he had ever faced. It has to do with hate crimes. No one talks about it anymore, as to its constitutionality. We argued, I was representing the defendant, I argued that a hate crime is a thought crime. You’re giving greater punishment to people because of what they think, not because of what they did.
That is they did it for this reason, therefore, they should be punished greater because of that reason. I find that to be a very troubling topic even though, as a Jew, that may come back to haunt my people. At the same time, as an American, I just think it is quite dangerous to be punishing people, giving greater punishments because of what they think. If you say, it’s because they hate the Jews or they hate the Blacks, well, suppose they hate the unions or they hate management or they hate the Republicans or they hate the Democrats or they hate whatever it might be. This country, we have seen, can go crazier and crazier.
It bothers me a great deal that we are willing to sacrifice that in order to punish them because that’s a very slippery slope. Right now I was just talking about Blacks and Jews and others for hate crimes and Muslims but it can go in the wrong direction very, very quickly. Our case was that way. The case was a very simple one. The kid was a juvenile in high school. There was going to be a rumble at the school and he took it bad and he came towards the school and somebody got beat up, got hit with a bat, and my client did not wield the bat. It wasn’t his. They all got charged under the new hate crime. I argued that here I am with a bunch of criminal attorneys who, the big shots of Columbus, and we’re all getting together to talk about how we’re going to strategize to defend our clients. I said, “Well I think the law’s unconstitutional.” The other attorney said, “Well, yeah, Arnie, fine, you go ahead with your little idea about that. We’ll take care of the real criminal law kind of stuff.” I wrote my motion. I brought it up when we got to see the judge and he said, “Write a brief on that.” I did it and Judge West, remember Patrick West, he ruled it unconstitutional. Then it went up to the Court of Appeals. It was at that time that I got sick, so the ACLU stepped in and argued on behalf of my client and others that it was unconstitutional using my briefs, my arguments. When it came to the Supreme Court, I was better, and I came back and argued there to the Ohio Supreme Court. It just so happens that day two things occurred on the day of the Argument before the Ohio Supreme Court. One is that Bexley had their kids in the fourth grade, third grade, come visit the Supreme Court, including my twins, so, they came to hear daddy. The second thing that happened was I got cellulitis which is a disease of the cells which, if it leaves the impacted area and goes into the general bloodstream, can be fatal. I didn’t know it, but I was getting a terrible pain in my leg and almost fell down when I came to the podium to argue. I left the court that day and immediately was hospitalized that day. That evening I was already in the hospital. The Common Pleas Court ruled in our favor. The Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in our favor. The Supreme Court of Ohio unanimously ruled in our favor that it is a thought crime and violates the First Amendment of the Constitution. It went to the United States Supreme Court and, before our case came, a case in Wisconsin got to the Supreme Court who had a statute that was somewhat similar to ours and the Supreme Court decided to hear that case and they unanimously ruled against us and then said, when our case came, “We’ve already decided that issue, as we did in Wisconsin. Send it back to the Supreme Court of Ohio which had ruled that it was both a violation of the First Amendment and that it was unclear. It was a vague statute.” We got to the Supreme Court of Ohio, and then argued again why it was vague and the Court said, “Well, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision, goodbye.” A couple of the judges said, “Wait a minute, wait, that wasn’t the issue. The issue wasn’t whether it was First Amendment. The issue was whether or not it was vague under Ohio law, not under whether or not it constitutes the First Amendment rights.” Anyway, the case died. That was one of my legal contributions to the country.
Interviewer: You have made many contributions in many ways, and you’ve been through such ordeals and survived and thrived. Let me just ask you as we conclude, is there anything, any point you want to make, that you haven’t made so far about your life, about the Jewish community, about the Columbus Jewish community?
White: Well, yes, I guess I am as uncertain as the rabbis and other leaders of our community as to the future of the Jewish community. I don’t know what it’s going to be. I don’t think I’m alone in my views. I think others share my feelings. It’s not just Judaism, it’s Catholicism, it’s Muslims, it’s everyone. There seems to be a general disinclination to follow the practices and to heed the prescriptions of religious leaders. One of the things I’m talking about in my book is exploring what people will be like who do not have religion in their background, or what their religion will be. What I’m doing in my book is creating new ceremonies and trying to see, explore, what these new ceremonies would be like. I’ll give away a little bit. One of them is going to be Genderation Day in which, at 16 years old in my book, kids will declare what their gender will be. That would be a semi-religious experience that will be followed by the law and other things. That’s an interesting idea, mixing the trans situation of America today with what’s going on, and the lack of, of course there’s no religion, there’s no God involved in that holiday, in that spiritual event. It would be something like a Bar Mitzvah in one way. In other ways it would be entirely different. That’s one of the interesting things I’m going to introduce into my book. I am concerned. I don’t take it lightly the question of 5,000 years of experience as Jews, what will happen and whether or not, as the traditional rabbis say, whether or not you’re letting down your people of 5,000 years who held these tenets and held these traditions, now you’re letting them go. I don’t take that lightly but, at the same time, I am what I am, and I believe what I believe. I suspect that there’s a lot more like me. I’m very concerned about that. That doesn’t mean, because I’m concerned about it, that I must follow that. Just because they did it that way, that I must follow it simply for no other reason than tradition. I’m not Tevye. I don’t follow that notion. I am who I am and I believe in a new society that has to be developed. We’re going to have change. I’m interested to see what it would be, but I don’t think it’s going to be for the majority of Jews and majority of the world. It’s going to be the kind of religion that has been in the past couple centuries.
Interviewer: Well, with that we’ll close our interview with Arnie White here on April 19, 2022. I’m Bill Cohen for the Columbus Jewish Historical
Society.
Scripps Howard