Fifty years ago, when the time came for my bar mitzvah, I was not given the opportunity to spout off from the bimah at the local synagogue like my contemporaries. My mother held that religion was the opiate of the masses and, determined to maintain a drug-free household, she contrived something she called a “socialist bar mitzvah.” What she had in mind was to show me that, when push came to shove, the captains of industry were still willing to grind their iron heels into the sons and daughters of our original pioneers. And so she cooked up a road trip into lands where, by her accounts, there yet dwelt original American serfs. Read the rest of this entry »