I’m pretty sure we had a brief conversation between pickleball games in Santa Fe about the issue. One of the regular players wears pro-Israel clothing to take a stand. Anyway, glad you survived to write thought-provoking and entertaining pieces for me to read at 6am on my day off from bringing home the bacon.
I was naive once having been raised where I was, living abroad for so many years in an international community, then nyc (the least of exclusionary society I’ve encountered) but know now how little we’ve evolved as a race of beings. Defaulting to tribal identities exacerbated by ‘religion’ - no matter what strides accomplished. People default to the stupid, rather than knowledge that we’re all interconnected and in whatever we want to describe this life, together.
Just read through - alternating between muttering fuck them and good for you. We moved from
Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn to Long Island in 1960 and could not have been more horrified - and excluded. Not Jewish, but Greek, my only saving grace as far as our neighbors were concerned was that we were blond I think. I gravitated to the African American kids, and that was fucking unforgivable. Add on the fact that mom didn’t dress my sister and me in matching sweater sets and matching capezios. And guess what? My schwinn bike was stolen too.
As for our Jewish neighbors in Brooklyn I missed the houses I was always welcomed in, those friends who’d ask me to come in and turn on the stove, or a light on Saturday evenings. Fed cookies till I could barely walk, pranked my friend Rochelle’s snotty older sister with her, fit in as we walked to get the bus for Greek School, commiserated with Jewish friends who went to Hebrew School when we’d be missing a tv show. Community.
Of course - and it was not equivalent by any means.
Been thinking of your experience there and fuming for my nephews and niece in school now possibly experiencing what you did. Sick to my stomach. Stupid of me to think this was long over.
An awakening. I, also, came to realize that there is nothing—or at least very little—that I believed about the world that was true. As children, we were subjected to constant marketing, told how great cigarettes were, how to comb our hair, what clothes were cool, how great our god was, how great Americans were. Nothing but marketing bullshit. We were bred to be consumers.
It was a strange new world once I finally admitted it was all an illusion.
What a tale . . .people are a mystery. In 1957, I was in the 7th grade in a public school in Texas. A young man showed up in class and began a questionable relationship with me that lasted until I was a senior in high school. He liked wearing “biker” boots. Like a fly that you can[‘t get out of the house, he was always in at least one of my classes through my junior year in high school. In the seventh grade, he would walk into class in the morning, goose-stepping up to my desk (in the front row — right in front of the teacher’s desk) and click his heels, then “zieg heil” me. Strangely enough, I didn’t know why he did this, and the teacher never rebuked him for doing it. Since I wasn’t Jewish, I didn’t know why he would do this. My uncle had sung at a Reform Jewish Synagogue for years, but until I was writing down this story, I never connected that fact to this behavior on his part. Jokes were made about my father being Jewish because he had “the pope’s nose” and curly hair, but he wasn’t jewish either. So at the age of 11 or 12, I simply decided this one person was just crazy and left it at that. I did wonder occasionally why the teacher never called him on his behavior, but i suffered from childish innocence at the time. I recognize your confusion at anti-semitism to be the same as my own at that time. Why we have re-introduced white nationalism and its variations into this country now is beyond my comprehension. But, I do remember coming home from school in the sixth grade, after having a small lesson on Hitler’s Germany, and asking my mother how anybody could be stupid enough to allow Hitler to come to power. She paused, caught her breath, and said: “They elected him. Since 2020, I no longer wonder how that could possibly happen. And — my heart goes out to you for what you have had to endure from fools.
Now that’s the finest comment/story -of-it’s-own I ever got, Patricia! Thank you very much. If you never recognized your biker boyfriend’s “zeig heil” for what it was b4 Reading my story, I’m truly amazed. And deeply moved at the same time,
Stories are like Rivers, you never know the strength of their flow, where they wander to, and how they carve the Earth.
...hats are radical; only people that wear hats understand that...there are certain houses that one cannot enter without wearing a hat. And one must always wear a hat when lunching with people whom one does not know well...titfer..cockney for hat...who shall measure the hat and violence if the poets heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body...Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat...live your life, do your work, then take your hat...
Oh,I recognized it as an adult to my sorrow, but as a seventh grader, I just thought the guy was nuts. As for that childhood, I used to walk home from school by a vacant, abandoned house that had a swastika on the facade in cement. Unfortunately, perhaps, I was all to aware of hatred of the Jews.
I’m pretty sure we had a brief conversation between pickleball games in Santa Fe about the issue. One of the regular players wears pro-Israel clothing to take a stand. Anyway, glad you survived to write thought-provoking and entertaining pieces for me to read at 6am on my day off from bringing home the bacon.
Up and at ‘em, Ted. Thanks for reading me at 6 AM. Glad I can be thought provoking and entertaining.😁🤠
How about 12:54 a.m. ?
Wow.
Your writing is so clear, simple and beautiful.
I was raised Catholic, born 1955.
I never heard Jew slurs as a kid.
But the first time I I heard someone say “the Jews killed Jesus” I said, no the Romans did.”
And have said that every time since.
I was smart too.
Thanks for your compliment, Jeanne.
Fortunately, smartness transcends race, gender, & religion. 🤩
I grew up in a small all white Midwestern town. The tribalism there was not as overtly vicious but still present.
Unfortunately, tribalism is not bound by borders or provincialism. 😩
I was naive once having been raised where I was, living abroad for so many years in an international community, then nyc (the least of exclusionary society I’ve encountered) but know now how little we’ve evolved as a race of beings. Defaulting to tribal identities exacerbated by ‘religion’ - no matter what strides accomplished. People default to the stupid, rather than knowledge that we’re all interconnected and in whatever we want to describe this life, together.
Interconnected, indeeeeeed, Patris🤩😍🤠
Just read through - alternating between muttering fuck them and good for you. We moved from
Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn to Long Island in 1960 and could not have been more horrified - and excluded. Not Jewish, but Greek, my only saving grace as far as our neighbors were concerned was that we were blond I think. I gravitated to the African American kids, and that was fucking unforgivable. Add on the fact that mom didn’t dress my sister and me in matching sweater sets and matching capezios. And guess what? My schwinn bike was stolen too.
As for our Jewish neighbors in Brooklyn I missed the houses I was always welcomed in, those friends who’d ask me to come in and turn on the stove, or a light on Saturday evenings. Fed cookies till I could barely walk, pranked my friend Rochelle’s snotty older sister with her, fit in as we walked to get the bus for Greek School, commiserated with Jewish friends who went to Hebrew School when we’d be missing a tv show. Community.
Hated Long Island. Hear it hasn’t improved.
Thanks for your own Long Island Hate-Hell story, Patris.
Perhaps the best way to look at our mutual ordeal is “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”!!!
I wonder if you’d consider restacking my post.
All the best,
Trules
Of course - and it was not equivalent by any means.
Been thinking of your experience there and fuming for my nephews and niece in school now possibly experiencing what you did. Sick to my stomach. Stupid of me to think this was long over.
Would be happy to now.
Thanks 4 reStacking! I hope your nephews & niece escape our ordeals!!!!
💪
It Hasn't
Dont ask someone from Montreal how i know, just trust me on that one.
There can’t be any A-S in beautiful Montreal, can there, Mark? 🤪
Montreal Toronto
Fuckit!
Vancouver to St John's and every where inbetween.
I’ve come to the point of realizing I know nothing I thought I did once.
Good.
An awakening. I, also, came to realize that there is nothing—or at least very little—that I believed about the world that was true. As children, we were subjected to constant marketing, told how great cigarettes were, how to comb our hair, what clothes were cool, how great our god was, how great Americans were. Nothing but marketing bullshit. We were bred to be consumers.
It was a strange new world once I finally admitted it was all an illusion.
Welcome to the far-too-big Club of Capitalist Conformity, Jim. Better to wake up late than never!!!
Actually I seem to have been awake most of my life which meant feeling like an oddball.
What a tale . . .people are a mystery. In 1957, I was in the 7th grade in a public school in Texas. A young man showed up in class and began a questionable relationship with me that lasted until I was a senior in high school. He liked wearing “biker” boots. Like a fly that you can[‘t get out of the house, he was always in at least one of my classes through my junior year in high school. In the seventh grade, he would walk into class in the morning, goose-stepping up to my desk (in the front row — right in front of the teacher’s desk) and click his heels, then “zieg heil” me. Strangely enough, I didn’t know why he did this, and the teacher never rebuked him for doing it. Since I wasn’t Jewish, I didn’t know why he would do this. My uncle had sung at a Reform Jewish Synagogue for years, but until I was writing down this story, I never connected that fact to this behavior on his part. Jokes were made about my father being Jewish because he had “the pope’s nose” and curly hair, but he wasn’t jewish either. So at the age of 11 or 12, I simply decided this one person was just crazy and left it at that. I did wonder occasionally why the teacher never called him on his behavior, but i suffered from childish innocence at the time. I recognize your confusion at anti-semitism to be the same as my own at that time. Why we have re-introduced white nationalism and its variations into this country now is beyond my comprehension. But, I do remember coming home from school in the sixth grade, after having a small lesson on Hitler’s Germany, and asking my mother how anybody could be stupid enough to allow Hitler to come to power. She paused, caught her breath, and said: “They elected him. Since 2020, I no longer wonder how that could possibly happen. And — my heart goes out to you for what you have had to endure from fools.
Now that’s the finest comment/story -of-it’s-own I ever got, Patricia! Thank you very much. If you never recognized your biker boyfriend’s “zeig heil” for what it was b4 Reading my story, I’m truly amazed. And deeply moved at the same time,
Stories are like Rivers, you never know the strength of their flow, where they wander to, and how they carve the Earth.
...hats are radical; only people that wear hats understand that...there are certain houses that one cannot enter without wearing a hat. And one must always wear a hat when lunching with people whom one does not know well...titfer..cockney for hat...who shall measure the hat and violence if the poets heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body...Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat...live your life, do your work, then take your hat...
🙃F
Great comment but maybe u meant it for “What’s in a Hat?
Bob Dylan’s “leopard-skin pillbox hat“, indeed!!!!
Oh,I recognized it as an adult to my sorrow, but as a seventh grader, I just thought the guy was nuts. As for that childhood, I used to walk home from school by a vacant, abandoned house that had a swastika on the facade in cement. Unfortunately, perhaps, I was all to aware of hatred of the Jews.
it’s easy to be oblivious to something that “seems” to have no effect on u! Note the German non-Jews of the 3rd Reich.