I am sick of it. I really am sick of it. I understand, better than most, what prejudice is. When I was a boy, I went bowling with friends. Someone else put chewed gum on my seat as a practical joke. I did not see it, and I sat on it. It ruined my pants. It never came off. My parents’ finances were lower middle class, and they could not afford at that time to buy me new pants. As I stood up, with the chewing gum on my pants at the bowling alley, a laughing teenager from a few lanes over yelled, “Jew bastard!” I was maybe seven years old. Around age 12, one Saturday — Shabbat afternoon — I was in the park with friends. We were playing ball. Suddenly, a group of teenagers came riding on bicycles into the park, swinging metal bicycle chains, yelling “Jew bastards!” and “Kikes!” We started running away from them. It was time for me, a Kike and a Jew bastard, to learn karate and self-defense. Years later, one Sunday night I was on the IRT subway train from Brooklyn to Manhattan, returning to Columbia where I went to college, after having spent my Shabbat (Sabbath) weekend with my mother (of blessed memory) and sisters, as I did every Shabbat. It was 90 minutes on subways and buses from Columbia every Friday to be home with family on Shabbat, and 90 minutes every Sunday night back to college. On the train I did my assigned weekend readings. As I was reading, suddenly a person grabbed the yarmulka off my head and yelled, “Jew bastard!” He was with two friends. I never have forgotten the image. The train was about to stop, and they were laughing and about to exit the train car — with my kipah. Maybe my reaction would have been different if my sister, Debbie, had not hand-crocheted that kipah. Maybe my reaction would have been different if I had stopped to think rationally. But that was a last straw. I jumped up from my seat, slammed my book, ran at the three of them, and karate-kicked the fellow who was holding my yarmulka. I kicked him in a part of his body that rendered a ...
No hoodwinking or hornswoggling here.
Support independent journalism and get unlimited access to quality commentary.
Already a subscriber? Login here




