This is a difficult topic both to start writing about and to live with. It has been part of my life since I can remember being part of a mixed community going back to first grade. It was not always blatant and in my face, but it has always been there whether I recognized it or not. My earliest years were on a street in Rochester where three neighbor houses had a total of 21 Catholic children. My best friend from that group started trying to convert me before I was 10. The time period was the mid 40’s to the mid 50’s. I wasn’t bullied any more than anyone, but I found it easier to play with the Jewish children in the neighborhood. We knew who each other were even if our families belonged to different synagogues.
So what is this thing that has a meaningless name? Historically we were a group who refused to accept the common belief structure of the non Jewish people around us as the Christian world developed in the early centuries of the Common Era. The Catholic story convicted us of deicide which set us apart as an evil people. This was consistent until Vatican II when the Pope apologized. By then the idea was well set in people’s mind. Hitler sought to purify the “Aryan Race” and the Jews were the major target of his need to do that. There were other victims, particularly the Romish and Homosexual people.
We owned a house on Sandringham Road in the town of Brighton. When I read the deed, in 1972, I found that there was a restrictive clause prohibiting the sale of the land to “Negroes and Jews”. This clause was not enforceable by the time we bought, but it was still in the deed. Family members were denied acceptance to UR Medical school in the 40’s because they were Jewish. I remember discussing the quota I faced in applying to Ivy League schools in 1959. The quotas were rising, but they still existed. If you think this is all past history, look at the current debate and Supreme Court ruling regarding admission quotas, Jews may not seem to play in the current rulings, but the very idea of such quotas dates back to the founding of these exclusive schools. Disclosure: I graduated from Brown University with a BA and an MBA from Columbia Graduate School of Business.
These very schools are facing a significant antisemitic challenge today. The Arab world has refused to give Jews the right to land granted them after World War II by the United Nations. The grant was a division of the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. Neither side was happy with the division, but the Jews agreed to make a country in the land they were granted. Within hours the Arabs rose up to drive them out and take all the land. The presence of Jews in “their” land was anathema. Nothing has changed since then. The slaughter of October 7 was a continuation of actions the Arabs have taken against Jews in the land going back in the 1930’s. They are an implacable enemy.
I feel very sorry for the people dying in Gaza as a result of their leaders refusal to accept the continued existence of the Jewish state. If their leaders want to make it stop, it is within their power to say yes to a cease fire and an exchange of hostages for prisoners. Israel can stop bombing, but that will only encourage Hamas to continue their long game which is nothing less than the destruction of Israel and the massacre of millions of Jews, because once they are “pushed into the sea” they have no place to go.
The pro Palestinian students either have not followed the logic or they are willing to demand the murder of millions of Jews because “From the River to the Sea, Palestine must be Free” is not just a slogan it is a promise of genocide. In all of this antisemitism flourishes.
As the only Jew is my elementary school, I was a target of verbal and some physical abuse.
Times changed and my son and three other Jewish boys went to the local Catholic High School (there was a terrible Board of Directors in the public school and the head of the Bureau of Jewish Education told me about what the boys were doing. I taught in the district and was fortunate to avoid most of the problems.)
Now the country is spinning back and it is frightening.
Paul, thank you so much for sharing this, it is very informative for me as a non-Jewish and non-Arab person. I think many of us, like myself, don’t know enough history, and I do want to know. Much appreciated 🥰
Paul- thank you for a great history of antisemitism in the 40’s and 50’s and what we face today! In the 40’s my family lived on Vassar Street and although there were many other Jewish families in surrounding area, we stilled faced antisemitism in subtle ways! I remember during Christmas and Chanukah my parents told me it would be better not to display Chanukah decorations to call attention to who we were.
Despite the fact that many Jewish families lived in that area, we were still a minority!,
We were on Brunswick St between Milburn and Harvard, maybe 4 or 5 blocks from Vassar. Carol was on Edgerton near 23 School. It was a mixed neighborhood for sure, but all white as I remember.
Ah, but you assume, as most American Jews do, that we have successfully passed as “white”, as did I until Latino friends of my sons, in LA, upon learning they were Jewish, declared, “oh, I thought you were white”. Go back to the deed that groups Jews and Negroes together. Race, an artifical category spawned by 19th century “scientific” theories grounded in older ideas of purity of blood (Spanish Inquisition) and notions about people with different skin tone, is, indeed, a complex matter.
I agree. There is much I left out, but as I have noted elsewhere, I was writing a blog post and did not want to take the next week to research the subject in more detail and lose my audience in the process.
I am a good friend of your HS Friend, Ted Voll and David Lovenheim [Ava Shalom]. He passed your eMail along to me and it was very heartwarming and frustrating. I was born in Canada and came to the US for my Bar Mitzvah when my dad transferred to Utica. I met my Italian wife as we started life in Rochester. My son played baseball for Brighton and other teams came to play with the “Bagel Boys”. Antisemitism has been on and off during my 70+ years . I have interacted with many muslims over the years with no problems. But, I have read many books {Mitch Rapp, Gabriel Alon and others] and find that the novels of the past have come to life and are continuing to hit the headlines. Why can’s we all get along are the words I have said when I parted from my Muslim carpenter parts. “It is so easy.”
I have had the opportunity to work with, socialize with and be good friends of people of all faiths. Even traveling in Israel I have had the chance to befriend local Arabs. The problem is not individuals, it is leaders who establish rules for their people that separate them from their neighbors. I’m not just talking about national leaders in the Middle East, but religious leaders in local communities who derive their “power” from separating from the general community. Why Jews are a preferred target I cannot answer, but we are relatively few in number while often having an outsized impact on our communities.
Thanks for writing this Paul. I have hopes we are on a road to a more peaceful world. Oh, but the road is bumpy.