by Lewis John Eron

Memory is a tool for understanding the past in light of the present. We keep much of what we have learned and experienced filed away for some possible future use, only to be opened when needed. The conflicts, concerns, and challenges we face at any one moment turn our attention to those stored memories, which may cast light on our current circumstances. As our needs change, past experiences, both positive and negative, enter and recede from our consciousness as we draw upon them in our search to comprehend our present. 

Today, as concern over overt expressions of anti-Semitism has forced the American Jewish community to reexamine its place in our country, I have begun to think about those moments in my past in which I have confronted anti-Semitic attitudes and behaviors. Events that formerly seemed to be unpleasant disruptions to a generally happy childhood now seem more significant. I have opened long-closed files, and what was then now seems very present.

Evening Twilight 1950s

Once the clocks left Daylight Savings Time and dusk came earlier, my mother would always remind us to be extra careful walking home from playing with our friends. For her, it was a scary time because the mothers would be rushing home from the country club recharged after a few drinks at the 19^th hole to make dinner, clean up the children, and welcome their husbands back from a day at work in the city. 

As kids, we didn’t know the details, but the country club was a mysterious place that was not open to us. The closest we could get to the white, rambling, colonial-styled clubhouse was in the winter. Only when snow covered the links and the water trap froze did the club permit kids to skate on the lake and slide down the slope? But as soon as it was warm enough to golf, we stayed off the grounds and viewed the clubhouse from the street. We knew that many of our friends’ families were members, but it was not our place. We knew that it was exclusive and that it excluded Jews. 

I grew up in a small town in Bergen County, New Jersey. The town was old, with farmhouses built by Dutch settlers at the end of the 17th century, but it blossomed as a railroad suburb of New York City at the turn of the 20th century. In the years shortly after World War Two, what little remaining farmland was turned into a small housing development called “The Manor”, a prestigious sounding name for a collection of split levels and colonials placed on small lots on streets that seemed to curl around each other in no recognizable pattern, quite unlike the grid-like pattern of the older avenues with their grander or at least larger homes. 

For some reason, no one thought of restrictive deeds. I don’t know why. Other towns close by had them, but not my town. Maybe nobody thought that it would be necessary. The Country Club was exclusive, and the Tennis Club was exclusive. The town was pretty much built up and everyone was properly white middle-class and went either to the Congregationalist Church, the Episcopal Church or the Catholic Church, or the Old Dutch Reformed Church in a neighboring town. There was one black family who had been living in town for at least shortly after the American Revolution. They didn’t belong to the Country Club either – it was the 1950s, of course. 

It was the 1950s, and there was a need to imagine an ordered life – a return to normality after the disruptions of the Great Depression and the Second World War. We had prayers in school, gays were hidden, women were moms and homemakers, and if they worked, they were paid far less than men, and we were all preparing for a nuclear attack from the Russians. Even then, we didn’t believe that a school desk provided any protection against radioactive fallout, yet we were taught to crawl under our desks and put our head between our legs, and in our childlike wisdom, we added, “and kiss your sweet rear goodbye.” Some of the more outrageous ones would use a different word.

This was the 1950s and the world had changed and was changing. People were more reserved with their racism and hatred. Instead of proudly expressing it, they began to hug their biases and prejudices close to their chests, a restrictive practice that is slowly falling out of style these days. They were unhappy with the overt legal segregation in the South but unaware of the deeply segregated society they cheerfully lived in. My father and uncles grew up fighting American anti-Semites and Nazis before they went overseas to fight the real ones, and they told me stories about the Ku Klux Klan and the German American Bund. All we had to deal with were members of the John Birch Society who hid their dislike under a thin veneer of polite sociability. More was felt than said and much was revealed with posture and glares and in coded language.

So we grew up. Most of the time as part of our little world but sometimes clearly outside of it. I am not complaining about a childhood made difficult by prejudice because that was not the case. Rather I am recalling some of those moments when being a Jewish kid meant more than going to Hebrew School and not believing in Santa Claus – those moments when I knew I did not fully belong. 

White Jew

The term “White Jew” had a different meaning in those days than it does now. Today, we use it as a way to place Jews of European descent into the binary, skin-color-based American social order. Now, these Jews are considered “white” or “white-adjacent” enough to benefit from the “white privilege”, those subconscious advantages light-skinned people have in American society wherever they may located in terms of class and status. 

That was not the context in which I first heard the term. I was in what is now called Middle School and was hanging out with a bunch of friends. We were talking about cars – sports cars, racing cars, and the cars our parents drove. One boy said that his dad just bought a new car. What kind, we asked since we pictured ourselves to be automobile enthusiasts. “A Jew Canoe” was his answer. “A what?” I replied. “A Jew Canoe – a caddy,” my friends informed me. I guess I looked hurt, so they reassured me not to take offense because I was one of the good Jews, a “White Jew,” they said, and they liked hanging out with me. 

That evening, I told my father about the day’s events, and I asked him about the term “White Jew” and what it meant. “White Jew,” he snickered and explained to me that it was no compliment. It meant that they accepted me not because I was Jewish but despite that. I was the “Jewish friend” to whom they and, particularly, their parents could point to show that they were not prejudiced. I was OK so long as I wasn’t too Jewish. It expressed an understanding that I did not have a natural right to be included, it was a privilege they granted me, a privilege which could be revoked. 

He told me that Jews should not take their recent ascent into the American middle, managerial, and professional classes as an entitlement. We were admitted because we were needed but our interests are not with those who let us in, but rather with those still excluded. He explained that historically, Jews were often like household servants, not field hands, slaves, or serfs. Jews had talents and skills that were helpful to those who employed them, but Jews would be mistaken to believe that they were any more welcomed than those who labored outside. 

Christmas Pageant and Minstrel Show

In grammar school, our teachers were very conscientious in making sure that the room was decorated for the seasons. In September, our classrooms were decorated with back-to-school posters. In October, we were surrounded by colored leaves, pumpkins, and spooky characters. In November – turkeys, Pilgrims, and Native Americans; January – snow, sleds, and snowmen; February – hearts and presidents; March – Lions and Lambs; April – Showers; May – Flowers; and June, the end of the school year – pictures of summer fun.  Of course, December was for Christmas – not only the cultural symbols of Santa Claus, Elves, and gifts but the religious ones of Nativity Scenes and Three Kings, and every classroom had a Christmas tree.

I learned lots of valuable things, such as how to make chains out of colored construction paper, how to decorate and care for a Christmas Tree, and the words to Christmas Carols – not the only sentimental secular ones celebrating the Christmas season as a time for joy, peace, and family but the real religious ones celebrating the arrival of “the newborn king.” Sometimes, our daily reading of the bible would change from the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and the 23^rd Psalm to readings from the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. 

The high point of December was the class Christmas Pageant. Our third-grade teachers thought that it would be a great idea to make a Nativity Scene the center of the Pageant. They thought that with the Holy Family, the Three Kings, shepherds, sheep, and angels, everyone could participate. The ensemble would sign in unison all the Christmas Carols we learned – the spiritual and religious ones. Since I kept my mouth shut during our practices, not wanting to sing about Jesus, the teachers thought that it would be better if I did not participate in the pageant. I was shocked. I could sing all the other words like “Hark” and “Silent”. When they told me that they did not think that it was appropriate for me to participate since I was Jewish, I don’t think that I improved my case by saying I was the only person who should participate since all the characters represented in the pageant were Jews and I was the only Jewish student in the class. We came to a compromise – I played a tree, a non-singing role.  

Yet in elementary school, our teachers were interested in making sure that every child could participate in class projects such as the class play. It was difficult, to be fair. There could only be so many lead roles, so the rest of us had small parts or were in the chorus. Naturally that led to disappointed students and probably more disappointed parents. One year, my teacher found a solution in one of the resource books they used. We were doing a unit on American History in the 19th century, and the book suggested that to appreciate popular entertainment of the period, the class could put on a minstrel show.  I guess it seemed like a good idea. Every student would have an equal role; we could dance and sing in unison; we could dress up in old-style costumes. To make sure that it didn’t seem overly racist, our families were told that we were not performing in blackface. I guess the school thought that they were being sensitive but it was the late 1950s. That week I had some long talks with my parents that year about racism in America – not only in the past but in their lifetimes.

Angles, Saxons, and Jews

In Fourth Grade, we had a unit on British History. We learned about the Celts and the Romans. We learned about the One Hundred Year War and Joan of Arc. We learned about the War of the Roses, Henry VIII and his wives, Elizabeth and the Armada, and the founding of Jamestown, which marked the end of British History for fourth graders. It was fun. We drew castles, put on plastic armor, played with swords, and did other medieval stuff. 

One day, near the beginning of the unit, my teacher asked the class, “Who settled in Britain after the Romans left?” I liked to read history and encyclopedias, so I knew the answer. My hand shot up, and the teacher called on me. I answered, “Angles, Saxons, and Jutes!”

Mrs. K., my teacher, looked at me and stated, “There were no Jews.”

Thinking that she may have misheard, I repeated, “Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.”

Mrs. K. stuck to her guns, “There were no Jews.”

“I didn’t say ‘Jews’, I said ‘Jutes’ as in the Battle of Jutland (I liked history) and Beowulf (I really liked myths and legends).

She then asked me to sit down. Mrs. K. had a reputation for being very firm in her convictions.

Ethnic Humor

So here is a joke: How do you get a Jew to run laps? Put him in a round room and tell him that there is a penny in the corner.

That is one of the least offensive Jewish Jokes I heard when I was young, but I cannot seem to forget it. Perhaps I heard it at a time when I felt vulnerable, or perhaps someone I thought was a friend shared it. I don’t know. 

In the 1950s, ethnic humor was still considered appropriate. Various ethnic groups were mocked, reflecting long-standing feelings of envy, fear, resentment, etc. We had a large vocabulary of offensive ethnic slurs, many of which have, thankfully, fallen out of common use, at least in the circles I currently inhabit. Naturally, we were forbidden to tell those jokes or use that language at home, but they could be easily heard in the schoolyard, the supermarket, the ball field – practically everywhere. Not surprisingly, few people thought that they were inappropriate. Even today, humor employs ethnic stereotypes, although humor at the expense of groups perceived to be vulnerable is still avoided in polite company. I still cringe, however, when someone begins a joke by asking forgiveness for not being “politically correct.”

Jokes mocking others are ubiquitous, reflecting the concerns and tensions in different countries and communities throughout the world. Yet, jokes that negatively present Jews do not present Jews as outsiders who are humorously unaware of the way people behave and how things are done in “normal” and “civilized” society. Rather, they are built on long-standing anti-Jewish beliefs and perceived Jewish weakness, for example, jokes about Jewish greed and jokes about the Holocaust. When told in my presence, my friends expected me as a “White Jew” not to take it personally. When I did, they did not seem to understand. “No offense intended” was the usual justification for offensive words. 

Looking Back

All this, however, is a very small part of what I remember as a very happy, very secure, and very comfortable childhood and adolescence. The current attention to the increasing freedom people feel to articulate anti-Semitic ideas and feelings, however, has led me to reflect on how widespread racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic attitudes and beliefs were in the world in which I grew up and the pain that they inflicted. I know that what I witnessed was far milder than what my parents experienced coming of age before World War II, but those attitudes and the comfort people had in expressing them did not disappear. 

Today, as many look back through the blinders of nostalgia to the world of post-WWII America with the hope of renewing a sense of social balance and spiritual security that they felt existed then, the tensions, conflicts, prejudices, and inequities I remember from my childhood in the 1950s and 60s feel sharper. 

Memory is formed and reformed by experience. What I am experiencing today has led me to reflect on aspects of my past that receded in importance at other times. The problems of the present always take precedence in people’s lives, and we are living in a time in which many people in our country and throughout the world feel insecure and rudderless. Escape to a nostalgic past or an imagined future is a tempting alternative for people who feel unmoored. 

The willingness of people on the political right and left to employ racist language, in general, and anti-Semitic language, in particular, in constructing their response to the issues that confront us is unsettling. Like many Jewish people, I thought that our world was moving away from the ugliness of the past and that my negative memories were valuable as a marker of how far we have progressed. Today, however, these memories have taken on a new meaning – they are reminders of what might be if we, as a country, are not careful. The world has not changed as much as we hoped.