Civilized Anti-Semitism

Anyone who has watched the movie "Borat" will acknowledge that within its humor lies the deeper lesson which Sasha Baron Cohen wishes to portray: inside every civilized American is an anti-Semite, just waiting to get society's permission to express his/her true beliefs, those beliefs they share with their bar buddies or their families, those statements that are not politically correct to be heard by the general public.

I love to travel, and as much as I enjoy seeing new places, I look forward even more to meeting people of a different culture and background, and finding that common ground in a brief discussion, or over a cup of coffee. When I used to take the Shuttle between New York and Boston in college, I would often find myself in conversation with the passenger next to me, sharing life stories and exposing skeletons in closets; I have that kind of face and give off that kind of energy, I suppose, the billboard that says, "tell me your stories, I will listen."

For today, I want to focus on several incidents that were less pleasurable, and reminded me that wherever I go in the world, there is someone who hates me or misunderstands me simply because I was born into the Jewish nation, and live in the Jewish homeland. It stands as an important lesson for all of us, that in this enlightened and civilized age, old hatred runs deep.

In my first week at Chiropractic school (1993), during orientation, one man in particular repeatedly approached me, not to speak to me but to gaze at my forehead. After several uncomfortable moments, I asked him why he stared at me so intently, and he answered simply, "I am looking for your horns." He had grown up on a farm in the middle of Canada, and had never met a Jew before, and could not understand why I did not resemble Satan. I patiently explained the origin of the myth of the horns, quoting to him the passage in the Old Testament that described Moses' ray of lights, beaming from his face after he had his encounter with G-d and received the Ten Commandments. I also explained that the modern reference derives itself from the sculpture of Moses in Rome, the artist could not have free standing marble rays of light, and so attached them to the most likely and easiest area, the forehead. This fellow student ended up becoming a close friend, we worked as volunteers in an Ojibwe/First Nation (Indians, for the politically incorrect) clinic together, and all it took was a bit of education.

I won two tickets to Switzerland from a chocolate contest, and my friend and I went to that stunning country for one week (2001). On the train in Grindelwald, we presented our tickets and passports to one of the conductors; he looked at our two passports - One Israeli and One American, but issued in Jerusalem - nodded his head and as he walked off, clicked his heals together and did the "Sieg Heil" motion with his arm. I reacted immediately, and said to my friend, "He just Hitlered us!" But she did not see it and we dismissed it at the time.

Later, my friend and I were in Zurich on an English tour of Chagall windows in a Protestant Church. Of the five windows, four had completely Old Testament content, and only one window portrayed Jesus in any way. The guide said at one point, "And here we see the Jewish window, called so because it is dominated by the Jewish color, yellow." Not wanting to display immediate belligerence, I raised my hand and asked politely, "Though I am not aware of any official Jewish color, wouldn't you think the colors would be blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag?" She replied that I knew nothing about art, and that the Jewish color was most definitively yellow.

Inspired by one of my all time favorite movies, "Field of Dreams," I stood up, called her a "Nazi Cow," and for the sake of the rest of the group, explained that the Nazi's assigned yellow stars to the Jews, before they exterminated them; and that the Swiss ought to know, because they got rich during WWII by stealing the Jews' money. And that I in fact had a degree in art and art history. No one in the tour group seemed shocked or surprised, and I thought at the time that a few people were thinking what I dared to speak aloud.

In Istanbul (1998), on a tour of a Sultan's palace, the Turkish guide made several minor anti-Semitic statements. My friend Ami, unable to hold herself back, asked the guide about the Turks' role in the Crusades, and about their occupation of the land we now call Israel; the man answered that he had no idea what she was talking about, and that she ought to go back and study her history.

This past week in Jordan (2007), Ali the Petra guide kept speaking about the Nabateans and the Fertile Crescent, mentioning every country along the ancient Spice Route except Israel. Ed, the American Jew from Philadelphia sitting next to me inquired Ali about this omission after it appeared several times, and Ali answered that technically, Israel did not exist then. Neither did Jordan, technically, but never mind.

History is told by those who survive it, and contrary to the belief proliferated by the Nazis, the facts do not change if you tell the lie enough times. Anti-Semitism, alive and well in our lifetime and only growing stronger, cannot be tolerated. We must all be on guard to protect our heritage and our history, and to not misconstrue the facts to suit political purposes.

High School Bashing

Noah Feldman, in his New York Times Magazine article Orthodox Paradox (7/22/07), laces into his Jewish high school experience, and uses the opportunity to rile against Modern Orthodoxy in general. Before I address some of his specific points, I want to point out several facts about the author and Maimonides High School, which I also attended and from which I graduated several years before Mr. Feldman.

Regardless of his many accomplishments as an adult, Mr. Feldman was one of those arrogant teenagers who felt himself above the pack, who got bullied and beaten up on a regular basis in high school. He dated the sister of my best friend, they were the golden couple, both intelligent and attractive, and from wealthy families who invested heavily in the school and served on various executive committees. Indeed, he married a non-Jewish Korean American, and he can hardly be surprised that a Jewish school - whose sole purpose is to imbue generations of Jewish children with Orthodox values - would not trumpet the triumph of intermarriage. Even if Mr. Feldman is close personal friends with President Bush and has a heavy hand as co-architect in America's policy vis a vis the incredibly unpopular war in Iraq.

Frankly, given the multi-cultural atmosphere and population in Israel, if I saw a Jewish man with a Korean woman, my first assumption would be that she had converted, or was adopted by a Jewish family at a young age. Living in this country, you learn that Jews come in different shapes, sizes and colors. Turns out, Mr. Feldman's wife has no intention of converting.

I hated Maimonides, I was one of those kids who operated outside the box, got good grades because I worked at studying, and not because I could goof off until the last minute. When I was in the tenth grade, I took an art course outside the school, at a prestigious program in the Boston area. When they found out that I might be drawing nudes, they ordered me to cease the class immediately, because "good Jewish girls" don't draw nudes. When I applied to college, the college advisor - who resented every moment as a high school administrator and later had a nervous breakdown from the stress - told me that he had sabotaged some of my college applications, because he didn't like me and felt that I didn't deserve to have a choice.

You could not pay me enough money to redo high school, I am far too happy with the person I have become to repeat that suffering.

That being said, I wish to address certain points that Mr. Feldman raises in his article.

"Some part of me still expects - against the judgment of experience - that the individual human beings who make up the institution and community where I spent so many years of my life will put our longstanding friendships ahead of the imperative to define boundaries."

With all respect to his genius, the high school as an institution is made up of individuals who represent the party line. They will support the goals and directives of the institution, in order to maintain consistency of message, in this case the message of Modern Orthodoxy, which admittedly, exists in a gray area relative to other sects of Judaism.

"Senator Joe Lieberman...his run for the vice presidency in 200o put the 'modern' in modern Orthodox, demonstrating that an Orthodox Jewish candidate could be accepted by America at large as essentially a regular guy."

I fear Senator Lieberman as a candidate, not because of his political background and qualifications, but especially because he is a modern Orthodox Jewish candidate; he would then feel the need to bend over backwards to show a distinct lack of favoritism to Jewish and Israeli causes, both local and abroad. Bad for the Jews, bad for Israel and bad for America when someone in a position of power must be reactionary to prove a point.

"One of the best taught me eighth grade English when he was barely out of college himself, before he became a poet, a professor and an important queer theorist."

That would be a reference to my most excellent English teacher, Mr. Wayne Koestenbaum, who wrote a highly acclaimed book about the role of homosexuality in theatre, opera and entertainment. We girls had a crush on him, he had that well-dressed preppy look and opened us up to a world we had never encountered before; we had no idea that he was gay, and frankly, I wouldn't have cared. His book was reviewed by Time and Newsweek and the New York Times, and I have no doubt that the school would disavow knowledge of his sexual preferences.

My brother's best friend from high school - a tall, handsome, and bright person whom I watched grow up - recently came out of the closet, married his non Jewish Spanish partner, and has love and success in his life. I could not be happier for him (at least he managed to find a partner in marriage, good for him!) and again, I have no doubt that when he wins the Nobel Prize, the school would ignore his accomplishments because of his sexual preferences.

As a heterosexual and as a Doctor of Chiropractic, I would like to see any public institution acknowledge that homosexuality is also a genetically encoded trait which manifests itself at birth. I look forward to the day when the gay community does not have to have parades in order to make a statement of acceptability; call me a prude, but I believe that bedroom activities should remain private for everyone. Our planet has not arrived in that place yet, not among the Jews and not among other religions.

"Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzchak Rabin, was a modern Orthodox Jew...In 1994, Baruch Goldsten massacred 29 worshipers in the mosque atop the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. An American born physician, Goldstein attended a prominent modern Orthodox Jewish day school in Brooklyn..."

Noah Feldman is no better than the anti-Semites in the movie "Borat" or the anti-Israel groups that proliferate the planet. Not every modern Orthodox Jew is an assassin or a murderer, the same is true for Muslims and Christians and aliens from space. True, it is easier to call upon known examples and generalize to a larger group, but I would expect better from a "scholar" such as Mr. Feldman claims to be.

"Our life choices are constitutive of who we are, and so different life choices would have made us into different people - not unrecognizably different, but palpably, measurably so."

Feldman states that he loves his wife, his children and the professional choices he has made; apparently he still needs that high school stamp of approval to assuage his insecurities. If Noah can accept that life derives from our choices, and claims that he is happy, then he must accept that his choices make it unacceptable to publicly laud his behaviour in an academic institution that seeks to preserve a particular and religious way of life.