"Jew Boy" by Irving A Greenfield

JEW BOY

(An essay)

by Irving A Greenfield

            Jew Boy was two words I heard many times during my four score years and eight years. When I was a boy, a teenager, or a young man, they were often a prelude to a fight. They were a verbal assault that challenged my sense of manhood, an insult to the ethnic group to which I belong. The subtext of those words was (and still is): You're a Jew, and everyone knows that Jew's are too cowardly to fight. This was before and after WWII, and even after Palestine became the state of Israel. It followed me into the army, where I either took a trouncing or gave one. But either way, I fought for the same reasons: to show my opponent that this Jew did fight and to meet the challenge to my manhood¾admittedly an ego thing.

            The last time I heard those two words a colleague at the college where I was a Professor of English Literature uttered them. My colleague, I'll call him Walter, was a Professor of Ethics and Religion.

            It was just after Christmas, and the college, which was marginally a Lutheran institution, continued to hold classes, with the exception of Christmas and New Year's Days. 

            Walter had two defining traits: wit and sarcasm; both were rapier sharp. He combined them whenever he thought the situation demanded it. But there were times when he misjudged the situation and deeply wounded someone, which was what happened when he referred to me as Jew boy.

            In addition to his wit and sarcasm, Walter possessed two other qualities that substantially augmented his verbal sallies: a deep base voice that made everything he said sound important, and a physicality, while not muscular, that gave the illusion of strength. The melding of these qualities resulted in an imperious air, a self-importance, of which he took advantage.

            I don't remember what day it was between Christmas and New Years; but I do remember that I was in my office grading end term papers of one of my classes, The door to my office was open, as was the door to another colleague's¾Susan by name¾office, which was directly across from mine. Walter was in the doorway of her office; some sort of conversation was going on between them. I couldn't hear Susan's voice, but Walter's was, as usual, distinctly audible. Their conversation, from what I could hear Walter say, had something to do with the disposal after the Holiday season of a small Christmas tree in Susan's office, when I heard Walter say, “Why don't you give it to the Jew boy across the hall?

            Stunned, I faced him.

            He smiled at me.

            “It celebrates the birth of another Jew boy,” I said tightly.

            The smile left his face, and he walked back to his office. Though we were colleagues for many more years, I never trusted him again; nor did I seek his companionship again. The best I could manage was a courteous exchange. He had deeply wounded me, even though I'm the most secular kind of Jew: an atheist with the philosophical outlook of an existential-relativist.

#

            So, what does my encounter with Walter mean in the “big picture”? Absolutely nothing, except that it clearly shows that anti-Semitism lies hidden in the most enlightened of environments. In one way or another Jews have always been exposed to their Walters, and were wounded, some more severely, than I was. And millions lost their lives for no other reason than they were born into the Hebrew faith. It became part of our individual heritage; and in a much broader context, our collective identity.

#

            The day after the incident with Walter, I did something I never thought I'd do; I went to a local jewelry story and had a ring made with a Chi on it. As a symbol of identity, that to Jews is equivalent to the cross.

            Many years have passed since my unhappy encounter with Walter; and though I am still a secular Jew, I have, at my present age, and still am, experiencing a kind of “epiphany.” An awakening to something I had lost, briefly found, lost again, and recently found again. No, it's not religion or faith in God; both are still anathema to me. More important, as far as I am concerned, I found my first language, Yiddish. It was there all of the time, and I didn't recognize it. Perhaps, I didn't want to recognize it.

            My paternal grandmother, Rose, and my maternal grandmother, Ester, spoke Yiddish. I have a very clear memory of Ester: she was a big woman, and always wore a housedress of some sort and a much-washed apron. I didn't like her; and I knew she didn't like me, or my sisters, or my father. And I also knew, she didn't like my mother because she always argued with her in Yiddish. But my mother must have loved her very much because when she was dying she called for her, in Yiddish of course.

            Whereas my mother was the oldest of ten children, my father was the youngest of the clan, possibly a love child, a bastard. According to the official papers, he and Rose came from Austria when he was six months old. But my grandfather had already been in this country for years. To differentiate between grandmothers, at least in my immediate family, it was done by size. Ester was big bubba, while Rose, a diminutive woman, was referred to as little bubba.

            Both my grandfathers died before I was born. My maternal grandfather died when he was thirty-nine from tuberculosis, and is buried in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, while my paternal grandfather was buried in the Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

            Little bubba lived with my family until she could no longer take care of herself; then, she spent the rest of her life in the Jewish Home for the Aged, on East New York Avenue in Brooklyn. My mother told me that she'd raised me until I was five. Since her language was Yiddish, it became mine along with English which was spoken most of the time, except when my parents were angry and hurled thunderbolts of Yiddish curses at one another, or spoke about something that they didn't want my sisters and I to know about. Then, something unfortunate happened; my mother brought me to see my grandmother either the day she died or the day before she died; I'm not clear about the exact day. When I saw her, she was delirious and frightened me so much that for years I remembered nothing about her or the language she spoke. Only within the last decade or so, have I been able to put together a vague picture of what she looked like. But more than likely, it's more imagination than memory. But oddly, what I have always remembered was the woman in a nearby bed who offered me an orange, which I did not take.

#

            So much for the back-story, for the reason why I had forgotten Yiddish: and my apology for a bit of family history.

Now go forward; I'm thirty- three or thirty-four years old. I board a plane for a flight back to New York from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was there on assignment for a client, North Atlantic Industries, to write an article about their new Null Meter.

            It's mid-afternoon on a Friday. The plane is almost full, and there are passengers behind me, when I suddenly see him. I instantly know by the way he's dressed¾the long black frock coat, his beard, and the wide-brimmed felt hat, that he's an orthodox Jew. But what the devil is he doing there? Perversely, I decide to sit next to him; as soon as I do, he moves as close to the side of the aircraft as possible, and looks at me with unreserved disdain. I return his disdain with a smile, which further upsets him. We still haven't exchanged a word.

            Because it's high summer, I am deeply tanned, and am often taken for an Italian or Hispanic. I am sure he's trying to figure out to which of those ethnic groups I belong. By this time the passengers on either side of the aisle, in front and in back of us, are aware of the small comedy to which they are privy.

            Eventually, we're airborne. When we reach our cruising altitude, and the seat belt sign goes off, a stewardess begins to roll the juice, soda, and alcoholic drink cart down the aisle. The juices, and soda were free; but you paid for all alcoholic drinks. And whiskey came in small bottles, enough for a shot; served in plastic glasses, with ice, if requested.

            When the cart is close to us, I turn to my companion and ask, “Doo vilist shnapps?”  Without thinking about them, the Yiddish words came to me.

            Of course, he is too stunned to respond immediately; so I put the question to him again.

            “Yeah,” he answers my question, and asks a question of his own: “Doo bist en Yid?”

            “Ich bin ein Jude.”

            When our drinks arrive, he offers the tradition blessing in Hebrew, followed by, “L'chiam.” To life! We touch our plastic glasses together; then drink'

            As it turned out, his command of English was very poor. But he spoke several other languages: Russian, because that's his mother tongue; French and Italian, because he lived for a while in each of those countries; Hebrew, because he was trained to speak, read and write in the language; and German, because he's a survivor of Auschwitz; and Yiddish, because it's the argot of Eastern European Jews.

            My knowledge of Yiddish was extremely limited; and my knowledge of Russian non-existent, as was my knowledge of Hebrew, and German. But French was a different “kettle of fish.”  I had three years of high school French, and two more years in college. Despite the linguistic difficulties, we carried on a lively conversation in a mixture of English, French and Yiddish for the rest of the flight.

            His story was a remarkable one, an odyssey that in its own way rivaled Homer's Odyssey. But at the time I met him, he lived in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, which was, even then, an enclave for orthodox Jewry. Every Monday he would fly to Minneapolis, and drive two hours to the town, where he worked as a butcher and a shoket, a man who slaughtered fowl and cattle according to Mosaic Law.

            When we landed, we went our separate ways, and any Yiddish I reclaimed was lost for almost fifty more years.

#

            In the spring of 2007, I had the urge to visit the graves of my parents, who are buried in the Beth Israel Cemetery in Elmont, Long Island. I didn't have a logical explanation for wanting to do that; I hadn't visited their graves for years. But the itch was there, and I very much wanted to scratch it.

            I had been thinking about my parents more than usual, and dreaming about them more than usual. But all of the dreams were unsatisfactory, and left me upset when I remembered them. I was the wayward son, a disappointment to both. Perhaps it was my age, or a form of delayed grieving that brought me to the decision to go to their graves. Since I no longer drive, I had to wait until my youngest son, Nathan, came down from Ottawa to visit his “dear old mom and dad” and drive me out to the cemetery.

            During this waiting time, I had long conversations with sister, Roslyn, the only survivor of my three sisters, all of whom were older than me. The youngest, Gail, and the oldest, Shirley, are dead. Roslyn is eight years older than I am. That we are on speaking terms after many years of not speaking was not in any way a miracle. It required compromise on each of our parts. Most of our conversations, once we get through our various health problems, what our children and grandchildren are doing, are about our parents. During one particular conversation, she reminded me that they only spoke Yiddish when they didn't want us to know what they were talking about, and when they were angry with each other and cursed one another, which was, at least in my memory, all too frequently.

This, in turn, opened a Pandora's Box of memories, a treasure chest of Yiddish invectives¾a fascinating and unique way to be reintroduced to the language.

#

            Nathan came down the week after the July 4th weekend. I rented a car, and he drove me out to the cemetery. It was a hot summer's day, with some large cumulus clouds to the south that were probably out over the ocean.

            After a few minutes, we found the graves. Surprisingly, I felt nothing when I looked down at them¾yet, not quite nothing. I realized that I missed them; not their presence, but the opportunity that would have allowed them to enjoy their grandchildren and great grandchildren. I also realized that I was being foolishly sentimental; but that can happen, even to an old existential-relativist like me.

            Before we left, we put several stones on the top of each of their tombstones; that's part of a tradition that goes back several thousand years. Supposedly, it lets their spirits know that someone remembers them; this time it was a son and grandson.

#

            But still my recall of Yiddish foundered on the lack of vocabulary and syntax. Then, to my surprise and delight, the Jewish Museum in Battery Park City, in Manhattan, was having, as part of their lecture series, Mr. Leo Rosten, the author of the JOYS OF YIDDISH.

            My wife, Anita, and I occupied an apartment in the building next to the museum. The lecture was a must for me; and I found it informative and humorous, a wonderful combination.

            I left the lecture feeling reborn, at least as far as Yiddish was concerned. I began to study it seriously on my own. It was something I wanted to do; something I had to do. The language belongs to me, as it once belonged to my mother and father. It is part of my heritage; and I am delighted to reconnect with it, even this late in the “game...”

Biography

My work has been published in Amarillo Bay, Runaway Parade, Writing Tomorrow, eFictionMag, Contrapositions and the Stone Hobo; and in Prime Mincer, The Note and Cooweescoowee (3X) and THE STONE CANOE, electronic edition. Hippocamus Magazine In addition to the short stories I have had several novels published. I am also cited in Wikipedia. My wife and I live on Staten Island.  I have been a sailor, soldier and college professor, playwright and novelist.