When I was growing up in a small town in northern New Jersey in the ’50s, it seemed to me that all of us grammar school kids believed in the same big God; we just expressed our beliefs differently. By my utterly unscientific estimate at the time, one third of us were Jewish, another third Catholic, and the rest Protestant. The Jewish kids went to Hebrew school one afternoon a week, the Catholic kids went to catechism class, and rest of us, the Protestants, which included Presbyterian me, went to Bible study.
At Bible study, held in somebody’s basement, a couple of nice older ladies told exciting Old Testament stories – like Jonah being swallowed then spit out by the whale, and Joseph in his coat of many colors being dumped on the side of the road by his brothers — using a large felt board propped up on a wooden easel in the front of the room and cutout cardboard characters with felt on their backs so they stuck to the board. These ladies led us in songs like, “… Red and yellow, black, and white, all are precious in His sight — Jesus loves the little children of the world!” My sisters and I thought this was all great fun, much better than going home to the strife that might be there.
As the years went on I began spending more and more time visiting with friends at their homes after grammar school to avoid the strife at home. My Catholic friends’ families were large and rowdy, filled, it seemed, with naughty little brothers who pulled hair and threw pillows. My Jewish friends’ families were smalIer, calmer, and more orderly; their homes were much grander than my own and always sparkling clean and neat because they had live-in help.
My best friend Barbara Gomberg’s family, for instance, had a maid who had her own room in their house and did all the cooking, cleaning and laundry – the things my mother slavishly did at home. Their maid was a large Black woman who laughed a lot. Sometimes when Barbara and I visited her in her room in the afternoon, we’d listen to Rock ‘n Roll records on her record player, and she would teach us new dance steps.
Barbara’s regal mother was a piano teacher, who gave private lessons in their home, so Barbara’s house was always filled with beautiful music. Her father was a psychiatrist who met with patients in their home as well. I remember him as a short, jolly, balding man, who liked to reach out and pat me on the head and tell me, “You’re such a good girl.” He made me wish I had a father like him.
To a person, all of my Jewish classmates were the best students in each of my classes. They seemed to me to get unlimited support and encouragement from their parents. And these classmates went on to attend top-tier colleges and graduate schools, all paid for by their adoring parents. They later became doctors, dentists, lawyers, and business owners. I had nothing but admiration for all of them.
When I lived in New York City in the ’80s and ’90s, which, at the time, had a higher Jewish population than Tel Aviv, I had many Jewish friends, of course, including several Jewish boyfriends. Antisemitism never crossed my mind, nor my heart. Looking back now, I think I tended to put Jews on a pedestal – God’s Old Testament “chosen people” indeed. To me, they were born leaders, head and shoulders above the rest of us in every profession, as well as on every march for civil rights, peace, and justice.
But now. But now…
My hometown classmates and I are old people now, pushing eighty. The fatherly God I’d thought we all believed in is … Where? Gone? Forgotten? Many of those classmates who remained in that small, conservative town, I fear — the so-called Christian ones — voted for an anti-Christ for President, believing his evil lies and promises to improve the economy. Voting with their pocket books, I’d call it.
And a number of the Jewish ones, I deeply fear, support Israel’s bombing and ethnic cleansing of Gaza, believing Israel’s “right to exist” trumps reason and decency. And, oh, just look at all that gorgeous beachfront property along Gaza’s coast, aching to be developed by American and Israeli real estate tycoons!
(The Worship of Mammon by Evelyn De Morgan [1909])
Will I, and other non-Jews like me, be accused of antisemitism for calling this spade a spade? If I were still a scholarship student at Columbia in New York, would I be expelled for expressing my strong anti-Netanyahu views?
I’ve read that instances of antisemitism are sharply on the rise around the world. I believe the blame for this can be laid at Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s doorstep. He and his right-wing henchmen are inflicting unspeakable harm not only on the people of Gaza, but also to Jews’ reputations worldwide. I stand with the old rabbis who cry out, “This [Gaza war] is wrong! This is not who we are as Jews! This is not what the Torah teaches!” This is certainly not what my Jewish classmates learned in Hebrew school.
No, I am not an antisemite. What I am is heartsick. I never could have imagined it would come to this. Oh, my big, embracing, childhood God, how have we forsaken you? Mammon is God now in the country of my birth. And Mammon has no heart. Nor soul.
find me on facebook
Thank you for your article…my memories are similar, but involve hard working Mexican Americans. Heart bleeding is an excellent way to express the changes with slander and racism. How easily folks persecute other folks!
Thank you for writing, Linda. Yes, I think most of us are feeling really heartsick these days. My best to you.
Other than the fact that I grew up Irish 3/4 Jewish 1/4 —across the 59th St bridge from Manhattan —I completely and heartbreakingly agree with every word.
I lived in Taos and your blog was recommended by Melissa & Ed Bell.
Do you know Corey Robin’s blog? I recommend it.
I am a public librarian and when the subject comes around, I explain that anti-Zionism is NOT the same thing as anti semitism.
I recommend a book, “Broken Tablets” by a Yale student.
Very interesting.
xo, Gina
Hastings on Hudson
Thank you so much for this, Gina. I appreciate your recommendations too. Best wishes, Bonnie.
Thank you for speaking my thoughts which I struggle to put into words. WOW a thousand times over. I am
so grateful to read this and offer it up to my friends.
And I just want to say thank you! one more time ……
Thank You Bonnie! Abbie
Thank YOU, Abbie, for your kind words. You make me happy that I took a chance at discussing this super-sensitive topic. But sometimes we must stand up and take our chances. Yes, please share this post with your friends! Best wishes, Bonnie
Hello Bonnie,
I feel compelled to respond to your post.
I’m sorry you paint such a skewed portrait of Jewish people. Had you visited my house as a young girl you might have seen the roaches scrambling into hiding in our cramped apartment. On the week-end you may met my father resting on his days off from work. Might you have noticed that he had only a fourth grade education? We were not unusual. There are plenty of Jews of all stripes out there.
Your portrait of privilege plays into the age old tropes of Jews having the money and insidious power to forment plots aimed at conquering the world. That’s unfortunate.
No, Netanyahu is not responsible for today’s rise in Antisemitism, Antisemitism is a centuries old virus that feeds on periods of crisis and unrest, such as, but not limited by, the Gaza/Israel conflict. I’m sure you will agree there’s plenty of unrest to feed on these days.
BTW Can you name the Israeli tycoons whom you say want to invest in Gaza beachfront? They may exist, but I’ve only heard of one tycoon with that particulare real estate lust, our unfortunate President.
The Gaza/Israeli conflict is heart wrenching in all its horrible aspects, and again, you will find Jews of all stripes, with all opinions.
Please don’t paint us with a broad brush.
Florence
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment here, Florence. I’m glad to hear from you, and I deeply respect your p.o.v. All I can say is that I tried my best to paint my true story with a small brush, one that depicted my own personal experience in my little town. This town was a “bedroom community” in the NJ suburbs, where many of the fathers of my classmates commuted by train into NYC for work. There were well-off families in the town as well as those, like mine, who were not. It was a mix. And from my personal experience and memory, it was a good mix and antisemitism didn’t exist.
Oh, and Florence I should mention that I cannot give the names of the Israeli real estate people who are interested in the Gaza beach-front property because Jarred Kushner, whom I saw in an interview talk about this subject, didn’t mention names.
Dear Bonnie
You write so well about your own expereinces and a moving “then and now” of the world you and I live in. It is a shanda, a disgrace ,what Netanyahu is doing to Israel, Gaza, the Jews. an it is an overwhelming disgrace that Trump is hellbent on destroying the US with his right hand guy, Musk and a whole congress of cowards.
Please keep writing your truth.
Judith
Thank you so much, dear Judith, for your kind words and your encouragement not to give up and remain silent. Every voice counts, I like to think. And thank you for giving me a new word: shanda. Yes, it’s a disgrace, a heartbreaking, overwhelming disgrace, what is happening.
Excellent and honest blog, Bonnie. I too claim I am not anti-Semitic because I am anti-Zionist. What Hamas did to those Israelis that fateful October day was an outrage, but there was provocation. To totally destroy a people in retaliation is the bigger outrage.
Yes, Anne, I’m sure a lot of people feel the same way you do but are afraid to say so for fear of being slapped with the “antisemitic” label. It’s all so heart-wrenching and soul-sickening.
It’s all about power, land, and oil. And if we could only resist the politicians’ propaganda that makes us think of ourselves as belonging to a tribe, maybe we could find peace.
Yes, querida Kim, all of that. Plus money-money-money-money. Power and profit at any price. 🙁
Thank you, Bonnie. IMHO, Netanyahu is a scourge and the Israeli government’s response to the October 7 horror has been gargantuanly disproportionate and unconscionable. Furthermore, Israel has never owned the repeated reports by its own border soldiers that an attack was potentially imminent before October 7, not to mention Netanyahu’s funding of Hamas in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank prior to October 7. And how many times have we heard through these last 17 months about the many war crimes being committed in the name of defense, with endless denials, and virtually no legitimate investigations by the Israeli government/military and the same tired declarations that every hospital, school, etc that they reduced to rubble was a Hamas stronghold?
Antisemitism is many centuries old, a free-floating -ism of ignorance and hatred that always lurks and rears its ugly head at various times. Interestingly, Jews are only 0.2 percent of the world’s population, so it really boggles the mind. Sadly, I do think that the war on Gaza has fanned the flames. My neighbor and I (both Jews) were talking the other day about how bad Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza is for American Jews in that regard. (Not to mention the Trump regime’s take down of US colleges and universities in the name of calling out antisemitism. God help us!) On the other hand, having grown up next door to the kindest couple, German Jews who survived Auschwitz, who were compelled to send their two year old daughter into hiding at a convent to be raised Catholic in order to spare her life in case they didn’t survive their inevitable deportation, I can say that the promise of Israel holds a unique place in the hearts of many Jews. Unfortunately, Israel has become another right wing government with a heartless sociopath at the helm now itself teetering on authoritarianism. Sadly, Hamas has also been an unmitigated disaster for the Palestinians.
Dear Cheryl — I am deeply, deeply grateful to you for sharing your thoughts here with us. Yes, “strongmen” like Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin — cut from the same sociopathic cloth — now ruling too much of the world and causing unspeakable, irreparable harm. In my view, you have encapsulated the Gaza issue perfectly. If only someone or something would change the course of this history.