Why, God, why?

A Letter to the 4th grader who called me a “Dirty Jew"

Mar 20, 2024

On October 8th, 2024, one day after the horrific attack on innocents in Israel, I thought, “Yes, today the whole world loves us, but wait until tomorrow; it will only take two days and the world will return to hating us. The world loves dead Jews, but alive, not so much!”

I recently found a letter I wrote twelve years ago and edited five years ago in a legacy workshop and never mailed. I ask whether you would have sent it or not, and what your reasons might have been for your decision.

Here’s my letter:

I’ve never thought to write to you – and why am I now? We’ve not seen each other for almost 75 years, but you calling me a “dirty Jew” on the John Burroughs Elementary School playground one recess when we were in the 4^th grade awakened me to being “other” when I thought I was safely “at home” – “home” that meant protection and inclusion among other things. Your two words changed that forever for me.

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At best, though I’ve been a loyal, active and educated citizen, have served my country hearing Jack Kennedy say, “Ask not…” by volunteering for two years in an Arab country in the US Peace Corps – I remain somehow “other” as does my family and community.

The most recent “dirty Jew” story I heard was that a big, tall boy called my four and a half foot tall grandson a “dirty Jew” on the snowboarding slopes. Sammy dropped his board, advanced, as David to Goliath, and punched the kid in the face. Sammy was ejected from the hill and sent home. How much difference in 70 years. I didn’t think to smack you in the face – no, I went crying home to tell my mother and it was there I had my first lesson about anti-Semitism. My mother told me you didn’t understand what you were saying – that you must have learned it at home and what I should do was be nice to you to show you that I was not a dirty Jew. (Rather Christian to turn the other cheek!) I don’t remember exactly how I felt, but following my mother’s advice, we became friends – close friends – played at each other’s houses for the rest of elementary school.

But the question I had then remained potent and painful for a long time, like I was still a plaintive 4^thgrader, asking myself and others: Why do “they” hate us? No answers I’ve heard in my lifetime soothed that ache. In years past I suffered because I wanted to be loved and welcomed and included – as one of you.

As I have matured, I no longer yearn for the impossible. Instead I stand proud as a Jewish woman, an American Jewish woman, and I ask and in fact demand to be respected as a human being, and I want my fellow Jews to be treated with that same respect. We are “other” and yet the same, ALL created in the image of God. We’re not perfect, but neither is any other group of people on this planet.

Visiting Israel for the first time 20 years ago, I felt that pride in my people – for all they’d suffered and accomplished in 70 short years – building a society of medical, technical, and scientific achievements unparalleled in and benefitting the whole world, constructing beautiful, modern cities, making the desert bloom, integrating Russian, Ethiopian and other immigrants unwelcome elsewhere. Walking on manhole covers with “Lion of Judah” embossed on them, hearing “12 Tribe” taxis race through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, and visiting the most authentic and sophisticated museums I’ve visited anywhere in the Western world, viewing archeological sites that thrill and awe beyond imagination, and experiencing that in Israel - with armed soldiers on every corner - my shoulders relaxed, dropped what felt like 6 inches – to not hunch up with the stress of being “other,” – “being “home” – something white Americans can’t even fathom because their history of being in the mainstream, protected by government and unlimited white privilege, prevents such an experience or understanding – taking for granted the feeling of being safe and at home. Aye, there’s the rub: Israel may be the Jewish homeland, promised since the day God told Abraham to go forth to the land God promised to him and the nation he would father.

That is “my” family and my homeland in one sense. But my karma is to be a Jew in the diaspora. Paradoxically my home is America. I’m a 2^nd generation American – my 8 grandchildren 4^th generation Americans and I would have it no other way. I was fortunate to be born here in America, in Minneapolis (purportedly the most anti-Semitic city in America in the 1930s) – exactly one day before Kristallnacht in Germany. I remain unclear why my soul decided to live an embodied life at that moment in that place, but I often sense that it’s related to our early encounter and I wonder about what your soul’s purpose was to do in this lifetime.

Yet simultaneously, I hear your words, Judy H___ echoing on the playground. I hear the giant boy’s words threatening my small but mighty grandson on the hill and I wonder will I hear Nazi boots marching on my homeland one day – in NY, LA, Washington, San Francisco – history repeats itself and are Jews safe anywhere on this planet – in Minneapolis, Moscow, Madrid, or even in the motherland, Israel?

So why am I writing you today Judy? I have no idea where you are, what your life has taught you, whether you a’re even still alive – yet your name and my memory of your words and our relationship remain vivid.

This is not a letter asking your forgiveness, nor am I forgiving you. I think I understand where your words came from and that you were a product of your environment at home and in the culture of Minneapolis and the world of the 1940s - you were not of an age to understand how hurtful your words were, nor how, unchecked, they could be fodder for a fire that has been fed by fear of the “other” for 5,000 years.

I do hope that our friendship may have impacted you in that world of hate and fear, and that perhaps you did not pass that on to your children, because of our friendship – but I’ll never know whether my mother’s advice was right, or if it would have been more effective for me to have gone back to the school playground and punched you – it’s the difference of philosophy still unresolved in me, American and Israeli Jews – will people respect us more if we’re strong and fight – never again allowing ourselves to be marched to the crematoria or are we stronger in a Martin Luther King/Gandhi sort of way?

The biggest question is: what if we are mistaken to say, it won’t get worse – we can put up with low level anti-Semitism – it could never happen here or again and in 2024 is that a costly mistake? On the other side is to walk around always waiting to be clobbered – having no trust in anyone not Jewish and ghettoizing our psyches and our souls – always with our shoulders hunched up around our necks, armoring ourselves and seeing everything as a threat – it’s a narrow bridge –a tightrope we still walk today.

I must tell you that most of the time I’m in pretty good balance – am eager to be “a light unto the world” – eager to share the riches of Judaism with others who are receptive, believing that that’s why my soul made me a Minnesotan, an American Jew, and brought me to life with an insatiable desire to learn and to teach and curiosity and interest in offering the riches of Judaism to a universal audience, yearning as I did for the first 50 years of my life for a spiritual connection that would help me be whole.

Though I’m not of the majority culture, I’ve been the recipient of many blessings: a loving, healthy family, intimate friends, and meaningful work. Gifts from Rabbis: the ethical will and lighting Shabbat candles from Rabbi Edelheit – guidance from Rabbi London, co-creating a ceremony to be whole within a tradition that thinks divorced women need to be remarried to be acceptable in the community; a tradition of learning that challenges my intellect and delights my soul; music that opens me so I can pray from my heart. These riches are new, coming only after I divorced in my mid-fifties.

Judy, I have over and over chosen to live and work among you – simultaneously learning about myself and serving others – open yet always armored – yearning yet growing ever more sure of who I was and am, and learning to love myself and others more fully.

I’ve often chosen situations and been in circumstances being the “token” Jew, the only Jew. That’s both uncomfortable and challenging, and I think I’ve always learned and taught in those situations: the only Jewish teacher in a large suburban school system, a Jew serving in the Peace Corps in a Moslem 3^rd world country, bringing important messages – in cardiac health – in grief/death and dying – and legacy – first to women and then both genders in secular and religious institutions of many denominations. With each encounter, I’ve gotten less bravado and braver.

Today I never hide the reality that I am a Jew nor do I flaunt it or think myself “chosen” in the sense of “better than”. I have become clearer about who I am and how I’m to be a light rather than a shadow, how I can use my gifts to liberate and empower others, how I can be useful as the world transitions to the age of Aquarius.

When I pray, I often thank God for making me a Jew. And in the next moment I can easily devolve into fear about the future and worry that my 2 children and 8 grandchildren may live in times far more difficult than I have endured – though I know I am powerless over the future and have no idea what is in store for any of them or us all.

Judy, I sincerely hope your life has had as much adventure, learning, renewal, challenge, love and joy as my life has offered me. How interesting it would be to meet you today and to know each other, to share with each other as mature and aging women.

I have looked for you on Facebook and Google but have found you (years after writing this letter) through Stephanie H—-, a junior high classmate of ours, who lives in the building I do. (I have taken meeting her and us identifying that we were classmates, as a gift making you accessible to me should I choose to mail this letter.)

Best,

Reflections at 85

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