In Only 100 Years
I’m one of the lucky ones. Both my maternal and paternal grandparents emigrated from Eastern Europe in the very early part of the last century allowing their families to live in the freedom and opportunity that America offered. They along with so many others were fleeing the murderous pogroms of Poland and Russia. Jews were not safe.
My mother’s family left Suwalki, Poland (or sometimes part of Russia), made a stop in Paris, where my mother was born, and settled in this country in New York’s Harlem, and in time moved to the Bronx. Along the way their name changed from Berkowski to Berkowitz, even though some of their family had become Berman and had settled in Detroit. My father’s family left Kiev in the Ukraine, initially settling in Chelsea, MA, where my dad was born, and eventually moved to Brooklyn. They also changed their name, from Shmulsky to Schoolsky. Of course their moves became even more important, for by doing so all of our immediate family avoided the horror and insanity brought about by Hitler and Nazi Germany. Had they not come to America, all of our family would probably have wound up, like many of our family and 6,000,000 other Jews, in the ovens of concentration camps like Auschweitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, etc. If nothing else, their move had brought their families safety, and I became one of the lucky ones.
Eventually Shmulsky/Schoolsky married Berkowski/Berkowitz, settled in a tenement in the Bronx, and had three children, my brother, my sister, and me. The West Bronx neighborhood known as Highbridge that we lived in during those days of the Second World War, was basically peopled with first and second generation Eastern European Jews and Irish and Italian Catholics. We were two religious minorities, thrown together by immigrant circumstance, who felt a freedom of faith in a country that afforded us an opportunity to do and be whatever it was that we could achieve as a community and as individuals. We felt safe in our “minority status.” Rarely did anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic hatred touch us or our community.
In time we, like so many others, moved to “the better life” on Long Island, buying a house in a more diverse neighborhood, but one that rarely (if ever) showed signs of prejudice against people of the Jewish faith. Yes, we would see some developments on the Island that had signs declaring a “Restricted Neighborhood,” which meant no Jews, Catholics, Negroes (or anyone else that wasn’t just like them), but they didn’t pose any kind of a threat to us, and so we ignored them. We still felt safe and lucky.
After graduating from high school I traveled south to attend Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA and left the “safety” and numbers of a Jewish neighborhood that was so easy to get lost in. While I found that Jim Crow and segregation were still alive, I also discovered that there was a fairly large and active Jewish community in Atlanta. In time the city became my adopted home and I lived there most of my life. While anti-Semitism reared its ugly head now and then, I still felt safe.
Being drafted into the army and sent to Fort Jackson, SC in 1960 was truly the first shocker of anti-Semitism that I ever experienced in my life. A number of my fellow recruits in basic training referred to Jews as Christ killers. I was lucky enough to work in the orderly room during basic (I could type), and got to know my company commander who always called me “Abie,” since that was what he called all Jews. He felt he was lucky that he could have a “good Jew” working for him in the orderly room. Today I feel shame that I put up with that slander. My two years in the service brought me into many forms of anti-Semitism, both verbal and physical, and by the time I was discharged I was very aware of that hatred and “otherness.” This experience, and with many to follow, confirmed for me the true meaning of the line dealing with anti-Semitism in the 1947 movie Gentlemen’s Agreement, “It’s not the out and out bigots we worry about, those we can handle. It’s the good people that let them get away with it that we have to worry about.” How true.
Today I am retired and live in a small city in southwest Louisiana and part of the smallest Jewish minority that I have ever known. Even though I meet some people who honestly have never met a Jew before (one asked if I really had horns), I find that ignorance of the Jewish faith and its people keeps the level of anti-Semitism at a very low level. Of course when it does raise its ugly head I am the outspoken letter-to-the-editor writer that lets people know where we stand. Do I feel safe? On a local level, yes. But on an international level, absolutely not. I feel that comfort of being one of the lucky ones is threatened.
What is happening today in the Middle East and extremist Arab world is a dire threat to all Jewish people world wide. Fourteenth century thinking with twenty-first century weapons is a danger that is no more than a new twist on an old bias and hatred that started in early Europe. The memory of the Shoah (Holocaust) of the Second World War is still fresh in our minds.
Now I wonder if I should feel so safe & lucky.
My mother’s family left Suwalki, Poland (or sometimes part of Russia), made a stop in Paris, where my mother was born, and settled in this country in New York’s Harlem, and in time moved to the Bronx. Along the way their name changed from Berkowski to Berkowitz, even though some of their family had become Berman and had settled in Detroit. My father’s family left Kiev in the Ukraine, initially settling in Chelsea, MA, where my dad was born, and eventually moved to Brooklyn. They also changed their name, from Shmulsky to Schoolsky. Of course their moves became even more important, for by doing so all of our immediate family avoided the horror and insanity brought about by Hitler and Nazi Germany. Had they not come to America, all of our family would probably have wound up, like many of our family and 6,000,000 other Jews, in the ovens of concentration camps like Auschweitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, etc. If nothing else, their move had brought their families safety, and I became one of the lucky ones.
Eventually Shmulsky/Schoolsky married Berkowski/Berkowitz, settled in a tenement in the Bronx, and had three children, my brother, my sister, and me. The West Bronx neighborhood known as Highbridge that we lived in during those days of the Second World War, was basically peopled with first and second generation Eastern European Jews and Irish and Italian Catholics. We were two religious minorities, thrown together by immigrant circumstance, who felt a freedom of faith in a country that afforded us an opportunity to do and be whatever it was that we could achieve as a community and as individuals. We felt safe in our “minority status.” Rarely did anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic hatred touch us or our community.
In time we, like so many others, moved to “the better life” on Long Island, buying a house in a more diverse neighborhood, but one that rarely (if ever) showed signs of prejudice against people of the Jewish faith. Yes, we would see some developments on the Island that had signs declaring a “Restricted Neighborhood,” which meant no Jews, Catholics, Negroes (or anyone else that wasn’t just like them), but they didn’t pose any kind of a threat to us, and so we ignored them. We still felt safe and lucky.
After graduating from high school I traveled south to attend Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA and left the “safety” and numbers of a Jewish neighborhood that was so easy to get lost in. While I found that Jim Crow and segregation were still alive, I also discovered that there was a fairly large and active Jewish community in Atlanta. In time the city became my adopted home and I lived there most of my life. While anti-Semitism reared its ugly head now and then, I still felt safe.
Being drafted into the army and sent to Fort Jackson, SC in 1960 was truly the first shocker of anti-Semitism that I ever experienced in my life. A number of my fellow recruits in basic training referred to Jews as Christ killers. I was lucky enough to work in the orderly room during basic (I could type), and got to know my company commander who always called me “Abie,” since that was what he called all Jews. He felt he was lucky that he could have a “good Jew” working for him in the orderly room. Today I feel shame that I put up with that slander. My two years in the service brought me into many forms of anti-Semitism, both verbal and physical, and by the time I was discharged I was very aware of that hatred and “otherness.” This experience, and with many to follow, confirmed for me the true meaning of the line dealing with anti-Semitism in the 1947 movie Gentlemen’s Agreement, “It’s not the out and out bigots we worry about, those we can handle. It’s the good people that let them get away with it that we have to worry about.” How true.
Today I am retired and live in a small city in southwest Louisiana and part of the smallest Jewish minority that I have ever known. Even though I meet some people who honestly have never met a Jew before (one asked if I really had horns), I find that ignorance of the Jewish faith and its people keeps the level of anti-Semitism at a very low level. Of course when it does raise its ugly head I am the outspoken letter-to-the-editor writer that lets people know where we stand. Do I feel safe? On a local level, yes. But on an international level, absolutely not. I feel that comfort of being one of the lucky ones is threatened.
What is happening today in the Middle East and extremist Arab world is a dire threat to all Jewish people world wide. Fourteenth century thinking with twenty-first century weapons is a danger that is no more than a new twist on an old bias and hatred that started in early Europe. The memory of the Shoah (Holocaust) of the Second World War is still fresh in our minds.
Now I wonder if I should feel so safe & lucky.
posted by Sam Schoolsky | 1:58 PM
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