From as young an age as I can remember, I heard a constant
refrain from my family: "Keep a low profile as a Jew." It derived from countless sources: the long
history of persecution of Jews; my own grandparents' experiences with pogroms
in the old country; the madness that was overwhelming Germany as the Nazis took
power; the anti-Semitism still endemic in 1930s America, represented by the
hateful weekly radio broadcasts by Father Coughlin—the
list was lengthy and persuasive.
It was dunned into me that there was my inside Jewish world, and the
outside WASP world. I might be
tolerated in the latter, but no good could come of blaring my identity; and if
I did reveal it, I should do so in a way that brought no discredit to Jews in
general.
Never having personally experienced anti-Semitism, I was
loath to think that America at large could be as discriminatory as the warning
implied. By the time I was 17, I could point out to my
family that, despite being told that many colleges limited their
Jewish enrollments, I had been accepted at all to which I applied. As only a youngster can do in the face
of advice proffered by elders, I snidely repeated the wisecrack that
anti-Semitism is to Jews what weather is to everyone else, a constant topic of
conversation.
None the less, I found that the inoculation had taken
hold. Whenever it seemed
appropriate, I would camouflage my Jewishness. Thus, in my first independent venture into the outside
world, when I searched for a job to occupy the eight months between graduating
from high school in January 1947 and going to college in the Fall, I
reflexively took advantage of my Americanized surname to masquerade, taking
care that I wasn't seen as a Jew.
I landed a job as an office boy at Newmont Mining Corporation on Wall
Street, then and now an international giant in the mining industry. And in truth I was soon pretty sure
that I was the only Jew there, unless someone else was masquerading too.
My responsibilities were the usual for a gofer: announcing
visitors to their appointments in the various offices, going to buy take-out
lunches for the executives, doing whatever odds and ends needed doing. That didn't mean there were no exciting
chores for a 17-year-old. I also
cleared cargos through the splendid old Customs House
on the Battery, ran errands to other Wall Street firms and to the Stock
Exchange, and so forth—experiences that taught me much about the financial
district in lower Manhattan.
Despite my drilled-in sensitivity to the specter of
anti-Semitism, I still wasn't prepared for an incident a few months into the
job, when I went to the desk of the employment officer to announce the arrival
of an applicant for a secretarial job.
She had a distinctly Jewish surname, so Mr. Schmid asked me if she
looked Jewish. I was shocked—my
first personal encounter with overt anti-Semitism, mild as it was.
The French have a splendid expression, "l'esprit
d'escalier"—the spirit of the stairway—to account for those occasions when
we think of just the right thing to say, but only when it's too late, when
we're already on the stairway leaving the occasion. I am still proud today that my wits were about me on the
occasion of Mr. Schmid's question and not later. Recovering quickly from my shock, I put on my most innocent
look and said, "Mr. Schmid, I'm not sure what a Jew is supposed to look
like." Of course, the poor
woman didn't get the job; looks or not, her surname alone was enough to sink
her.
Shamefully, after that incident I felt fortunate that I
could continue masquerading—neither my skin color nor my surname would give me
away. I was certain now that my
mask was why I had been able to get the job; and perhaps, I thought, it was
also why I had been able to get into the colleges to which I applied. It was only then that I began to
realize that many others didn't have even that shabby opportunity to bury their
heritage. On the positive side,
the incident stoked the liberal politics that I had also inherited from my
family, for I became more convinced than ever that America needed to change.
That fleeting encounter with Mr. Schmid, to this day my only
personal experience with unconcealed anti-Semitism, was a booster shot for the
inoculation by my family.
"Keep a low profile as a Jew" set itself deeper into my
psyche. When I had children, I
found myself giving them the same advice.
So here I am at 82, realizing with astonishment that in this
very blog I have sometimes wantonly raised that profile, literally broadcasting
my identity to the world. Even in
this more enlightened age, it is a change of behavior that has given me a
profound sense of unease.
Thus are the wounds of our ancestors perpetuated in
ourselves.