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| QUOTATION 1575 |
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| 1575. Mr. Silverstein, Harry and Syl - three types of the Jewish response to the active anti-Semitism in "Prelude" by Albert Halper. Since the birth of anti-Semitism, some two thousand years ago, the Jews have been arguing among themselves what should be the most appropriate response to it. Should it be patience and endurance, until troubles pass away? Or should they fight their persecutors, always and without compromise? Or, perhaps, something in between these two extremes would be the most effective tactics? Even in ours, relatively benign, as far as treatment of the Jews is concerned, western democratic societies, where anti-Semitism is mostly covert and not overt, as it was in the "good old days", a Jew often has to make a choice, how he should respond to its manifestations, especially when they are directed at him personally. For the sad but undeniable reality of a Jewish life is that most of it is spent in anticipation of an assault, either verbal or physical, and in planning in advance the steps to be taken to defend oneself against it. The range of the possible responses is quite wide - from joining Jewish Defense League to claiming that one, personally, never experienced anti-Semitism, or even going so far as concealing one's Jewishness altogether (the anti-Semites, whose speciality is "outing" a Jew, are particularly vigilant against this annoying Jewish strategy. The prey, by disguising itself, is hampering the hunt.) The variety of Jewish responses to the acts of anti-Semitism is described fictionally in a short story "Prelude" written by Albert Halper in 1938. There are three main protagonists in this story - father, son (the narrator) and daughter - each epitomizing a particular type of response. The father, Mr. Silverstein, probably around 50, is a widower. He makes his living by selling newspapers and magazines at a small newsstand in Chicago. He suffers from chronic pains in his legs due to the fact that the nature of his business requires him to stand outside all year around in all kind of weather practically motionless. The cold and windy Chicago's winters must be especially hard on him. Because of that his children, son and daughter, have to replace him at the newsstand whenever they free from school. Across the street there is a poolroom where the local young men hang around. They don't work and having nothing else to do find their main amusement in life in tormenting the Jews - Mr. Silverstein and his children. His is what is widely believed to be a typical Jewish response to this: to persevere and endure until the better times: ["We just have to stand it,"he said like he was speaking to himself, "we just have to stand it. If we give up the newsstand where else can we go?"] Which is, by the way, the eternal Jewish dilemma -to stay or to run. Which brings the next question - how long can you ran away from evil until you run out of places to escape to? Mr. Silverstein symbolizes the supposedly ageless Jewish trait - the will to survive at any cost, especially to his dignity. Trying to explain their despicable behavior on a proverbial pattern "Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing" , he forever looks for excuses for his tormentors: ["What they need is work," my father is always saying when they bother him too much. "They're not bad; they get this way because there's nothing to do," and he tries to explain the meanness of their ways]. In what is supposed to be a Christian's way (but which very few Christians actually follow) Mr. Silverstein, a Jew, actually sympathizes with his enemies, trying to understand and condone them: [My father says they really don't mean it, it's hard times and bad feelings, and they got to put the blame on somebody, so they put blame on us. It's certain speeches on the radio and the pieces in some newspapers, my father told us."Something is happening to some of the people and we got to watch our steps," he says.] He repeats it quite often: [My pa said we got to watch our step extra careful]. And this is another tactic the Jews like Mr. Silverstein employ and council: watch your step, be carful, do not attract attention, become invisible. When all this fails and he finally has to confront the open violence , Mr. Silverstein pleads with the assailants: [My father put his hand on the fellow's arm and said, "Please, please." But the guy pushed my father's hand away]...["Please, boys," said my pa."Please go home and eat and don't make trouble. I don't want to have to call a policeman-"]. Though they ignore him he appeals to them again and again: ["Please," my pa kept saying , "please let him up; he didn't hurt you. I don't want to have to call the police-"]. Even when they begin to beat his son his only reaction to it is to beg them to stop: [My father tried to reach me, but three guys kept him away. Four guys got me down and started kicking me, and all the time my father was begging them to let me up...] And so, as the situation gets worse and worse, Mr. Silverstein would reason, plead and beg, but he wouldn't fight back. He is passively courageous but actively cowardly. He would endure rather than resist. It is the behavior of the Jews like Mr. Silverstein that makes one to wonder sometimes if the Jews are in some crucial aspects more Christian than the professed Christians. They certainly have been doing a lot of offering of the other cheek and forgiving their enemies. The son, Harry, is about 12. He represents another type of the Jewish response to anti-Semitism. Unlike his father, he sees no excuses for their tormentors, for the relentless harassment they inflict on his family : [...he(father) tries to explain the meanness of their ways. But I can't see it like my father. I hate those fellas and I hope everyone of them dies under a truck. Every time I come home from school past Lake Street they jab me, and every time my sister Syl comes along they say things] Instinctively, he rejects this not uncommon among the Jews the subconscious impulse to be more Christian than the Christians - Harry doesn't love his enemies, he hates them. On a personal note, Harry reminds me of an old Jewish carpenter back in Odessa, Ukraine. I was 18 and hired as his helper. He did the usual things - repairing doors and windows, installing locks and what not. But he also had a very peculiar duty to built the coffins for the company's deceased employees (it was 1957 and Soviet Ukraine didn't have private shops to sell the coffins). So, I remember, every time he made a coffin he would say: "I wouldn't mind to make coffins for them, meaning gentiles(goyim in his words) every day". Nevertheless, though Harry, unlike his father, hates their tormentors, he, like his father, seeks to avoid an open confrontation with them for as long as possible. He "watches his steps". Coming back from school he tries to stay away from them: [I passed along the sidewalk, keeping close to the curb. Someone threw half an apple but it went over my head. When I went a little farther someone threw a stone. It hit me in the back of the lag and stung me, but it didn't hurt much. I kept a little toward the middle of the sidewalk because I saw a woman coming the other way and I knew they wouldn't throw.] I suspect a lot of Jews, especially of my generation, can identify with Harry. In one form or another we all went through this. The external specific circumstances in each case might have been different, but the internal psychological dynamics, the essence, the trauma would be the same. I don't think it is possible for a non-Jew to fully imagine an incredible toll such relentless daily harassment takes on a Jew. Harry follows his father's sage advice, a piece of the old Jewish wisdom: [ If you don't answer hoodlums, my father once told me, sometimes they let you alone.]. But, again, unlike his father, he vehemently resents it: ["Why do we have to stand it?" I exploded, almost yelling. "Why do we-"] His father sees it as a flaw of character, which could endanger his son: ["Yes, he's not bad," my father answered smiling."Only he has a hot temper once in a while."] But this is not how Harry sees it: [But who wouldn't have one, that's what I wanted to say! Who wouldn't? Here we stand around minding our own business and the guys won't let us alone. I tell you sometimes it almost drives me crazy. We don't hurt anybody and we're trying to make a living, but they always picking on us and wouldn't let us alone.] And since they never do, there comes the time in the life of Harry (as it comes, sooner or later, in the life of every Jew) when minor insults and petty harassment escalates to something bigger and a Jew, no matter how, being conditioned by the collective Jewish experience, reluctant he might be, is forced to take a stand and to draw a line at how much more he is willing to endure. In Harry's case it comes when the young antisemitic hoodlums try to make him go down on the sidewalk to perform some exercises in order to further humiliate him and his father: [But then it started. The guys who passed by came back and one of them said, "let's have a little fun with the Yids."That's how it began. A couple of them took some magazines from the rack and said they wanted to buy a copy and started reading. In a flash I realized it was all planned out. My father looked kind of worried but stood quiet. There were about eight or nine of them, all big boys around eighteen and nineteen, and for the first time I got scared.] Let me interrupt this quotation to highlight the universal feature of hoodlumism- eight young man against one small boy is exactly the ratio that all hoodlums prefer. They aren't interested in one on one combat of equals. They always attack the weakest and, as if this is not enough, invariably do it in overwhelming numbers. And now, back to the quotation.[ It was just after six o'clock and they had picked a time when the newspaper trucks had delivered the five-star and when all the factories had let out their help and there weren't many people about. Finally one of them smiled at Gooley and said, "Well, this physical culture magazine is mighty instructive, but don't you think we ought to have some of the exercises demonstrated?" Gooley said, "sure, why not?". So, the first fella pointed to some picture in the magazine and wanted me to squat on the sidewalk and do the first exercises.] And this is the line which Harry wouldn't cross. This is the time when human dignity, often against the best judgment of its possessor, asserts itself and the life no longer seems to be worth the price one has to pay for it. [I wouldn't do it. My father put his hand on the fella's arm and said, "Please, please." But the guy pushed my father's hand away. "We're interested in your son, not you. Go on, squat." "I won't," I told him. "Go on," he said. "do the first exercise so that the boys can learn how to keep fit." "I won't," I said. "Go on, he said, "do it." "I won't." Then he came to me smiling, but his face looked nasty. "do it. Do it if you know what's good for you."] Then, the real violence starts and, despite the overwhelming odds, the 12year old boy, unable to take it anymore, fights back. [But before I knew it someone got behind me and tripped me so that I fell on one knee. Then another of them pushed me, trying to make me squat. I shoved someone and than someone hit me...] He is quickly subdued, but when his sister tries to help he resumes the fight: [Syl started to scratch, so they hit her, then I broke away to help her, and then they started socking me too.] Though small and vastly outnumbered, when pushed [against the last wall] he would not submit and wouldn't run. Harry is like a spring which could be compressed only so far before it recoils and strikes back. This metaphor is by no means universally applicable. Not every spring recoils. Some just break down. Harry's father, characteristically, though he doesn't run either, even at this moment, when both of his children are being battered, doesn't join the fight but continues begging hoodlums to stop. His spring must have been broken long time ago. |
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