I stood in the school washroom waiting for my new friend, Betsy, to finish primping. We would become fast friends, each of us anxious to put down roots in a new junior high school in a new city.
“Well,” I said, “can you sleep over this weekend?” I had asked her plenty of times before, and she always had other plans.
“I don’t think so because—”
I interrupted her before she could finish. “I don’t get it,” I said, looking at her reflection in the mirror, staring at her naturally wavy hair, deep green eyes and high check bones.
“Every time I ask you, you have an excuse.”
Betsy stared down at the bathroom floor. “I can’t come to your house.”
“What?” I said. “Why not?”
She paused and then whispered, “Because you’re Jewish.”
It felt like a sumo wrestler had landed on my stomach. What the heck was she talking about?
“I don’t understand,” I said. And I didn’t. I lived in a Detroit neighborhood where I was friends with the Catholic kids down the street, the Syrian girl around the corner and the first-generation Latvians two blocks down.
Confused, I pressed Betsy for more information. All I got were tears.
I felt like crying, too, but a stubborn, prideful part of me refused to let her see me upset. I straightened my glasses, smoothed my hair, and turned on my heels and walked out the door.
This first bitter taste of anti-Semitism undermined my naïve vision of a world in which religion, race and gender are badges to wear proudly–or, at minimum, just part of who we are. Sure, there were times when I wished I could celebrate Christmas instead of Hanukkah. Or that I didn’t have to go to Hebrew school. But I had never felt self-conscious about being Jewish before. I had never had to explain my religion and I was never discriminated against because of it. But this all changed that day in eighth grade, and things just got worse.
Most of the kids in the Detroit suburb where my family lived had never met a Jew. And once I was “outed,” the questions and nicknames came faster than lightening.
“Can you eat bacon?” “Do you believe in Jesus?” “What are those silly hats the Jewish men wear?”
I was called “The Bagel Bopper,” the “Palestine Princess.” And I hated it.
Adolescence is all about belonging, and the last thing I wanted was to be different. Instead of embracing my religion and celebrating my uniqueness, I did everything in my power to be accepted. I took the gentle teasing on the chin, patiently answered all of the inane questions, and kept quiet about anything “Jewish” in my life.
The Bigger Jew
Senior “skip day” was a big deal at my high school. There were parties, and that year, a luncheon at Betsy’s house. She and I had somehow remained friends since that day four years before, but her parents never once relented and allowed her to come to my home – or invited me to theirs.
“Of course, you’re not going?” My dad asked when I showed him the invitation.
I hesitated. “I think I might.”
“Why would you want to? What good will it do?”
I’d given this a lot of thought. “I need to make a point.”
“What point?” he said incredulously.
“That I’m bigger than they are,” I said.
“That’s nonsense,” my dad said. He wasn’t the forgiving type. “If it were me, I’d rip up that invitation and throw it back in Betsy’s face.”
“She’s not the one carrying the hatred,” I said. “It’s her parents who are ignorant.”
“Why give them the satisfaction of your presence? Then they’ve won,” he said.
“If I go, we can all be winners,” I said, sounding more sure of myself than I really was.
While I remember that day back in eighth grade as if it were yesterday, the luncheon four years later is a blur. I remember staring at Betsy’s older sister with cerebral palsy, wondering why raising a special needs child had not opened her family’s hearts to others who were different. And I vaguely remember Betsy’s mom giving me a hug and a sappy group of 17-year-old girls crying in relief.
Did we all end up winners?
I’d like to think so. I know the experience forced me to ultimately embrace my religious culture and to rally against prejudice in all its insidious forms. My heart may have been temporarily broken, but the years as an outsider and my small “victory” taught me that with time, patience, and freedom from fear, even the most ignorant can see the light.