Birds Over Auschwitz

“Anti-Semitism has no historical, political, and certainly no philosophical origins. Anti-Semitism is a disease…”

-Eugene Ormandy

Here We Go…Again

The recent antisemitic vomit spewing from Kanye West, as well as the recent, blatant, hateful display at the stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, dredges up those sharp pains of being a Jewish boy in 1950’s Oklahoma. I remember it as if it were yesterday, sitting on the floor on those straw mats in my second-grade classroom: “Now, which one of “yew kids don’t celebrate Christmas? ``Ah know Benji May don’t cause he’s a Jew!” As she pointed her finger at me, she strung out the word: ‘J-oooo so the class could receive the full impact of the word. “A Jew?!” “Benji May is a Jew?!” There was a hush throughout the room as the full impact penetrated the psyche of each of my classmates. I remember the feeling once the ‘reveal’ was made clear to all. And of course, “the reveal” always, eventually caught up with me every year, just when I was lulled into the sleep of acceptance. It was like a hot poker through my guts and out my back. “We thought you were like us?!” “Oh, really, come on guys.” I’d say. “I think my uncle was Presbyterian,” trying to deflect my embarrassment. My parents divorced when I was six. My mother’s dearest friend was a Black woman. Her name was Nina. My mother-God love her-had grave emotional problems, so I had to put her in a psychiatric ward the first of three times when I was sixteen after they turned off the utilities from her not paying the bills. Nina jumped in and raised me into manhood. She was my ‘other mother,’ and she taught me how to stand up for myself. So, a Jewish kid raised by a Black woman in Oklahoma of the 50’s and 60’s was a strange sight. You might call that double prejudice. And it didn’t stop with my late teens and college. As one of the only Jews in an academically challenging prep school my head met a locker a few times, compliments of the class bully: “We don’t want your kind here.” Fortunately, he was expelled. Then when I was a candidate for Navy Reserve Officer School in college, coming into the Navy Dormitory at night as I heard the guys’ talk echo as I climbed the stairs to my room: “May is a Jew?” “Are you kidding?” “Who would’ve thought?” Honestly, who should’ve cared? The next day after telling my commanding officer, his answer was probably correct, but I wasn’t playing. “Ben, you need to stay in the ranks so we can fix this?” “You fix it!” I told him and I joined a Jewish fraternity, finally feeling a bit more at home. Soon after, when the Israelis stood up for their country in the ’67 war, I changed my demeanor. “I’m a Jew,” and don’t you or anyone else mess with me, ever again.” Because the slogan is: “Never Again!” And, if you haven’t heard that one, educate yourself. Six million Jews died…Six million. I could never understand how or why those people-my people- would allow themselves to be shamed, brutalized, and butchered as they walked to the gas chambers singing: “Next Year in Jerusalem.”

“The Land”

I first went to Israel-”Eretz Yisrael”-the land of Israel- when I was 18, as a side trip after studying Russian in Munich, Germany. Things were much different there. I may have been an American but, for once, I felt like I belonged among Jews from all over the world. I didn’t have to explain myself to anybody. People ‘speak your language,’ literally, and if you want, you can learn an ancient language that is now Modern Hebrew: the only example of a “dead language” brought back to life through the bravery of one man: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in 1881, and in Israel, bravery is the name of the game. These are different kinds of Jews. The kind I would aspire to be no matter where I live. In Israel there is one word prominent in the lexicon besides: “never again. It’s: “ayn brera.” It means: “no choice.” In Israel’s rough neighborhood, there is no choice but to excel, or to be brave, or to be ingenious in science and technology, or to be kind in welcoming the homeless and forgotten. These are not attributes peculiar to Israel. These comprise the foundation of decency, kindness and strength for any society, including one that professes to own it: the US. Remember the words of Emma Lazarus-a Jew-on the Statue of Liberty? Unfortunately, we are losing it right in front of our eyes. We all know what happens when good people do nothing or acquiesce.

Stand Up…and Soar

When we remain strong and stand with courage, evil, even as dark as Nazism can be overcome. In 2003, a squadron of Israeli F-15 Eagle jets flew over the remnants of the death camp at Auschwitz. The pilots were the grandchildren of the survivors and the dead from that evil place. In the end, the evil of antisemitism and all prejudice-from my Black brothers and sisters to Hispanics, Asians and all others-will eventually fall. Just watch and listen as you hear the roar of those Israeli jets over Auschwitz and the dead remnants of evil antisemitism at its worse. It may not be today, but eventually, even here, it will be: “never again.”