{"id":34335,"date":"2017-01-13T17:11:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-13T23:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=34335"},"modified":"2017-01-13T17:11:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T23:11:17","slug":"adolph-hitler-and-miss-smiths-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/adolph-hitler-and-miss-smiths-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Adolph Hitler and Miss Smith’s People"},"content":{"rendered":"

By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF<\/em><\/p>\n

Miss Smith, my third grade teacher, stood facing the class with her arm around my shoulders. She looked out to her students, her eyes focused above them. I looked down. I had just finished reciting a poem to the class and before I could return to my desk, Miss Smith was at my side.<\/p>\n

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She was a good story teller and told the tale of Goldberger\u2019s medical sleuthing with gusto. \u201cBut his
\npeople are having a bad time,\u2018specially in Germany, because of an evil man named Hitler – a fiend in human form. Let’s show Teddy that we\u2019re proud to live in America, where we\u2019d just send the dog catcher to pick up a fleahound like Hitler.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Anti-Christ had come to destroy the faithful, she told the class, and naturally, he had started with the Lord\u2019s people, the Jews. It was Armageddon time.<\/p>\n

This talk made me nervous. I\u2019d never heard of Joseph Goldberger, either. I was only Teddy Roberts, fourth grader in Vollentine Grammar School; not the visible representative of the Lord\u2019s people or the
\nJewish race or even one of the major contestants in the battle of Armageddon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like Jewish kids,\u201d she repeated. \u201cIt\u2019s a shame we don\u2019t have more of them here in the deep South.\u201d<\/p>\n

The classroom was full of giggles because of Hitler and his fleas, I hoped, and not at me and the fact that in Tennessee Jews like me were as rare as polar bears. Miss Smith\u2019s speeches made me uncomfortable –
\nlike singing Christmas Carols. Why couldn\u2019t she just take me into the cloak room and explain my uniqueness – a Jew in Tennessee?<\/p>\n

But I did like the feel of her big hand on my shoulder. And maybe Miss Smith\u2019s praises helped me with Betty Lou McKintosh, whose blue eyes opened wide as she looked at me and his teacher at the head of his class.<\/p>\n

Me and Miss Smith and my third grade classroom were lucky enough to be located in that section of the country that lies south of the Tennessee northern border and north of the Gulf of Mexico \u2013 namely, Memphis, Tennessee. Now that\u2019s not unusual and as a fact, holds no interest even to obsessed collectors of Jewish population exotica.<\/p>\n

But what is interesting is that as I progressed from kindergarten through high school, I never encountered a single word or event that hinted of anti-Semitism (whatever that means, which we\u2019ll explore
\nlater). Where were all those so called hillbilly Southerners \u2013 uneducated to the core \u2013 who thought Jews were rich, power-hungry, over-influential, and had talons of steel that could move the world.
\nWhere was the Ku Klux Klan? Like all of us I suffered rejection, but never attributed it to my Jewishness.<\/p>\n

Of course, it always is a healthy choice to boast of your Jewishness instead of hiding it. That\u2019s a personal choice I believe in. Others may disagree. I don\u2019t mean renting a podium, writing a speech, and
\noratorically announcing your ancestral descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. One must be a bit more subtle \u2013 subtle, not hidden.<\/p>\n

Alluding to your ancestry in a relevant conversation. I think it\u2019s morally helpful as a goal to your behavior. I think it constantly reminds you and the peopled world you move in that the spotlight is on
\nyou. You\u2019re not Raymond Greenberg \u2013 you\u2019re Raymond Greenberg the Jew. And ringing in your head like a bell is the reminder that in a sense Judaism is on trial, not just Mr. Greenberg. The moral bar should be higher for you \u2013 your lies, treacheries, misdeeds not only brand you, but blemish a whole race of your extended Judaic family.<\/p>\n

Strange, that only applies to us, not our Christian friends. It is a form of discrimination that I for one don\u2019t regret. It keeps you \u201con your toes\u201d as the expression goes. Yes, the Jew is still an ethical
\ntarget \u2013 but you should be a smaller target than your fellow worker, student, club member, whatever. We should so imbue our children.<\/p>\n

\u201cDebbie, we\u2019re the Chosen People. Act like it. We carry the flag!\u201d Of course this doctrine of elevated morals is only effective (and rewarding) in your day-to-day meandering through life. It has no
\npolitical impact. No relevance to Islamic terrorism that celebrates your decapitation by killing two more like you.<\/p>\n

All of this \u2013 an obvious thought \u2013 no lightning flash of insight \u2013 struck me as I first met my fellow soldiers when I served my short stint in the Tennessee National Guard. As I subtly revealed my religious identity, one fellow soldier from a hamlet in Tennessee \u2013 with wonder in his eyes \u2013 exclaimed, \u201cGee, I never met a Jew before\u201d. (Like a zoologist might remark of a two-headed elephant.) Remember
\nthese were predominately country boys from small Tennessee towns.<\/p>\n

Somehow, that bell rang loud and long. I\u2019m the only Jew he has ever come in contact with and if he stays in non-cosmopolitan Tennessee, he may never meet another. I\u2019m the barometer for millions of my co-
\nreligionists. I better behave.<\/p>\n

You say he may have been a wife-beating, burglarizing, child-abusing scum. So what? Makes no matter. He was still a moral stimulant to Teddy Roberts the Jew.<\/p>\n

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