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Show Joel Shapiro 5/26/82 tp 1 pg 15 child, to be the only J ew in his class. Cur n umber s are such today. Obviously, the time of which we're speaking, the 20's and 30's, when I was a youngster, it was very likely that one was the only child. Well,I wa-s going to use as an illustration what happened in school, because I think that's where the Mormon model impacts very closely on the family. Always has, y ou see, (and) probably always will. In the tirr.e when I was the only Jewish kid in the class, perhaps in the whole grade school, there was certainly no question in my family as to what my responses should be in that school whenever it concerned anything that had Christian overtone or Mormon impact. That is, whether we had a prayer in classroom, or whether we observed,as a school, some Mormon holidays or Mormon events, or whether they talked in the classroom about Mormon history specifically. I remember occasionally, and I wouldn't say it would be a lot, being harrassed as a Jew on the campus grounds . You know, the 'he killed Christ ' thing, and kids chasing you around. This happened to me once or twice, but I don't think it ever occurred to the family to protest in the school. 1Jh , in other words, aga.in,in the 20's and 30's, it was certainly those families which I would represent, the Reform families, the B' Na.ie Israel, (who) certainly, again, didn't want to rock the boat. We didn't want to rock the boat. We conformed to whatever was required of us in school, and really didn't think a great deal about it. That , certainly, placed against today's experience, would seem way out of joint. And yet, we were a family representing a. group of people wanting to get along. And that is a far, far cry NOW. Let's go back up there. AGAIN, I would stay out of school for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, there's no question about that. And my mother would call or come to the school and would explain that I would be absent for such and such a. day. Now, there was no particular attempt when I returned, ever, for the teacher to interpret to the remainder of the student body why this Jewish boy wasn't here yesterday. In fact, some teachers knew I wasn't there ••• some did, some didn't. They say •• I would get questions "why do you stay home on that day?" I wasn't that well able to answer that question, but I remember I was confounded about the questions. I wasn't properly prepared with my own Jewish experience to know why I stayed home on that day. But I did ••• |
