January 19, 2011--Restricted

When I was about 10, my parents and extended family rented a summer house in the northern Catskill Mountains. In Tannersville, New York. Because of work, my father remained in the city during the week and came up to the house on weekends, as a special treat bearing boxes of Ebingers' cakes. Among the pleasures we shared was his love of wandering around, exploring back roads and byways. We would set out with the Grand Gorge Diner as a destination because, he claimed, they made the best homemade apple pie--he was right about that--and we would thus wend our way along various back roads to wind up there for a couple of à la mode slices.

One Saturday, along one of the blue highways, we came upon the Maple Leaf Inn. A charming place half hidden behind luxurious hedges. Innocent that I was, I asked, "Can we drive in? It looks so beautiful. I bet they have a big swimming pool."

Uncharacteristically, my father ignored me and drove quickly by the entrance. Insistent, I whined, "Why can we look around? I'm sure they wouldn't mind."

Still without responding, my father lurched the car into a screeching U-turn. When we approached the entrance again, he slowed down and, without saying a word, pointed to a sign half-obscured but still visible under one of the hedges. "Read it," he commanded.

I did. It said--Restricted.

"What does 'restricted' mean?" I asked.

"It means, No Jews." He was quivering in a way I had never previously witnessed.

"I still don't understand."

He angrily said, "It means they don't want us there. In the hotel or on the grounds. It's restricted only to gentiles. We, Jews are not welcome."

And so on that day some of my innocence ended.

Fortunately, throughout the course of my life I experienced almost no direct anti-Semitism though I did become aware of what went on in Eastern Europe during the Second World War--a number of my relatives had been put to death in concentration camps and a few managed to escape and made their way to America where I encountered them when I was a small boy.

And during my adult life, as I heard more stories and read more history I also learned about anti-Semitism in America--especially from the 1880s and 90s when the Populists blamed some of the recurrent recessions and depressions on Jewish bankers both in the U.S. and Europe. From H.W. Brands' American Colossus, which I have just finished, I read about how beginning in the early 1880s, declining farm prices prompted many in the Populist movement to blame Jewish financiers for their plight. Although Jews played only a minor role in the nation's commercial banking system, the prominence of Jewish investment bankers such as the Rothschilds in Europe, and Jacob Schiff, of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in New York City, made the claims of anti-Semites believable to some.

And then I learned more about how during the first decades of the 20th century millions of Jews who fled to America to escape pogroms and virulent anti-Semitism were regarded by Nativists as genetically inferior and at the center of global conspiracies that contributed to the wrecking of the American economy and the debasement of American values. From this I became all to aware of how deep anti-Semitism was embedded in the American grain.

Then there was the other morning, on Martin Luther Kind Day, over coffee, when a successful businessman, a terrific guy, spoke about what a great man MLK was and how much progress we have made in race relations. "Still more to accomplish," he said, "but I'm old enough to remember segregation and all those Jim Crow laws."

I nodded in agreement and said I am old enough as well to remember the "colored" and "white" drinking fountains and the "colored" and "white" beaches down here in Florida. And I added, "Look at all the progress women have made and gays and, for that matter, Jews. There is remarkably little anti-Semitism anymore in America. Yes, there are the Mel-Gibson situations and the Anti Defamation League keeps a close eye on any evidence of anti-Semitism, including--fairly or unfairly--Sarah Palins' use of 'blood libel' the other day. But compared to what I remember from my youth, Jews and Jewishness seems actually to be highly regarded these days,"

"It may have something to do with Israel," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm a good Christian," he said, "Even Evangelical. And I go to Israel every year. I am inspired there."

"That's fascinating," I said, feeling I knew where this might be headed--toward the millennialist belief that before there could be a Second Coming of Christ Jews need to occupy what they call Greater Israel, which very much includes the West Bank and much more of that regions' hotly contested territory. Without the cooperation of Jews there can be no Rapture, no Second Coming, no Millennium, no Last Judgement. Thus, we Jews are no longer "restricted." Quite the contrary.

And so I diverted the conversation with my breakfast mate and directed us to talk about other things. This was something, I thought, we could pick up on a day other than the one devoted to the life and work of Dr. King.

We had, though, stumbled onto one explanation as to why there is so little residual anti-Semitism in America in spite of the fact that we are in a deep recession and it would be easy to blame it on a conspiracy of American and international Jewish bankers. After all we are living here in Bernie Madoff territory.

But we should not be naive. Jews have been important in the past to the wider society and that hasn't prevented pogroms and worse. I am, though, enjoying the current lack of anti-Semitism; and if the Maple Leaf Inn is still around, maybe this summer we'll book a room for an August weekend. It is after all still only a few miles down the road from the Grand Gorge Diner.