I hate to admit it, Sid, but you were right, after all. (That’s one way of getting folk’s attention. Who is this guy Sid, and what was he right about? So I need to do some explaining.)

This happened sometime back in the 1980’s. The year before, I had been promoted from Supervisor I to Sup. II – which meant I had automatically become smarter in the process. I had spent the first year of my promotion in Purgatory, a/k/a a shelter for homeless women, and was now back in the Child Welfare Administration, where I belonged. That’s where I met Sid. My job was to oversee three teams, each of which had five caseworkers, and Sid was the supervisor of one of those teams, which meant that I supervised him as well. He was one of a handful of observant Jews in the office, although later… but that’s another story.

Of course we chatted, as I did with anybody and everybody around me. Sid had two concerns, one of which it was my job to deal with: a caseworker who exceeded the bounds of acceptable eccentricity (not easy to do). The other was the state of the world. My colleague was the product of a certain kind of Jewish education, one that emphasized the traumas, the debacles, and the catastrophes that the Jewish people had experienced over the centuries and the millennia. (Sort of like every day being Tisha B’av.) No surprise, Sid saw an anti-Semite, if not under every bush, or every drawer of every file cabinet in our office, at least lurking on every street corner in Lower Manhattan.. I think there is a path for us to go forward, was my approach and my advice, a position that made no sense to him. Just wait; you’ll see that I’m right, was more or less his response.

One obvious reason why we didn’t see eye-to-eye was the difference in our backgrounds. I grew up in the north Bronx in a very Jewish, very middle-class neighborhood. (It was only years later that I found out that our area had its own name, Norwood.) I could show you the photograph of my graduating class (J.H.S. 80 Bronx, class 9-6, June 1955), and if you read through the accompanying list of names, you’d realize pretty quick that I was surrounded by kindred souls with a few ‘ringers’ – nice boys and girls in their own right. Most of the Catholic kids? They were shipped off to St. Brendans, a ‘Parochial School,’ located not far away but in a different world, so we had little opportunity or reason to interact with youngsters who lived down the block. Which might have been a good thing, now that I think about it. Old habits die hard.

I could go on, but the point I’m making was that all the way through City College I was shielded from people who might not have liked my name or my attitude. And so on, through my brief stint teaching English to marginally impressed eighth-graders and my much longer career in the Human Resources Administration. The point being that if you don’t come in daily contact in your formative years with folks who hate you, you’re much more likely to go through life with a Sunny Disposish.

We were having dinner at our local Oshi Oshi recently, and I was sharing some thoughts on the matter with friends, fellow former Teaneckers. I could see the look of bewilderment on Steve’s face. He had grown up in Bayside, Queens, probably a nice enough area to be in, but I had the sense that he had not escaped the rancor of the multitude growing up. Had I simply been oblivious to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as a callow youth? Well, there was one incident with the kids from St. Brendans, but it was such an outlier that I remember it to this day. What about my friends and their experiences? I thought long and hard, but I could not remember anybody ever mentioning having had a problem because of who we are. (Other things, yes; it’s hard to reach the age of twenty-one without a certain amount of angst in one’s life.)

My attitude, back in the days when Sid and I were chit-chatting, was something like: We made it through the Holocaust, and there are still some of us left; the Arabs tried to wipe us out in 1948 and 1967, but when Barbara and I landed at Ben-Gurion airport in 1980, there was a thriving country to visit; we keep marching for Soviet Jewry, and every week more and more of our brethren are leaving the Gulag. While it’s not as if I expected smooth sailing ahead (definitely have someone on watch all the time, looking out for pirates and icebergs), the Ship of State seemed sea-worthy, and there were lots of passengers aboard to enjoy the voyage. But that was me, always the optimist, walking on the sunny side of the street.

Always watch out for the ‘unforeseen,’ the dark cloud on the horizon, the trouble lurking ahead, the crack in the pavement waiting to be tripped over. Sometimes, the ‘unforeseen’ could have and should have been anticipated and would have if only folks who were responsible had been paying appropriate attention to what was in front of their collective noses all the while. But there are at times when the ‘who knew’ factor simply blind-sides us.

If we were able to rewind the audio tape to the beginning of October 2023, we would hear the seismic sound of the ball being dropped big-time. There is pretty much a consensus here in The Land that we were too busy arguing amongst ourselves to notice that we were about to be invaded and that what we were arguing about wasn’t worth the time of day. To our credit, however, it took only a few milli-seconds for the nation to realize the error of our ways, and rally around the proverbial flag.

But in The States? Truly, who knew? Well, maybe the pessimists like Sid. Where were all these vitriolic enemies hiding these many years? Or were they in plain sight all the time? OK, some of them we knew about, the ones who have always been with us. But the Hamas supporters in the tens of thousands, what rocks were they hiding under?

You’ve all read the headlines and watched in dismay as the streets in NYC are being filled with young people eager to push the occupants of The Land into the sea (any sea) and to terrorize the Jews remaining within shouting distance. But what scares me BIG TIME are recent events in Teaneck, NJ, the quintessence of Exilic Jewish existence, where our family spent quality time back in the early 2000’s.

On the one hand, our shul, Congregation Beth Aaron, has waved goodbye to more members making aliyah than any other synagogue in The States. But there is also a strong sense in the community that this is it, a final refuge from the storm, where Jews can live safely and in style for generations to come. Look at all the shuls, the stores, the restaurants, the day schools. And especially, look at the homes, renovated, enlarged, even knocked down to make room for bigger if not better. Truly Ir Hakodesh west of the Hudson River. What could be better? What could go wrong?

Right after Oct. 7, I got the email from CBA’s rabbi, Larry Rothwachs (who will himself be making aliyah to lead a kehillah once the new area of Beit Shemesh is ready for occupancy), urging his congregants to attend a town meeting slated to pass a motion in support of Israel. Now why such a motion would be useful is not clear to me. (Full page ad in the Jerusalem Post: Teaneck NJ has your back.) In fact, it contradicts one of my main tenets: Let sleeping dogs, cats, and anti-Semites lie. Sure enough, Barbara got a phone call from a good friend back there that the meeting was a disaster. Pro-Palestinians from three counties packed the meeting. Our friend and her adult daughter, sensing trouble, fled the scene. OK. Strike one.

And then, I received another email from our former spiritual leader with a notice from the BCJAC (Bergen County Jewish Action Committee, if you haven’t figured it out) NEVER AGAIN IS NOW.  Reading it, I began to get really nervous. The Teaneck Superintendent of Schools and the Board of Education agreed to a ‘Teaneck H.S. Walk Out for Palestine’ during school hours on school property scheduled to take place ‘fourth period’ on Nov. 29. Despite the protests and pleas from clergymen (including fourteen rabbis), others in the community, and the local congressman, the event was going to happen. In response, a protest on the township green was called for 8PM the night before.

Teaneck H.S. It’s not just that it’s across the street and up the block from where we lived on Cranford Place. It’s not just that it’s a beautiful old building, modeled after a Tudor palace, and thus known as the ‘Palace on the Hill.’ It’s not just that the shul’s overflow minyans on the High Holidays were held in its auditorium before CBA’s big expansion. It’s not just that the school, despite shifts in population, retained its status as a first-rate high school, with an experienced administration and faculty, offering A.P. classes to those who qualified – even if it no longer offered Latin in its curriculum. It was a haven for kids like Natania, Jewish boys and girls who were not benefiting from a day school education. And there were, over the years, more of them than you’d think. Yes, there were fights that broke out in the school lunchroom from time to time, but we never felt for a moment that our daughter was in mortal danger. She did get to hang out with a diverse bunch of kids, including a Muslim girl and a Seventh Day Adventist, both of whom were more than happy to eat in our house. Who would have imagined a time when Jewish kids (and there still are some) would be afraid to walk those same hallowed halls? (There is a class-action suit out there waiting to be filed.)

With all these disquieting events going on in plain sight, you might think that it would be enough to occupy the full attention of my former neighbors and shul mates. But… A few days before, one Beth Aaron member, known for his willingness to stir the pot (not a bad thing), had posted on BAdiscuss (an unofficial forum for shul members to say their piece) a link to an article, entitled ‘The Rescuers,’ by The New York Times’ columnist Thomas L Friedman. It didn’t long for another member to respond, Thomas Friedman hates Israel. And then, off to the races, because who can resist the urge to pile on?

Friedman was reporting from Rahat, the Bedouin community near Beersheba, about how local residents rescued Jewish Israelis on Oct. 7 and how some themselves wound up being captives of Hamas. Friedman was simply observing the complexity of live here in The Land (and elsewhere), which was the point the pot-stirrer was trying to make.

Should I get involved, or should I leave these guys to duke it out amongst themselves? The only thing I thought to say but wisely didn’t was, You are SOOOO Oct. 6. One thing we learned – or I hope we learned – from that horrific Shabbat/Hag morning was not to confuse people we don’t agree with – or even like – with the actual anti-Semites of the world, the ones who really do wish us harm. If a) you’re trying to kill me; b) you’d like to kill me; c) or you’re encouraging either a or b, then I have a serious bone to pick with you. Otherwise, I’ll let it go. Friedman? A well-respected, thoughtful journalist. That his thoughts and mine are not always in perfect harmony is another matter. Many of us don’t appreciate the coverage in The New York Times, but when the anti-Semites on Parade marched through midtown Manhattan, they made a point of spraying graffiti on the newspaper’s headquarters; for them the paper is too pro-Israel. So go figure. (Or maybe, don’t waste your time.) Wherever you are, Sid, you were on to something, and I’m willing to admit it.