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so, so true...recently i met a lovely woman at my pool, very hip and progessive. when we linked on facebook, and i saw she went to bryn mawr for high school, i had an immediate reaction of combined distaste, distrust and self unworthiness. And then I slapped myself and got over it.
Posted by gina on 06/22/08 at 12:40 PMAdd Comment
Pig Latin
“Where did you go to school?” If you’re from Baltimore, you know the question refers to high school, not college. We all laugh about it as a sign of the peculiar provincialism in this weird little city.
But the question’s really not that innocent, is it?
“Where did you go to school?” is a gateway for our own nosiness. It really means: How much does your father make? Are you Irish or Italian? Catholic or Protestant? Professional or tradesman? And finally, Jewish or gentile?
It’s all just part of the invisible but palpable chaste system around here. Perhaps that’s why violations of it create so much confusion.
Last month, BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES Executive Editor Phil Jacobs wrote a fascinating piece about alleged anti-Semitism at Boys’ Latin School and its effects on two brothers, Max and Aaron Linkoff.
Right off the bat, the story feels disjointed because it’s about Jews at a snooty old institution in Roland Park. Anyway, the story makes it seem like the BL gang was having a heil of a good time with these Jewish boys. But it’s a little hard to tell.
It seems clear that Max, a talented lacrosse player and high school student, was driven from the idyllic campus by atrocious and unambiguous behavior. The administration’s response, at least as reported, seemed inadequate.
Nevertheless, Aaron, a junior high student, returned to BL this year. His story ends the same way, with a transfer, but his situation seems murkier.
The primary evidence of prejudice was a noose, woven from lacrosse mesh and tossed at him in the locker room. I’m not sure what the slipknot imputes as a symbol to Jews, but at best it’s dubiously anti-Semitic. To my knowledge, only one Jew was ever among the strange fruit ripening in U.S. trees.
Anyway, the Linkoffs complained, the JEWISH TIMES wrote, and the outrage flew. Letters poured in from Jewish and gentile defenders of BL, and from offended Jews outside the school community.
As for me, I think the anger, at least in Aaron’s case, was more about adults than students. The junior high years are a time when boys are aggressive. Fistfights and threats are common. The kids are physically maturing even as their brains are toddling behind.
In other words, it’s normal for them to want to murder each other, but I think a little much to assume it’s purely for philosophical reasons like deicide.
The Linkoff boys were merely living God’s mission for the Jews. They traveled east of the River Jones Falls to dwell among the gentiles. And they got burned.
As usual, the story burns up the rest of us. We suspect that the mainstream BL kids are merely engaging in behaviors they learned from their parents. We imagine their schools as mini-versions of their clubs, and clubby business institutions.
Maybe there’s some truth in that, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that the “Noose Weaver” is a nice kid. I know him, and I go back two decades with his parents. They are utterly progressive, unprejudiced people.
They are mortified by their son’s behavior and petrified by the inference. As adults, they have a nuanced understanding of anti-Semitism and the long, violent history that goes with it. Their son is just a kid living in a sheltered world. He couldn’t possibly know that his sparring with one boy could carry centuries of burden.
Interestingly, the same week the BL story broke, I received a deluge of letters concerning my column about Jeremiah Wright. The Jews who wrote were unanimously disgusted by my attack on that villainous mentor to our esteemed Democratic candidate. One missive even likened me to Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin!
I was overwhelmed by the symmetry. To many Jews, the moronic scuffles of little buttheads were a sign of a coming pogrom. Yet the vile statements of a mature and hateful man, with decades of sway over our likely next president, were essentially meaningless.
So this week, I’ve got a request for Baltimore Jewry: Stop asking each other where you went to school. Instead, find out why you didn’t learn anything.
Posted by on 06/20/08 at 12:00 AM | Comments (1)
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