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Anti-Semitism Rears Its Ugly Head
In New York City, of all places
I grew up in New York City. To me, it was a great place to grow up. The fact that my parents were from India didn’t make me a pariah. My own lack of social skills did that. Others of Asian descent didn’t have that problem. By the time I was in high school, I didn’t have that problem either — I went to Stuyvesant, where I was a geek amongst many and I made friends.
Many of these friends were Jewish. A few wore yarmulkes, just like one of my Sikh friends wore a turban and a Christian friend wore a cross. I had Muslim friends as well, but they didn’t wear the veil.
The reality was — we were all Americans, and, what was more important to us at the time — we were New Yorkers. The prejudice that might apply in the boonies was not going to be found among us.
At one point, when a teacher made a racist comment, I remembered everyone walked out of the room. There were only a few black students in the school, but they were considered equal and their rights mattered to us.
Given my background, I was horrified to read of the attack on a NINE YEAR OLD Jewish boy in a Brooklyn playground. A group of people were involved and one of them flashed a knife at the child and threatened to kill him. Antisemitism seems to have been the motive, given what…
