I always wanted to be a teacher.
I actually began teaching even before attending school. When
I was three years old, my elder brother informed me that his
teacher used a cane to chastise her students. That was in
Belfast, Ireland, over sixty years ago. How it is today, I do
not know.
At any rate, the idea appealed to me. If this was all it took
to realize my ardent ambition to become a teacher, then I,
too, would acquire a cane.
I promptly found a ruler, lined up the few dilapidated wooden
chairs strewn about our red-tiled kitchen, and proceeded to
teach them enthusiastically, by means of vigorously whacking
them. I must have found the experience enthralling, for
playing teacher became my favorite game, with the poor
unresisting chairs my long suffering pupils. I named myself
"Miss Paddywhack," an eminently apt choice for so violent a
teacher.
Sometimes today, when I am delivering a lecture and the first
comers of the audience are reluctant to occupy the front
rows, I relate this anecdote adding: "So please do move up
front. I don't want to return to teaching the empty
chairs!"
Both my parents were natural teachers, so I suppose it is in
my blood. My mother had been trained as a teacher for small
children. Lovingly and gently, she taught me to read both
Hebrew and English long before my schooldays.
With all this preparation, it is not surprising that I could
hardly wait to commence school proper, and enjoy the status
of a real school-girl. Unfortunately, this meant public
school, for in those days there were no Jewish day schools in
the British provinces. Religious Jews arranged that their
children skip school prayers and scripture lessons. Instead
they received their own religious education in evening
classes provided by the Talmud Torah.
At last the great day arrived. I could hardly contain my
excitement. Dressed in my new navy gym dress and blazer, my
satchel proudly slung over my shoulders, I set off for the
tramcar, clutching my elder brother's hand.
We arrived at the school playground good and early. I was
amazed. I had never seen so many children all at once, and
was not a little awestruck by the wildly dashing boys
uttering bloodcurdling yells as they flung themselves upon
one another in fearsome play.
At the clang of the bell, I was ushered into my classroom
— for girls only — I noted with relief. I sat in
the place assigned to me, a double desk, and began to take
stock of my surroundings. Everything my brother Menachem had
said was correct. There was the blackboard. There was the
teacher, complete with cane. There were the monitors busy
distributing the primers. And there were my new classmates
regarding me curiously.
A little intimidated, I stared back. They all seemed so much
older than I, ( they were in fact seven to my five), and so
— what my mother would label —- unrefined.
The girl beside me was the first to address me. "Are you a
Catholic or a Protestant?" she inquired suspiciously.
The city of Belfast seethed with religious hatred and
prejudice then as now. Perhaps I had aroused her suspicions
by looking somewhat different from the others, with my olive
complexion, black curls and youthful appearance.
"No. I'm Jewish," I replied proudly, pleased to have such a
satisfactory rejoinder. My parents had often assured me of
the superiority of the Jewish people. Hadn't my mother read
to me just that Shabbos how Hashem had delivered us from the
cruel Egyptians and chosen us from among all the nations to
give us His precious Torah? This reply, I felt, was a real
winner, sure to provide me with status, prestige and honor. I
glanced at my neighbor expectantly and ventured a tentative
smile.
But what was this? My deskmate was gaping at me in absolute
horror. "A Jew!" she said excitedly. "A real Jew!" She
pointed. "Then it was you who killed
C————! We learned it in Sunday
school." Hastily she passed on the information to the desks
in front and behind. The news spread like wildfire. The class
was inflamed. There was a real live god-killer in the fold
right in their very midst.
The teacher, unaware of the cause of the tumult, rapped
sharply on her desk for order, threatening disciplinary
action with the cane. An ominous silence prevailed until
recess.
At eleven, the class was ordered to the bathroom, and lines
formed in front of each stall. It was then that my troubles
began in earnest. No one would let me in to use the
facilities. All these years later I can still see the image
of that dark bathroom, the six stalls at one end, and the one
rusty sink at the other. I can still hear the clang of the
doors being shut in my face, as two strong girls, probably
from a senior class, held the door closed so that I should
not wrest it open.
I tried another line — the same thing. And so with each
of the lines. The girls were adamant in their resolve. No Jew
would desecrate the holy portals of the gentile bathroom
stalls.
"You killed C———. You killed
C————-." they chanted. "We won't let
you in. We won't let you in. You're a Jew. You're a Jew."
I recall my chagrin and confusion, my stomach cramping in
dread. How would I last the day without using the bathroom? I
looked around in bewilderment — I hadn't killed anyone.
What did they mean? My parents wouldn't let us even hit each
other, so how could I have killed anyone?
And who was this C——-? I had never heard of this
gentleman whom everyone but me seemed to know so well.
In the end, it was my father who explained it to me, after I
had arrived home sobbing . "That's how the gentiles are.
Hashem made it as a test for us while we are in golus
We know that the Yidden are Hashem's special children
whom He loves with all His heart because we alone accepted
His Torah, just as we have always told you. But many gentiles
are jealous, and because of that, they hate Jews just because
they have kedushoh.
As an excuse for their hatred, they say it's because Jews
were responsible for the death of a man whom they worshiped
as an avodoh zoroh."
"And did the Yidden really kill him?" I wanted to know, my
tears forgotten, as I became engrossed both in the story and
my father's simplified hashkofoh lesson.
"No," replied my father. "He was, in fact, liable for the
death penalty. But beis din never killed in the cruel
manner which they describe. It was the Romans who killed him,
and unfortunately many innocent Jews, too, in the torturing
way they were accustomed to."
"But I wasn't there!
"No, but that's just one of the irrational ways some gentiles
use to torment Jews. And the children repeat the words and
attitudes of their parents. That's what we mean by the word
"antisemite."
Well, it was a lot for a five-year-old to absorb in one short
day. But I think I did. Never again would I expect a gentile
to understand the greatness of the Jewish people. More
importantly, I learned to become even more proud of our
unique status and heritage.
That lesson was instilled in my subconscious that day at my
father's knee. Thus were my parents granted siyata
diShmaya to raise their family, loyal to Hashem, Torah
and mitzvos whilst surrounded by gentiles. We simply
never considered them as being on the same spiritual plane as
we were. We were "goy mikerev goy", encompassed by an
invisible barrier of immunization against gentile values.
