Religiously Non-Religious
Was my upbringing unique? Until the age of 8, I was in a multiracial, multiethnic, and multireligious environment. My first crush as a little girl was the teenage son of our neighbors who were Italian. For some reason he had nicknamed me “cookie” and I was in 7th heaven. My father’s store was in an all black neighborhood and I was there frequently. I used to play with some little girls that would show up with a jump rope when they knew I was there. My father had grown up in that neighborhood and the mechanics that I referred to previously were his next door neighbors and his life long friends. I knew people of Asian background, and European backgrounds.
My best friends, Dianne, and Alicia, were both Catholics.
Yet, there was an unspoken message that was delivered to me as a child, that we, as Jews, were different! Not better, just different. Later on, as I learned about WWII and the Holocaust, I understood my parent’s hesitancy to get too close to people who weren’t just like us! Of course, by then, for me it was too late to self isolate, nor would I want to.
I would go to my Dad’s store less and less frequently as I got older. Part was due to the fact, that I was now busy with things concerning both school and my own social life. However, sometimes I went because I wanted to, or my parents just didn’t want me to be home alone. I no longer played outside in the street, but I sometimes would wait on customers, for non medicinal items. I enjoyed it and most of them knew me from the day I was born anyway.
My father had a delivery boy, He was about my age, maybe a year older. When he didn’t have a delivery to make, we had conversations, and played a game. He was a very talented artist. I would draw a squiggle on a paper and then ask him to turn it into a horse, or a clown or Santa Claus! He would take the paper and produce a very good likeness of whatever I had asked for.
My mother, more than my father, I think, became nervous with our friendship. I simply was told I couldn’t go to the store anymore. I have no idea if my artist friend had any idea of why I never returned, ( that is until he wasn’t there anymore), or if he cared. I was starting to date, and I think our friendship frightened them. Were they racist? Not outwardly, of course, but did they harbor some fear about me and a black man? No sure, about the motives.
I wonder if he was Jewish? Would that have changed the equation? It seems odd to me that at 14, even if they thought things were chaperoned, which they weren’t, they let me trapse around New York with a group of very obnoxious, very rich kids and seemed fine with it, but to be a close friend to someone black was not allowed? Maybe I read too much into it.
I can tell you that when I met my husband, my mother was annoyed that I was seeing him exclusively, even though he was white and Jewish. I actually had to have a friend of his come and “pick me up” for our dates, and then I would meet my husband around the corner. In fact, today, about 60 years later, we still joke that his friend dated me!
My friend Dianne and I had a very close relationship. She loved to come to our house for Jewish holidays. She never said anything anti, well anything. I was at her house constantly too. They had enormous Christmas parties that I was always a part of.
My parents, never attended religious services, yet they were paying members of the Synagogue. I went to Hebrew school for a short time, I learned how to decode Hebrew. I hated it because I had no idea what I was saying, it was never translated, so it was like speaking code. I attended some Bar Mitzvah’s there, girls at that time didn’t have a Bat Mitzvah. I thought it was pointless. When something special was happening at the Synagogue, Dianne would come with me. No one ever said no. Similarly, I would go to Church with her. Every Thursday after school, the school bus would let us off near the Church. She went to confession every Thursday. I would enter the Church with her, sit in a back row while she would go into the confessional. The Priest, would walk across the front of the Church to attend to Dianne. He would routinely say hello to me, using my name, and then go into the “booth” When she was finished, she would walk out and we would continue to the deli across the street and share a treat. I was asked her why she went into the booth, why not just talk to the Priest? She answered that the confessional is private and the Priest has no idea who he is talking to. I answered, “Well he may not know you, but he sure knows me!”
When I was married and Dianne was one of my Bridesmaids, she needed special dispensation to be in my wedding. I never asked permission of anyone when she married and I was a Bridesmaid at her wedding.
When I taught at the various schools, most of them being religious. I developed a whole different attitude towards religion. While people feel it unites them, it is a severe source of separation. Everyone wants to claim, their way is the only true way. Religion, to me is based upon superstitution, and innuendo. It is used by the powerful to wield control over the masses. I still find inspiration in a religious experience, but I can’t accept anything simply because a doctrine, or clergy tell me to. In other words, I do not accept things on “faith”. I have no problem with people of religion, as long as they don’t impede on my right to do what I believe.
