A LITTLE ANTI-SEMITISM
MANDELL, JONATHAN
A LITTLE ANTI-SEMITISM JONATHAN MANDELL A month after my arrival, Owens-boro was still a lonely, foreign place for me, a strange hybrid of My Old Kentucky Home and Los Angeles. It is an isolated...
...I stretched and rolled over...
...I'm very busy now," he said...
...Oh, you know all about it...
...I had not connected with any of it, least of all the music—and certainly not on an early August morning, lying in bed, hot and stuffy, This is Jonathan Mandell's first contribution to moment...
...Kaplan here...
...I rushed to the hospital...
...This was a situation I had never been in before—a direct challenge to my religion, I thought, and I alone was there to fight it...
...I'm one of your listeners...
...Jonathan Mandell who is a staff member of the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, the principals of which own the majority of stock in WOMI, our local competitive AM station...
...Who are you...
...I called a minister who was head of the local NAACP...
...Most were professionals...
...I have faith," I concluded my sermonette, "that all the decent religious people of Owensboro will not tolerate the action of Mr...
...He told me to send him a letter detailing what had happened, and he would write to the radio station...
...Politically, the area is as barren as its stripmines: "God, guns and guts MADE AMERICA FREE," reads a bumper sticker on one of many pick up trucks...
...But the point was clear...
...I guess I'll call him then...
...I got the phone book to see if there wa*va Jewish congregation (I had seen an old synagogue, but it had been locked shut every time I had passed by...
...Although you and Mr...
...I was in the diaspora...
...The newspaper directly under it was "A publication of the Christian Defense League," post office box 493, Baton Rouge, Louisiana...
...But I did the minimum, by rote...
...Did he set up a loan office...
...There was a listing: Temple Adath Israel...
...I told him how I was outraged at the anti-Semitic comment that morning...
...We need a minyan for a bris...
...Yes...
...What'd you say your name was...
...Oh," I said meekly...
...A young woman answered when I called...
...You want a personal apology...
...They don't understand when every time they see you they start talking about their 'other Jewish friend,' " one of the men said...
...By Friday, I had not heard from Wettstain, nor did I expect to...
...But Bob (Steele) would feel nothing about squelching a news story...
...I don't agree with Mr...
...Why didn't you call us up first...
...Why don't you join us...
...Let's just try the letter...
...the federal government does have some control over that kind of thing...
...Did he what...
...The only way I can be sure they're sincere is if they broadcast an apology...
...A call came into the newspaper for me...
...I wrote a letter that I thought would appeal to a hinterland sensibility, throwing in the constitution, the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission, moral decency, and—for topicality—a reference to the then-recently aired television show "Holocaust...
...A copy of Mr...
...The Jewish community in Owensboro, I learned, numbers about a dozen families...
...I asked, because I couldn't think of what else to say...
...Of course it's offensive...
...There are two colleges, museums of natural history and of fine arts, a symphony orchestra, a cable television company, a new convention hotel which regularly and proudly presents Las Vegas types like Englebert Humper-dinck...
...He liked the idea, but when I got to work that afternoon, he told me that the publisher had shot it down...
...Well," I said flabbergasted...
...Lowe chose to mention only Barsimson— was the joke actually premeditated...
...And then I heard it...
...Nothing...
...He has a date for dinner...
...He was a short, young native New Yorker named Robert Levy, with a big black mustache, big stylish hornrimmed glasses and a squeaky, friendly voice...
...He can't do that...
...All you're going to do is stir up anti-Semitism...
...But a personal comment is different from what amounts to institutional bigotry, I reasoned...
...It's going to live on a farm here," she answered...
...I know that much...
...You learn to swallow your pride," one of the women sighed...
...They'll think, 'What's this have to do with saving men's souls?' " "How about an editorial...
...I told him...
...It is the third or fourth largest city in Kentucky, hardly qualifying it for the Guiness Book of World Records, but its population, now about 50,000, is growing rapidly...
...She lived in Muhlenberg County, two counties south of Daviess...
...What...
...It never seems 1 to have numbered more than 31 j families...
...He didn't...
...I was surprised he needed no further explanation...
...I thought I had not done enough, that I would somehow have to inform the general community...
...I asked breathlessly...
...I'll talk with Joe...
...It better be by the end of the week...
...When I reached Linker, the first thing he asked after I explained the story was "Is it true...
...Greep was understanding...
...I asked her who she meant by "they...
...You don't have to convert right away," he said earnestly...
...The hostility I had expected in Owensboro was from my being a Northerner—worse, a New Yorker...
...And I don't find it offensive...
...The rabbi conducting services my first night was starting his second year with the congregation...
...Her husband had to look after it...
...I did not hear the broadcast...
...As I was walking out, somebody yelled "Where's he going...
...He was manager of a distillery that had brought Rose, the winner of a pig beauty contest, to town to advertise a decanter shaped like hog that will only be marketed in Iowa...
...He hung up...
...She told me he would be in at 9 a.m., and that the name of the disc jockey was Joe Lowe...
...Kaplan then told him it was in bad taste, and Wettstain responded he would talk to the disc jockey about it...
...But he said one member of the congregation was "an apologist...
...What...
...I was invited to dinner, to the symphony...
...He asked me what it was...
...It must be a joke...
...I flushed red, said nothing, and on the way back to the office thought of all the things I could have said, but knew I never would...
...He too invited me to shul...
...He lives right in the city...
...What irked me was not so much the joke itself, but that it was broadcast over the air— as if nobody in Kentucky could imagine that a Jew would be listening...
...Listen," I said, "If what he said is not illegal, it at least violates the spirit of the public airwaves...
...I called up the Federal Communications Commission in Washington D.C...
...We look forward to hearing Mr...
...A twelve-year-old boy, who participated briefly in the prayer services, was studying for his bar mitz-vah...
...In the mail the next day was a copy of the letter he had sent to WVJS, on the official stationery of the Anti-Defamation League, which even intimidated me...
...In the circuitous, rambling way of a Southern lawyer (with a Princeton education), he let me know what I had done wrong...
...I hugged the pillow...
...But I think you should talk to the station manager, Roy Wettstain...
...Copies of the letter had been sent to the regional ADL and to the FCC...
...I decided to write a letter to the editor...
...Wednesday morning of the following week, WVJS broadcast early in the morning (with misspellings and grammatical atrocities left intact): It is stated by a listener that on Aug...
...I got out of bed, and grabbed the phone book...
...It has a city-owned utility company, a riverport, a large General Electric plant, and four distilleries (corporate, not bootleg), with affluent neighborhoods and luxury houses to accommodate the executives...
...You had a right to react the way you did," he said...
...The last had occurred to me suddenly...
...I was late...
...I walked in hesitantly, nervously, and saw a handful of well-dressed middle-aged people standing near the platform...
...I've lived in Philadelphia, in Washington D.C., and I like Owensboro...
...All the women around her broke into knowing smiles...
...We consider such statement anti-Semitic and not in the best interests of your listening public whom you are licensed to serve...
...He gave me the once-over...
...Is that a threat...
...I looked for 'Anti-Defamation League.' I looked for anything starting with Jewish or Hebrew...
...Services had been suspended for the summer...
...We trust that by bringing this to your attention, you will see that the Associated Press feature is factually corrected to alleviate the distortion and that you will publicly apologize to your constituent listeners...
...Is Mr...
...Did he...
...When will that be...
...I was welcomed instantly, and I had not felt better since coming to Owensboro...
...Nobody in Muhlenberg County thought twice about the mixed mar-raige, she said...
...Her husband was not with her...
...Listen, I am of a Jewish background myself...
...I just answer the telephones...
...I guess I was jeopardizing my neutrality as a reporter...
...The disc jockey continued the tempo with his voice, hammering away in one of those young, hip, fast-talking, wisecracking patters that afflicts disc jockeys everywhere...
...He invited me first to try it out, offering what he called ecumenical training: his Baptist church next Sunday, his friend's Baptist church the following Sunday...
...I kept quiet...
...You're just doing this to satisfy your own ego," he said...
...He paused for effect...
...I had not thought much about being Jewish when I first arrived in Owensboro to take a job on the local newspaper...
...The connection is clearly indicative in the use of the call letters WOMI, which represent Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer...
...Did he set up a loan office...
...So, at a few minutes after nine (I wanted to give him time to settle in), I called the station manager...
...If you don't apologize, I think you'll regret it...
...I was not ready to leave town right away...
...And then I opened my eyes...
...22, 1978, a remark was made by Joe Lowe in his narrative on the AP feature "This Day in History" offended the listener...
...The gentile doctor stood by in silence, baffled, waiting to begin his professional services, as these strange people performed their bizarre rites...
...Lowe and WVJS, and will urge Mr...
...I got hold of the phone book of Louisville, the biggest city in Kentucky and the one most likely to have a Jewish community, and this time there were listings that began with Jewish...
...There was a pause...
...Well," he said, surprised...
...I could not imagine being part of a minyan at a bris, for example...
...By this point, I was belligerent...
...I was particularly encouraged when I learned that Jacob Barsimson, the man maligned, fought for equal rights for Jews in New Amsterdam (my very own New York) even though he was probably alone, certainly outnumbered, and there was no Bill of Rights or B'nai B'rith then...
...Two or three had their own businesses...
...After recounting the incident, the letter continued: Your station has thus participated in distorting a fact in order to perpetuate a false stereotype...
...The next newspaper was called the Christian Vanguard, "official publication of the New Christian Crusade Church," Issue No...
...Thank you for calling," she said sweetly...
...My campaign had not been completely forgotten...
...So I called Louisville...
...It is an isolated town west of Louisville on the Ohio River, run by a few back-slapping leading citizens who have voices deep as mine shafts...
...Hager said Wettstain had told him that I had said I was calling on behalf of the newspaper and that I would use the newspaper against him...
...After all this fuss, that was something I could not miss...
...Jacob Barsimon...
...There is nothing wrong with it...
...Look, it's been taken care of...
...The name is Wetts-tain...
...No, of course not...
...We don't have problems here," said Paul Bugay...
...And now," he said with mock fanfare, "This Day in History...
...They all said the same thing: there had been no anti-Semitism in Owensboro "on the surface...
...I know what they teach in parochial schools," one said simply...
...Of course not...
...The next day, as if on cue, I got a big package in the mail...
...That's because you told him you worked for the newspaper...
...I'm anti-mean...
...Why, Jewish people of course...
...I introduced myself to the first person in the group...
...Yes, of course...
...He, too, had been young and impulsive once, he said, but you learn moderation with age...
...I was, after all, still living in the United States...
...Sure, I had a bar mitzvah, I fasted on Yom Kippur...
...Where's the maternity ward...
...It had not occurred to me...
...This, then, was to be my ironic introduction to the Jewish community...
...Lowe, by letters and phone calls to his station, to publicly apologize for the airing of his prejudiced views...
...He said that a few of the members of the congregation were quite influential in the town...
...Is it offensive...
...I figured the least I could do was register my protest, so at the end of the day they would count up the phone calls for and against and do something with the tally...
...To somebody from Muhlenberg County, there wasn't much difference between a Jew and a Catholic...
...After the services, the rabbi invited me to join him in a drink at the hotel bar...
...It was not a commitment...
...It's all right," my editor replied...
...I won't say," Hager said, "the Steeles are the bad guys and we're the good guys...
...That notion was dispelled when I ran into a stout older man who had been the head of the Owensboro Tourist Commission and was now in charge of conventions at the new hotel...
...A man said my article in the newspaper that day (on a sewage meeting) was the most intelligent thing he'd read...
...That's true...
...I started to look up common Jewish family names, and then stopped, because if Wettstain was an example that wouldn't get me very far...
...But nobody answered...
...John Hager had been a lawyer for years before taking over the newspaper his father had run...
...This time my alarm had operated properly...
...Along with the transcript, Malcolm Greep, "Executive Vice President and General Manager," wrote, in part: May we bring to your attention that the only person we've heard from locally is Mr...
...She was not the only one who was not forgiving...
...with five hours to waste—thanks to a faulty alarm—before I went to work...
...The holocaust, I said, began "when the people failed to speak out against the first injustices, thinking them insignificant...
...She was wearing the Star of David around her neck...
...Lowe may not consider this type of broadcasting to be offensive, you should be aware that there are listeners and sponsors of your station who strongly feel otherwise...
...What...
...Over the next three days, to the wonder of the two or three people who worked near me, I set about putting things in motion...
...He looked up at the ceiling and scratched his scalp as he explained that he had called up WVJS to apologize for my letter, and to tell them he had no knowledge of it, that he had been out of town when I wrote it, that he would not have allowed it to be published...
...She was the only Jew (they had met in Denver, where he was stationed while in the army...
...And I think that it's offensive and outrageous," I barked in conclusion...
...There, across from a restaurant, was a warmly lit Notre Dame, except small and Jewish, but complete with onion spires and stained-glass windows...
...Yes it is...
...You have to speak out when you think something's wrong...
...Now it's taken care of...
...Mandell's letter to the above named newspaper which appeared in the "Readers Write" section of that paper, on the opposite editorial page, on Sunday, August 22, 1978, is enclosed along with a feature story to indicate that Mr...
...It was many months later, and the woman I had sat next to that first Friday night had given birth...
...He once told a convert, 'We Jews think of Jesus as a prophet.' " "Enough of the congregation," he said, as he motioned for the waitress...
...I'll get back to you—at my leisure...
...I stopped at the information booth...
...Kaplan...
...And he too told me I was making something out of nothing, that I was just going to stir things up...
...Hearing that this is how the affair had ended, a friend of mine gave me some advice in the form of a Yiddish proverb: To endure, be obscure...
...I heard the music stop...
...He listened sympathetically, but when I came to the idea of calling the churches, he said no...
...It is disappointing that a communicative vehicle, such as a radio station, particularly yours, a top 40 station, should act in such an irresponsible manner...
...That doesn't sound anti-Semitic to me," he said...
...Although accounts of its history, as dug up by librarian Anita Gauthier, conflict, the con-| gregation goes back at least 100 | years, and probably to a few years j before the Civil War...
...They all asked me what the joke had been...
...One person was studying to convert to Judaism...
...He was Catholic...
...I'm the local president of the Anti-Defamation League of Owensboro...
...There was a silence...
...A transcript of it was sent to Linker (with copies to the FCC...
...As I recounted the incident to her, I suddenly got angry...
...My own circumcision was participation enough...
...But Owensboro also has dozens of car dealers and some 30-odd fast food outlets, from Kentucky Fried Chicken to Red Barn, which features a hamburger called the barnbuster...
...And set up a loan office...
...If you see nothing wrong with it, that doesn't mean it's not offensive...
...Why are you resisting me...
...They may have some kind of holiday, I don't know...
...He asked me for Linker's phone number, but when Kaplan called him, the letter had already been sent...
...The rabbi applied a wine-soaked cloth to the tongue of the squawking infant and, as I heard the low murmur of a Hebrew prayer, I was no longer in Owensboro...
...All the rich Jews live there...
...Of course, every Christian is of a Jewish background, but there was no arguing with him...
...Ed...
...They think they're being friendly...
...I don't see it that way...
...It was a stack of newspapers...
...I was stunned, and angry...
...Owensboro is the backwaters of civilization," one city official said, "and that's just the way I like it...
...They also have a coal mine or two, or a newspaper in the family...
...Fine...
...He was one of about 100 Catholics in a country of tens of thousands of strict coal-mining Southern Baptists...
...Are you the one from the paper...
...A man in a red, white and blue suit, a retired patent attorney for General Electric, said they had moved here a long time ago...
...That's a lie," I said sharply...
...She said that I did not understand the way of life here, that I was wrong to come on so strong...
...No answer...
...Fourth floor," the nurse said, and, looking at this nervous young man in front of her, she gave me a knowing smile...
...Being Jewish in Owensboro still had not been completely without its pitfalls...
...I looked at the list of over 100 churches and thought seriously of calling them all to enlist them in the struggle...
...The station was WVJS AM...
...He said that after he read my letter, he had called Wettstain to ask him what the comment had been specifically (I had not mentioned it in the letter...
...Later, I talked on the phone with Paul Bugay, an attorney who was president of the congregation...
...I think he should move to the suburbs...
...My boy lives in New York," he said when I told him...
...I want them to broadcast an apology...
...Being Jewish was an assumption...
...I, uhhhh, don't want to get you angry," he said haltingly, and changed the subject to deflect my obvious anger...
...His wife said that they dated Christians while in Owensboro because "they had to have a, uh, a, they had to have a life...
...The music resumed...
...I'm not anti-Jewish," he said...
...Of course, you couldn't afford a place in Darien or Greenwich...
...I didn't know how to reach you...
...It also has apartment complexes, condominiums, and a housing shortage...
...None of the "girls in the office," she explained politely, was Jewish...
...He sounded bored, and indifferent, and finally, to end the conversation, he said he would talk to Joe to find out what happened...
...His son, he said proudly, had been valedictorian of the high school, his daughter was an athlete, now married and in the East...
...How could someone say that...
...He laughed harshly...
...They pointed out that the country club had Jewish members, something that could not be said in many communities in Long Island...
...They're not in right now," the woman who answered the number at one of those listings said...
...I sat next to a woman not much older than I, who was friendly, talkative, and pregnant...
...I asked his wife (he was not there) why the pig is in Owensboro, Kentucky, if the decanter is only going to be sold in Iowa...
...I'm part of the community now, I work for the newspaper...
...For the last 40 years or j so, the bi-weekly services have been j conducted by different student ' rabbis from Hebrew Union Col-i lege, the Reform Jewish seminary in Cincinnati...
...he said, suddenly alarmed...
...Lowe's apology over the air waves...
...It's all been taken care of...
...Later that day, I got a phone call...
...Others were retired...
...I'm not just somebody passing through...
...Music to my ears...
...My name is Bob Kaplan...
...He said sure...
...Its red banner headline said "Did six million really die...
...Can I ask you," Kaplan said politely, "if you are Jewish...
...A young staff member of the cable television station (owned by the Steeles) had bawled me out for not having included in my letter the fact that I worked for a competing company...
...Not really...
...On this day in history, in 1654, the first Jew, Jacob Barsimson, landed in America— and set up a loan office...
...Kaplan and some of the other merchants bought advertising time from the radio, and they were listened to, in more ways than one...
...I told you what happened...
...The item concerned one Mr...
...But it backfired, because I felt so guilty about its tone, that I called Greep up and apologized for overreacting...
...That couldn't be true, I thought...
...Yes, they said, there had never been any anti-Semitism on the surface...
...To be polite, I asked him where specifically his son lived...
...He called over the others, and they flocked around me, all smiles and cheery greetings...
...It's not a threat, it's a fact...
...No, he's out of town...
...I called up the only person I thought I could, Linker, and asked him whether he thought I had overreacted, whether in fact I had stirred up the situation...
...That's how I thought it worked...
...I asked myself indifferently, as an afterthought...
...Promptly on showing up for work Monday, I was hustled into the publisher's office...
...It will accomplish nothing...
...A city official whom I sincerely liked had suggested helpfully that I convert to Christianity...
...Daniel Sims, General Counsel, said that while the FCC has no explicit authority to handle racial and religious slurs, a test case could be made linking anti-Semitism with the Commission regulation prohibiting anything "obscene and indecent" from the public airwaves...
...He suggested sending the FCC any correspondence I would have with the station...
...I had gotten in the middle of something I knew nothing about, and it undercut whatever protest I had been trying to make...
...Are they going to broadcast an apology...
...I stuffed myself into my three-piece suit, and drove early Friday evening to the address listed on the card...
...I told you I'll find out what happened and get back to you...
...I finally asked what they meant by on the surface...
...50, with a full page picture of a bald German with a Hitler mustache, and above it, in red ink, "Julius Streicher Memorial Edition...
...Ma'am, do you have something to nosh...
...The capital, like the people, is tied up in tobacco and coal...
...When I talked to Wettstain, he basically told me to get lost...
...I first checked the Associated Press wire, which distributes "This Day in History," just to make sure that he really did not set up a loan office...
...I told him that Alan Linker was planning to write a letter to the station...
...We're starting up our Friday night services next week...
...But I was no longer alone...
...As we walked down the long hospital corridor—we, the Jewish population of Owensboro (a minyan here meant, by necessity and not conviction, ten people, not ten males)—I felt like a member of some exotic tribe...
...The AP had listed many events that occurred on that particular date, August 22...
...Owensboro dominates Daviess County, an anti-union holdout in United Mine Workers country, and a land of strict Catholics and Southern Baptists...
...What else did he say...
...I had no idea of the reaction that letter would cause...
...Many of them had been there for decades, brought here by corporations like G.E...
...I just want you to know you have a fan club," one of the women said...
...J At this point, of course, the sensible thing was to accept the apology, backhanded though it was, ignore the insinuation, consider the resolution a triumph for enlightenment, and move back into obscurity...
...It took an anti-Semitic comment to find the community—or rather for it to find me...
...She did not know what he was talking about...
...W-e-t-t-s-t-a-i-n...
...An ally, I thought, an idea that seemed all the more credible when he then said how much he and his wife liked the city...
...I started to think up what three very specific things I could do...
...His family owned the other Owensboro radio station, and, it turned out, the Hagers and the Steeles (the owners of WVJS) had been feuding for years, in fact for generations...
...You'll like this community...
...In the next half hour, I convinced myself it was worth talking to the station manager...
...he asked...
...When I told him what Sims had said, Linker said that the Anti-Defamation League does not like to handle litigation...
...I told him I was new to town...
...Finally, I thought of David Boeyink, the editorial writer on the newspaper, a graduate of the Harvard School of Divinity, another newcomer to Kentucky...
...Also in the mail was a postcard announcing the first Friday n-ght services of the season...
...Uhhhhhh, what was wrong with writing that letter...
...If anyone was offended by this remark we ask you to please accept our apologies...
...And two radio stations that play pop music...
...note: Apart from the obvious errors in spelling, the correct date, above, should have been A ugust 27...
...I wrote them a nasty letter instead...
...I used to cringe during the Hebrew parts of the service, but that night the familiar rhythms, the jumbled sounds, the gestures, the Sh'ma—all of it was exhilarating...
...I appreciate your telling me this," she said sincerely...
...I thanked him...
...But she did give me the name of an attorney, Alan Linker, when I asked how to get in touch with the Anti-Defamation League...
...He's an actor...
...I called the number at the synagogue, but there was no answer...
...Uh, tell me Jonathan," the publisher began, in his Jimmy Stewart delivery...
...Julius Streicher was editor of Der Sturmer and, according to William Shirer, one of the most "notorious and perverse" architects of the Nazis' official policy of anti-Semitism...
...After that, I thought I began to notice that some of my co-workers and some of the people in city government whom I covered were not as friendly or as talkative as they had been, although I realized it could have been my imagination...
...I went to a New York City public high school where if you were white and you weren't Jewish you kept quiet about it...
...He noticed my accent, and asked me where I was from...
...I turned over in bed...
...It does to me...
...His father had been photographed in the newspaper that day accompanied by Rose the Hog...
...If you don't apologize, there are three very specific things that I'll do...
...Calvin Trillin once called it the barbecued mutton capital of the world...
...No, I want an apology for the six million Jews who died because of attitudes like yours...
...their children had grown up here...
...I sat up...
...Is that funny...
...Is this the person who wrote that letter about the comment on the radio station...
...one of them asked when I told it...
...Mandell is a staff writer of the newspaper...
...On the top of the stack was a copy of my printed letter, with "A LIE" scrawled with a wobbly hand over the sentence about the Nazis' systematic destruction of Jews and others...
...And I want an apology broadcast over the air...
...I own Interstate Stores...
...I asked my editor if I could get off early to go to a bris...
...Boeyink said he would run it on Sunday, and I went away for the weekend, satisfied that I had at least done something...
Vol. 5 • April 1980 • No. 4
