The Seven-Branched Candlestick: The Schooldays of Young American JewGabriel, Gilbert W. (Gilbert Wolf)
General
The Seven-Branched Candlestick: The Schooldays of Young American Jew
Gabriel, Gilbert W. (Gilbert Wolf)
Jews -- United States
"Oh, easily! Maybe a hundred--I don't know. They are swarming all over
the place! Gosh, we'll have to do something to get rid of them. It just
simply ruins the college name to have so many of them around."
"You bet! A campaign for ours!"
I watched them going off together, arm in arm, towards "fraternity
row"--and wondered what that campaign would be.
It did not take me long to investigate the real state of affairs. There
were some thirty members of the freshman class listed in the dean's
office under the designation of "Jew," "Hebrew" or "Ethical Culturist."
And the faces that I met under freshman caps were certainly Semitic, to
a large percentage.
At first it annoyed me. Annoyed me more, too, when the first member of
the freshman class to be expelled for ungentlemanly conduct was a Jew.
There were one or two others, I noticed, who would sooner or later reach
the same end if they did not keep away from the city at night--and from
the things the city teaches.
These one or two gradually became scape-goats for the rest of the Jewish
boys in the class. They were sons of rich fathers; they paraded their
automobiles about the campus--and thus broke the rule number one in the
"freshman bible." They had unbridled tongues, and used them
ungraciously. One of them, a big, swaggering chap, "went out" for his
class football team--and, having been selected to play in a minor game,
developed a dying aunt overnight and disappeared for the day. When he
came back, on Sunday night, he was caught and hazed. His automobile was
dumped on its side in the middle of the campus. His face, when I saw him
the next day, was a network of plaster strips. Three days after that he
left college--and I, for one, was devoutly thankful for his resigning.
He did not belong in our college, had done nothing to fit himself into
its environment, had talked loudly, acted the cad and the coward--and
had reaped the reward of such a person, Jew or Gentile, in whatever
community.
The persecution--for it had taken on proportions worthy of that
name--went forward, however. There was an annual "freshman parade," for
instance, when the entering class was dressed in grotesque costumes and
sent marching in and out a lane of laughing spectators to the football
field. In my own freshman year this was a good-natured affair--and each
class, including the victimized one, took it for the boisterous joke
that it was.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account