Love Ain’t No Stranger, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise
July 23, 2011 Martha Thomases 0 Comments
New York City was rocked last week by the murder of a young boy, Leiby Kletsky. The eight-year old was walking home from camp in Borough Park, Brooklyn, when he got in a car with a man who drove him upstate to a wedding, then killed and dismembered him.
Borough Park is a neighborhood populated, in large part, by Hasidic Jews. More Orthodox than any of the Jews with whom I grew up (many of whom were Orthodox), they can be easily identified because they dress to be easily identified – the men in black hats, beards (and maybe side-curls), black clothing and tefillin. The women wear wigs,sometimes hats, long skirts, long sleeves and stockings. In the summer heat we’ve been having, there is no mistaking their devotion.
When I first moved to New York, I had never seen people like this. I felt as if they disapproved of me. I eat shrimp, I show bare skin (especially in the summer), and, eventually, I married a gentile. If, instead of Bake-Offs, we had Jewish-Offs, I would lose in the first round.
Years passed. I learned to avoid the ones who proselytize on street corners, asking me if I was Jewish (so they could enlist me in their sect). I read more history, and decided that being a Reform Jew is just as much part of our tradition as being observant.
Since I’ve been volunteering at the cancer hospital, I’ve met a variety of observant families. Because the communities are relatively small, and the children can only marry within them, there is a lot of cancer. Instead of seeing them as a monolithic group that didn’t want me around, I am now more likely to see individuals, some of whom are struggling to keep a child alive.
Therefore, I was aprticularly horrified to read this in my local newspaper. Especially this part:
“Assemblyman Dov Hikind said his office received a flood of panicked calls from residents feeling a mix of shock and shame. ‘Some people even asked me, Is he from the Arab community next door, because we have a lot of Palestinians and a lot of Muslims,’ Hikind said.
“‘I keep on telling people, ‘No, no. We know who it is. His name is Levi. There’s nothing to be embarrassed [about]. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.””
In a closed community, one in which everyone dresses the same, it’s easy to no only distrust outsiders for no good reason, but also to trust insiders for no good reason. Some speculate that, when the murderer offered to help Leiby, the boy agreed because the man wore a yarmulke, and he had been taught to believe that anyone with a yarmulke was a good person.
He might have been luckier if he’d asked a Muslim for help.
Just because one is part of a minority group doesn’t mean that one is not a bigot. There are racist Jews, there are homophobic African-Americans, there are gay people who are sexist and on and on and on.
Because of my own bigotry I expect Jews to be better. My parents raised me to believe that, as Jews, we have a responsibility to stand with other oppressed people. The line in the Seder service that resonated for us was, “For you were slaves in the land of Egypt.”
We are the Chosen People. Some interpret this to mean we are better, but that’s not the interpretation taught to me. Rather, because we were chosen to be given the Torah, we have the obligation to demonstrate to the rest of the world how to live by its laws. Whether or not one believes in a deity, one can believe that there’s a right way to live, and try to live it.
Starting with watching out for each other’s kids. Because home is a good place to walk to.
Media Goddess Martha Thomases doesn’t remember when she first let her kid walk home by herself, but it was probably too soon.