“We must stand with all our might to protect (Israel’s) right to exist… I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world… an oasis of brotherhood.”

– Dr. Martin Luther King, speech to Rabbinical Assembly (March 25, 1968, 10 days before he was assassinated.)

I was doing my homework at our Washington Heights dining-room table. (Didn’t have my own room.) My parents, seated at the other end with our neighbors, were complaining about the Super. The conversation quickly expanded to a negative assessment of Shvartzes, in general.

I had a question: “Why is skin-color more determinant of a person’s character than eye or hair-color?” (Not in those words. I was in grade-school.)

I wasn’t trying to be snide, or argumentative. I was a kid; I really didn’t understand the reason.

There was an uncomfortable silence; they all looked at each other.

Finally, my father responded: “Narishkeit!”

Relieved, they all laughed.

Narishkeit, literally Yiddish “Foolishness”, can also mean “Nonsense”, “Stupidity”, or “Childishness.”

I hoped he meant the last, but clearly, they were not going to give me an answer to my question. I assumed then, they didn’t want to interrupt their conversation to provide one. I only realized later, they didn’t have one.

I inherited their pejorative opinion of Blacks until I started playing ball on the streets with them. I believed my eyes over my ears. What I saw contradicted what I heard. I eventually, occasionally chose Black teammates over Jewish schoolmates, not only if they were........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)