A gut punch

I hope you'll pardon the red squares on the photo above, but I'd like to steer clear of the Community Standards police on Linkedin, Facebook and even Twitter, though Elon's platform is annoyingly forgiving about hate speech. 

I've been in social media jail more times than Donald Trump has been called in for a deposition.

In actuality, the photo above is not a photo. 

It's a screen grab from commercial created by my dear friend, Mike Folino and his partner, Lu Romero. It's one a few produced for the Stand Up to Jewish Hate campaign that made the little blue square famous just a few weeks ago.

All the spots land, but this one in particular landed hard. And brought back painful memories of the first time in my life that I was confronted with antisemitism. 

I had spent my childhood days in the Bronx, where you couldn't throw a matzo ball without hitting a bagel shop or a cranky old man sending his cold soup back to the kitchen.

Same went for Jackson Heights and later Flushing, Queens, where every kid in my classroom had a name that ended in Berg, Stein, or both. I suspect Sarah Silverman, the self-deprecating comedian of similar Hebraic Seasonings, grew up in the vicinity as well.

And then when I was 12 years old, we moved to the burbs. 

Suffern, NY, to be precise. 

A town that was seemingly only familiar with one particular soft-spoken Jew. The one seen on the 3000 crucifixions in every church on every corner of this distinctively gentile hamlet. Suffice it to say, we were not exactly welcomed with that "love thy neighbor" warmth, as depicted in Bedford Falls. 

No one painted a swastika on our garage door, but there was plenty of name calling, harassment and fisticuffs-a-flying. 

On one memorable occasion, my oversized nose got bloodied. But I'm happy to say so did the undersized piggish nose of my intellectually challenged opponent. Oh Gosh, I wish I could remember his name and his fat fuck, twin brother. 

We were both called into the principal's office as well as our respective fathers. In a Come-to-Jesus moment we all agreed there would be no more taunting. 

And more importantly, no more violence.

However, on the car ride home, my father turned to me and said, quite defiantly, "I don't care what that half-wit principal says. If that kid, or his fat fuck twin brother, ever calls you a Dirty Jew again, I want you to haul off and punch him in the face." 

That was my father through and through. I was more than happy to oblige.

Sadly, we have not progressed too far in the fifty years hence. This country still has a lot of work to do. On multiple fronts.

Without further ado, here is the must-see spot you must see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R1ZVygVHwk