newjerseynewsroom.com

BY SALLY FRIEDMAN

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

COMMENTARY

My Eastern European maternal grandmother knew very few words in English, but she had painstakingly mastered two: "Be careful!" she would say incessantly whenever she saw my sister and me. "Be careful!" she would repeat, looking intently into our eyes.

We never knew quite how to react. What is it we needed to be careful about? Our lives felt relatively safe in our Philadelphia neighborhood. The war had ended as we were coming of age back in the late 1940's and 1950's. Our parents no longer whispered about the mysteries "over there," we could again get bubble gum at the local candy store since the war effort was over. We even had a new car.

Life was good.

She had brought to this country her Eastern European fears and suspicions. She had carried with her out of the Polish shtetl not just her own mother's candlesticks, but also deforming anxieties about "the other."

And for Grandmom Goldberg, "the other" was the non-Jew.

Once we understood what our grandmother really meant when she warned us to be careful, my sister and I tried to reason with her. We were safe, we'd assure her. No pogroms in this "golden land." No sounds of horses' hooves coming into Jewish villages.

But my grandmother, who had an impressive temper, would actually stamp her feet and tell us, in broken English mixed with Yiddish, that we didn't understand. The message was always that no Jew is ever safe among non-Jews.

I must admit that I thought of my grandmother when the news flashed across the CNN screen on a recent morning about a shooting at a Los Angeles area synagogue. I thought of how she would have reacted to this shooting just after dawn in the parking lot of the synagogue.

It "appeared" to be a hate crime, CNN suggested. Two male worshippers shot in the leg and injured, but not mortally. Just a blip on the nation's radar screen since the injuries were minor.

But there was Grandmom Goldberg on my shoulder, with a "See, I told you" smirk on her face.

And what will I tell my own grandchildren about life for Jews in this land of the free and home of the brave decades after their great-great-grandmother left this mortal coil, suspicions intact?

Sitting and watching the kitchen TV that morning, I felt the kind of sadness that's tough to define. I'd spent several years as an interviewer for Steven Spielberg's "Survivors of the Shoah," and had looked into the belly of the beast as survivors poured out their stories of what hatred can do. Once you step into that private chamber of remembering, you are never quite the same.

I felt frustration about the years immediately after 9/11 when our Cherry Hill, New Jersey synagogue had quite wisely posted guards at the doors during the High Holy Days. Suddenly, all of us were feeling unsafe and threatened. And Jews, perhaps more so.

All the centuries of hatred – all the horror and pain – yet sometimes the headlines seem torn straight from the hatreds of the past.

Jews may believe that the Holocaust will forever stand as a deterrent, a hideous reminder of hatred run amok. "Never forget!" we repeat in our synagogues, and in our spring Holocaust remembrance, the solemn Yom Hashoah.

But here we are, more than half a century later, assaulted by what seems an endless supply of haters.

A man I know – a very prominent man who has accomplished much in his life, and has known adulation – remembers deep, early damage that still haunts. On his walks to and from school in a Baltimore suburb, he was constantly assailed by bullies who knocked him to the ground, chanting, "Jew-boy, Jew-boy, don't you cry, You'll be a dead Jew by and by ..."

So was Grandmom Goldberg right? Will those suspicion tentacles need to go out as we maneuver the world?

Is eternal vigilance a necessity for Jews?

In this case, I hope Grandmom didn't know best.

Sally Friedman is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, resident of Moorestown, and longtime contributor to local, regional and national publications. The mother of three has seven grandchildren and is the wife of retired New Jersey Superior Court judge Victor Friedman. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .