From the D’Agostino archives……….
#2 The Day We Made the Jewish People Cry
In my elementary schools in the 1950’s in Miami, a choral presentation was held just before the Christmas break with the traditional carols. Our teacher called us together to announce our participation as one of the performing groups and that we were selected to sing a special song. A Jewish song about a thing called Hanukkah. Letters were sent home allowing parents to withdraw their child from participating in this most controversial affair. There were none returned.
You must understand that this was a time when “No Colored Allowed,” “Curfew : All colored domestic workers must be off Miami Beach by 6 PM,” “Irish Need Not Apply,” and “No Jews Allowed,” were ever present and prominent signs.
Our sole prop was a large wooden window frame on a table with a menorah inside. The one Jewish girl, Judith, would light the candles as we started singing. The cafeteria was packed that day. It never was before. Several hundred Jewish people were in attendance for a school with a couple of dozen of their children at best. Strange, huh?
The teacher gave a 1,2,3 and we opened “Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah, come light the menorah…” I have never heard such emotional and vocal wailing and crying in my life then or since. I did not understand why this was happening. We finished and left the stage and the room emptied before the rest of the recital ended.
I found out why the Jewish people were crying when I got to the 11th grade. Mr. Edge showed us the movie. The one with people being herded into cattle cars, the book burning, the ovens, the camps, and the piles and endless piles of bodies.
I flashed back a dozen years to that day of our singing and knew immediately why the Jewish people were crying. Their tears were a wonderful celebration of joy and praise to God for their ability to have life without ever present fear of death. To be accepted, recognized, and validated as fellow people of the human race was expressed in their acclamations of joy. And it was right there in the wide open venue at a public school . And that my friends is the most wonderful story of how we made the Jewish people cry.
35 responses to “School Days Half a Century Ago: Jewish Christmas by Carl D’Agostino”
adeeyoyo
December 20th, 2011 at 06:15
What a wonderful story. It just makes us realise what a wonderful world this could be!
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Carl D'Agostino
December 20th, 2011 at 06:20
“…this could be!” Yes.
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Tori Nelson
December 19th, 2011 at 11:40
Carl, this is the sweetest 🙂 Made my day!
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Carl D'Agostino
December 19th, 2011 at 12:51
Good. Mission accomplished.
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Debbie
December 19th, 2011 at 11:35
Beautiful, heart-warming story, Carl! Thank you for sharing it, especially at this time of year when its message is so desperately needed.
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Carl D'Agostino
December 19th, 2011 at 12:51
I am so glad you found it meaningful.
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Hansi
December 19th, 2011 at 10:07
Wow…we’ve come a log way; in certain respects. Well done
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Carl D'Agostino
December 19th, 2011 at 12:50
Thank you H. Merry Christmas.
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Bonnie
December 19th, 2011 at 08:40
This was wonderfully told, Carl. And may we never ever forget that most horrible time.
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Carl D'Agostino
December 19th, 2011 at 12:50
Yes. Merry Christmas.
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ceceliafutch
December 19th, 2011 at 08:32
I must confess that I did not so much as get through the first reading without shedding a tear or two. Very touching. I could see, feel, hear the music and the Jewish attendants. That was unusual for those days and times. I grew up in Louisiana during the fifties and sixties. Not fun times, for sure. For this to happen? in the south? A Chanukah miracle itself. Thank you my friend, for writing this post and then taking the extra step to make sure that I did not miss it. Wonderful. Touching. Happy Chanukah.
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Carl D'Agostino
December 19th, 2011 at 12:48
I am so glad. Happy 8 Candles !
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Maxi Malone
December 19th, 2011 at 08:25
I grew up in Miami in the fifties and fully relate to this heartwarming story.
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Carl D'Agostino
December 19th, 2011 at 12:49
And that ugliness was mild compared to the rest of the South.
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cantuesoes
December 19th, 2011 at 07:00
!!!!
Incredible. I am from SWitzerland and those prohibitions would not have been possible even 100 years ago. People say all kinds of things, but not in public, and that makes all the difference if those who think that God or Physics made various kinds of men cannot have the Law on their side.
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Carl D'Agostino
December 19th, 2011 at 07:09
Democracy requires inclusiveness.
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judithhb
July 3rd, 2011 at 18:18
In school in the 1950s in the East End of London we had some Jewish girls in our class and of course, in the rest of the school. These were the only girls excused from the morning assembly as they had their own prayers (yes still had prayers then) and then rejoined the rest of us to be dismissed to our classrooms.
I had two special friends – Yetta and Judith and it never entered my head that they were different. We were all just children growing up together.
Could it be that life was so simple then? as Barbra Streisand asks.
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Carl D'Agostino
July 3rd, 2011 at 18:23
Miami has become a very mixed race area. The unconditional acceptance of each other by children and teens baffles adults. Perhaps the children should run society.
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Val
July 3rd, 2011 at 12:57
The main thing is that you shared and that you treated the Jewish people involved as people.
I find anything to do with the holocaust very difficult to read, so I won’t linger on this post… but thank you for relating it.
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kateshrewsday
December 5th, 2010 at 12:19
This is an amazing story, Carl. And that you were part of it: it fair takes my breath away. It was a brave decision by your school. When we stand up to be counted alongside our fellow men, there are always people who will go to great lengths to show their displeasure.
A great moment in time.
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carldagostino
December 5th, 2010 at 17:41
Thank you
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samhenry
December 4th, 2010 at 13:30
This is truly well-written and beautiful. Thank you for letting me know about it. I grew up in similar circumstance. There were many Jewish children at my school.
I wish I could get around to my friends’ blogs more frequently but I am looking for work, run a home in which there are student boarders and I have two blogs. Yours here is wonderful. I will want to return. Keep me appraised of interesting posts.
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carldagostino
December 4th, 2010 at 14:03
Delighted you visited. I have almost 80 posts and started July 31. It is 90% humor and cartoons
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nursemyra
December 4th, 2010 at 05:26
A lovely story
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carldagostino
December 4th, 2010 at 08:13
Thank you. Those were ugly times and a shameful part of history USA. You can imagine how unsettling for the then me of a little boy to sort through. As far as democracy and tolerance I think America is still a beacon and it is still evolving and from a philosophical point we are “already but not yet”.
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carldagostino
August 20th, 2010 at 20:15
We were as much a part of the Civil Rights Movement, even more, than those guys in limos and $900 suits. You and Kathy and Jennifer and Estelle(Mrs. Everything’s better in New Jersey) in the English Department and me over in History. We taught those minority teenagers how to read and write and some went to college. Remember Richard? He went to HARVARD! We were not at the jungles of Vietnam . But we served our country well. As classroom teachers.
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Deborah
August 20th, 2010 at 18:17
I heard of such overt prejudice when I moved to Florida. Someone told me that there used to be a sign on the Miami Shores Country Club that read”No Jews, No Coloreds, No dogs allowed” Having moved here in the seventies I was astonished that in many ways Miami was still “the south”. I had expected a more urbane sensibility in this big city. Ironic that now that same country club is struggling to survive and has posted a new sign that reads “Now Open to the Public.” The old wasp guard has died out; the club is in disrepair and now they look to those same people they dismissed so heinously to bail them out.
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carldagostino
August 18th, 2010 at 18:00
I cried when I wrote it. Again when I typed it. Again when I proof read. I will produce humor on the blog, but have lived and seen too many spiritual and historical things not to make them an aspect of this blog. Especially when old JIM CROW gnashed his ugly teeth in the South.
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Amy
August 18th, 2010 at 15:24
This about made me cry. How wonderful of your school to do that and how wonderful of the parents to allow their children to participate.
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carldagostino
August 17th, 2010 at 21:40
Ah, knish! Lightly salted, touch of mustard, coffee black.
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perpetuallypeeved
August 17th, 2010 at 21:14
Great story, D’Ag.
Growing up on Long Island in a different time, I couldn’t imagine a place where there were “No Jews Allowed” – now, the Irish, I understand! They don’t make knishes nearly as well as the Jewish.
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carldagostino
August 16th, 2010 at 12:49
Yes, most definitely. My community’s WW II vets were still as unsettled as well. My extended family must have sent over a hundred men “over there.” They ALL came home. Not all in one piece, but they all came home. My dad’s cousin was one the the three thousand (94,000 perished) survivors from the prison camps in the Philippines with Gen. Wainwright. His brother, my uncle, was in the first wave at Iwo Jima.
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gallowaygrave
August 16th, 2010 at 12:27
The jewish folk in your audience must still have been devastated by what had happened barely a decade before?
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carldagostino
August 16th, 2010 at 10:30
Thank you. It had to be told.
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blackwatertown
August 16th, 2010 at 10:15
It is a wonderful story.
http://www.blackwatertown.wordpress.com
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