Jewish Life Digital Edition February 2013 | Page 17

Parish School. (The Episcopalians are
moderate Christian group somewhere
between the ritualistic Catholics and nonritualistic Protestants). It was a great
move for me at the time. We wore uniforms and there were no popularity wars.
The only downside was that every morning
before school started I had to attend
church. In the middle of the service
everybody would line up for a wafer and
wine before a cross, and say something
like, “This represents the body of Jesus
and the blood of Jesus.” One of the priests
would insert the wafer in every child’s
mouth. We negotiated that I would walk
up with all the other kids, but nobody was
to ever put anything in my mouth.
Everything was fine until one day the
headmaster left town for a week. When
everybody kneeled down, the officiating
priest noticed one child sitting contently
in his seat. Breathless, he caught up with
me after church and announced, “You
have to bow!”

SOME KIDS HAVE MORE CHUTZPAH THAN
OTHERS. I HAD A LOT, BUT G-D HAD ARRANGED IT
THAT I DIRECTED THE MAJORITY OF MY NATURAL
CHUTZPAH AT A SOCIETY THAT I SAW AS INSISTENT
ON HAVING ME BOW DOWN.
“I am a Jew. Jews don’t bow down,” I
answered back.
“If you don’t bow, you can’t come to our
school,” the priest shot back. By the end
of the day I had organised that the four
other Jews in the school should also
refuse to bow.
Our parents