Why You Treat Me Like a Dog?: Apples, Liberal Jews & Blueberry Muffins

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Apples, Liberal Jews & Blueberry Muffins

This morning, as I usually do, I picked up a cup of coffee and a pastry before starting my rounds. I like to drink my coffee as I'm going from patient room to patient room and typically finish the pastry by the time I get to the first patient.

As I walk through the halls of hospital munching on my blueberry muffin, I occasionally think about an experience I had when I was interviewing to get into medical school. I was interviewing at a top tier medical school with Christian roots on the East Coast. The interviewer was a very prim and proper middle-aged physician, who started the interview by telling me about the school's rich and Christian roots. It was very interesting, actually.

He quickly surmised that I was Jewish, and he assured me that there were "many Jews" at Top Tier Christian Medical School. He then told me about another Jewish candidate he had interviewed recently. He told me he was not like the other "liberal Jews" and that both of them had been appalled when during the medical school tour they witnessed a physician walking through the halls of the hospital eating an apple.

I have never eaten an apple while walking through the halls of the hospital (only an occasional pastry) and I don't condone either (nor do I think its a particularly big deal, provided its all sanitary). I am a Jew though, and most would say I'm on the liberal side of the political spectrum.

At the time of the interview, his words kind of bounced off me - I felt like I was in a vulnerable position and couldn't really respond to what I have since determined to be antisemitism. I think its kind of an old East Coast upper crust type of antisemitism, that's subtle and not necessarily overt, yet this interviewer felt was appropriate enough to project on to me, provided of course it contained the modifier "liberal". In my book, it would have been equally offensive if he said it was a conservative Jew, a purple Jew or an athletic Jew.

Maybe I should have "reported him" to the administration there and made a stink about it. Maybe it would have forced them to offer me a spot in their incoming class, out of guilt or whatever. (Probably not, and I wouldn't have gone there anyway...). Maybe he would have gotten a slap on the wrist and told he was inappropriate, and maybe he wouldn't be allowed to interview applicants (or at least not the liberal Jewish ones...). I think I carry some guilt or bad feelings over not doing anything about it.

Bottom line, though, is that I carry the experience with me to this day, and I think about it sometimes as I'm eating my morning pastry, walking the halls of the hospital.

- posted by wanderer @ 10:20 AM

Comments:

Wanderer...I think we all have stories like this from our "youth"...things that we would never put up with now. Of course hindsight is always 20/20 and all we can do is learn from it and act differently when faced with a similar situation. (Seems to me you did learn something, though...no apples for you, only pastries in the hallways...how 'bout a bagel with a shmear?)

# posted by

cruisin-mom : 12/21/2005 9:28 AM

I'm a Jew, and I think it's appalling to eat food when making--(chew)--rounds--(swallow)--or at--(wiping cream cheese off of beard)--work.

Since I go everywhere with a Yarmulke, people pretty much know what they're getting. Most of the antisemitism I get is people bending over backwards to make some kind of inclusive remark.

I did get some pretty overt stuff from arab fellows when I was doing residency. It was obvious they had been indoctrinated with anti-semitic propaganda in Jordan, and I was the first Orthodox Jew they had ever met. They weren't quite sure what to make of me. I sure didn't fit the mold.

# posted by

PsychoToddler : 12/21/2005 10:35 AM

cruisin' mom - agreed!

PT - they broke the mold when they made you!

# posted by

wanderer : 12/21/2005 7:35 PM

Interesting. Hearing stuff like this angers me. I don't know how much time has passed, but perhaps it's not too late to write a letter.

I went to the same univ. as Mirty did. I didn't realize until I moved down there that the KKK had been headquartered for many years (in the 1920's) just north of Bloomington (in Martinsville). I was the first Jew many people down there had ever laid eyes on.

# posted by

Stacey : 12/27/2005 8:09 AM

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