To the editor: I am Jewish of Jewish parents. Relying on the GI Bill, my parents tried to buy their first house in 1955. I was 6 years old. They found new land in Hacienda Heights. (“Anti-Semitism has a long history in Los Angeles,” column, January 5)
We happily drove from our apartment so they could make the purchase. Once there, I stayed in our car with my aunt while my parents went to the office at the site of all the shiny new houses.
Like it was yesterday, I remember my mother coming back to our car crying. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, “They don't sell to Jews.”
A year later, my parents found a new development, this time in El Monte, that would be sold to Jews, and we soon moved into our new but very small house. During those years there, except for one anti-Semitic epithet hurled at me by a high school classmate, I never encountered any anti-Semitism.
That includes a day in fifth grade when, for no apparent reason, the teacher asked if there were Jews in our class. I obediently raised my hand, the only one that was raised. I remember thinking then that it's over, that I just lost all my friends and that I will be hated from now on.
Later, at recess, my friends invited me to join them in a ball game, like they always did. It was as if nothing had happened, and it remained that way throughout my many years in El Monte, except for that unfortunate incident I alluded to earlier.
Yes, anti-Semitism has a long history in Los Angeles and I experienced it firsthand at a young age. Fortunately, its ugly tentacles did not reach everywhere.
Martin Verde, Rancho Porter
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To the editor: How far back did anti-Semitism in Los Angeles go and to what extent was it deeply intertwined?
In 1935, I was 7 years old when my parents moved the family to a lower-middle-class neighborhood in East Los Angeles. The first morning in my new neighborhood, I saw three boys apparently my age playing across the street. I ran and greeted them enthusiastically.
“What nationality are you?” one of the boys asked me. I told the kids I had no idea, but I would ask my mom.
Running across the street, I asked my mother my nationality and told her that the children had asked me. “You are American,” she replied, “100% American.” I ran back across the street and told my new friends, “I'm American, 100% American.”
“No, you're not,” said one of the children. “Are you Jewish”. I responded that he was indeed Jewish.
I never saw those children again. Obviously the news had already spread through the neighborhood that a Jewish family had moved there. Later I met other kids: some harassed me on the way to elementary school, others asked me if I was Jewish before selecting me for high school teams.
Martin A. Brower, Corona del Mar
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To the editor: Patt Morrison's description of anti-Semitism in Southern California strikes a chord with me.
I was once an executive at a well-respected firm in Glendale, where anti-Semitic insults were rare but still hurtful. Glendale was the main meeting place of the local German American Bund in the 1930s and 1940s. It was also a “sundown town,” which meant that people of color were not allowed to stay in town after dark.
I suffered some physical attacks while growing up in Connecticut, where Jews were few and far between. Anti-Semitism followed me to California despite the large Jewish population.
The oldest prejudice continues to survive and flourish, here and elsewhere. Anti-Semites do not need an excuse to attack us: their hatred is in the DNA of the world.
Barbara H. Bergen, Los Angeles
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To the editor: I am a lifelong resident of Los Angeles. I am also Jewish.
I never experienced anti-Semitism at my wonderful high school, John Marshall in Los Feliz. My parents limited my exposure by trying to never go places they didn't want us (and there were plenty of those).
My father, who went to Hollywood High School, never failed to stand tall when faced with anti-Semitism.
Michael Nasatir, Los Angeles
