There is a story about a Catholic priest who went to see his doctor. After the visit, he went out to pay. The receptionist said, "Father, you're a man of the cloth. Doctor is privileged to give you full professional courtesy and there will be no charge." The priest left and there appeared the next day in the doctor's waiting room a beautiful basket, filled with fruit and candy and a couple of bottles of fine wine - a token of appreciation from the priest for the professional courtesy.

Some days later, an Episcopalian minister came to see the doctor, and after his visit he went to pay the bill. The receptionist said, "Sir, you are a man of the cloth. Doctor is privileged to serve you and there is full professional courtesy. There will be no charge." The grateful minister left and the next morning there appeared in the doctor's waiting room a beautiful plant, an 8 foot tall ficus plant for all the patients to enjoy, a token of the minister's appreciation.

Several days later, the Rabbi went to see this doctor. After the visit, he went to pay his bill and the receptionist said, "Rabbi, you're a man of the cloth. Doctor is proud to be able to serve you. There is full professional courtesy and there will be no charge." The Rabbi left and the next morning there appeared in the doctor's waiting room six more rabbis.

Now what we just shared was an ethnic joke. Admittedly, it was somewhat mild and it was told in the company of Jews. But let me paint another scene for you, another time, a different kind of ethnic joke.

I would like for you, for a moment, to pretend that you are a junior medical student. The year is 1965 and you are at the Medical College of Alabama. You have just begun your clinical rotations and your initial assignment is general surgery. You are both excited and apprehensive and it is a challenge just to get the green scrub suit on correctly, much less the cap and mask. You walk into the doctors' dressing room, the surgical lounge, and try to unobtrusively walk to your locker to put your books up. You notice that a number of your professors are there. These are people whose names are in the textbooks, people with national and even international reputations. They are the physician-professors that you have admired and wanted to emulate since you entered medical school. There are also surgical residents in this lounge, including the chief residents. This is another group to be admired and they are certainly role models for you and your classmates.

As you move toward your locker, you hear them laughing and then you begin to understand their words. They are telling a series of ethnic jokes-ugly, dirty antisemitic jokes-and the hurt is incredible. Even though antisemitism is certainly not a new experience for you, this is like a knife to your stomach and you are overwhelmed with confusion and disillusionment.

Now with that personal story in mind, I will turn to today's topic and share with you how my life has been impacted by my religion. I will start with the year of my birth, 1942, in Birmingham, Alabama. The Jewish community there numbered several thousand, enough for one reform, one conservative and one orthodox congregation. In this segregated society, reform Jews mostly socialized with one another, so my earliest memories are about other reform Jewish families and their children. Most of my closest childhood friends were reform Jews and many lived in close proximity to us because there were only a limited number of areas in the community where Jews lived.

There were several facts of Jewish reform life then which by today's standards might seem somewhat peculiar:

• Although 10 years of Sunday school culminating in confirmation was the standard, very few boys were Bar Mitzvah and I cannot recall even one single Bat Mitzvah during my childhood.
• Jewish parents rarely, if ever, practiced religious rituals at home and, in fact, many-including my own-condoned having Christmas trees and dying Easter eggs, rationalizing that these were commercial rather than religious symbols.
• Although antisemitism certainly existed in the deep South then, and in fact became overt and frightening for many of us, including for me personally during my high school years, many Jews were paradoxically staunch segregationists and they conveyed this attitude to their children. I might add that our Rabbi was very outspoken against segregation. Our temple had to be emptied more than once because of bomb threats and I once saw a cross burning in our Rabbi's front yard. In spite of this, few congregants actively rallied behind him and he was, in fact, often criticized for his very public position.

That was the life I was born into and lived until my father unexpectedly died suddenly one week after I finished high school. After his death, our family moved to San Diego, California. Not unexpectedly, moving to a strange place and enrolling in a college that I had never even heard of was somewhat unsettling.

Fortunately, there was a Jewish fraternity on campus and I was able to join. Even though these young men were strangers and my southern accent amused them and we had literally grown up on two different sides of a continent, there was the common bond of Judaism. Our backgrounds and experiences and values were similar enough to create a climate that was comfortable and just felt good. A non religious 18 years old had been served by his Judaism without his even being aware of it.

Once again, at age 21, life's circumstances dictated a move and I returned to Alabama to enroll in medical school. The Medical College of Alabama was predictable in that there was a strict quota each and every year. Each class of 80 students had only two Jews, two women and no blacks. I know that many young congregants might f1nd that difficult to believe, but that's the way it was only 35 short years ago. Although there was only one other Jewish student in my class, my social life continued to be predominantly Jewish-not because I was particularly religious or idealistic-but because that was the way life was there for Jewish students at that time.

Ethel and I met in 1963 and were married one year later in her reform temple in Jackson, Mississippi. Our first son, Donald, was born in January of 1967. The ritual circumcision ceremony performed on the 8th day elicited feelings that I did not know I had. The three of us moved to San Antonio for my internship later that same year. Once again, we were faced with a strange and new environment. Although we lived on the military base, it was the warmth of the civilian Jewish community-a group of people our own age who reached out to us when they certainly did not have to-that truly made our lives here so special. Since our families are very small, these same people who reached out to use then are indeed, to us, now like family. And, on reflection, that happened because we were Jewish, and it would not have happened otherwise. Our second son, David, was born here and he too had the ritual circumcision with Rabbi Brown from this Temple officiating.

From 1970-72, we were stationed at Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas. Although there was not a great opportunity for Jewish life there, I do fondly remember participating in improvised lay holiday services with the other Jewish service people at the old, largely unused temple in the city of Leavenworth.

We have been back in San Antonio since 1972. Jewish life now here is far different than it was in Birmingham when I was a child. Both of our sons were Bar Mitzvah and one of the most meaningful experiences of my entire life was the decision to study with my youngest son and became a B'nai Mitzvah with him at age 40. Those three years of study and that experience are something that is beyond placing a value on. We obviously don't do Christmas trees or dye Easter eggs, as we did years ago. We do practice religious rituals such as Friday night candles and prayer, and we have had the privilege of participating continuously in annual Passover services for almost three decades now with a group of special people hosted by Barbara and Alan Dreeben. Ethel and I have both had the honor of serving on this Temple's board and she's served Golden Manor and I the JCC in similar capacities.

It is quite a distance from being a confused medical student disillusioned by antisemitism to having the privilege of serving a wonderful children's Catholic hospital as its most senior administrator. These changes are certainly all, to me, very profound and very gratifying.

As with others who grow older, we have had to face illness in loved ones with death and dying, as well as our share of life's assorted problems. Our religion, this Temple and its rabbinic strength have become increasingly an anchor for us and progressively more important and crucial in our lives.

Looking backward from this vantage point in my life, it strikes me that the course it has taken, the framework upon which I have tried to build my life and the family, friends and support that I have so depended on have all emanated from my religious heritage. I know this will truly be so during all of my remaining years and I consider this to be a very special blessing.

Home