The smell of stale bread, pizza sauce, and vomit lingered in my nose as I jumped up from the collapsable white-pastic lunch table, disposed of the remnants of my half-eaten lunch, and skipped out of the cafeteria to the wide-open freedom of the schoolyard.
Pushing open the heavy double doors, thoughts ran through my head of how to make the most out of these next 45 minutes. I started brainstorming games to play while looking out for my first-grade brother whose recess sometimes overlapped with mine for the occasional minute or two.
I made myself comfortable at the highest point of our schoolyard, seeking potential friends to play tag with when I was approached by a boy. I didn’t recognize him; he must have been from another grade or the middle school that shared our building. I gave him a friendly smile. “You’re a cheap, dirty Jew,” he said.
I felt as if he had punched me in the stomach, but in the moment, my anger overwhelmed my hurt. “Shut up,” I said, before walking back into the school. My face burned and my vision blurred as I made my way to the pink-tiled bathroom. There I broke down in tears.
I wanted an explanation. I wanted to know how someone I didn’t know could express such hatred towards me because of my religion — which, at age 10, wasn’t something I even had control over. I went into a stall as I reasoned with myself. I wasn’t cheap or dirty. If he actually talked to me, he would realize I was fun and nice. And maybe, I could’ve asked him to play tag with me and my friends, and he could’ve become a new friend.
As I composed myself and walked out of the bathroom I tried to find a comfortable spot in the dark hallway. The plans for my 45 minutes of freedom had suddenly changed, and instead, I watched stragglers leave the cafeteria to have their fun.
Brooklyn New School, where I had been going to learn since the age of four, was a community that I felt exuded love. It was my second home. Located at the far end of Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn, a tree-lined neighborhood with young moms pushing their babies in strollers and cute coffee shops.
BNS — as we students tenderly called it — is a small, non-zoned public school. Students are accepted by a lottery system based on racial quotas, to ensure a diverse community.
I had learned about the Holocaust earlier that year. I was aware hate existed in the world, but I figured it was far away. I remember my third-grade teacher, Shirley, having us recite the golden rule every morning before class: “Treat others the way you would like to be treated.” I took that rule seriously, and I assumed everyone else did as well.
I don’t know how that boy knew I was Jewish. I didn’t wear anything to indicate my religion or pray in school. Our community was small, so maybe he just overheard it somewhere. Maybe it was a lucky guess. But he hurt me. Not in the way where you cry for a bit and then move on. He shattered something in me, something I can now identify as part of my innocence. I started to realize that even my little corner of the world wasn’t necessarily a happy, secure place.
Growing up, this realization was only reinforced. I saw people express hate towards my friends, my neighbors, my classmates, even random pedestrians on the streets. They were hated because of their sexual or gender orientation, their race or religion, their disabilities. BNS, I would learn, was not a safe haven apart from the world. The world was part of BNS.
