The blackboard brush didn’t hit me, but it was close. It crashed through the large window behind me. I got up. No one in the classroom said a word. The teacher, who taught us Latin and Greek, had thrown the eraser at me. And he knew he was in trouble. Several weeks earlier, I had decided to ride my bicycle to school on Saturday morning, but I refrained from turning on my headlight in the early morning hours. I was stopped by a policeman who said that if I wanted to observe the Jewish day of rest, I should walk to school and not put lives in danger. So I arrived very late, sat down and opened my book. But I did not write, for it was Shabbath! My Dutch Literature teacher, the Con-rector of this non-Jewish gymnasium, asked me why I didn’t pick up my pen. I told him, and he smiled. Once he recognized my sincerity about Shabbath, he convinced my father to allow me to go to synagogue instead of school.
However, now that I, the Shabbath observer, was missing my Saturday morning classes in Latin and Greek, the Latin teacher wished to take revenge and threw the blackboard brush at me.
I told the Con-rector what had happened. He accompanied me to the classroom, saw the broken window, and fired the Latin teacher in front of all of us.
I became an instant hero in the gymnasium and decided then and there that I, a 15-year-old kid, the child of a mixed marriage, would become a Jew. And so I did. This is the only time I have forgiven an anti-Semite, and for good reason.
He had successfully helped me to become Jewish!
Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo is the founder and Dean of the David Cardozo Academy, Beth Midrash of Avraham Avinu, in Israel. www.cardozoschool.org
