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In Memory

George Thegze
 
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12/07/23 03:45 PM #13    

B. Fred Sachs

Stephen, we live in times our grandparents would recognize. It is literally staggering and demoralizing that Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, and LGBTQ folks can be threatened and brutalized with impunity on a large scale in this "enlightened" era. 

When we were in school, it was "normal nasty times" where the seeds were waiting to sprout when the temperature rose again.
I am shocked by what is happening but not surprised. The oldest hate just won't go away.

As to the betrayal by friends, I was kind of numbed by it.
I've asked myself if I would say anything to any of them if I saw them now. If I did, and they didn't remember it, I would feel they were so morally flawed that it never mattered at all to them. I know the times I did grossly insensitive and wrong things to others stick in my memory like spikes in my conscience. I can't forget them. And I have apologized when I could.
If they did remember but never thought to apologize, that's another category of moral cowardice that I guess they can live with.
There are too many hard lessons we've had to learn, but we better not unlearn them.

 


12/07/23 06:07 PM #14    

Marshall Cohen

I was horrified to read both your posts and Fred's. These kinds of experiences cloud our entire view of college and life. I was extremely fortunate to have missed that. Things are beginning to look more perilous now.


12/08/23 10:52 AM #15    

Howard Berkowitz

I very much appreciate the comments from Fred and Marshall, and fundamentally agree with both of you.  And after some time to let he outrage simmer down to simple disgust, I especially agree with Fred. And it's really not so much what the young man reared as described might say but that the current putatively mature and educated friends are so quick to paper over his slur.  I sincerely hope Bill Thegze rests in peace, and admittedly know nothing of his life.  But everyone, everyone in this country should be aware of the tenor of the time in this country and the history of similar times in others.  At a recent Congressional committee examinations elite institutions of higher learning, the president of the University of Pennsylvania (the "Jewish Ivy" where my daughter is an alumna) was asked if she considered calling for "Jewish genocide" a violation of the university's code of conduct she responses, "It depends on the context."  Really!  Please explain to me the proper context.  Please let me know all of the ethnic, religious and racial groups about whose genocide we can calmly have a civilized discussion.
 

We have all done cruel and thoughtless things.  And freedom of speech is vital, but not unlimited.  (We all know "...you can't cry fire in a crowded theatre.")  We also have all done cruel and thoughtless things.  But, I hope that life's experiences have taught us to be more empathetic and forebearing, sensitiv to the cruelty bestowed on far too many people throughout the world.  And yes, I'm familiar with Marc Antony's speech in Julius Caesar,  I also know the Jesus said "Whatever you did to the least of my brothers you did also to me."


12/08/23 12:44 PM #16    

Mark Christensen

I have an early New Year's resolution. People much wiser than me have advised me to not engage online, or in person for that matter, with bizarre, hysterical people. [This is not a reference to you, Fred Sachs.] Seems like sound advice. 


12/08/23 04:35 PM #17    

Howard Berkowitz

Again Mark, he point is not so much what an insensitive 18 year old had to say but the vigor of his defense by a septuagenarian. This type of behavior needs to be at the very least lamented father than dismissed as meaningless.  I'd have hoped that Obie grads would be aware of that, but when even the presidents of universities use different metrics to determine where free speech ends and unacceptable hatred begins based solely upon the target of the hatred and bigotry, I'd say we have a problem.


12/10/23 01:43 PM #18    

David Marwil

I was on the wrestling team with Bill Thegze and found him to be a good soul.  Maybe he didn't know I was Jewish.  Stephen, can you remember what it was he said to you the day you met?

David Marwil


12/11/23 01:07 PM #19    

Stephen Golder

I sure haven't forgotten it, David. Thegze took great glee in asking me what happened when Hitler made a sudden visit to a concentration camp. I stood there, stunned, as he answered himself by saying that commandant said to Hitler, " if I'd known you were coming, I would have baked a kike." I don't know what trash he was spouting in the lounge at that later time. By design or intent, we never ran into each other again four years. I've always suspected that he went back to teach at his old high and spouted antisemitic trash to young minds.


12/11/23 01:29 PM #20    

Marc Krass

OMG, Steve--that comment really was horrible.  It's no wonder that a half century later you remember it and it still causes such pain.  I'm glad you posted about it in 2019, since it resulted in this larger discussion, which I hope educated and sensitized more of our class members to the damage hatred can cause. 


12/12/23 06:52 PM #21    

David Marwil

 

Stephen, I agree Thegze's joke was offensive and ill-considered.  Back in the day, when Don Rickles-type humor was acceptable, those kinds of jokes were not uncommon, but most people had enough social sense not to tell them in the face of those they were ridiculing.

Do you think Thegze's telling it to you was meant maliciously, or was it a young guy with poor social filters trying to get a laugh?  I hope it wasn't the former.

David Marwil


01/17/24 04:19 PM #22    

Mark Christensen

I violated my New Year's resolution by reading the Bill Thegze comments posted after I wrote that I was out. 

The context of ALL speech matters in deciding whether speech is 'protected' in some fashion. I don't know to what the president of Penn was specifically referring when she said that context matters in evaluating code of conduct violations. Dr. Berkowitz doesn't know either. If he is genuinely interested, he has surely communicated with that university by this time. 

We're all old enough to remember the uproar caused by the ACLU's defense of nazis' planned march in Skokie, Illinois, in 1977. The freedom of speech and assembly issues raised by this case are interesting and important today. See, National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U. S. 43, 97 S. Ct. 2205 (1977), for those interested in First Amendment law and constitutional procedure. For laypersons, the broad lesson is that speech isn't valuable only if one agrees with it or finds it acceptable. Speech is valuable, and thus worthy of protection, depending on its context, even if one finds it vile, repugnant, or wholly contrary to the norms and sensibilites of the community. Surely there's a lesson here for our healers of the human body and mind---stop 'punching down' at the ancient, thoughtless words of an 18 year old boy. There is no context which supports your outrage. 


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