Unmasked

I have always had the illusion that my face did not clearly betray the calumny of my Jewish heritage. I have always taken care to conceal carefully the bitter secret that my father was a rabbi and my grandfather the rabbi of rabbis, ten generations into the past. Illegitimate children will understand what I mean. The secret of a tainted heritage is one you keep with your lips sealed. And I took my precautions, with unfailing effectiveness. Of two witty items dancing through my head, I held back one, and I removed the most evil one. Whenever I spoke, I clutched my hands behind my back, deathly afraid I would make that unforgivable gesture that had already betrayed so many. I carried a knife, a pistol, brass knuckles, a swordstick . . . the visual emblems of Aryan civilization. I drank tea without sugar and declined cookies, despite my mouth watering. I also drank bitters, and I calmly ate over-boiled cauliflower with pork ribs and even macaroni with ham. And whenever I saw a Russian Jew, one of those discarded pieces of waste from Judea’s manure heap, being chased from his home, because he savored neither bitters nor pistols and stammered in broken Hebrew, which is a language for vagrants—because they have been wandering all countries for centuries—I quickly moved aside, entered a church, and muttered the Lord’s Prayer, although even that is not of undisputed origin. And what benefit did all that yield? That in Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië [daily newspaper of the Netherlands Indies] I was decried as a kike.

Israelite says the tolerant. Jew the confidential. Kike the sincere. I am a kike! Praise the Lord, that the truth was revealed. Now I can be myself again! Tonight I will eat stewed pike and matzah and figs and cheesecake—all together—I will drink a cup filled with sugar and a dash of tea, and I will stow the pistol and the flask of bitters safely in the corner of the attic. The redeeming word has been uttered. I was born a kike, and I will die one. Comrades, despise me, but do not reject me! I beg for your compassionate mercy.