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"You're not allowed here, schvartze! You're not allowed here, schvartze!" A Jewish man stopped me as I was trying to get into my grandparents' neighborhood in the Upper Park Heights shtetl to explore it and perhaps catch a glimpse of my grandparents. Then the only encounter I had with sabi shel HaLevi'im-- my Levite granddad-- was this: he spit on me when he recognized that I was his daughter's Kushi son and having what he considered the hutzpah to argue with a Yehudi.
As the look of recognition was still on his face, he angrily yelled, "You disappoint me! You disappoint me!" After that, I left for Sugar Notch to go inquire about that Anusi mispacha to which I was going to compare to mispachti-- my family, who were Yehudim and wanted their Kushi neched gone. I never saw mishpachti shel Ha'Levim except for imi again.
"Beni, beni," my mother lamented. "You left for Sugar Notch in this cold weather? And avi spit on you? Oy! Next time just stay in Baltimore for the yom haba, to recover and get away from mispachti as much as possible." But as I lamented to imi and became all the more proud of my Jewish heritage, having been persecuted as a Kushi and a kofer because of it, I revved up the engine in my car to see what that Anusi mishpacha had, anyway.
Just as I thought, Sugar Notch had cold weather that gave me enough time to sit in the car and then make a mad dash for the Town Hall or Holy Family Church, whichever I felt like parking my car in front of and rooting through records in. This time, I wasn't staying in a hotel-- not in poor to below-poverty-line Sugar Notch. So sleeping in my car would be nothing unusual, I figured as I parked near the old Holy Family Cemetery and stayed there.
Perhaps the church would figure that I was a sojourner or pilgrim just spending my night in the car, or a transient or schicker who couldn't make the night home. Little would they know that I was a Kushi Jew coming here to inquire about a family who they had no idea were Jews-- and to see what this family of Yehudim had to gain from running from persecution and being Anusim instead of facing persecution like my family and me.
As the look of recognition was still on his face, he angrily yelled, "You disappoint me! You disappoint me!" After that, I left for Sugar Notch to go inquire about that Anusi mispacha to which I was going to compare to mispachti-- my family, who were Yehudim and wanted their Kushi neched gone. I never saw mishpachti shel Ha'Levim except for imi again.
"Beni, beni," my mother lamented. "You left for Sugar Notch in this cold weather? And avi spit on you? Oy! Next time just stay in Baltimore for the yom haba, to recover and get away from mispachti as much as possible." But as I lamented to imi and became all the more proud of my Jewish heritage, having been persecuted as a Kushi and a kofer because of it, I revved up the engine in my car to see what that Anusi mishpacha had, anyway.
Just as I thought, Sugar Notch had cold weather that gave me enough time to sit in the car and then make a mad dash for the Town Hall or Holy Family Church, whichever I felt like parking my car in front of and rooting through records in. This time, I wasn't staying in a hotel-- not in poor to below-poverty-line Sugar Notch. So sleeping in my car would be nothing unusual, I figured as I parked near the old Holy Family Cemetery and stayed there.
Perhaps the church would figure that I was a sojourner or pilgrim just spending my night in the car, or a transient or schicker who couldn't make the night home. Little would they know that I was a Kushi Jew coming here to inquire about a family who they had no idea were Jews-- and to see what this family of Yehudim had to gain from running from persecution and being Anusim instead of facing persecution like my family and me.
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