Hate a Jew? Thank a Jew!

Reaping the benefits while being an anti semite

The frightening rise in antisemitism in our country has reached historic proportions. It comes simply from two places; hate and pure ignorance.

So let’s play a new game called ‘Thank a Jew.’  It’s specifically for those who don’t like people like me. You may know someone like that.

For those of you who had a child who received a polio vaccine and escaped the horrors of the disease, despite your making fun of the kid with the leg braces, thank Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin.

For those of you who, despite your distorted belief that ALL journalism is tainted, continue to read newspapers and sometimes appreciate ethics in the media, thank Joseph Pulitzer and Adolph Ochs.

For those of you who are working class and toil in factories and support unions that protect your rights, but complain about who runs the banks and big corporations, thank Herman Grossman, the first president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.

For those of you who have come to love your apparel when working in the fields, yards, or on the plains, or in a march in Charlottesville, thank Latvian tailor Jacob William Davis, and German businessman Levi Strauss who created and mass-marketed the first pair of jeans.

For those of you who have seen your rights as Americans, no matter how extreme and warped your views are,  debated and protected by the Supreme Court, thank Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, and Elena Kagan.

For those of you who ever made a threatening phone call, took a train to a hate rally, or bought tires for your car, thank Jacob Schiff who connected the East Coast with the West Coast and the Atlantic with the Pacific, financing most of America’s railroads as well as the American Telephone & Telegraph Co.( AT&T), and United States Rubber Co.

For those of you who ever enjoyed a movie in your life, thank Marcus Loew, Samuel Goldwyn, and Louis  B.Mayer who created MGM and brought magic to millions around the world.

For those of you to whom America's favorite pastime helped you enjoy your youth and the joy of baseball, which spells freedom, thank Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax.

For those of you who enjoyed the fascination of reading Superman, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, The Avengers, and the X-Men comics as a kid and went on to appreciate their roles in TV and film, thank creators Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster and Stan Lee.

For those of you who saw your rights defended, even though you like Nazis or  violent activists or might even BE a Nazi, thank ACLU founder and Justice Felix Frankfurter.

For those of you who in 1965, saw the first public education act passed by the U.S. Congress that gave your kids federally funded school systems to enhance their journey in life and learning, thank Senators Abraham Ribicoff and Jacob Javits who voted ‘aye.’

For those of you who got into a fight with a neighbor who had a Menorah on his front lawn, thank Alfred Einhorn who invented Novocain.

For those of you who enjoy your daily basketball playoff game, thank Maurice Polodoff, President of the Basketball Association of America, which eventually merged with the National Basketball League and rebranded as the NBA. 

For those of you who benefitted from efforts to give women more rights and equal opportunity, thank Betty Friedan, a co-founder of The National Organization of Women, and Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug co-founders of the National Women’s Political Caucus.

For those of you who ever used a hand camera or trolled someone on TikTok, thank Edward Land, co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation, and Phillipe Kahn, who created the first mobile phone camera for Magnavox.

For those of you who had a loved one come close to dying from surgery or an accident, thank Karl Landsteiner who revolutionized blood transfusion by identifying blood types. A, B, AB, and O.

To those of you who search the internet to find all the information you need to make your case for antisemitism, thank Google co-founder Sergei Brin.

And, for those of you, lying on a couch wondering where all this venom came from and you’re starting to discover the root cause, thank Sigmund Freud.

So next time, because you are alive, survived an illness, got to vote, enjoyed your sports, loved a movie, worked under fair conditions, read a paper, or just had your life enhanced and made special; Thank A Jew!