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Pseudo-gurus?

Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

if the goyim [Gentiles] knew we had something this nice

English answer:

If the goyim knew about this, they might try and expropriate it

Added to glossary by Yvonne Gallagher
Apr 6, 2019 14:35
5 yrs ago
English term

if the goyim [Gentiles] knew we had something this nice

English Other Government / Politics
Hello everyone,

From the book Thank You for Being Late by Thomas Friedman.

I grew up caddying at Brookview for my dad and his friends and learning to play golf from the age of five. Some of my best friends today are still the guys I played with and caddied with back then. And because most of these men I caddied for owned small businesses, I was exposed, through their golf-course patter, to the world of business, and from that developed a respect for entrepreneurs and risk takers....

Brookview eventually relocated and built a new course in Hamel, a more westerly suburb, and my dad died there from a heart attack on thepar-four fifteenth hole, when I was nineteen. He lied three. After he passed away in 1973, I was walking down the fairway at Oakridge Country Club, where the older Jewish money belonged, playing with a friend of my father’s. It was a beautiful summer day and the course was in magnificent condition—bright green grass and flowers everywhere— when out of the blue this family friend put his arm around my shoulder and whispered, “Tommy, ***if the goyim [Gentiles] knew we had something this nice***, they would take it away from us.”

Since I experienced childish versions of anti-Semitism in my high school—kids throwing pennies at the Jews because they were supposedly so cheap they would pick them up—I was not innocent about such matters, but his remark jarred me. That was the abiding ethic of my parents’ generation of Jews—things were always too good to be true.


As I understand, goyim and Gentiles are words meaning people who are not Jewish. But what does the last sentence in the second paragraph imply? Does it imply that if the non-Jewish people find out about the existence of this golf-club (Oakridge Country Club) , they will take it from the Jewish people? Or is it a referrence to something else?

Thank you.
Responses
4 that generation always in fear of having the gentiles take things away from them
4 +3 Yes
Change log

Apr 9, 2019 12:59: Yvonne Gallagher Created KOG entry

Apr 9, 2019 13:56: Yvonne Gallagher changed "Edited KOG entry" from "<a href="/profile/1300525">Yvonne Gallagher's</a> old entry - "if the goyim [Gentiles] knew we had something this nice"" to ""that insecure generation always in fear of having the Gentiles take things away from them""

Apr 9, 2019 18:50: Yvonne Gallagher changed "Edited KOG entry" from "<a href="/profile/1300525">Yvonne Gallagher's</a> old entry - "if the goyim [Gentiles] knew we had something this nice"" to ""If the goyim knew about this, they might try and expropriate it""

Discussion

Yvonne Gallagher Apr 8, 2019:
Yes, Stephanie. Irish, Jews, Blacks, Italians often discriminated against. We (Irish) can laugh at ourselves too after a dark history and centuries of emigration with a 70million diaspora worldwide. This was Nixon's attitude in 1973 and was no doubt quite generally felt
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/nixon-derides-blacks-jews-ir...
And the sentiment of unease still being felt in 2017! https://jewishcurrents.org/when-did-jews-become-white/ "my mother talked about the Holocaust. She said to me, ‘Don’t ever forget they could still come for you.’ I have never forgotten those words, but I truly believed she was overstating it. That could never happen in the United States.

I have had three sleepless or nightmare-filled nights since the Charlottesville riots. The video of people marching with Nazi flags and torches and shouting Nazi and racist slogans was horrifying and brought her words back to me."
Stephanie Ezrol Apr 8, 2019:
On the question of humor/joke. In my view, it is wrong to think of this as "dark Jewish humor," in that it is not dark, in the sense that dark implies cynical in the more common use of dark humor today. One window in my mind, is the Jewish aphorism, Man Plans and God Laughs -- it's better in Yiddish -- but in my Jewish experience, it is that God laughs with us, not us. That in a sense, again in my opinion, is the beauty of Jewish survival. We can laugh at ourselves and our condition. Or to put it another way, it is a profoundly religious idea, that has many ecumenical echo's -- think Moses Mendelssohn and Leibniz. Loving human creative nature, but realistic about the often rotten nature of human society.
And on another note, Friedman may think that Minneapolis may be the king of anti-semites. My parents tried to buy a home in Garden City, New York in the early 1950s and found out that there was an unwritten agreement among real estate agents not to sell to Jews. The problem, was, I think, everywhere. But again, a more general problem--many others minorities got the same treatment.
Charles Davis Apr 8, 2019:
@Mikhail That's exactly the passage I've just been reading, to get the context. Minneapolis does seem to have been a special case. Friedman reports that anti-Semitism was much more pronounced there than in St. Paul, which is Minneapolis's twin city (the other half of a single conurbation).
Mikhail Korolev (asker) Apr 8, 2019:
I'm not sure if it matters here, but this friend of Mr. Friedman father's probably was originally from Minneapolis and then moved to St. Louis Park (at least Mr. Friedman's parents did move). And in this subchapter Mr. Friedman cites an article entitled “Minneapolis: The Curious Twin,” by Carey McWilliams.
“Minneapolis is the capital of anti-Semitism in the United States. In almost every walk of life, ‘an iron curtain’ separates Jews from non-Jews in Minneapolis.” The article went on to say that “although only 4 percent of the population, Jews were publicly and unapologetically excluded from membership in private country clubs and also Rotary, Lions, and Kiwanis Clubs and groups like the Toastmasters. Jews were even barred from the Minneapolis chapter of the American Automobile Club.” I remember growing up being told by my parents that there was a time they could not join Triple-A. “In 1948,” McWilliams wrote, “frustrated Jewish doctors started their own hospital, Mt. Sinai, after being denied access to Minneapolis medical facilities.” I was born there.
Charles Davis Apr 8, 2019:
@Yvonne True (about the recent Six-Day War), and the Yom Kippur War was that very year, 1973. Not true, I think, that these were post-WW2 immigrants. "Older Jewish money" certainly doesn't suggest that. They were people who'd moved after WW2 from very anti-Semitic Minneapolis to St. Louis Park. They were probably descended from earlier European Jewish refugees (late 19th/early 20th century). Yes, there was anti-Semitism in the US in 1973. There still is.

There's no possible dispute about what this means: it expresses ingrained Jewish insecurity, characteristic of Friedman's parents' generation, the feeling that anything good they have could be taken away at any time. The only point of disagreement is about the tone of this particular remark and here I still think different readings are possible.
Yvonne Gallagher Apr 8, 2019:
@ Charles

Only 6 years from the 1967 war! And yes, these are post-WW2 immigrants here Also remember that the Emergency Quota Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Quota_Act had been enacted against a previous wave of Jewish immigrants and remained in place until 1965. Basically the only people who could ALWAYS feel secure and not be discriminated against in the USA were WASPs. Anyway, that's my reading.
Yvonne Gallagher Apr 8, 2019:
Thanks Mikhail. "tensely at home", "you should never get too comfortable", so similar to the excerpt from Fellous' "as if I were always only the guest everywhere..."
I think that confirms my reading of it.
Charles Davis Apr 8, 2019:
@Yvonne Yes, of course, that's all obviously true in itself. But this is clearly a wealthy American Jew speaking nearly 30 years after the end of the Second World War. He might be a refugee from Nazi Europe but quite probably isn't (most American Jews arrived well before that). That's not to say that he wouldn't have been shared that basic feeling of insecurity the writer describes, but to me the way he puts it has a certain ruefulness, a tone that is far from expressing fear and desperation. I believe that is why the comment "jarred" the writer (which I think is a key element in the context): it was a relatively light-hearted way of referring to something terribly serious and grim. But of course there are different ways of reading it.

As for Trump, yes, he has neo-Nazi supporters, but even with Trump the chances of anti-Jewish legislation, as opposed to anti-Moslem, are roughly zero. If anyone had tried to take their club away in 1973 they would have sued and they would have won.
Mikhail Korolev (asker) Apr 8, 2019:
This is what Mr. Friedman says in the same subchapter (The Frozen Chosen) a few passages earlier: I am keenly aware that my generation was a transition generation between the era of my parents—who always felt that life was a suitcase with a false bottom, so you should never get too comfortable—and my daughters’ generation, for whom anti-Semitism is something they largely learned about through history books. Most of our grandparents were immigrants from various European pogroms, and our parents were born into the Depression and then World War II. So even though we had found our own little goldene medina in St. Louis Park, they were always wary. Our parents and grandparents were a generation of Jews who were at home in America and Minnesota—but tensely at home. They were always concerned that things were too good to be true. They had seen the Holocaust; they had touched the bottom of the Depression. They knew demons always lurked below. The acceptance of Jews and the existence of Israel seemed a startling departure to them—not a feature of nature.
Yvonne Gallagher Apr 8, 2019:
@ Robert, Charles, Phil

I can't agree that this is a "joke" or even "dark Jewish humour" given the context, the time period (the generation in question) and what follows. "jarred" tells us the writer did not find the remark humorous at all.

Yes, it might seem unusual or irrational that the US would expropriate land or have a pogrom in 1973 but Jews had a long history of such things happening. Look how quickly expropriation happened after Kristalnacht (or indeed on the other hand how Palestinian lands were expropriated in 1948 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947–1949_Palestine_war). Indeed land expropriation has happened, and continues to happen, in many countries, sometimes under the guise of benevolent land reform, and all it takes is a change in legislation. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reforms_by_country)
And look at Trump these days and all his executive orders!

I believe the fear and insecurity in the family friend's comment has to be retained as you can't ignore what the writer says: "that was the abiding ethic of my parents’ generation of Jews—things were always too good to be true..."The 1967 Six-Day War would also have heightened insecurity.
Mikhail Korolev (asker) Apr 7, 2019:
Stephanie, Yvonne, writeaway, Robert, Charles, thank you.
Charles Davis Apr 6, 2019:
Seen from the perspective of Jewish history ancient and modern, this remark obviously invokes issues that are anything but humorous, and any suggestion that it is meant as a joke, however dark, risks the appearance of callous downplaying of anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, I think Robert is right. It does seem to me to be in the tradition of dark Jewish humour, and I don't think the speaker seriously meant that the goyim would take away their club if they knew how nice it is. OK, there may still be country clubs that don't admit Jews (officially or otherwise), but how could their club possibly be taken away from them in the United States today? No one would seriously believe it could happen. Though at the same time it would be natural to feel that this position may not always remain as secure as it is today, given historical Jewish experience.

When the author says that the remark "jarred" him, I think he is implicitly acknowledging that it was not meant seriously but that it reminded him of something very serious that marked his childhood and has produced a chronic feeling of insecurity among Jewish people.
Robert Forstag Apr 6, 2019:
@Yvonne, writeaway, and Stephanie You all make excellent points. But I still think that Phil got it essentially right here: The remark was darkly humorous (as so much of “classic” Jewish humor has been through the ages). I also do not think the speaker or his interlocutor(s) really believed that “the goyim” were going to come and expropriate their country club....
Yvonne Gallagher Apr 6, 2019:
@ writeaway
Indeed that's another factor to take into account. But golf clubs are particularly bad for excluding people with some still excluding lots of people, including women. And here are some links I found https://www.newstatesman.com/node/149688
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membership_discrimination_in_C...

Besides that, pre-1938 some Jews had begun to feel assimilated as part of high society in Vienna, for example, going to the opera, building large houses etc. but just one day after the arrival of the Nazis they were being attacked and were soon rounded up and sent to extermination camps. And anti-Semitism has never really gone away completely.
writeaway Apr 6, 2019:
Country clubs in the US can be very exclusive Exclusive in the sense of only allowing 'certain' people to become members. Many ban Jews, Blacks and other ethnicities and/or religions in order to have a club where everyone is and thinks the same. Jews who want to play golf (golf courses are often part of country clubs) often have no other option than to set up another country club where they too are allowed to join. I agree with Stephanie and Yvonne. It's not just about possession and it's certainly not meant as a joke. Sarcastic perhaps but no joke.
Yvonne Gallagher Apr 6, 2019:
@ Stephanie</B>

Exactly. Centuries of pogroms and discrimination. I just mentioned WWII since that's the generation in mind here but it's a comment on the total insecurity re managing to hold on to what they have, this current "good life".
Stephanie Ezrol Apr 6, 2019:
It does mean, literally, that but It does literally mean that they will take it away -- but the underlying communication is more a reflection on the centuries, or perhaps millenia of the persecution of the Jews -- which is common to Jewish culture when Jews are talking to Jews. The "they" can be as far as the Babylonians, or the more recent, speaking historically, the 19th and 20th century pogroms -- then the they being the Russian state/empire, or the Nazi's. What they will take from us, can be our lives, our children, our treasure. The older Jewish man at the golf club is not, in my opinion, fearful of losing the golf course. He is reflecting on something larger, which is always in the back of the mind.

Responses

29 mins
Selected

that generation always in fear of having the gentiles take things away from them

I think the fear and insecurity of a generation that had survived WWII but had lost so much is coming through in that remark and is highlighted in the following paragraph about anti-Semitism and especially in "...but his remark jarred me. That was the abiding ethic of my parents’ generation of Jews—things were always too good to be true."

Look at this lovely golf course, he's saying, but the minute the goyim find out about it they will want to take it from us (because we Jews are not supposed to possess such wonderful things).



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Note added at 6 hrs (2019-04-06 20:44:01 GMT)
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I'm also reminded of a part translation I did of Colette Fellous, a Tunisian Jew's book "Aujourd'hui" from French where she describes what happened at the outbreak of the 1967 war, where Jews who had lived in Tunisia for over 2000 years were suddenly no longer welcome. I immediately thought of this part: (my translation)

“I have always had fear hidden in my body and I don't know how to name it. A fear that never lets go, nestling under my skin, that knew me even before I was born. Fear and something else mixed in, as if I were always only the guest everywhere, that I must behave if I want to be part of this country,[...].
They silently repeat, don't think you can make yourself at home, watch out. I see the same thing clouding my parents' faces, even when they seem happy. They smile, bow their heads say thanks, excuse themselves, worry, say thanks again. Too much, way too much, and I, I do the same.

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Note added at 2 days 22 hrs (2019-04-09 12:58:16 GMT) Post-grading
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Very glad to have helped. And yes, I'm convinced this is the meaning but thanks for confirmation from Stephanie, in particular, and writeaway.
Peer comment(s):
agree Stephanie Ezrol : pinpointing the fear of the WW2 generation is important-- especially in this context. The wounds were fresh.
55 mins
Thanks Stephanie(long time no "see"?). Yes, that generation was extremely fearful, and with good reason.
disagree philgoddard : Are you really implying this is a secret golf course that only Jewish people know about?
34 days
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Many thanks to everyone. Thank you, Yvonne."
+3
5 mins

Yes

Your interpretation is correct. If the non-Jews knew about it, they'd steal it.

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Note added at 6 mins (2019-04-06 14:41:24 GMT)
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It's a joke.
Peer comment(s):
agree Robert Forstag
5 mins
agree Charlotte Fleming
5 mins
disagree Yvonne Gallagher : "steal" is wrong word and it's not a joke at all. "...but his remark jarred me. That was the abiding ethic of my parents’ generation of Jews—things were always too good to be true"//nothing humorous about it, dark or not.
10 mins
It's a joke, though obviously the humour is dark. It's not a literal statement of the truth.
agree Charles Davis : I agree with Robert Forstag's comment in the discussion section.
7 hrs
agree Phoenix III
10 hrs
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