In a message dated 9/5/02 5:49:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
Ankitterer@aol.com writes:
<< I think you are overreacting on this >>
If you read the explanation root of the word Bennie is based upon
anti-Semitism.
This is the kind of thing that I tend to overreact to.
I am a first generation American
.
Due to the Holocaust, my mother lost her parents in Lithuanian, and found
herself penniless in the US not speaking a word of English.
My father's family survived, but they lost everything of monetary value. His
saga includes taking a train through Germany with his brother and only one
passport without the notation JUDA between them, getting arrested in Belgium
as suspected German spies, getting out of jail to find the infrastructure
destroyed, having to steal two bicycles (one of which is in my basement) and
making his way eventually to the US. Here he was offered citizenship and then
drafted in the Army; sent back to Europe and being German speaking
interrogated German POWs.
My parents' story is not unique. There are many Holocaust survivors with
similar and more horrific stories. They had funny accents, different customs,
and when they went to the Jersey shore this was noted and they were coined
Bennies. It may now be a generic term, but it wasn't then.
As a kid I had blonde hair and my sister was a red head. Not having a typical
Jewish last name, when away from our "different sounding" parents, we would
"pass for white" and hear the rest of it, said in "good fun." Kind of stuff
people would be too polite to say to our face if they knew we were Jewish.
Let's see, Kikes, Yids, Hymies. Getting a bargain entailed "jewing someone
down."
I had to ask my father is Cadillacs were made by a Jewish company, because it
was always referred as a "Jew Car."
David Oliner
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