| Ronan Tynan, Irish tenor, said to a real estate agent, "I don't care if the apartment owners are Red Sox fans, as long as they are not Jewish!" ("Anti-Semitism Abe," Nov. 6). So the ADL invites him to sing at a meeting and the stupid audience gives him a standing ovation.
I am now 92, born in Chicago and lived there for 91 years before my daughter invited me to share an apartment with her in the suburbs.
I went to Kinzie School at LaSalle and Ohio and to Wasser High School (now named Lincoln Park High). I was on the honor roll, took shorthand and typing as extra subjects in 3rd and 4th years, became staff steno of school paper and secretary of my graduation class. In all those years, I encountered no anti-Semitism. Then I took a secretarial course at a business college downtown. After graduation, I was given some names of places that might need secretaries. Ichose a liquor company I could get to on public transportation. I called for an appointment. A man answered the phone. I replied I would like an appointment to apply for a job as a secretary. He asked for my name and said, "Are you Jewish?" I replied, "Yes, I am." He replied, "I'm sorry, it's a company policy not to hire Jews."
This was my first encounter with anti-Semitism.
I learned some banks and insurance companies and even hotels were not taking Jews. So I wrote letters to publishers of magazines and newspapers and got a job at Popular Mechanics Magazine, where I became secretary to the editor.
I was married in Sept. 1940 and resigned Dec. 31,1944. My daughter was born in March 1945.
Tynan should never have been invited to the ADL meeting.
Once an anti-Semite, always an anti-Semite.
Lillian Berry, Glenview |
Recognizing anti-Semitism
