My Favorite Bar Mitzvah

Hollywood Jew Writes: My favorite Bar Mitzvah was held at a racetrack. It was conservative/reform, of course. The father, a senior banker with Goldman Sacks, replicated the chariot scene of Ben Hur, with the following change. Instead of racing horses, which would of course have been beyond the skill of most of the middle schoolers present (but not all of them), we mounted the backs of large black men, mostly ex-cons in need of the money. They carried us they raced around the track, and we would beat them with whips to spur them on. Many a wager was placed that day on which boy’s “shvartze” (we used that term in a very affectionate way back then) would win. At the end of the race, each shvartze received a gift of fifty crisp US dollars and a donation was made to the United Negro College Fund, so the kids learned the importance of racial tolerance. And it all worked! As adults, all of us kids, now men, tolerate black people. Just so long as they do not live in our neighborhoods.