WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

LESSONS I LEARNED IN THE 1ST GRADE

         WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

At age six I was excited to be in the first grade, and especially looked forward to lunching with my girl schoolmates.

One day I noticed a girl sitting in the lunchroom by herself.  “Shall we ask her to eat with us,” I suggested to the others.

“Oh, we can’t do that,” was the response from one of them.

When I asked why not, she answered, “Because she isn’t like us.

“What do you mean?” I prodded further.

“She’s Jewish,” one of the girls whispered, dismissively.

Not knowing what that meant, I looked at the lone girl closer to see if I could see anything that would give me a clue. She did look a bit different than most of the six-year-olds at our table. Most of us had light skin and hair color.

Miriam Rosenthal had dark hair, an olive complexion and wore horn-rimmed glasses.  Still not understanding why she couldn’t sit with us I just dropped the idea.

That night during dinner, I related to my parents that I felt sorry for a girl at school. My friends didn’t like her because she was Jewish, I told them, but what did that mean?

“Hmmm,” they hesitated, challenged on how to explain religious and racial prejudice to a first grader.

“Well,” my father ventured, “Jewish means that Miriam and her family don’t go to the same churches as most of the people in this country do, and for some reason that matters to them.”

“But why” I asked.

“Not really sure, actually,” was my father’s insufficient answer.

“It sounds like she needs a friend to me,” was the comment my mother made.

The next day at recess, I made a point to engage Miriam in conversation. She liked dogs and had a pesky brother too. So we became friends.

One day she asked me if I could come to her house for dinner?

When I asked my parents if I could, they agreed.

Oh boy, was I ever excited. I was going to eat Jewish food. Maybe it would be a clue in finding out what the difference was between she and I, that so bothered my other friends.

The big night came, and my parents dropped me off at her house. Later, when they picked me up, I got in the car feeling quite puzzled.

“How was your dinner with your new friend?” they asked.

“Alright, but we didn’t eat Jewish food,” I lamented.

“You didn’t?” my mother queried. “What did you eat?”

“Spaghetti,” I answered, in a disappointed tone. “Just like you make. It wasn’t Jewish food at all.”

“Well,” my father piped up. “Spaghetti, is my favorite food.”

And so, that night, at the age of six, I realized that people aren’t so different at all.

We all love spaghetti!