It started simply. In a Delaware public school, the principal walked into the lunch room and told the students that no one would eat before prayers, and called a student to the podium. The student began, “In the name of Jesus…”

Yusef, the Jewish child raised his hand. “That’s not the brucha we use at home. We don’t pray to Jesus.”

The principal replied, “That’s what you do at home. Your public school is in America, a Christian nation, so you do it our way or you can go to the side room there and do it your way”

Yusef got up and went to that back room, He found a small room, probably used as a closet before now pretty much empty, with nothing in the room but a cross pasted up. He realized he couldn’t do the prayer for the loaf or the wine. He didn’t have either. He had a bad habit. Whenever he got expecially nervous or upset, he started to scratch, even though there were times that he scratched himself raw and got infections. He scratched his head now, prayed in Hebrew, then went back to his seat, next to his classmates.

His friend Chuck asked him why he couldn’t pray like everybody else.

“You know I’m Jewish”, he said. We don’t pray to Jesus.

“Then who do you pray to?”
Before he could answer, another classmate said, “Jews don’t pray to anybody. They’re atheists, like Marx and Lenin.”

“We do believe in God. We just don’t pray to Jesus”

“My priest says that the only way to the father is through the son, so if you don’t believe in Jesus, you don’t believe in God”

“So does my pastor!” another boy said

“My rabbi says that only God is God and all this Trinity stuff is a way of worshipping a false god?”

“Are you saying Jesus is a false God?”

 Then it started. He hoped he imagined the words, Jew boy. As he sat, he felt the redness where he scratched and resisted the urge to scratch some more. At three, he came home, kissed the mazuza and his mother.

“How was school?” His mother asked.

“We prayed today, at lunch. Isn’t that illegal in a modern public school? Doesn’t that defy separation of church and state?”

“Some atheists made it that way. We all know that the Constitution permits freedom of religion and all this talk of separation of church and state can’t stop it. You’ll be happy to know your father and I are working on that. We already got the principal to agree to it, so think of us, as you pray at lunch.”

“But it didn’t feel right, Mom. I tried to do the prayer the way the rabbi taught me to, but I only ended up scratching.”

“We warned you about scratching like that. Remember when scratched so much your skin got so red and infected we had to take you to the hospital?”

“Yeah, Mom. But it’s hard to be the praying Jew.”

“Your classmates know you’re a pious Jew. Now as the prayers make them more pious, you’ll have an easier time”

“Yes, Mom”

The next day, he head the whispers he hoped weren’t and tried not to look around as he walked.

“HEY, JEW BOY!”

He heard it loud and clear, this time, as it was yelled into his right ear. He looked right, and someone pulled on his left payis, the long sideburns orthodox Jews keep. “OWW!” he shouted, and felt his head pulled to the left, as someone on his right pulled off his yarmulka. He never saw it again. In class, he started scratching his head, but pulled his hands down and started to scratch his palms and wrists, stopping when he noticed they were getting red. At lunch he sat for a moment when he heard the principal call for the prayer.

“But you, Yusef, may go to your room.”

He heard the other students laugh as he went to his little closet. The cross was gone. Its place was the word, “Jewish place”, written with thick marker, and a bible on a table. “Christian Bible, of course,” he thought. “Well, this time, I have my bread and wine.” He went into his backpack to find his can of grape juice had been opened and spilled. He found his kosher salami sandwich, but a container of milk had been added, leaving the meal unkosher. He left the room and went back to his seat.

“How was your meal?”, someone yelled. Several students laughed. He began to cry to himself and didn’t even try to stop himself from scratching. The next day, he came in, staying close to the wall, holding his backpack close to his chest. Someone tried to grab his payis, but he had taped them down. He kept his yamulka in his backpack until he got to class. “Today will be different”, he thought.

Lunch came and he was surprised to see his mother there. “Since I helped establish the prayers, I have the privilege of watching you lead the lunch prayer,” she said. Lunch time came, and he stood in front of the room, with his mother on one side of him and the principal on the other. He had a full, freshly baked loaf with a real knife and real bottle of wine in front of him. He opened to the correct page of what this time was a Jewish prayer book, when a note fell out. He picked it up and it was a computer printed page full of nothing but the word Jew boy, repeated over and over.

He started to cry and scratched himself all over, especially his head, his hands, his feet, and even his side. All those spots began to bleed, so the teachers picked him up and took him out.”Wilmington or St Francis hospital?” the secretary asked. 

“Delaware Psychiatric, and call his psychiatrist! He’s had a nervous breakdown. I’m calling a lawyer, and you can bet the papers are going to hear about this!” his mother yelled.

The next week, he returns with his mother, his father, his principal and a cop, to pick up his things, for the last time. They pass through a crowd of students.

“Not a word”, the principal says, but a few grow close, with tears in their eyes.

“I’m so sorry we did this to you,” one says.

“Where can I get a yamulka?”

“How do I grow payis?”

“Can I join your shul?”

The principal says, “I can understand your apologies, but why do so many of you want to convert? Isn’t that a bit much?”

A student pulls out a newspaper. The headline says “SCHOOL HAS NEW SAINT, JEWISH BOY HAS STIGMATA”

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David Ruben was born Oct 3 1956, with autism. We didn’t understand it then, so he was put in what were euphemistically called special classes. He’s been trying to live it down, ever since.

Photo credit: Christina Salomon