ON THIS WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS let us reflect on the stunning chant shouted by a vocal minority of fans at Upper Darby High School last Tuesday during a boy's basketball game versus Lower Merion. "Warm up the ovens," they chanted. "Warm up the ovens." Don't get it? It's about all those Jews at Lower Merion High School. You didn't know Lower Merion was Jewish? Neither did I. And I spent four years at Lower Merion High School after eight years at St. Margaret's in Narberth, where I never met a Jew. Or a Protestant. Or, quite frankly, a black person.
It was a wonderful time to grow up. For the love of God we hated everybody and everybody hated us right back. We felt sorry for those pagan babies we Catholic school kids "ransomed" -- and named -- for five bucks a pop, but most of us didn't want to live next door to grown up pagan babies, many of whom had changed their names from Mary or Joseph to Viet and Cong. I look back in wonder at those innocent racist times and I wonder all these years later how I became Jewish in the minds of those Upper Darby idiots whose chanted "Warm up the ovens!" and shouted "We'll write you letters when you're in Auschwitz." at a boy's basketball game. Ironically, Lower Merion High School has about as many Jewish members on its basketball team as Notre Dame has Irish. But just imagine how big this story would have been if those chants had been lynching references ("Get a rope!") aimed at the African American players. As it is the anti-semetic shouts resulted in a formal apology from Upper Darby Schools Superintendent Louis DeVlieger to "all those people from Lower Merion who are effected by this." (Statistically, Lower Merion Township breaks down to 90 percent white, 4.5 percent African American and the remainder a variety of racial or ethnic identities. Of those Lower Merion residents who have religious affiliations, 35 percent are Catholic, 21 percent Protestant and eight percent Jewish).
I'm proud to say that the players on my high school's basketball team responded the only appropriate way by spanking Upper Darby on the scoreboard, 51-27. When the two teams play again next month at Lower Merion, don't be surprised if you see a lot of fans, black and white, Christian and agnostic, wearing yellow Stars of David on their Lower Merion jackets.
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