Only in Israel could there be such a slip of the tongue

I was speaking to my dear friend and previous flatmate from our studies at the Dundee campus of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He was in dentistry and I in medicine. He was from London and I from Brooklyn. We met at a gathering a few weeks after the first term was beginning. We started speaking to each other and after awhile he tapped his nose and looked at me. “Are you Jewish” I asked, and he smiled and indicated that what he had done was an informal way of people acknowledging that the new person they were talking to was Jewish. Clearly and non-Jew would unlikely get the hint.

It was early October in 1961. I had just moved into my “digs”, a small house run by a very sweet landlady. After she interviewed me, and we agreed that I could stay she offered me a cup of tea. When she offered me milk, I replied, “I have never had milk in my tea, we usually at home add honey and lemon.” “Doesn’t curdle?” she asked. I chuckled a bit and said, “not along with milk, instead of milk.”

As I was drinking the tea I asked what the knitted cover was over the teapot. “It’s called a tea cozy, used to keep the tea hot,” Of course I would not know of that as at home we made tea with tea bags, not loose tea, which at that time would have been heresy in Scotland. She was knitting as we spoke, hardly having to look at the blue sweater she said was for one of her grandsons. “May I ask you, Michael, what religion are you?” I was taken aback and put my cup down. Was I going to experience some sort of antisemitic experience on my third day in Scotland? I had not ever heard of antisemitism as being an issue in Scotland but knew about the expulsion of Jews from England, all 3000 of them in 1290 on the orders of King Edward 1. They were only allowed to return in 1650 by the order of Oliver Cromwell.

“Mrs. Gilroy, I am Jewish”, hoping for the best and holding my breath. She smiled widely and said, “I thought so. The moment I saw your face, your dark hair and dark eyes I thought to myself, ‘ach, another Dr. Shulman’; did you know Dr. Shulman form Glasgow- a fine lad, he stayed with me for two years- a real gentleman and affy (awfully in Dundonian) bright. I was sorry to see him go. When I saw you, I thought maybe I will be lucky again.” I smiled and told her that I did not know him but knew people in New York named Shulman including one of my uncles, but it is a common name, with the meaning a man of the shul, or synagogue. She appeared delighted to hear that from me. Staying in her home for one year was one of the great pleasures of my life. She opened her home to me and invited me to every Sunday lunch where her family with two grandchildren were in attendance. I kept in touch with her throughout my years of study in Dundee and some years after graduation while driving through Europe on my way to Israel, to live, with my Israeli wife, stopped in to see her and she told her about the fine times that she had from me. It almost sounded like my mother extolling my virtues and her getting nachas from a Jewish medical school boarder.

I was speaking to my friend Steve, with our almost weekly WhatsApp call to keep each other in touch. He and his wife had to cancel a planned trip to Asia because of the war in Gaza, and this was prior to increase in hostilities in the north with Hezbollah. One day in early October, just prior to the anniversary of Oct.7, he said that he and his had cancelled a trip to the far east with the outbreak of hostilities on October 7. Like many Israelis he was affected personally by the war with one granddaughter being called up for reserve duty in the Navy.

Now with the outbreak with Hezbollah and another major attack by Iran, he said they were not sure about traveling. He indicated that short trips to Paris where one grandson was studying art, and thence to London where his youngest daughter and granddaughter lived would be possible. He then said, “we want to go on our long trip again in the new year, war, permitting.” I said, “Steve, did you hear what you said, war permitting, did you mean weather permitting?” “Did I say that?” I guess I have war on my mind- it is impossible not to have it always there.

I lived in Israel for 4 years, did some of my medical residency there and served in the IAF as a physician. Even during the war of Attrition, during which I served there was never a sense of existential threat. I know from friends and family and reading books, in 1973 many Israelis felt a real threat, even that war was different. The enemies were clear- they were in formal armies.

When I hear the protestors all round us, including at the University where I am still on faculty I shudder. Is memory so short? In the Toronto Jewish community there have been attacks on synagogues, stores, and Jewish neighborhoods, with antisemitic and antizionist (sanitized antisemitism). Every word matters in life. For my dear friend, “war permitting” was where he was it in his life during these days. All we hope for is that we can go back to normal speech- a reason to cancel a trip or a party, weather permitting.