It's not just a 'Hollywood' thing

On the patio of Cava Restaurant this past Saturday night, a young man with more lung power than sense bragged loudly about his prowess at golf and his friends’ relative inadequacies. Diners at tables nearby rolled their eyes until he declared that one of these friends had “Jewed me out of two shots.”

Incensed, a woman sitting at the table next to him told him the remark was intolerable. The man staunchly claimed that he meant nothing offensive by it, and tensions between the two tables escalated.

Anti-Semitic comments and sentiments are not the reserve of drunken Hollywood celebrities, confined to the Middle East or trapped in histories of the Holocaust. They exist here in Montecito and everywhere else, for that matter.

Periodically in the past half-year that I’ve been doing this column, people have told me about anti-Semitic remarks they’ve heard in Montecito. Independently, a few people have urged me to do a column on what it’s like to be Jewish in a predominantly Christian, some would say WASPy, community.

Anti-Semitism is hard to write about. People who make bigoted remarks know that they are wrong — or at least frowned upon — and therefore tend to be shy about making them openly. (It takes a certain brash and, I like to think, genetically feebleminded personality to bellow such remarks at a local restaurant.)

It’s not uncommon, however, to hear the occasional “Jews control Hollywood” line, and I’ve heard odd rumors of Christian kids not wanting to play with Jewish kids, lest they burn in hell.

At their least malignant, anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry are like foot fungi that never really go away, but we forget about them until they flare up, irritating and anew. Fortunately, we live in a largely tolerant place where women stand up and tell young men when they’re getting out of line.

Even around here, however, anti-Semitism can take on pretty threatening forms. At Santa Barbara High School in the 1980s, a friend of mine in Montecito woke up one morning to find swastikas and SS symbols painted on her car, which had been parked inside the family’s garage. She had recently spoken against prayer in school before the board of education.

Naomi Schwartz, too, when she was running for 1st District supervisor in 1992, had swastikas painted on the garage of her former house.

In short, we do not live in a protected pocket unaffected by attitudes that unhealthily afflict other places around the world.

Many of us move to or remain in Montecito, and Santa Barbara at large, because it’s a better place to live than most others. There is little crime, the weather is unreal, people are easygoing and friendly, and the quality of life in general is unbeatable. But a culture of tolerance and pluralism is a necessary ingredient to this good life, and threats to it should be quashed.

A Jewish friend of mine has recently started wearing a necklace with a Star of David pendant, which she’s never done before. People should wear crucifixes, stars or crescents as they wish, but there’s something unsettling about it when it feels defensive or defiant in nature.

Let’s face it: Montecito is not a diverse place, although this is not horrible in and of itself. The problem is when people in the minority, of whatever stripe, are made to feel uncomfortable.