“My Daily Dose” by Mort Laitner
I sip my daily dose of warm sweet coffee.
It’s 6:30 in the morning and darkness still rests on my windows.
I stare at my iPhone.
Do I want my daily dose of the internet so early in the morning?
I press the white on-button.
Icons appear.
The Facebook’s white “F” appears in a sea of blue.
Before I touch it, I pause,”Am I going to get “F”ed today?
Am I asking for my daily dose of anti-Semitism?
I scroll.
I recognize that photo.
It’s the wedding scene from “Fiddler!”
Great memories!
Dad, Mom, my sister and I see Mostel play Tevye on Broadway in ’64.
It’s my favorite Broadway musical.
In the photograph, the groom, the tailor Motel Kamzoil, (I sing the words) rests on his knees, holding his crouching bride. (Tzeitel—Tevya’s oldest daughter)
His hands hold Tzeitel’s waist, Her hands hold Motel’s bearded face.
The bride wears white. The groom wears black.
The Jewish men of Anatevka raise their joyous hands towards the heavens.
The masthead reads, “The New York Times.”
The headline reads, “Baltimore ‘Fiddler’ Disrupted by ‘Heil Hitler, Heil Trump’
Was this a scene from Mel Brooks’ “The Producers?”
Would this Baltimore disrupter follow his “Heils” by singing “Springtime for Hitler in Germany?”
He didn’t.
But some theater-goers ran straight for the doorways fearing bullets would follow the “Heils.”
I wonder, “What would I do?”
The disrupter is escorted out of the theater. (He won’t be allowed back.)
The Baltimore police didn’t arrest him because he was protected by the first amendment to our constitution and he yelled the words during intermission and he was drunk.
Hadn’t the cops heard about the exceptions to the free speech rule? You can’t yell, “Fire” or “Heil Hitler” in a crowded theater playing Fiddler.
I think about the travails of Tevye, the poor Jewish milkman living in the Pale of Settlement, facing Czarist Russian pogroms, trying to maintain the traditions of his people as outside disrupters encroach on his live.
I ponder the milkman’s words:
“A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask ‘Why do we stay up there if it’s so dangerous?’ Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition!”
I consider how some of Tevye’s traditions went up in smoke as he and some of his family headed for America.
Facebook and The New York Times injected me with my daily dose of anti-Semitism,
My roof shakes.
And my coffee tastes cold and bitter.
