I had two dreams about antisemitism last night. I wish I could figure them out.
They haven't upset me today, but I've thought about them.
The first one was in a southern setting, a picnic area in the woods, with huge cedars or cypresses in low marshy land. A ton of people had gathered there. They seemed like nice people. They had a book out they were all reading from. Then suddenly they all began chanting a Hitler chant.
I was looking at the book, too. I found it highly disconcerting, but I didn't run away, I even talked to people there about it. Somehow it wasn't threatening.
An old Jewish friend of mine who hates my ideas on Jewish identity and Israel was in that dream. He stood on the side of a huge cypress with a rope to measure its girth. He wrapped it twice around the tree and half hung from the side of it, naked. But uninjured. Sort of like performance art. Very vulnerable, he was.
The second dream was connected. I was in New York and interviewing a board member of some New York institution. The guy was talking to me about when the antisemites ran the place. He said there was a guy named Burliner or Berlingame who was very antisemitic who was on the board. I asked if he’s still alive, the guy said yes, and you can talk to him. I wasn't to quote him on that part.
I wrote it all down, but the ink in my pen didn’t flow well, I had to scratch it into the page, like incising it.
My sense is the dreams are about my anguish over stuff I say here. I try and be hardboiled, but I know I've alienated some friends and family over this, and the ideas make me uncomfortable. Still I believe what I say. These dreams are the teachings I grew up with: Nazi rallies in rural settings, and urban institutions dominated by anti-semites– that's how the world works.
The good thing about the dreams was that I didn't feel at all threatened. They weren't nightmares. In a sense they gave me a kind of power, and permission. Don't worry about the antisemites. Just try and figure out what you think, and write it down.
As for the friend with the rope, he and I witnessed a lot sociologically. We traveled together, were in different parts of the country together. We saw the Jewish transformation of the last 30 years together, enjoyed it. Now we don't talk about this, don't talk at all actually. The last time we talked about it, he said my comments, about intermarriage, had a "haze of hurt." A great phrase. Ifelt he was talking about childhood stuff, my parents. I sure don't hope that's true. But at some point in life what does the psychology matter? If you're a writer, you just got to write it down.
(Phil Weiss)
