And the Kristall-Globe Award Goes To…
by: Schvach Yid

…us! It’s awarded to us Jews. Sound silly? Well, just consider the matter for a moment and consider the Nobel Prize. A commentator on one of the cable TV news channels commented about Al Gore’s award of the Nobel Prize, followed by the comment, ‘who doesn’t want one of those?’

Nu, what’s the big deal with this Nobel Prize already? The cash? The prestige? Why is it so prestigious? Is it because one gets to sup with the King and Queen of Sweden? Perhaps it’s because of the big names of one’s antecedent Prize recipients - you know, like joining a club.

The Nobel Prize is named after Alfred Nobel; actually, he named it after himself. Alfred Nobel is known for his Prize (no, he didn’t award one to himself), but should also be known for his invention. Alfred Nobel was a chemist who invented dynamite; he accumulated his personal financial fortune from the manufacture and sale of his invention, and left a foundation to posterity. Fortunately, AIDS wasn’t known back then, and so his financial resources weren’t commandeered to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa (just ask Bill Gates and Warren Buffet). Personally, I think we’re much better off with the Nobel Prize!

Alfred Nobel was a Jew.

People all over the world run after this prestigious accolade. Why do so many Jews ‘win’ the Nobel Prize? I dunno, but I think it’s nice that we share our Prize with everyone else, don’t you?

Why are relatively so few Moslems awarded the Nobel Prize? Because they hate Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish State of Israel, that’s why! Because during the Second World War, the Arab Moslem leadership conspired with the Third Reich to annihilate us. Because they interceded against European Jewish immigration to Britain’s Mandate in Palestine, thus condemning so many millions of Europe’s Jews to death. Because after the War, Arab Moslems recruited the defunct, on-the-run Nazis to provide them with tactical and strategic training in the Arab war against the Yishuv. Because Arab Moslem professors in Western universities formulate careers in Jew-hatred. Because the Arab Moslems are this generation’s Nazis, that’s why!

Two billion people world wide – one third of everyone – worships a Jew as their ‘Savior’. Don’t you think we Jews deserve a prize for that?

They’re after us. It seems that almost every group in the world chases us, frequently to our demise. Christians and Moslems we know about. Pogroms, Kristallnacht, and the Holocaust we know about. Why have former Hindu co-workers walked up to me in the lab were I used to work and asked about Jewish theology, only to spit venom in response and tell me ‘you got that from us’. And the Hindu-turned-Christian professor mentioned in my earlier blogs might as well have a neon sign flashing over his head announcing his disdain for Jews.

And American Black people (to paraphrase a former Black co-worker, ‘if I wanted to say African-American, I would have’)? ‘Follow the Jews’, ‘emulate the Jews’ are the instructions pronounced by some Black people, or at least this used to be the case. It’s my not so humble opinion that this has not led to the best situation for us Jews, or as a Black nurse once said to me, ‘Why are you people all the doctors; why don’t any of you work?’ Emes! Well, to use her rationale, I ‘worked’; in fact, I ‘worked’ with her, and I was never welcome to do so.

Back in the old days, in a hospital in Brooklyn NY, I wandered into the nurses’ station. Seated there was a Jewish physician, surrounded by several nurses (not Jewish). As if on cue, he began a soliloquy to the nurses about how he had, as a student, worked part time driving a meat delivery truck. He related how he had taken home a ham, and how much he had enjoyed it. The nurses stared at me as if to drive home the point. They succeeded. I wasn’t religious. I didn’t wear a yalmulka or keep kosher, but still, they apparently had a need to lay down the law – their law – with me, as though my mere presence demanded it.

Three years later, in the Bible Belt, I sat at a lab meeting. The company ‘alter’ sat across from me at the conference table. She was a lab technician with seniority points based on her years of attendance at one of the numerous local churches. The subject – an upcoming party for the new division boss. The űber-boss was there, as well as all the underlings, Ph.D. faculty members included. What flew from her mouth as she stared at me? Ham! ‘We’re having a ham for the party’ (I had never mentioned religion at work), ‘and you know what fine quality that means’, nodding her head up and down. Everyone else at the meeting groaned. The űber-boss was silent. She remained; months later I was asked for my resignation.

More than a decade later the divisional administrator at another research institution where I worked was fond of displaying a computer printout depiction of Jesus. One fine day, just prior to Christmas and a few days prior to the Division’s annual Christmas party, she confronted me as I walked into the office. I had declined the invitation to the party by RSVP (Friday night, no less). She shouted (I mean it), ‘if you know what’s good for you, you’d better be at the party, mister’! This theater was staged in front of the Divisional Director’s office. He was in. His door was open. Not a peep (he wasn’t Jewish).

Alan Dershowitz, in his book Chutzpah, encourages Jews to not be shy. Speak up! He’s right. The isolated Jew is fodder. In the workplace I keep my mouth shut about politics, my religious convictions and about my genealogy, and I’ve paid.

And so, on the day preceding the anniversary of Kristallnacht, this year’s Kristall-Globe Award goes to ‘The Jews’. Us. And why not? We seem to ‘catch it’ all the time. We’re about to ‘catch it’ again in Annapolis on the 18^th of this month. And my heartiest congrats go all the non-Jewish recipients of the Nobel Prize. Don’t forget, boys and girls, it’s we Jews who've given you something to kvell about.