Believe in Yourself and Fight For What is Right

I was seventeen when I got a job at the only telephone company in Maryland (things are different now). I was only there about 4 months when I had to tell the supervisor that I was taking off three days (without pay) for two religious holidays-Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (holiest day of Atonement).She reluctantly said ok and when I came back from being off she started in on me in a negative voice. One day, she said I was going to be terminated and I knew instantly it was because I had taken off for Jewish holidays. I was in the accounting department and billing and there were plenty of other employees to do my work on those three days. I was not that important.

I went to the union who represented us employees and they requested a 'trial.' My dad and I went downtown to the building via the transit bus late at night. My dad spoke (he had graduated as a lawyer but never practiced) and I spoke and I was judged as the victor. She, Grace the supervisor admitted under oath that she was prejudiced negatively towards me because of being Jewish and it was not my work ethics or quality of my work.

I won, the good guys won and I quit and never went back there. I got a job as an assistant to the CEO of a big printing company and I worked my way up to a really big and lucrative job and I was by now only twenty. Meyer, the boss was a good business man and he had just founded along with twenty other young men, a new synagogue in our home neighborhood. He worked diligently as a volunteer to create this place of worship and I admired him.

One day a young Jewish man came in named Irvin and he applied for a job as an apprentice printer. Meyer was very wary of hiring him because he was Jewish and thought he may not fit in with all the Christian employees. We took him out to lunch to interview him and I was very impressed with his desire to learn a trade, because he had not the opportunity to go to college for something else.

Meyer did not want to hire him and I with my twenty year old wisdom said give him a chance, you are a Jewish man trying to deny a Jewish person with the opportunity of learning a trade. That is not right. So he listened to me and hired Irvin and he went on to become after several years a supervisor and a very valued employee.

Irvin and I had a platonic friendship; he was engaged to get married soon. He introduced me to his friend and I disliked him and only went out with him once on a date. A few months later a guy named Jerry called me up and said that my name had been given  to him by this fellow I did not like when I went out with him.

I refused him for three calls on the phone to go out with him.

My beloved mom said” give him a chance, who knows?” Always listen to your mom, she was right and Jerry and I have been married for fifty-one years and have two children, four grandchildren, two in-law children and a lovely home and life. Plus, we are ballroom dancers and this Sunday, we went back to a studio dance and danced for the first time in sixteen months. We had not danced due to an auto injury accident. Wow, it was glorious to be back at the gorgeous studio Promenade on Lord Baltimore Drive and be welcomed by the wonderful owner Cindy Sumida and our fellow dancers who we had not seen for that long time.

The moral of this story is that thoughts of discriminating, where Grace from the phone company or Meyer from his own printing company is wrong. Grace tried to get rid of me because of religion and Meyer did not want Irvin because of religion. One based on ugliness and one based on lack of knowledge of one's brethren and his potential.

Irvin turned out to be a fine and hardworking employee and stayed there at the printing business until he retired about forty years later. Grace was let go by the telephone company for her biased and ugly manner. Meyer had the good qualities to listen to a twenty year old employee (me) and to give Irvin a chance.

Meyer was the winner as was Irvin and most of all Elita, who from her loving thoughts of what this man could accomplish, became his friend and landed a husband of great worth, as a person and friend and now has many heirs to always remember this story.

The final moral of this story is always do what is right, be not a Grace type person (odd name for a person of low character) and rather be a Meyer type person and listen and learn. I turned out to be a peacemaker and as the bible says "Blessed are the peacemakers for they are the children of God."

We are all the children of God in one way or another. We just have to point ourselves in that direction and always do what is virtuous.

Then we can call ourselves blessed and in turn bless others. We are the winners of life. I have my husband, my children and their spouses, my three handsome grandsons ages 6, 16, and 19 and one beautiful  granddaughter age 4.All because I saw something of value in Irvin, a complete stranger who became more that. He and I shared a deep friendship and of course, he was invited to my wedding.