To the editor:

I read the article regarding what Amanda Basse posted on the Israel and Hamas situation and the potential to inflame antisemitism in town.

In the 25 years I lived in Barrington I encountered much antisemitism.

The first letter I wrote to the Times was on antisemitism. I have faced antisemitism my whole life. It started in the first grade. I refused to participate in NJ public school's Christian daily prayer. The teacher told our class I would not pray because Jews killed Jesus. I was promptly beat up at recess. I told the kids it was 2,000 years ago and I wasn't there. It did not help.

When I moved to Providence public schools there was a lot of beating up of Jews. I was small, smart and I learned to run fast. There was a Jewish kid named Niel who got beat up regularly. He went to private school. I got beat up only once at Nathan Bishop so it was a personal accomplishment, but pretty much every week kids threw pennies at me and others.

At Classical I was a well known Jew. At Classical, wanting a career in theatre, I took all the theatre classes including, Advanced theatre taught by the director of the plays at Classical. In 1977, he announced that we were doing the York Nativity play. I told him I did not want to do any Nativity play. He told me, appealing to my love of history, that it had been performed every year for 1,000 years. He also told me I either did the play (after school) or I would fail his class in school, and not graduate. Not a great choice. 

A week later I found out that the York Nativity play was performed every year for 1000 years to celebrate the massacre of all the Jews in the city of York in 1166. They were herded into a tower and burned alive. They celebrated 1,000 years. I went back and told the director and asked if he knew the history of the play? He replied of course he did that was why he picked it!

The article stated that the comments online by Ms. Basse would "inflame hatred and make people feel unsafe.” That is true rhetoric and since most misinformation raises the threat.

The letter I wrote in 1994 had to do with a Primrose substitute who for the winter concert had a line in it "Let's all praise Jesus Christ". A few parents at Primrose complained. Superintendent Ralph Malafronte cut the one line from the song, which created an uproar from people who were just nostalgic about holiday music, but as always there were also antisemitism statements. I decided to write a letter, even worked hard to tone down to reduce how it could offend some people. I still got threats.

I taught antisemitism at Temple Habonim so at the FTM school budget, when an older person said Mr. Hellmann is a clever person, I knew clever was a trope used in the 1940's for Jews. A derogatory term. Only older people and myself would know. Then my ex- repeated my point and the man stood and said she was clever too. She did not understand. When I explained it to her, she was stunned. She is not Jewish but descended from the Mayflower. Antisemitism can be hard on people who haven't lived with it.

Joel Hellmann

East Providence