Special to the Jewish Week
Fri, 10/02/2009
Where I come from, people don’t like dogs much. I grew up in Flatbush in the 1950s, in an Orthodox home. My parents were both from Crown Heights, a generation removed from the shtetl. I was raised to be terrified of dogs.
Old joke: A baptized Jew is lambasted by his former yeshiva pal for becoming a goy—“You, the Talmudic prodigy, how could you leave it all behind?!” Replies the apostate: “Moish, relax, I’m still afraid of dogs.”
