Deep down where we all keep the store of quirks and prejudices that we have absolutely nothing to do with accumulating. They're handed to us at birth, and they get underscored and intensified by the kind of lives we are forced by our elders to lead before we have anything to say about the kind of life we want to lead. --The enemy camp by Jerome Weidman.
...
Aunt Tessie had put her arms around him as though to protect him from somebody who was about to let him have it. "Shkutzim!" she'd said. "Gentiles!"
George had never heard the word before. But he understood right away what Aunt Tessie meant. He didn't need any translators. All he needed was the sound of Aunt Tessie's voice. This, she was saying, is the home of the enemy. Stay away. George didn't have to be told twice. He soon became used to hearing whispered stories about the crazy
things that went on inside the house of the shkutzim. --pg 115
...
...boys and girls shouting and playing in the school yard had been infected by the same excitement that had touched the people in Forman's and the shkutzim in Gerrity's.
...
What else was there to say? Danny's relationship with Mike Gerrity and the shkutzim who hung around Mike's saloon was the only thing that bothered George about his best friend. It bothered a lot of other people on Fourth Street, too. Some of them told Mr. Schorr it didn't look right for his son, a nice Jewish boy like Danny, to be seen going in and out of the enemy camp across the street. From things like this no good could come. Jews belonged with Jews, and shkutzim belonged with shkutzim. --pg 122
...
He saw now that Aunt Tessie had been sound in warning him, when he first arrived on Fourth Street as a boy of three, against having anything to do with the shkutzim across the street, just as she had been sound to criticize and distrust Danny Schorr, first for being friendly and then for living with the Gerritys. Time, George saw now, had proved her right on both counts: a man who could consort with the enemy could do anything, as Danny had demonstrated by what he ended up doing to his best friend; and a man who wanted peace of mind had to stay with his own kind. --pg 309
George, who had enough self-control not to look startled even when he was, decided that this time it was probably wise not only to register surprise but to overdo it a little. ... He tried and succeeded in releasing a boyishly embarrassed smile. --pg 417
ну просто Штирлиц
He didn't think enough of any shikseh to want to make an impression on her... He had never been on a date with a shickseh. --pg 446
In view of all this, George found it surprisingly easy to overlook the fact that Miss Bucknell was not Jewish. It was astonishing when you got right down to it, and George promptly did, how little difference there was between the feel of a Jewish girl's thigh and that of a shickseh.
Having dealt with shkutzim in business for years, George has learned how to appear perfectly relaxed with them on the surface. ... Because I'm not as plain and simple as you think I am, George thought bitterly, but he didn't say it. --pg 463 Штирлиц, Штирлиц!
and on a brighter note
He smiled and took her in his hands: "You know what I like?"
Dora laughed. "A girl begins to get the idea after a while."
--pg 371
ex libris
