Confronted an old, unreconstructed Nazi in Zabar's yesterday

[Cassandra]

I was at the cash line paying for my groceries. It was taking me a bit of time to pack my things up because I had some insulated bags I wanted to put my food in to keep it cool for the trip back across town. It was a slow time, with no lines and the woman behind me could have switched to any other register but she decided she'd rather bitch at me instead. She was being so nasty that I told her I would be happy to stand there twice as long if she kept it up. As I turned back to my bags, I heard her mumble something about Jews. I looked at her and said, "Would you like to say that louder so we can all dance to it?" She said, "You heard me; dance to it yourself." So I turned back to the cashier (Hispanic, BTW) and slowed down some more, looking for change and joking with her. While we were having a laugh at the woman's expense, I heard her say, "We should have built more ovens." I turned to her and said I live in the old Nazi neighborhood across town; perhaps she'd like to take a trip there. At that point I was finished and left. She looked to be in her seventies, so she would have been a child during the war, imbibing hate at the family dinner table. How she can stand to shop at Zabar's, which is a Jewish owned store in its third generation, I don't know. I also don't know if she could tell I was Jewish :shrug: or if she just assumed that anyone who annoyed her must be a Jew. How can she even stand to live on the Upper West Side? Bizarre.

[salinen]

1. She could tell

Nazi's have a gene for it.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Jew-dar?

Stories like this should remind us that the christian right, with all its support for Israel, doesn't give a damn about the Jews. Israel is only necessary for its place in the final battle of Armageddon, and that is the only reason Falwell and Roberston give lip service to their 'Judeo-Christian' heritage. If that bit did not fit their apocolyptic world view they would be as hateful to Jews as their Christian Identity brethern.

What's the difference between right wing fundies and Nazis concerning Jews? The Nazis aren't lying.

[glitch]

3. Yikes. Filled with so much hate. Who would want to live that way?

Day in day out, hating, even over a slight delay.
Just yikes.

[Cassandra]

6. My first thought was...

wow, this woman really has a bug up her ass. She was shapeless and unattractive, with slightly bedraggled brown hair. Not poor, just an old hausfrau. I had the impression the cashier had experienced her presence before. I'm a good and regular customer; some of the cashiers now expect me to pull out my insulated bags and compliment me on thinking ahead, particularly when it's hot out.
I live in Yorkville, which is an old German and Irish neighborhood back to at least the 1880's (Jimmy Cagney was born and raised nearby, also Henry Miller). The German-American Bund used to set up a stage to harangue Roosevelt and the Jews back in the days, but most of the actual Nazis are dead and most of the Germans in the neighborhood are polite to all. I've shopped in most of the German stores still left in the neighborhood and never experienced anything remotely like this nut.

[blue sky at night]

4. My compliments on how you handled the situation.........

I am in attack mode right now, if the Right Wingers even start with me I am all over them. I don't want to change their minds, I just want them to know their lives are not going to be easy from now on when they espouse their garbage. Bless you, and keep up the good work.

[Lexingtonian]

5. Ugh, that's awful

I'm glad you're not feeling more hurt. What a hateful ugly thing for that idiot to do.

Sadly, I know too many of them. (Even one is too many, really.) Yes, they can tell. They tend to come from very narrow worlds with little diversity, there are distinctions they pick up on very sharply- looks, speech, behavior. Most of them avoid Jewish people as best as they can, especially the likes of New York. But some of them have a wierd kind of bravado, an unwillingness to give in to their horrid anxieties. I don't get it, but it's there.

As for comebacks, the ones that really get to them are about the future rather than the past. I'm usually too surprised at the slurs I hear to get a good one in, myself.

[Infomaniac]

7. Geez...

Howdy Cassandra..,

You handled the situation perfectly.

[Cassandra]

8. Thank you.

I've been training to be, for lack of a better word, a life coach. So when she started up, although it was personal, I knew it wasn't personal. She was doing and saying something she obviously does and says often and I happened to step in front of her. I was glad not to be my old, furious self because that always got in the way of staying calm and saying what I want to say. Nowadays, I'm much more likely to speak up right away rather than thinking much later of all the good things I would have said if only I'd been thinking clearly.

[wli]

9. typical Republican n/t