Jewish Students Tongue-in-cheek Demands Have Sharp Bite

Jewish students are not averse to using black humor to make a point according to a report in this month’s issue of the National Jewish Monthly, a B’nai B’rith publication. The magazine ran across an item in the Palo Alto Times printed when the local high school principal was being besieged by Black Power demands. The story in the newspaper dealt with a set of Ten Plus One Demandments raised by local Jewish students. The Jewish students’ demands, an evident parody of those raised by the militant blacks but, nevertheless, sufficiently meritorious to be considered seriously as a possible rallying point for Jewish students elsewhere in the country, called for:

Jewish holidays off and a mezzuza on every door; books that start the right wing from right to left; kosher food in the vending machines with separate vendors for meat and dairy; Israeli music during lunch period; classes in Jewish history and culture; classes in Hebrew; expulsion of anti-Semitic teachers; more Jewish teachers, a Jewish counsellor and a Jewish vice-principal; the right of the Jewish community to interview all Jewish applicants for teaching jobs to weed out Jewish Uncle Toms (Uncle Jakes); a Jewish Student Union; and at least one school aide to be a Jewish mother.