Interview 1 - Alex Gross

Alex Gross
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
30 April 2020
Interview Blog: Ira Gross

For my first interview I interviewed my dad. I had no idea that he had any experience with Antisemitism, and I was even more shocked to learn that he had multiple events of Antisemitism towards him until I introduced my topic to him. This is when I asked him to tell me more and quickly scheduled an interview with him. He started out by saying that he had not faced a ton of Antisemitism in his life, but when he had on multiple occasions it had been quite disturbing. This made him very sensitive to prejudice and he believes that this has made him more aware of the climate towards other people in minority groups. He talked about 4 different instances of Antisemitism directed straight at him that he went through. The first was in his fraternity in college when a kid who he said obviously grew up in an environment in which prejudice is accepted, and the kid asked if he had horns because he was Jewish. The second was more minor when my dad went to visit his friend in Colorado and went into a predominantly German restaurant and country club. His friend told him not to mention ANYTHING about being Jewish which really stuck with him because he realized this meant these people could not accept him for who he was. The next was very recent with an employee of his here in Houston that is really a backhanded Antisemetic “compliment”. She said that before she met my dad she had hated all Jews because she thought they were scum, but that he was a very good boss. The final occasion was in the automotive business when my dad was trying to move parts, and heard from his friend that the Palistinian man who does most of the moving of parts in the area said he would kill my dad if he came near him again. I feel like it is very important to think about that the people in these cases either exhibited these behaviours towards many others of other groups, or they came from a place that in history has had a profound hatred for Jews. This is not being said to create any stereotypes, but it just shows that this can be a learned behaviour passed on to children, who may then go on to pass it to their kids, and THAT message is important for this topic.

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