A LIFE OF ITS OWN:

Father, Son And Holy Mess: Taunts at Trinity-Dalton hoops game sets off competing charges of anti-Semitism and overreaction. (Jewish Week, 02/13/2004)

Ever since a handful of boys from the Trinity School, one of them Jewish, yelled "Gefilte fish," "Mazel tough" and other derogatory comments at a Jewish basketball player from The Dalton School, two of Manhattan's most elite private schools have been plunged into a swirl of controversy.

Did the Shabbat-eve incident Jan. 30 at a heated basketball game at Dalton expose a deep-seated culture of anti-Semitism at Trinity, an Upper West Side institution dating back to 1709 in which approximately half the students have at least one Jewish parent?

Or did a Dalton dad overreact to tasteless adolescent ribbing by shouting at the name-calling kids and then firing off a mass e-mail comparing the scene to the Crusades, Kristallnacht and Palestinian suicide bombings?

Oy vey.

Neither Dalton nor Trinity officials would speak to The Jewish Week on the matter, although both discussed it with students and parents, and Trinity conducted an investigation into the incident.

In a Feb. 10 memo posted on the school Web site, Trinity headmaster Henry Moses did not comment on whether the students' conduct was anti-Semitic. He noted, however, that "Trinity teaches at every turn that it is essential that we respect one another and ourselves and that bigotry in any form is intolerable.

"From time to time, some individual will behave in a way that is not consonant with the school's mission; this unfortunately, is bound to happen," said the memo, adding later that "In the present case, the students involved have been disciplined in a manner utterly consistent with our mission, published policies, and traditions."

So what exactly happened at the Trinity-Dalton game?

Dalton dad Shelly Palmer, watching the game with his son, said a group of Trinity boys taunted Dalton player Matt Goldberg, then other kids echoed their chants and parents did nothing to stop them. Palmer, who works in public relations, said he confronted the boys, then walked out.

The following Monday, Palmer wrote to Moses, e-mailing copies of the letter to scores of contacts in the media even before the letter was delivered to Moses.

In his letter Palmer wrote that the "rancorous taunting awakened long-forgotten images of Kristallnacht, the Holocaust and the more current senseless deaths of 9/11 and the war in Iraq." He went on to write that the incident was "a sorrowful indictment of the Trinity culture" and that Trinity's constituents and charges are "stellar examples of all that is wrong with our world."

Palmer subsequently told The New York Times some of his generalizations about Trinity were unfair, but noted that "I was totally unprepared for this. What skill set do I have to deal with something like this? It's easy to be Jewish in New York, or at least it was for me until last Friday night."

But several Jewish Trinity parents and students dispute Palmerís characterization of events. In addition, on a Web log where the issue is being debated, several anonymous writers who claim to be Trinity students also took issue with Palmer. (Some contributors to the blog, who were not associated with Trinity, sided with Palmer, however, and Palmer said he has received hundreds of supportive e-mails.)

MORE:
Cries of Foul After Basketball Game At a Tony Private School Turns Ugly (FORWARD, 2/13/04)