Advance Praise
“This is a sweet, insightful account of the life of a school teacher who’s simultaneously going through both professional and cultural challenges and approaches the new job with an open mind and an open heart. It’s nicely written and well observed, and I felt as if I were going through the daily life in a Baltimore classroom with all of its challenges and little pleasures and large frustrations.”
—Michael Olesker, former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age, was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press
Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Forgive Us Our Trespasses
A Jewish Teacher
in a Catholic School
A Memoir
Diane Gensler
Copyright © 2020 by Diane Gensler
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher (except by reviewers who may quote brief passages).
First Edition
Casebound ISBN: 978-1-62720-282-4
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62720-283-1
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62720-284-8
Printed in the United States of America
Design by Hannah Kozieja
Editorial development by Annabelle Finagin
Promotion by Justus Croyle
Author photo by David Stuck Photography
Published by Apprentice House Press
Apprentice House Press
Loyola University Maryland
4501 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210
410.617.5265 • 410.617.2198 (fax)
www.ApprenticeHouse.com
For my parents who always told me I could be whatever I want
Author’s Note
I wrote this book to share my experiences and feelings about teaching as a Jewish person in a Catholic School. It is not my intention to implicate anyone nor lay blame. I changed names and descriptions to protect identities.
Prologue
Read this bitch!
This was the welcome note I received my first day of teaching September 1, 1992 at a local parochial school in my hometown of Baltimore. I found it sitting on my desk before school started. I was startled. Was this meant for me? If so, why was someone calling me the b word? I picked it up, looked closely at the penciled scrawling, and turned it over.
Jesus is the messiah
and don’t you forget it!
Now it made sense. This was the greeting I received as a Jewish teacher in a Catholic school. Had they never met a Jew before? Did everyone already know I was Jewish? How? Who could have written such a note?
***
I was in my twenties, and all I wanted to do was teach. In pretend play as a child, I would write questions on my chalkboard and make handouts to give invisible students. When my twelfth grade English teacher went around the room and asked everyone what they wanted to be, I told her I wanted to be her!
When I started babysitting at age thirteen, I knew I loved working with kids. The two sisters from my regular Saturday night babysitting job would beg their parents to go out so I could babysit. We had fun choreographing dances to their favorite music and playing a doodle drawing game I created (that years later appeared in stores). My mother compared me to the Pied Piper because children were drawn to me.
Even though I attended a local college while commuting from home, I became overwhelmed trying to keep up with my coursework, including the general university requirements. I floundered that first year, forgetting my original ambition. In my second year, I took an introductory class called “Careers in Education” which reignited my interest in the field. When I stepped int my first full-fledged education class the next semester, I knew I was where I was meant to be. I declared a double major of English and Secondary Education, and my grade point average improved tremendously since I was now taking classes that really engaged me. For my student teaching internship at the end of my education program, I was paired with an experienced, talented middle school teacher who knew how to bring out the best in me. I relished my time learning from her and the time spent with the students.
Once I graduated, this teacher helped me get a job as a long-term substitute in the same school. I taught for several months in place of the permanent teacher, writing my own lesson plans, grading students’ papers, and holding all the responsibilities of the full-time teacher. After the original teacher returned, I did this two more times in two other public schools.
The third time the permanent teacher was to return after winter break. I was so upset about having to leave that on my last day, I was issued a speeding ticket for going 80 mph on the beltway on my way home! I hadn’t realized I was accelerating with all the tears in my eyes.
***
I didn’t realize my passion would cause such turmoil and anti-Semitism in my first full-length teaching job. In 1992 there was uproar in other areas of the United States. Race relations were tense after Rodney King, an African American taxi driver, was beaten ruthlessly by Los Angeles police, causing rioting and political unrest throughout the nation. (Unfortunately history repeated itself in Baltimore in 2015 with the Freddie Gray case.)
The Crown Heights riots from the previous year were still fresh on everyone’s minds. In that section of Brooklyn, riots broke out between black and Orthodox Jewish residents after two black children were struck and one of them was killed by the motorcade of a highly respected Orthodox rabbi. Black teenagers even killed a non-Jew thinking he was Jewish.
Also in the same year, the Catholic Church was reeling from multiple allegations of sexual abuse around the country by priests and clergy. It was estimated that at this point, dioceses in the United States had paid out four hundred million dollars in legal fees and reparations. In October, singer and musician Sinead O’Connor, in an appearance on late night television show Saturday Night Live, sang her song “War” and tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II in protest.
A little earlier in April, major Italian-American mob boss, John Gotti, was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes. Watching the news story with his mug shot
