“The Jewish Blues”

До сих пор выступление израильской сборной на Олимпиаде в Лондоне приносит нам сплошные разочарования (возможно, как результат завышенных ожиданий…). Ф.Рот дает прекрасное объяснение этому печальному явлению:

(…) Which was more or less the prevailing attitude toward athletics in general, and football in particular*, among the parents in the neighborhood: it was for the goyim. Let them knock their heads together for "glory," for victory in a ball game! As my Aunt Clara put it, in that taut, violin-string voice of hers, “Heshie! Please! I do not need goyische naches!" Didn't need, didn't want such ridiculous pleasures and satisfactions as made the gentiles happy . . . At football our Jewish high school was notoriously hopeless (though the band, may I say, was always winning prizes and commendations ); our pathetic record was of course a disappointment to the young, no matter what the parents might feel, and yet even as a child one was able to understand that for us to lose at football was not exactly the ultimate catastrophe. Here, in fact, was a cheer that my cousin and his buddies used to send up from the stands at the end of a game in which Weequahic had once again met with seeming disaster. I used to chant it with them.

Ikey, Mikey, Jake and Sam,

Were the boys who eat no ham,

We play football, we play soccer—

And we keep matzohs in our locker!

                                                  Aye, aye, aye, Weequahic High!

So what if we had lost? It turned out we had other things to be proud of. We ate no ham. We kept matzohs in our lockers. Not really, of course, but if we wanted to we could, and we weren't ashamed to say that we actually did! We were Jews—and we weren't ashamed to say it! We were Jews—and not only were we not inferior to the goyim who beat us at football, but the chances were that because we could not commit our hearts to victory in such a thuggish game, we were superior! We were Jews—and we were superior!

P.Roth. Portnoy’s Complaint.

 

* “Так же у нас относились к спорту вообще, а к футболу – особенно.” (Перевод на русский сбивает с толку уже тем, что двоюродного брата Портного – Хеши (сокр. от Херольд) переводчик Коровин обозвал “Гошей”. Гоша?! в Нью Джерзи тридцатых?)