Had I reported some of the incidents of anti-semitism, years ago – who knows whether it would have made a difference.  and who knows whether they would have been worthy of reporting.  they were small things, the kind of thing you might brush off.  My brother doesn’t even remember getting his white shirt all bloodied by a small gang of boys.  

One ‘trivial’ example.  When I was writing my biography of Adelaide Crapsey (I was staying on long island) I discovered there a was a woman living in Garden City whose father befriended Adelaide on a cruise with his daughter.  So I called her and paid her a visit.  She was elderly and remembered vaguely the meeting but with a little encouragementup squeezed out a few details.  I saw she was exhausted and left, promising to return next week.  But when I arrived the second time her husband was waiting outside and escorted me to the drawing room, where, he said, he wanted me to hear something on his new CD player.  Patiently I sat through a section of the Niebelungenlied, but when he asked me if i knew the composer I pleaded innocence.  “This is Wagner!”  he shouted, “He knew what to do with people like you!”  Then he got up and ordered me to leave and never return.  

this was in 1985.