Alfred P. Doblin

I’m not Jewish. But being called “dirty Jew” shook me like no other insult

It happened four years ago, yet the memory remains fresh. I was waiting for a downtown A train at the West 4th Street subway station in New York. A middle-aged man was panhandling on the not-crowded platform, approaching each person, most of whom nodded “no.” He reached me, and I declined, too. He did not…