Memoirs of America: Brighton High School Fight

by David Kilimnick

Here is a high school story about a fight with Jews on Lag BOmer. A little feel-good story about Jews fighting to get your mind off Jews getting attacked.
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Fights Start at Friendly's
The story begins Saturday night, spring of 1993, Rochester, New York. Town of Brighton. The year of me in high school. That's what happened that year. And gel and mousse. Dep was still big. I was in Yeshiva at the time. There were no girls, so we fought a lot.
We were at Friendly's. The Kosher restaurant that wasn't Kosher. The Jewish kids were out enjoying Friendly's ice cream with whipped cream, chocolate fudge, sprinkles, rainbow and chocolate, a cocktail cherry on top. That's how bad the ice cream was. You ordered it and made sure they added everything. Tried to make it taste like Carvel. And you would get a banana in there for health reasons.

The Jewish kids consisted of Yeshiva guys from Brooklyn and some of our buddies that went to Brighton High School. The public school for the rich kids. Those were our wealthier friends that I grew up with. Their parents had a lot of money, so they sent their kids to public school. The parents who had no money paid for private school. It’s a Mitzvah somewhere in the Talmud to give all your money to the Yeshiva.
And then there were other high school kids. When other high school kids show up somewhere, there is a problem. They other kids also went to Brighton.
These other kids were eating grilled cheese sandwiches. Not Kosher. Goyim. I could already feel the tension. Why they weren't at Perkins, to this day, I can't tell you. They just wanted to cause problems. That's the only justification for not going to Perkins. 

Our friend in Brighton, Mike, gets called to the parking lot for a fight. Something must’ve happened in Brighton that week. Maybe they had classes.
We all head to the parking lot, thinking, "That's a good idea. I finished my ice cream."  I'm saying, "Maybe we shouldn’t watch Mike fight in the family establishment." They're all saying, "It's outside. And we ate the fudge already."
WCW Saturday Night at Friendly's. A parking lot match. Sounded cool. We were all into wrestling. If we had phones, we would've been filming it. We would've filmed it just in case somebody got hurt real bad, and we could have something to post.

Mike and this other kid start fighting. I'm like, "I feel like I'm living The Outsiders. I will not get involved." And like The Outsiders, we greased up our hair. We used gel. And then covered it up with our Yarmulkes. It was the early '90s. You wanted your hair to be firm under the Kippah.
Mike takes the Jew hater in a figure-four leglock. Mike is winning the fight. I was proud of Mike. All those years watching the World Championship Wrestling paid off. And Jews think Krav Maga is an excellent form of self-defense. I can tell you, they don't teach you the Tombstone Piledriver at Krav Maga.

We called the kid a Jew hater, because that's what people who take up booths on Saturday night at Friendly's are. Jew haters.
Jew hater's friends get into their cars, start driving their cars mid-fight. And the match iss stopped. Hulk Hogan never fought against a car.
 
Mike won that match. But it wasn't over. Mike's hair got messed up. Things were serious. And somebody called the police. If there is a reason to hate the cops, it's because they stop fights.

Fights Don't End at Friendly's
​Fight isn’t over. Apparently, the guy called Mike a Jew that week in school. And you don’t call a Jew a Jew.
Mike and the Jew hater both had cars, so neither of them was scared to continue the fight. Everybody at Brighton had to take sides. I believe the head of school was with the Jew haters.
So a fight is planned. 

Mike and our Brighton friends want the Yeshiva guys in the fight. The Yeshiva guys are from Brooklyn and everybody saw Goodfellas. They all know, it's not how you fight, it's how you talk. And they were scary. “What’d he say?!” You hear that from 5’2” Yankel, you're running. Yankel breeds fear. 
The Yeshiva guys joined because they felt it was important to be in a fight. They heard there was a fight. Somehow, that’s a Mitzvah. It's a Mitzvah to pay for Yeshiva and to fight. That and our math teacher said you have to stick up for your religion. And our math teacher was twenty-four. So, we listened to him.

The Battle
It's Lag BOmer. The Yeshiva celebrates with a baseball game. We're playing softball with the rabbis. Next thing I know, Brighton is at our Yeshiva game. I had nothing to do with it. I’m just a bystander who somehow knows a lot of idiots.
The public school planned to show up to our game at the park, to fight. Brilliance. Show up to the Yeshiva softball game for a brawl with the rebbes.

Now there are girls at our Yeshiva Lag BOmer party, not dressed properly. Not one of them had a black hat. Not even a white shirt and slacks. How they were going to play baseball, I have no idea.
Between us, after the fight, I petitioned to have girls in our Yeshiva.

My other good friend from Brighton, Nachum, roles up with a trunk full of bats. Fifty bats. Over the week and a half, he joined the Jewish Mob. He saw Goodfellas too.
Maybe he was planning a circus act. Maybe he was planning on handing a few bats to the other side. Just in case they forgot to bring their bats. Maybe he was worried the Yeshiva guys didn't have enough bats for the softball game. Was it for the Lag BOmer bonfire. I’ve seen kids in Israel burning closets and couches. You can buy bats and burn those. Anything to not expend energy to cut wood. All I know is that he had fifty bats in his trunk.
The rest of us had been watching wrestling. We were ready. We didn't need bats. We were going to body slam our opponents.

On the other side, I see Allison. "What is Allison doing rooting for the other side? We go to the JCC together." Turns out it was Jews on the other side. The anti-Semites were Jews. And they don't even go to shul. Why would you hate Jews if you don’t have to see them at shul.

The rabbis are there. For some reason, the rabbis don't think the fight is a good idea. The rabbis are older than twenty-four. Which is why we didn't listen them.
Our Minahel, head of the Beit Midrash, tells us we shouldn't fight. "The only thing that comes out of fighting is broken arms." He didn’t know about the figure-four leglock. 
Our Musar rabbi, who teaches morality, pulls the Jew hater kid aside, thinking, “Nachum has fifty bats in his trunk. Now is a good time to teach.” He asks the Jew hater, “Why do you hates Jews.” Fitting question for a Jew hater.Jew hater says, “I don’t hate Jews. I hate Mike.” And we’re all like, “Everybody hates Mike.”

Postscript
Why Mike is representing Judaism still baffles me to this day. But I can tell you. He is a Jew.
And that is what happened. Absolutely nothing. Until we got home and got in trouble. And just like in The Outsiders, we all got grounded.

Nachum is now a landlord who works in low income housing units. He carries a gun, and fifty bats in his trunk.
Mike still uses Dep. I think Dep was the real reason for the fight.
To this day, Mike is the reason for antisemitism.

Lessons Learned
Jews hate Mike.
Rabbis will ruin a good fight. 
​Don't eat at Friendly's unless if you're ready to fight.​
It was on through the flames of that Lag BOmer bonfire, I learned that nothing exciting will ever happen in my neighborhood.