I paid a visit to my dentist last night. It was a first for me. What, you exclaim! Going to the dentist? No, going to the dentist at night. I'm talking 8.00 pm here. Nor was this because of an emergency; it was just a regular appointment. You may wonder why I'm telling you about it. I'm telling you about it to add a bit of personal colour to the more general item it introduces.
This is about dentists and Jews - or at any rate students of dentistry and Jews. James Wagner, president of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has just issued an apology on behalf of the university for a bizarre anti-Semitic policy that ran from 1948 to 1961 in the dental school there. Instigated by the then-head of the dental school, John Buhler, it consisted of failing many of the Jewish students or forcing them to repeat a year, in general making their lives more difficult. Buhler is said to have believed that Jews don't 'have it in the hands' for dentistry. Ever heard of a Jewish dentist?
Never underestimate the depths of people's stupidity where ethnic prejudice is at work.
