When a young man recently hurled coins at Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy outside a Mississippi restaurant, shouting “F— the Jews,” I was reminded of a painful episode in my life — and of questions about success and the nature of hate that have been gnawing at me ever since.
When I was in law school, a classmate, whom I had considered a dear friend, out of the blue started throwing pennies on the floor, sneering, “Pick up the pennies, Jew.” Besides being heartbroken by the episode, I have, ever since, found it strange that some would consider picking up coins demeaning.
My maternal grandfather — who fled pogroms in Lithuania and landed on the shores of northern Mexico, where he became a successful cattle rancher — taught his grandchildren about humility and resourcefulness. He used to say, in Spanish, “A man who is too arrogant to pick up a penny is not worth a penny.”
Why do antisemites consider saving money an ungodly, despicable trait? It’s mystifying. I would have not been able to build my company from the windowless basement of my apartment building into a multibillion-dollar operation without the entrepreneurial resourcefulness to salvage discarded furniture left on Manhattan’s sidewalks, or to apply similar discipline and humility as the business grew.