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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Wine festival planned for Ashland this fall ... Helman students learn architecture from professionals through Architects in Schools program ... Three ways to enjoy legendary Mt. Shasta ... Wine festival planned for Ashland this fall ... Helman students learn architecture from professionals through Architects in Schools program ... Three ways to enjoy legendary Mt. Shasta ... RELOCATIONS Herb Rothschild Jr.: Getting on with life Comment DailyTidings.com Writer Posted Mar. 5, 2016 at 12:01 AM Posted Mar. 5, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Social News From kindergarten through senior year, I attended Newman School in New Orleans. That name will mean nothing to you unless you are so avid a football fan that you know where Peyton and Eli Manning played their high school ball. And Dot Fischer-Smith, Ashland’s iconic activist, may have told you that she, too, spent a few years at Newman. The school was founded as Isidore Newman Manual Training School for Jewish Orphans in the days when yellow fever and influenza epidemics would devastate families. But Newman soon became a strong academic institution. The only reminder of its origin is the school motto, “We learn to do by doing.” While the Mannings and Harry Connick Jr. are Newman’s best-known alumni, historically the most important was John Minor Wisdom, a judge on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from 1957 to 1977. Then, that court had jurisdiction over six of the Deep South states (it now covers only three), so major civil rights and civil liberties cases came before it. Thanks largely to Wisdom, the court’s rulings became landmarks of liberty. Don’t get the impression that Newman was a breeding ground for social change activists. It was, and remains, a bastion of privilege. About half Jewish and half Christian when I attended, the students were almost all from well-to-do and well-connected families. If Newman graduates remained in New Orleans as adults, they rarely departed from their original inculturations. Prior to my 35th class reunion in 1992, one of the organizers sent out a questionnaire. Among other things, it asked how the '60s had affected us. The class was small (fewer than 50), and the number of responses was smaller, but I was struck by how many reported that those times hadn’t made much difference to them. Their focus had been on starting careers and families. Because of our privilege, we could insulate ourselves from the impacts of those times. Private schools and upscale neighborhoods weren’t pressured to integrate racially, and it wasn’t hard to escape being drafted into combat in Vietnam — there were exemptions, deferments, and enlistments in the National Guard. So if we did engage in the extraordinary upheavals of those times, it was usually a matter of choice. I used to hear people condemn Germans for not speaking up during the Holocaust. That wasn’t warranted. Many Germans opposed Hitler before he came to power in 1933 with far less than a majority of the votes, and then it became increasingly dangerous to do so. But more than the risk, I think, was the human tendency to adjust to prevailing circumstances and get on with our lives. Goodness knows that was true of almost all of us in the South, including Jews, before the Civil Rights movement challenged our consciences, and mostly during it as well. In “Musee des Beaux Arts” W.H. Auden begins, “About suffering they were never wrong,/ The old Masters: how well they understood/ Its human position: how it takes place/ While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.” Among my spurs to engagement was the fear of having to answer, if my grandchildren were ever to ask me what I did during whatever the times they had in mind, that I simply got on with my life. Herb Rothschild's column appears in the Tidings every Saturday. DailyTidings.com Writer Posted Mar. 5, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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