The Class by Erich Segal

Harvard
    always assigns Jews to the same rooms? Why else do you think they put you with me?"
    "I wish I knew," Jason said jocularly.
    "Gilbert," D. D persisted, "do you actually stand there and deny that you are of the Jewish faith?"
    "Look, I know my grandfather was a Jew. But as far as
    faith is concerned, we belong to the local Unitarian church."
    "That doesn't mean a thing," D. D. retorted. "if Hitler were alive he'd still consider you a Jew." -
    "Listen, David," Jason answered, unperturbed, "in case you haven't heard, that bastard's been dead for several years now. Besides, this is America. You do recall that bit in the Bill of Rights about freedom of worship. In fact, the grandchild of a Jewish man can even have breakfast on Yom Kippur."
    - But D. D. was far from conceding defeat.
    "Gilbert, you should read Jean-Paul Sartre's essay on
    Jewish identity. It would wake you up to your dilemma."
    "I didn't realize that I had one, frankly."

"Sartre says that someone's Jewish if the world regards him a Jew. And that means, Jason, you can be a blond, eat bacon on Yom Kippur, wear your preppie clothes, play squash-it doesn't change a thing. The world will still consider you a Jew."
    "Hey, look, so far, the only guy that's ever given me grief on this whole business has been you, my friend."
    And yet Jason realized inwardly that what he'd just stated was not quite the truth. For had he not experienced a little
    "problem" vis-à-vis the Yale Admissions Office?
    "Okay," D.D. concluded as he buttoned up his coat, "if you want to go on living like an ostrich, it's your privilege. But sooner or later you'll learn." And in parting, he
    added sarcastically, "Have a good breakfast."
    "Thanks," Jason called cheerily, "and don't forget to pray for me."
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    T
    he old man gazed at the wine-dark sea of students reverently awaiting his comments on Odysseus decision
    - to sail homeward after ten years of breathless encounters with women, monsters, and monstrous women.
    He was standing on the stage of Sanders Theater, the only
    Harvard building large enough-or indeed appropriate-to
    - house the lectures of Professor John H. Finley, Jr., chosen by Olympus to convey the glory that was Greece to the hoi polloi of Cambridge. Indeed, such was his charismatic eloquence that many of the hundreds who entered Humanities 2 in September as philistines emerged by Christmas as passionate philhellenes.
    Thus it was that on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:00 AM.,
    fully one-quarter of the entire population of Harvard College gathered to hear the great man's lectures on the Epic from Homer to Milton. Everyone seemed to have a favorite vantage point for viewing Finley. Andrew Eliot and Jason Gilbert preferred the balcony. Danny Rossi, killing two birds with
    one stone, would alter his position frequently since he wanted to master the acoustics of the hall, venue for

Harvard's major concerts and even the occasional - visit by the
    - Boston Symphony.
    Ted Lambros always sat in the first row, lest he miss a
    single winged word. He had come to Harvard already wanting to major in Latin and Greek, but Finley's survey endowed the prospect with mystical grandeur that filled him with euphoria as well as ethnic pride.
    Today Finley was discussing Odysseus' departure from the enchanted isle of the nymph Calypso, despite her passionate pleas and promises to grant him eternal life. "Imagine-" Finley breathed to his rapt auditors. He then paused while all wondered what he would ask them to conjure.
    "Imagine our hero is offered an unending idyll with a
    nymph who will remain forever young. Yet, he forsakes it all to return to a poor island and a woman who, Calypso
    explicitly reminds him, is fast approaching middle age, which no
     
     
     
    cosmetic can embellish. A rare, tempting proposition, one cannot deny. But what is Odysseus' reaction?
    He then paced back and forth, and recited without book, clearly translating from the Greek