"Some of My Best Friends…"

Laura Z. Hobson wrote the novel “Gentleman’s Agreement” (1947), which was turned into a film starring Gregory Peck. He portrayed a journalist who pretends to be Jewish-and suffers frequent, vicious discrimination.

Laura Zametkin was her maiden name; she had married Thayer Hobson.

During the late 1930s, when anti-Semitism was rife even in the U.S., Hobson was a guest at a fancy
New York dinner party.

Some guests, with the Nazis in mind, rebuked “those awful Germans.” Someone remarked that “The chosen people ask for it,
wherever they are.”

A third person said: “Some of my best friends are Jews.”

At that point, Hobson said, quietly, “Some of mine are, too. Including my mother and father.”

A shocked silence followed.