Like Clarence Darrow, Esther Liberman strove to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” She made me question my assumptions, and then, just when I was ready to commit myself passionately to some liberal, leftist cause, she’d question the assumptions of that ideology. Sheesh. She never let your mind rest. I remember in one of her classes that a bunch of us were arguing in favor of abortion rights, and Esther introduced us to the slippery slope idea; if abortion became a common, accepted procedure, how far behind was euthanasia? She challenged us to ferret out the bias of every source of information we encountered. The only prediction you could make about her point of view was that it wasn’t going to be yours. She would take the opposite view to show you that an argument was only valid when all its potential holes had been investigated. To her, the right answer was to understand the other side’s answer.

Remember how much time the ninth grade teachers spent on teaching us the concept of ethnocentrism? Here they were, decades ahead of the rest of the country, in their exploration of multiculturalism. Esther was fascinated by other cultures and tried to teach us, in a way neither she nor our parents had been taught, that “different” isn’t necessarily “worse” or “dangerous.” She didn’t try to pretend that we were all the same. An advocate for equality, she didn’t advocate (another one of her words) “assimilation.”. In one of the first few classes of her Racial Minorities elective, she talked about how she loved walking down the streets of New York and trying to determine the ethnic backgrounds of the people she passed. “For instance . . . “ she looked at me and said, “Turn your head. Look at that profile. I see that nose and that hair and those eyes, and I immediately think ‘SHIKSE.’” Her dream was to go to China and in those early seventies days it was only a dream. I remember her sense of resignation – she would never get to go there. But she did get there, after all. And to India – several times – and Africa and Central America

Mrs. Liberman loved tackling taboos. Her unit, “Death and Dying,” must have ruffled a few parents’ and administrators’ feathers, but she thought it was important to teach us how not to get ripped off by undertakers and how grief was acted out through various stages. Students in high school are always asking how whatever they’re studying will help them in “real life” (is that what this is?) The things I learned in high school that have been the most useful in this real life are the things I learned in Mrs. Liberman’s “Death and Dying” unit.

She had a soft side that not every one saw. In eleventh or twelfth grade, she came into class one day and looked uncharacteristically subdued. She started the class with an atypical lack of energy. After a while, she said, “You know, I just have to tell you this. I’m not myself today. I lost a very good friend. My dog died this morning.” And she cried. A teacher cried_ It was the dawning of knowledge for me that teachers were real people, not just people whose design was to make you miserable by jumping through their little hoops. I’ve thought of that moment so often. It taught me that everyone – no matter how scary or intimidating or powerful – has a heart somewhere, has a “dog” he/she cares about. It has given me the motivation as a teacher to show my students a little of the vulnerable, fallible me. It requires a certain amount of self-respect and self-assurance, as well as trust. Esther trusted us enough to cry in front of us. She respected us enough to share her real feelings with us.

Mrs. Liberman was authentic, so fully herself. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her. She said what she thought. She was a breath of fresh air in a world (back then) when denial was operative in almost all situations. She hurt people’s feelings sometimes, but, she gave me my first glimpse of ruthless honesty, and I’m grateful for that.

I remained close to Mrs. Liberman (who later insisted I call her Esther). Once I was walking with her on the Upper West Side, and a car had stopped for the light, but not after taking up most of the crosswalk. As we walked behind the car, Esther whacked it with her umbrella. The guy in the car jumped out, came around to us, grabbed her umbrella and broke it in half. I was terrified. She wasn’t fazed a bit.

The last time I saw her was at Maud’s, in Hastings, at our twentieth reunion, a week before she was killed in a car crash. She had had dinner with me and my kids and my mom who was living then in Irvington, and I had told her earlier that I would walk with her to the train station when she was ready to leave. I was having such a good time talking with people, that I didn’t want to leave, even for five minutes, when she had to go at about 11:00 p.m. I asked her if she minded going alone. “Of course not,” she said. Because she was who she was, I knew she meant it. She really didn’t mind. I knew she wouldn’t be mad at me or give me a guilt trip. Cheerful, independent, and confident as always, she gave me a hug and left.

Jan Sidebotham