A life in full Bloom: 50 years ago, this Amherst College student embodied turbulent times

From Daily Hampshire Gazette

PAUL BLOOM

First of four parts

Paul Bloom was mortified.

His graduation from Amherst College, just the day before, represented the greatest achievement of his young life. But now, on June 4, 1966, he looked incredulously at the front page of The New York Times and thought his shining future was about to crash. Criticizing Amherst? Publicly protesting against the U.S. government? He would never do that.

Bloom had absorbed two commandments from his working-class Jewish family in New York. One was to sacrifice in pursuit of a goal. That meant studying hard to get into a college like Amherst: the ticket to the good life. The other was to be quiet and fit in, embodied by his mother’s decision to put up a Christmas tree. Years later, Paul would describe the ethos as, “We’re here now. We have to duck our head and be invisible.”

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