I have a cousin who wants to be Jewish in the worst way. She is funny and bright and beautiful (her father, born Irish Catholic, married my aunt) and she calls herself Jew “ish.” Heavy on the “ish.” Sometimes I feel more “ish” than a bonafide Jew. My mother was raised Catholic, went to school with the nuns, and reluctantly “converted” to Judiasm under relentless pressure from my father’s parents. Mom all but renounced her conversion, if not technically, then at least in spirit, so I have never for a moment considered her a Jew in any way, shape or form. Her conversion said more about my father’s unwillingness to stand up to his parents than it did about his own religious convictions.
My father, of course, considered himself Jewish even though he didn’t believe in God, even if he only attended Synagogue twice a year, on the high holidays, to pay respects to his parents. He also considered his children Jewish though we had no formal religious training. The thought that we would consider ourselves only half-Jewish was something he laughed at. “Half-Jewish means Jewish,” he once told me. I didn’t have a barmitzvah, neither did my sister or my brother. I am not religious at all, and the extent of my participation in Judiasm is going to a Chanukah party and one sedsr every year. They have significance as family gatherings more than anything else. I have memorized the songs from Passover, they are hard-wired into my consciousness, in the same way I remember nursey rhymes. I don’t know what the words mean, I just know the melodies and what words sound appealing and funny. The songs are soulful and fill me with warmth and sadness.
The seders weren’t always unpleasent, though negotiating the Afikomen payment with my uncle Georgie was nothing short of terrifying. “So what makes you think you deserve money for this little piece of Afikomen?”
Dag, I don’t know, dude, can I just sit down before I wet myself, please?
Since I’ve been an adult, the seders have always been increasingly informal, with the non-Jews in the family starting to out-number the Jews. They are loud and lively. I like the chaotic commotion and I love the fresh horseradish, which I pile onto pieces of matzoh until my nose is running and my eyes are red.
And what’s not to like about supressed laughter? That’s the best kind, isn’t it? Trying to remain serious as my father read through the Haggadah was always fun, and now his absence is almost palpable.
Still, the story, of the Jews flight from Eygpt, is one that can be applied to the current state of the world, but I have never found a strong connection to it. I don’t feel comfortable wearing a yarmulke or talking about God. I can’t read the four questions in Hebrew.
I asked my brother the other day if he feels Jewish. And he said, “Depends on the company.” Around Jews, it is hard to feel Jewish because there is so much about the rituals that we never experienced. But around Goyim, yeah, sometimes it is easy to feel Jewish.
More than anything I feel like a New Yorker. I can identify with the New York Jewish life. I am an American–and never felt so strongly about that as I did on my recent trip to Belgium–but my nationality is New Yorker. And after all, Lenny Bruce said if you are a New Yorker, you are a Jew. I would add, Dominican, Irish, Italian, Black, Mexican, Cuban, you name it, under that umbrella. The beauty of being a New Yorker is that you can be a little bit of everything and altogether yourself.
I feel kinda the same way. Around other Asian people, I feel like I don't really belong because I've been born and raised in the US. I've never gotten into those cultural groups on my college campus.
I really feel like I'm your typical American college kid. The only difference between me and your random college Joe is that I look Asian and sometimes I'll cook up something at my apartment that's Asian-y
It's funny, both my sister and our cousin married Jewish guys and they converted. Meanwhile I have a Jewish friend who's sister married a devout Christian (Jehovah's Witness, IIRC) and she converted as well. So it seems that women do most of the converting, even though the real Orthodox Jews don't buy into conversion.
While I escaped to the beautiful wilds of NH when I was 18, I was born and raised Jewish, in Great Neck, LI, NY. For those that don't know, Great Neck is an affluent (and parts very rich), predominantly Jewish Town. My family was not religious, and I am even more 'not religious'. I know when Christmas and Easter are, but couldn't tell you the dates of any Jewish Holidays. And growing up with wealth and success all around me, I couldn't quite get why Grandma 'kvetched' about Jews being an oppressed minority. Everyone around me seemed to be doing pretty good.
Great Neck may actually be the origins of the famous JAP.... Jewish American Princess. While these girls were well groomed, well tanned (Florida over Christmas vacation, the Bahamas for Easter vacation) and often big bosomed (my weakness), I could not relate to these girls at all. As a young teenager, I once related to my father that while I lusted after their flesh, I just could not relate to these chicks. It was then that my father told me possibly the 'most wrong' statement I've ever heard... that Great Neck girls were just like girls anywhere else. (This made me quasi-suicidal).
For my first 18 years, being a Jew was simply a label with little meaning. It was not until I moved to New Hampshire, where Jews were both a small minority and truly prejudiced against (I have actual overheard 2 conversations of 'Hitler had the right idea') that I began to feel Jewish.
And while Judaism is obviously an old and historical religion, what I have gotten over the last 37 years, is what really makes a Jew is not a certain religious practice or religious belief system, but a set of core values and (non religious) beliefs that the Jews I have met seem to share. Most of the Jews I have met up here, like myself, are living a quiet life hidden in the woods. There are few native NH Jews, so I tend to assume that everyone I meet here is not Jewish. So initially I was surprised, that when I met someone and had an instant connection with them, they turned out to be Jewish. But this has happened over and over again. Sometimes I know someone quite a while before I find out that they are Jewish. So it no longer surprises me.
So now I can't deny, that many of the people I meet and are attracted to, because they share some deep core values and beliefs that I do, turn out to be Jewish.
While my first 18 years left me 'not particularly liking Jews'..... as an adult, I have grown to appreciate what being a Jew is. Certainly not in a religious sense, but on a humanistic level. My daughter who is now in college is a bit of an outlander and only has a small circle of friends. And as it turns out, most of them 'happen' to be Jewish. I do honestly believe that there is a connection between Jews. Not one based on religion or dogma, but on life principals we seem to share. It took many years and living as a minority, but I have actually grown to think it's pretty cool being Jewish.
[3] Great Neck may actually be the origins of the famous JAP…. Jewish American Princess. While these girls were well groomed, well tanned (Florida over Christmas vacation, the Bahamas for Easter vacation) and often big bosomed (my weakness), I could not relate to these girls at all.
I actually think these women have gotten an unfair rap (in general, not by you).
They were mostly what I went out with in college (and in the years shortly thereafter) and I loved almost every minute of it.
The key was to have a sense a humor and to make them feel important, but that's probably the key to reaching any woman.
Isn't "Jewishness" passed down maternally, "officially"?
I always thought it was strange that people could convert to Judaism. You can be a religious Jew but that doesn't make you, you know, Jewish. It's so much more than religion; at the very least it's also culture and converting to a culture is a dicey proposition, indeed.
I'm not Jewish, though my godmother is. Go figure.
[5] Yup, it's matrilinial, though reformed & conservative Jews accept a woman's conversion as passing it down. They may even consider a Jewish dad as good enough. The more fundamentalist ones though, don't.
Judaism is weird in that it is both a religion and an ethnic group. Though really, if you go back far enough we are all related, and biologically speaking "race" is a meaningless concept.
Having lived in NY for 10 years and partly having grown up there I completely agree that if you live in NY you become a "Jew... Dominican, Irish, Italian, Black, Mexican, Cuban, you name it." And I thank you for saying it.
What's really extraordinary though is that you can go just a couple hundred miles to a nearby metropolis and all of that can disappear. Washington, DC, for example, is intensely segregated culturally and geographically and you get none of that spirit of civic integration, sadly.
7) I think that explains why I've felt so weird when I've visited DC or Boston, especially Boston. The same co-mingling, the rubbing of shoulders, between people of all sorts of ethnicities and economic backgrounds didn't exist.
[7,8] When I lived in Chicago I was always amazed at how physically segregated the city is. if your'e Irish, you live below 128th with all the other Irish people, if you're Puerto Rican, you live in Humbolt Park, etc. It goes beyond just having a neighborhood with a certain cultural flavor. It's like you're born in your neighborhood, and you live and die there.
Now I live in Dallas, and it's not so much physically segregated as it is socially. There's a serious racial tension down here like I've never seen in my life. It bugs.
As long as they keep catching the Bernie Madoffs of the world and keep fixing those awesome Rubens and Rachels and matzo ball soups, as well as their corned beef brisket, lox, and bagels of all persuasions, count me in as a fan of that culture!
All I know about the religion is that it's supposed to be a great honor to blow a chauffeur!
I never knew drivers were held in such high regard within a religion! There is probably a pretty long line waiting to get one of those chauffeur's jobs, too...
;)
Yes, Alex, yes. That's what it is to be a New Yorker. If you're the least bit open-minded, it's hard to avoid feeling a personal attachment to snippets from a variety of cultures.
For example, having spent considerable time outside of NY, both in IA and CT, it amazes me how little so many people know about Judaism. I'm practically a rabbi by comparison to the average Joe American.
Great post again Alex, I agree completely with your point about what a New Yorker. As a hybrid Punjabi-WASP-Muslim-Protestant-Atheist-Communist kid there easily could have been "identity" issues but living in Brooklyn everyone was some sort of mutt. Obviously a shock to the system when I went briefly to segregated Washington DC (and good lord, when I came to Japan..)
[9] Dina, I never knew that about Chicago. Always thought it would be similar to NYC..