Read Online A Kosher Dating Odyssey: One Former Texas Baptist's Quest for a Naughty & Nice Jewish Girl by van Wallach - Free Book Online
Authors: van Wallach
Ads: Link
non-jewish guys.
Given my future contacts with women in Latin America and trips to see them, this short-lived connection touched on some key interests—dare I say obsessions?—in my life. Indeed, I often wondered if any of my high school heartthrobs might be distantly Jewish, descendants of conversos or marranos hounded out of Spain and Portugal to settle and live secretly, in fear of the Inquisition, in Mexico and then Texas. Could any of them be the elusive JAP—Jewish Aztec Princess—integrating my Texas and Jewish elements? Did their grandmothers light candles on Friday, did their families avoid pork and cover mirrors after the death of a relative? I never found any evidence of this, but I like the great guessing game. As that email from Mexico indicated, the JAPs are out there. Call it wishful thinking, but some Valley friends definitely give me a Jewish Aztec Princess vibe.
At the Los Ebanos ferry to Mexico. The people behind Operation Fast & Furious must have missed the message.
More typically, I met Texas Jews in New York. I could always sniff them out using “texdar,” my variation on the concept of “gaydar.” Like their counterparts back home, these urban cowgirls almost always replied to me and we sometimes met. We had great conversations about hometowns, educations, and bloodlines. One woman even had family members named Michelson, as I do, so we are probably related from way back in the 1860s, when the first Michelsons bid a not-so-fond auf wiedersehen to Germany and headed for post-Confederacy Texas.
Where the heck in Hidalgo County did you grow up? I’m from Dallas. We should compare our Jewish genealogical roots.
The Texas identity does carry risks. One on one, women were curious about the place and kept any prejudices in check, but in public somebody always felt compelled to spout off. I once attended a Friday night singles event where a Chabad rabbi (!) said, “Oh, you’re the guy from that hick town!” On a singles hiking event in Connecticut, I was trapped in a car with people who assured me that Republicans would never go on a hike because they hate the environment. Later, a man said, “You’re from Texas, so you must really hate Bush.”
I thought, What a pinche pendejo cabron (“dumbass” and even more insulting meanings), as we used to say in Hidalgo County. To this perfect specimen of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), I replied, “I like what President Bush says and does, and I definitely approve of the War on Terror.” That shut him up pronto.
I was ready to talk when women asked about Texas. My whole brand positioning depended on delivering the goods about that unique upbringing. Without some colorful anecdotes and family stories, I’d get an “all hat, no cattle” reputation. Fortunately, I remember (or wrote down) everything . What follows are some of my favorite informational crunchies:
My family has been in Texas for a long, long time. There are little kids down there that are seventh-generation Texans. My great-great-grandfather, Chayim Schwarz, was the first ordained rabbi in Texas. In 1873 he moved to Hempstead from Germany. He’s the guy on the cover of the book, Jewish Stars in Texas: Rabbis and Their Work , by Hollace Ava Weiner.
Mission’s historic Border Theater, our very own last picture show palace.
I graduated from the same high school that my mother did, exactly forty years later. Talk about continuity.
When I was a kid, the family story I heard was that relatives passed through San Antonio in the 1870s and they could still see blood on the walls of the Alamo. The spookiest Texas stories always involve the Alamo.
Texas breeds wacky politics. I had a high school typing teacher who argued that motorcycle-helmet laws were a form of communism. At my tenth reunion in 1986, a classmate was certain that the Sandinistas were going to march up from Nicaragua and invade Harlingen. The wife of another friend used to talk
Given my future contacts with women in Latin America and trips to see them, this short-lived connection touched on some key interests—dare I say obsessions?—in my life. Indeed, I often wondered if any of my high school heartthrobs might be distantly Jewish, descendants of conversos or marranos hounded out of Spain and Portugal to settle and live secretly, in fear of the Inquisition, in Mexico and then Texas. Could any of them be the elusive JAP—Jewish Aztec Princess—integrating my Texas and Jewish elements? Did their grandmothers light candles on Friday, did their families avoid pork and cover mirrors after the death of a relative? I never found any evidence of this, but I like the great guessing game. As that email from Mexico indicated, the JAPs are out there. Call it wishful thinking, but some Valley friends definitely give me a Jewish Aztec Princess vibe.
At the Los Ebanos ferry to Mexico. The people behind Operation Fast & Furious must have missed the message.
More typically, I met Texas Jews in New York. I could always sniff them out using “texdar,” my variation on the concept of “gaydar.” Like their counterparts back home, these urban cowgirls almost always replied to me and we sometimes met. We had great conversations about hometowns, educations, and bloodlines. One woman even had family members named Michelson, as I do, so we are probably related from way back in the 1860s, when the first Michelsons bid a not-so-fond auf wiedersehen to Germany and headed for post-Confederacy Texas.
Where the heck in Hidalgo County did you grow up? I’m from Dallas. We should compare our Jewish genealogical roots.
The Texas identity does carry risks. One on one, women were curious about the place and kept any prejudices in check, but in public somebody always felt compelled to spout off. I once attended a Friday night singles event where a Chabad rabbi (!) said, “Oh, you’re the guy from that hick town!” On a singles hiking event in Connecticut, I was trapped in a car with people who assured me that Republicans would never go on a hike because they hate the environment. Later, a man said, “You’re from Texas, so you must really hate Bush.”
I thought, What a pinche pendejo cabron (“dumbass” and even more insulting meanings), as we used to say in Hidalgo County. To this perfect specimen of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), I replied, “I like what President Bush says and does, and I definitely approve of the War on Terror.” That shut him up pronto.
I was ready to talk when women asked about Texas. My whole brand positioning depended on delivering the goods about that unique upbringing. Without some colorful anecdotes and family stories, I’d get an “all hat, no cattle” reputation. Fortunately, I remember (or wrote down) everything . What follows are some of my favorite informational crunchies:
My family has been in Texas for a long, long time. There are little kids down there that are seventh-generation Texans. My great-great-grandfather, Chayim Schwarz, was the first ordained rabbi in Texas. In 1873 he moved to Hempstead from Germany. He’s the guy on the cover of the book, Jewish Stars in Texas: Rabbis and Their Work , by Hollace Ava Weiner.
Mission’s historic Border Theater, our very own last picture show palace.
I graduated from the same high school that my mother did, exactly forty years later. Talk about continuity.
When I was a kid, the family story I heard was that relatives passed through San Antonio in the 1870s and they could still see blood on the walls of the Alamo. The spookiest Texas stories always involve the Alamo.
Texas breeds wacky politics. I had a high school typing teacher who argued that motorcycle-helmet laws were a form of communism. At my tenth reunion in 1986, a classmate was certain that the Sandinistas were going to march up from Nicaragua and invade Harlingen. The wife of another friend used to talk
Similar Books
