Cath, or half Jew, or Jewolic, depending upon whom I was trying to impress or what I was attempting to avoid.
I dispelled the very popular ‘ if your mother is Jewish, then you are too’ adage which only worked if one were Jewish and subscribed to that belief in the first place, rendering the axiom moot.
“If you were Catholic,” I inquired of Gram during one of our card games mostly as a red herring, which was not the usual kind of herring that occupied our dinette set. “Just saying, not that you are or ever could be, but if you were, hypothetically speaking, say Catholic, would I be Catholic also?”
“No.” Gram said directly without diverting any concentration from the game. “You would be a Jew because I am not Catholic, end of story.”
“But who made the rule?”
“A rule is a rule. It doesn’t matter who made what. Who made the dollar one hundred cents? Who made the gefilte fish? Mox nix. It’s a rule; you follow it. That’s why they call it a rule, end of story.”
“But why isn’t the rule: if your mother was Catholic, you are too ?” I always called up the mother of the Jew rule when I had an urgent need to irk. “Or, if your father was Catholic, you are too? Or, if your mother was a Jew and your father a Catholic, then you are a half and half? Those could be the rules.”
“Because you are a Jew,” she said, a cigarette dangled from her lips and smoke meandered up through her glasses.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because, you are a schmuck and only Jews can be schmucks.” She had embroidered the very same saying onto a pillow, which she threatened to give to me for my birthday. She opened the clasp on her purse and snapped it shut, signaling the official end of the conversation.
Gram believed it , so it was true and I was Jewish by default. It really didn’t matter much. I mean, it was nice to be something; she chose to be Jewish; well, she really didn’t choose it, she just was. I suspect that she was fortunate to inherit a religion, leaving life’s choices and decision making to less acute issues such as the appropriate laundry detergent and mastering the art of cooking without taste. I, with my birthright a tad muddier, was left the legacy of having to define my own path, determine my own fate and choose my own belief system. I had one foot in the Jew camp, the other on the fence. I just wasn’t ready to commit but if Gram wanted me to be Jewish, then for her I was Jewish, mox nix.
Most of my friends were Jewish . Morty Milberg, my public school jff, even wore a mezuzah, which I considered a pretty cool neck ornament that I would have considered wearing if it had no significance or I could ascribe my own meaning which would most likely be something to do with Indians or Kryptonite. But it did and I didn’t, so I wore a chain sans ornament, long before it was popular to do so.
The only real difference between my Jew friends and my not-Jew friends was that the not-Jews were the ones playing stickball after school while the Jews went to Hebrew School, another inconvenience of religion. No one ever heard of a Jewish all-star stickball player, except for Morty, who excelled at both sports and school, clearly an anomaly. It was pretty clear to me that Morty was on the path of great conflict when he would have to decide between becoming a rabbi or pitching for the Dodgers, a conflict conquered only once by Sandy Koufax, the first Jewish southpaw to throw a no-hitter. I chose to avoid such clash through my religious vacillation and my stickball mediocrity.
The very thought of going to school after I had just finished a hard day of tolerating school was pretty repulsive. I didn’t think it was a very good selling point for a religion that was always looking for new recruits. If I were to start a religion, I would offer two weeks off fro m any school as a signing mitzvah (Author’s note: Mitzvah is an act of human kindness: check Wikipedia as I did). I would then reward my
I dispelled the very popular ‘ if your mother is Jewish, then you are too’ adage which only worked if one were Jewish and subscribed to that belief in the first place, rendering the axiom moot.
“If you were Catholic,” I inquired of Gram during one of our card games mostly as a red herring, which was not the usual kind of herring that occupied our dinette set. “Just saying, not that you are or ever could be, but if you were, hypothetically speaking, say Catholic, would I be Catholic also?”
“No.” Gram said directly without diverting any concentration from the game. “You would be a Jew because I am not Catholic, end of story.”
“But who made the rule?”
“A rule is a rule. It doesn’t matter who made what. Who made the dollar one hundred cents? Who made the gefilte fish? Mox nix. It’s a rule; you follow it. That’s why they call it a rule, end of story.”
“But why isn’t the rule: if your mother was Catholic, you are too ?” I always called up the mother of the Jew rule when I had an urgent need to irk. “Or, if your father was Catholic, you are too? Or, if your mother was a Jew and your father a Catholic, then you are a half and half? Those could be the rules.”
“Because you are a Jew,” she said, a cigarette dangled from her lips and smoke meandered up through her glasses.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because, you are a schmuck and only Jews can be schmucks.” She had embroidered the very same saying onto a pillow, which she threatened to give to me for my birthday. She opened the clasp on her purse and snapped it shut, signaling the official end of the conversation.
Gram believed it , so it was true and I was Jewish by default. It really didn’t matter much. I mean, it was nice to be something; she chose to be Jewish; well, she really didn’t choose it, she just was. I suspect that she was fortunate to inherit a religion, leaving life’s choices and decision making to less acute issues such as the appropriate laundry detergent and mastering the art of cooking without taste. I, with my birthright a tad muddier, was left the legacy of having to define my own path, determine my own fate and choose my own belief system. I had one foot in the Jew camp, the other on the fence. I just wasn’t ready to commit but if Gram wanted me to be Jewish, then for her I was Jewish, mox nix.
Most of my friends were Jewish . Morty Milberg, my public school jff, even wore a mezuzah, which I considered a pretty cool neck ornament that I would have considered wearing if it had no significance or I could ascribe my own meaning which would most likely be something to do with Indians or Kryptonite. But it did and I didn’t, so I wore a chain sans ornament, long before it was popular to do so.
The only real difference between my Jew friends and my not-Jew friends was that the not-Jews were the ones playing stickball after school while the Jews went to Hebrew School, another inconvenience of religion. No one ever heard of a Jewish all-star stickball player, except for Morty, who excelled at both sports and school, clearly an anomaly. It was pretty clear to me that Morty was on the path of great conflict when he would have to decide between becoming a rabbi or pitching for the Dodgers, a conflict conquered only once by Sandy Koufax, the first Jewish southpaw to throw a no-hitter. I chose to avoid such clash through my religious vacillation and my stickball mediocrity.
The very thought of going to school after I had just finished a hard day of tolerating school was pretty repulsive. I didn’t think it was a very good selling point for a religion that was always looking for new recruits. If I were to start a religion, I would offer two weeks off fro m any school as a signing mitzvah (Author’s note: Mitzvah is an act of human kindness: check Wikipedia as I did). I would then reward my
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