Back in the Gentile World

Today something happened that I have not experienced in a long time.  Four years to be exact.

One of my course-mates  was giving out Christmas cards to our class, and she apologized very politely saying that she did not have one for me because she knew I did not celebrate Christmas and could not find a Hannukah card.  This girl, being one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my entire life, was sincere.  And it’s true, I hadn’t seen so much as a dreidle in this country myself, never mind a Hannukah card.  I told her not to worry about it, for it truly didn’t bother me.

The funny thing is that this used to happen to me all the time before I went to Brandeis.  Everyone felt very awkward when it came to including me in the “Holiday” season celebrations, because as secular as they were, they were still Christmas celebrations.

Then, at Brandeis, being surrounded by Jews, and in such a community where all the gentiles at least were educated and comfortable with Judaism,  this never came up!  I’d get Hannukah cards from both Jews and Christians, and I’d get Christmas cards from both Jews and Christians.  It didn’t really matter since we were all Jewish, or friends of Jews.

As an interesting juxtaposition, today I received a Christmas card in the mail from a good friend of mine from Brandeis.  It was a Christmas card, and she is not Jewish, and she wrote: “Merry Christmas (Hannukah, whatever) and a Happy New Year!”  And she knew it just simply didn’t matter.

If I think back to the girl I was in high school, it probably would have mattered to me.  I was very sensitive to these issues, making it much harder for everyone around me to figure out how to include me.  But at the time it seemed necessary, and looking back, I still maintain that it was important to stand my ground and force people to deal with the fact that some of us have different religious identities.

But now, having spent some time in a mostly Jewish community, I’m much more relaxed about my Jewish identity.  But maybe part of that is just getting older, recognizing who I am, acknowledging my strengths and faults, and just being okay with it.  I don’t have to define myself anymore, I can just be.

But this silly incident reminded me that I am no longer at Brandeis, and that I am, once again, inhabiting a gentile world.  It will be interesting to see how this could change the sense of identity I developed in a Jewish community.  Will it be something I have to defend again?  Or can I just “be” even amongst the gentiles?

Channukiah

I finally got involved with the Jewish Society (Jsoc) here, and went to a Channukiah/Menorah making party at the Rabbi’s house. He and his wife are young, friendly, and very cool. I felt warmed, welcomed, and completely at home there. And now I have a menorah to kindle the Channukah lights tomorrow.

 

I may not be near my family, but knowing there are Jews nearby ready and willing to help me out helps me feel like I’m not alone. There is real power in this whole “tribe” business. It is not to be discounted.

Healing with Technology

My grandfather managed to stay with his father up until the very end, at Auschwitz. When his father died he had no one left. My grandmother, the youngest of six, arrived at Auschwitz with one brother and her mother, and was separated from them the moment she got there. The only other person in her family to survive was her eldest brother, who escaped to Russia before ghetto. He lives in Israel now, and they would only see each other once more in both their lifetimes, when my grandmother scraped together enough money to visit him.

After the camps were liquidated, both grandparents made their way back to Lodz, where they grew up. My grandfather found a friend. My grandmother found two sisters she knew, and arrived on their doorstep. “Rushka, have something to eat.” They said. “No, I’m fine.” My grandmother said, and promptly fainted. That’s how the story goes anyway. My grandfather’s friend was dating one of the sisters, and as a group the five of them travelled to America.

My grandparents were the first Holocaust survivors to get married in New York. The Times covered their wedding and they received $600 in wedding gifts from total strangers, which at the time, was alot for an immigrant couple fresh off the boat. They have not spent a single night apart from each other since. You can imagine the kind of dependence they had for each other. My dad says that my grandmother would wait and just stare out the window in the evenings waiting for him. They have both been so afraid their whole lives.

So, my grandmother’s passing is nothing less than traumatic for my grandfather. Burned into my retinas for the rest of my life is the image of him leaning into her coffin screaming, “How could you leave me here alone?”

My dad is still staying with him in Florida. Yesterday I set up an AOL account for my grandfather, filled his address book with all the family’s email addresses, and sent him an email with pictures, an email with links to things like the New York Times, and to my new blog about going to England. Today my dad dragged him to the Apple store. We think he really is afraid of computers because he is self conscious about his spelling- English being his second language and all. Sometimes he writes “Leha” on my birthday cards.

My dad showed him his AOL account on the demo computer. He lit up when he saw the pictures of me and my brother and our cousins. My new blog about England is a multimedia blog, with videos, and when my grandpa saw the video and heard my voice, my dad said he got so excited and really understood what the point of this whole “internet” thing was anyway.

They bought him an iMac, and the cable gets installed tomorrow. They also bought him a cell phone with a camera and text messaging. Everyone in the family, especially us grandkids, are going to email him and text him photos of us every day.

A lot of people talk about the internet as something that isolates people- replacing human contact with anonymity and shallow communications. Hopefully, in this case, the computer will help my grandfather feel less lonely and fill up the empty stretch of days before him.

And hopefully he will figure out that on the internet, spelling really doesn’t matter.

Brandeis Is…

1.  A school that holds a choral Christmas concert as the result of a diversity initiative.

2.  A school that serves kosher Christmas cookies at said event.

Here Nor There Nor Jon Stewart

I saw Jon Stewart tonight at The Wang in Boston. Quite possibly the best birthday present ever. He touched on all of my favorite topics, including pirates, Apple computers, condoms, and what’s wrong with this country.

At one point, a girl way way up in the back of the theater (not too far from my seat) blurted out, “Shut Up!” Jon Stewart first of all heard it from all the way back there, and then handled it in such a way that proved he had a right to be doing standup infront of 300 people.

(A paraphrased account) “Shut up? Did someone just tell me to shut up? Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I have been dominating the conversation. You all paid good money to be here tonight, and here I am blabbing away… why don’t you all pull out your mics and jump right in.”

But really, Jon left us with a great message at the end of the night, even if it did get lost for a while in the midst of a story about his dog getting explosive diarrhea. The message is that we are a country of reasonable people, governed by a minority of ridiculous people, and it’s alright to laugh because somehow, it’s going to be okay.

Some other thoughts…

- An overweight kid on the Brandeis shuttle bus. He had a Jew-fro, a scruffy wannabe-beard thing, was gesturing wildly as he talked about World of Warcraft. He spit when he talked. Then I noticed he was wearing a big, flashy Chai. I resisted the urge to shout, “WE KNOW, ALREADY!”

- I hate it when people (women) call inanimate objects their “boyfriends.” Like when people call vibrators a “battery operated boyfriend.” It’s not a boyfriend! It’s everything BUT the boyfriend! Or, long, body pillows, and those other pillows. But here’s the worst part. They’re actually CALLED Boyfriend pillows!

And that was a lie, because the real worst part is this:

Yes, obviously vibrators and pillows are marketed towards single people. But can’t you enjoy them for their own sake instead of using them as a substitute for a relationship?

Isn’t anyone okay with being alone?