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How Jewish Am I?

A few days ago, I had an essay published in the Ventura County Reporter about my experience with Hannukah. The essay's mostly about how Hannukah as we know it is an American invention, and so the fact that I only kind of celebrate it (and always celebrate Christmas) makes me a part of the distinct culture of American Jews.

At the same time, I came across an ad on Craigslist for a couple seeking a Jewish egg donor. They're willing to pay $10,000, which would almost wipe out my debt. In discussing whether six months of taking hormones, undergoing a painful operation, and knowing - for the rest of my life - that my spawn is walking around somewhere, would be worth $10,000, one friend pointed out: "But you're not really Jewish." Which is true. With only my Dad's side of the family Jewish, I'm only half -- and the wrong half, at that.

Both of these led me to the interesting question, How Jewish am I?

I look Jewish. I identify with Jewish culture. Israel might not give me citizenship, but the Nazis certainly would have killed me. (So I may not be a real Jew but I'm a Gas Chamber Jew?) I can read a bit of Hebrew, but I never had a Bat Mitzvah. So, does my Jewishness count?

There's no real answer, of course. It's all up to personal interpretation.

But discussing it with another Jewish friend did bring up a delightful little story about passing a bakery as a child with his mom and his sister. The trio peered in the window and his sister, who was seven years younger than my friend, spied her first doughnut.

"Look, Mom!" she exclaimed, delighted. "Chocolate bagels!"

Now that's Jewish.



December 16, 2006 in Judaica, Regular ol' blog posts | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Dreidels, latkes and the holiday season

(published VC Reporter 12/14/06)

(part of compilation: Naughty and Nice/Snarky to syrupy, these four holiday essays will put you in the mood)
Feature

When people find out I’m Jewish (and with a last name like Freedenberg, it usually doesn’t take that long), they assume this time of year is all about Hanukkah for me: dreidels and menorahs and eating at Chinese restaurants on Christmas day.

Which is when I have to explain two things. First, I’m half-Jewish, which means there’s a whole side of my family who know more about rosaries than Rosh Hashanah. And secondly, the Jewish side of my family weren’t exactly Hasidic.

When I was a kid, my dad always made an important distinction between Judaism as a culture and Judaism as a religion. He was always proud of the fact that being Jewish, unlike being Baptist or Mormon, meant you were associated with a community on both of these levels. I think it was also a justification for calling ourselves Jewish even though my Dad hardly ever went to temple, we never ate kosher, and we only occasionally celebrated Jewish holidays (and even then, it was according to books like Passover in Twenty Minutes).

Furthermore, there are photos of my Dad as a kid in Brooklyn celebrating Christmas with his full-Jewish family, a phenomenon I can only explain as a result of assimilation. (When my grandparents’ parents came to New York from Eastern Europe, they must have picked up the tradition of Christmas trees and gift-giving as a way to fit in with their neighbors, or embrace American culture, or — dare I think it? — to renounce the culture that caused their necessary flight from their homeland.) There are more family photos of my Woody Allen-esque dad, his mom, Martha, and his father, Harold, sitting around a Christmas tree than there are of them lighting menorahs or praying over Shabbat candles.

When I asked my Dad why this was, he would only say, “Christmas is a national holiday.”

That’s when I began to realize that so, in a sense, is Hanukkah.

The thing is, Hanukkah as a holiday isn’t really that big of a deal in Jewish culture — more like Arbor Day or maybe Memorial Day than Christmas. It’s only because of its proximity to Christmas (which, by the way, also was scheduled in December for its proximity to pagan winter solstice rituals) that it gets much attention at all. And so Hanukkah as the Jewish kids’ Christmas is really an American invention, one born either of (at best) the altruistic desire not to leave anyone out or (at worst) the capitalistic desire not to miss out on any marketing opportunities.

Sure, Jews across the world do celebrate the festival of lights. There are menorahs with one candle lit each night. There are dreidels (and the ubiquitous dreidel song). There are chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil (called “gelt,” the German/Yiddish word for “money”) and there are small gifts given.

But what most people think of as Hanukkah — a kind of Christmas celebration where the tree is decorated in blue and the mountain of gifts is opened over the course of a week instead of in one morning — is a fairly new, and very New World, phenomenon.

And so at my Dad’s house in December, we always had a Christmas tree — one of the kinds with stiff, flat branches — decorated in colored balls, candy canes, tinsel and the occasional menorah or dreidel ornament. There were stockings hanging from the fireplace. Outside, the eaves and the bushes were decorated with Hanukkah-blue lights. Inside, menorahs sat alongside red-and-green candlesticks. Some years we’d have a lighting ceremony or two, though hardly ever eight in a row. Other years, we’d celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas together on Christmas Day — the pile of presents wrapped in poinsettia-themed paper were for Christmas, and the one or two small boxes (usually Jewish-themed jewelry) wrapped in silver or blue were for Hanukkah. And if it was a really special year, perhaps my stepmom would make latkes (potato pancakes) or my grandmother would make strudel, or maybe we’d spend one night of Hanukkah at the house of Jewish family friends (who, I suspected, were just as sporadic and “reform” about their Hanukkahs as we were.)

Neither celebration was particularly religious. But both were profoundly cultural. One connected us to the culture we’re living in; and one connected us to the culture we came from — if only in an abstract, symbolic way.

Now that my dad has died and I’m an adult, my Winter holiday leanings tend more towards Christmas than Hanukkah. But I still feel a sense of connection, ownership and pride when it comes to the latter. Whether I choose to acknowledge the holiday or not, the fact that I have that choice is a reminder that I belong to a special, rare group of people: to my particular family, to the American Jews throughout history who have improvised and adapted to incorporate their traditions with their new culture, and to the Jews throughout time.

So, Merry Christmas and l’chaim. And to all a good night.

December 16, 2006 in Judaica, VC Reporter | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Not Your Challah Back Girl

There are few things I like better than an event with both a great concept AND a great name. Case in point? The following:

Sukkotcomment Now, this might not be so funny to you goyim out there who don't know that a sukkah is the thatch-covered, glorified fort built for the holiday Sukkot, which celebrates...uh...something.

And it's probably not funny to people who have a healthy disdain for both rhyming and puns.

But I'm neither a goy nor a health punner. I'm Jewish (okay, half Jewish. on my dad's side.) AND I love word games. Plus, there's the whole irony of something that's signifies Arabic culture with something that's so quintessentially Jewish...

I love it. LOVE it. The only thing better? Hearing about said event say, before it actually happens.

October 12, 2006 in Judaica, Regular ol' blog posts | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Happy New Year!

Fridayandsaturday_02 With my Ashkanazi nose, my ten years of Hebrew school, my distinctly Jewish last name and, most importantly, my personal connection to my Dad's Jewish heritage, you'd think I would've had some idea that Heather and I would be travelling during Rosh Hashannah (which is only, like, the biggest deal holiday on the Jewish calendar).

But I was brought up in an extremely reform version of Judaism, the kind where we go to temple while Dad goes to brunch, and where the famously long Spring holiday Pesach is governed by a book called Passover in Twenty Minutes.

And so it was a complete and total surFridayandsaturday_03prise when Heather informed me that our first Friday in Barcelona (September 22) would be the first night of the Jewish New Year.

We briefly considered finding a synagogue in town, an idea that was not only interesting culturally (How do Jews worship in Spain? Especially considering most of them were driven out 500 years ago?) but personally, as it would only be the second time I'd be celebrating Rosh Hashannah. But it turns out the only synagogue listed in the guide book is in ruins. More to the point, we alsFridayandsaturday_05o were completely and utterly distracted by Barcelona.

One of those dist Danny. Carrie's a Portland-born expat whose wedding to Spanish Danny I attended last year. Both are warm, friendly,ractions came in the form of Carrie and interesting and open. They hosted us for dinner early in the week. Carrie gave me a delightful mini massage on Thursday. And then they invited us to Carrie's concerFridayandsaturday_06t on Friday.

What kind of concert you ask? Well. Carrie sings. In a klezmer/tango band. Klezmer as in the music of Yiddish culture. Yiddish as in Jewish. No, Carrie isn't Jewish. And no, the concert wasn't specifically for Rosh Hashannah. But the coincidence was too much not to honor. And so Heather and I found ourselves celebratingFridayandsaturday_04 Rosh Hashannah in the most unlikely of ways: watching a goy girl sing Jewish music at a Catalonian festival.

Not e xactly old world tradition, but more than entertaining. Carrie has a lovely voice and a remarkable range, switching from klezmer music to South American tango to cabaret-style Brecht. She channeled Marlene Dietrich and little orphan Annie. She delighted and surprised her adoring crowd, including her proud husband and his video camera. (She also donned two fantastic outfits: a dark pants-suit with red accents, and a glittering purple dress with a violet Fridayandsaturday_11boa.)

After the concert, we mingled with old friends (expats I'd met at the wedding, Danny's sister Eva) and new (mostly friends of those expats, and Eva's boyfriend) , some of which are pictured below, and followed them to one of the only bars that wasn't overflowing with Merce-related chaos. Danny dared us to dance (we didn't). We dared him to listen to us talk Fridayandsaturday_14 about blow jobs (he did). And then the bartender daredFridayandsaturday_15 us to try and stay longer than one drink (he wouldn't let us).

So we all headed home and got a good night's sleep, full and buzzed and satisfied. Not a bad way to start off the New Year. Even the Jewish one.

September 27, 2006 in Judaica, Spain | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Mmmm...diversions.

Some of my favorite recent links. Oh how I love them.

Because the only thing better than shoes is trannies singing about shoes.

And the only thing better than trannies singing about shoes are T-shirts made by ironic Jews.

While we're on the religious theme, here are some more reasons not to become Mormon (beyond the creepy underwear, I mean.)

And for my final trick — dun dun dun DUH! — the best video EVER.

You're welcome.

June 05, 2006 in Geek Stuff, Judaica, Regular ol' blog posts | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Some boys have Christmas Trees. Some girls have Hannukah Bushes.

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Look here !

Maybe someone's already done this. If they haven't, I can't imagine why not. It's so obvious. And so funny. At least, it is to me. Forgive me for the extremely simple design, though. And if you have a better design, or other ideas, don't hesitate to send them my way. xo, your favorite semi-semite

December 15, 2005 in Judaica | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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