Bagels, but no world domination
November 15, 2005 by David BlackmanI turned 21 this weekend. At 12:10 a.m., I pushed a cart full of alcohol through the Safeway checkout and squirmed while the cashier examined my ID before breaking out in a grin and wishing me a happy birthday. Then, a bunch of Paly kids asked me for an objective opinion on whether or not Palo Alto sucks (it does). They were relieved to hear this and emphatically explained that they would not be attending Stanford anytime soon.
Which got me thinking: As reasonable as the argument for lowering the drinking age to 18 is, there's one giant benefit to keeping it at 21 -- one last good birthday to look forward to. If the drinking age were 18, then there would be no major positive milestones after that. In fact, every one from then on out would be downhill -- running down the clock of your youth onto middle age.
"Twenty would still be good," you say. Your 20th birthday sucks. The day before you turn 20, you can still blame your personal failings in life on "being a teenager" -- the day after, your failings are all your own damn fault.
In any case, the one birthday present I was hoping for didn't materialize. I had always secretly hoped that when I turned 21, my father would call me and say, "Son, it's all true. Your copy of `The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion' will show up in the mail in three to five days." Since this is Stanford, the post office would have delayed it for two weeks. But that's OK, I could have borrowed my roommate's copy. In the middle of the night, cloaked members of AEPi would show up at my door and say, "It's time." Using technology stolen from alien spaceships, we would be transported to the secret Jewish headquarters in Antarctica from which the council rules world events.
But none of this happened. Instead, I fell asleep in the hallway outside my room -- not because I was locked out, but because my body decided that was the only place I could sleep that would not cause me to spontaneously die, or puke or both.
I probably should have seen this coming. Jews don't really rule the world. Firstly, if AEPi had a say in anything, we'd at least have a AEPhi chapter (the sorority of nosejobs) at Stanford. Secondly, if I was going to hear about Jewish world domination, I would have found out about it when I was 13 -- the tender age when, according to Jewish law, neurotic, insecure, nebbish Jewish boys become neurotic, insecure, nebbish Jewish men. Finally, if we ran the world, we'd be doing a much better job of preventing crazy people from periodically trying to kill us off.
The whole Throw-the-Jew-Down-the-Well sentiment is something I never quite understood because I grew up in New York. Growing up Jewish in New York distorts your view of the world. I've never in my life faced any anti-Semitism and can barely even fathom it -- especially when Seinfeld was such a global success; you can't get much more Jewish than that. I can easily go find all the anti-Semitism I want online (and I did just that in the process of writing this column), but I generally try to stay away from that stuff in the same way I try to stay away from staring directly into lasers -- it's bad for the brain.
Ten percent of the worldwide Jewish population lives in New York. Our senator is an outspoken Zionist. When our mayor makes bets with other cities, the wager is measured in pounds of pastrami and loaves of rye bread. In my high school history class, the teacher asked what percentage of the world we thought was Jewish and got answers like 20 percent. In reality? Possibly 0.23 percent.
So it's a shock when a Jew leaves the city. Even in California, people don't understand what it means to be a New York Jew; that is, a Cultural Jew.
This is what it means to me.
I don't believe in God, I was never bar mitzvahed and I've never voluntarily been to temple. My favorite food is baby back ribs. But I identify as Jewish whenever I'm given the opportunity. These are my people. I'm jealous of others whose cultural heritage is distinct from their spiritual heritage. No one considers a non-Catholic Italian strange.
Being a New York Jew means aspiring to live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and sending your parents off to live in south Florida (pronounced "Flarida"). It means being raised in a culture that values books and education over almost anything else -- my maternal grandparents spent their whole lives going to continuing education classes in an effort to better understand Ingmar Bergman films. It comes with a mixture of social liberalism and traditionalism coexisting. Quoth my father, "I don't care what lifestyle you choose, I want grandkids."
It means understanding how to wield the most powerful weapon God ever gifted us with -- guilt. "Oi! Too busy to call your mother, Mr. Bigshot? Something more important going on in your life than checking in with the woman who gave you life?" -- mutter -- "No, no, its fine; don't call. I'll just sit alone in the dark." It's only a stereotype because it's true.
Being a New York Jew has a lot to do with food. We have a stringent set of dietary laws. No shellfish, no pork, no meat mixed with dairy. Which is why, on the Sabbath, you go to the next town over to eat pork lo mein at a Chinese restaurant, so the neighbors won't see. We even have our own criteria for rating restaurants, sort of like the Michelin guide except someone other than The New York Times' food critic cares about it. Just ask my grandmother: "How was the food?" -- "Eh. But the portions!" When it comes to the food of our culture, we're very particular. Bagels outside of New York are just pale imitations. "It's the water," we say. "It's different outside the city."
We're a people that aren't afraid to laugh at how absurd we are. In our collective delusion, we sometimes think we do rule the world, even though we're barely a blip on the radar. Which is why you get so many Jewish comedians. We're so self-deprecating as a people that we invented a language with as many words for loser as Eskimos have for snow. When we decided that wasn't enough, we decided that you could add "-nik" to the end of any string of words to come up with a new and nuanced explanation of exactly how someone was a loser.
Our religion isn't very touchy-feely friendly. We got the fire-and-brimstone Old Testament God. The one who is really into testing us. Moses, our prophet, is like a less-cuddly version of Jesus. We don't have a well-defined afterlife. As far as I've seen, there just isn't a good hook. Christians get inner peace and pearly gates. Hindus get nirvana and reincarnation. We get sciatica problems and overbearing mothers.
So you end up with a lot of Jewish atheists, like me. A culture that combines cynicism and education is dangerous for the faith that backs it. Which is why, of late, people have been trying to shoehorn a different faith into the culture -- this week it's Buddhism. All the feel-good spirituality of the East mixed with all the feel-bad culture of the West. But that doesn't seem right, either; its like trying to bake a cake with margarine so that it will be parve (no dairy, safe for eating with any Kosher meal) -- it ends up tasting like it was made with rancid butter.
But I don't ever intend or expect to convert. In fact, I anticipate marrying a Jewish girl.
Why?
Because, as Woody Allen conclusively explained in "Annie Hall," a goy will never really understand what it means to be a New York Jew.
Are you a nice Jewish girl in need of a nice Jewish boy to take home to Mommy and Daddy? Do you want to help David Blackman convince his father that he's not faygala? E-mail him at blackmad@stanford.edu.
Are you a nice Jewish girl in need of a nice Jewish boy to take home to Mommy and Daddy? Do you want to help David Blackman convince his father that he's not faygala? E-mail him at blackmad@stanford.edu.
