Two years ago Harry went through a brief obsession wanting to be Jewish. When I say obsession I mean he wanted me to make latkes, celebrate Hanukkah and change his name to Eli. In addition he talked about being Jewish every day. He’d say “I’m Jewish” with emphasis on the last syllable, which I misunderstood for an attempt at a Catskills comedian’s accent. I later realized (how could I have missed it?!) he was saying he was Jew—ish. I fully encouraged his conversion because I once had an obsession of my own.
When I was 8 and we still lived in an apartment in the city, I was the only one of my friends who wasn’t Jewish: Saranne Rothberg, Shari Aronson, Debbie Ginsberg, Carla Elkman, Andy Appelbaum, David Epstein and Jimmy Gottlieb. These were my people, well except for Jimmy; he was a teenager and didn’t want to have anything to do with us but he also had glasses that were at least a half inch thick, bad skin and a sour disposition and wasn’t welcome in many other circles, so he’d occasionally hang with us.
We’d go to brunch together on the weekend at the Commissary, which was the restaurant in our building. It was exciting to be able to go by ourselves, I felt like a grown up, especially because I didn’t have any family members around to bust me on the fact that I was pretending (through my accent and food choices) to be a full-fledged Jew. Bagels, cream cheese, whitefish and lox: is there anything better. At home I began reading my books upside-down and backwards. David’s mother Hilda gave me my own Hebrew book and laughed till she had tears when I’d read it out loud.
What did I care, I was Jew-ish.
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