What Is a Jew?

The recent return of anti-Semitism in Europe makes me think that people neither understand nor fully appreciate the Jewish people. This is not new, as we saw in Germany during the Third Reich. I'm here to help.

The first time this was brought to my attention was years ago when we were living in Salt Lake City. My son had brought over his new Ouija board, a birthday gift from my crazy Aunt Irene but that's another story, for a sleepover with a friend. Many of you may remember the Ouija board from those 15-minutes in childhood when it held some appeal. It involves moving a "plastic message indicator" around a game board imprinted with the letters of the alphabet, seeking answers to questions like, "Does Tommy know I like him? Who told him?" or "Will I ever be tall enough to slam dunk? How tall will I be?"

The boy's mother flipped out and summoned me on the double. When I arrived, she met me at the door and hissed that she would "have none of that Jewish devil stuff" in her home. She had obviously confused Jews from New York with gypsies from Transylvania. At the time I shrugged it off as simply a bad mood, since in her agitated state she had broken a nail and complained bitterly that her manicure was only two days old.

Over the years I have witnessed similar misunderstandings. As a teenage camp counselor I was responsible for a group of 12-year-olds. One of them, a naive girl who had never before been out of her small town, asked, "Do Jews really have horns?" Mistaking sarcasm for humor (a recurring problem of mine), I answered, "Yes, but we have them removed at birth." I let her feel a tiny bump on my head, confiding that it was the site of a former horn. What haunts me to this day is the possibility that somewhere in Indiana, a 62-year-old woman named Marion thinks all Jews are born with horns.  I'd like to clarify this right now: We most definitely do not have horns, although many of us play horns in orchestras.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to clarify a few other aspects of Judaism:
     1. To be what Grammy Hall would call "a real Jew," your parents or grandparents must live, die or spend half the year in Florida, preferably in a gated community with the word "Boca" in the name. There should be at least one relative named Pasha, Peska, Goldie, Itcha or Ben residing at the same address.
     2. While no adult Jewish males are in the NFL or NBA, many of them are in the AMA.
     3. Though many people convert to Judaism as adults, those folks can never become the aforementioned "real Jew," since that exalted status requires years of eating in Chinese restaurants during your formative years, having a nose job during adolescence and attending no less than a dozen bar mitzvahs before the onset of puberty.

So all those anti-Semites should just relax, since there aren't that many "real Jews" around. (Mostly they were born in or are currently residing in the Queens/ Long Island, NY area.) Besides, we are regular people with no extra body parts. And we have never relied on Ouija boards for answers to spiritual questions. For those we go directly to a psychiatrist, except on weekends and during the month of August when we are forced to rely solely on fortune cookies.