January 13, 2005

• *Names have been slightly altered.

  
  

   

  
  

  “You’re a Jew?” *Collin Thompson once asked me in the beginning of science class during the sixth grade.  I just squinted back at him, trying to seek some intimation of intelligent life in his naïve eyes.  Clearly, there was none.  Because the last thing I said to Collin Thompson before he interrogated me was “Yeah.  I’m a Jew.”  However, there will always be the occasional person one will inevitably stumble across that does not have a hearing impairment, yet nonetheless needs everything you say to be repeated twice.

  
  

   

  
  

  “Yes, Collin, I am a Jew.” I said again, slowly.  I watched as he furrowed his freckled brow in intense concentration.  Ostensibly pondering some deeply intricate thought.  After a good thirty seconds, he awakened from his trance and triumphantly pounded his fist against his desk, startling several people who, in response, turned around to see what remarkable discovery Collin Thompson had unearthed.

  
  

   

  
  

  “So that must mean…you’re Jewish.”

  
  

   

  
  

  Did I mention this was accelerated sixth grade science?

  
  

   

  
  

  However, before I could let out even the slightest condescending remark, that I highly doubt Collin would have even understood, let alone take offensively, someone brushed past me and took the seat next to the freckled class-A moron.  *Bob Caine.

  
  

   

  
  

  Just the name itself (although I didn’t write the actual name just in case someone from Wissahickon Middle is reading this and plans on using it as some pointless blackmail mechanism) made me melt into a useless blob of sugary pink goo of hopeless longing. Obsession could only describe the fact that I wrote the initials BC on my hands every time I couldn’t erase him from my mind.  “BC? What’s that supposed to mean?” the occasional suspicious acquaintance might ask.  “Oh, um.  You know.  Before Christ.  I’m just studying for social studies.” Love could only describe the way I willingly made a fool of myself in front of the entire fifth grade class by brutally losing to his third grade sister in a rollerblading race…just to get him to talk to me.  Sickeningly possessed enough to pluck a hair from his head during lunch one day and use it to perform some witchy voodoo magic trick to get him to fall madly in love with me: Yes. It summarizes a line from Mean Girls and my sixth grade life story quite accurately. Although I think in Mean Girls it was a used Kleenex.  But that’s beside the point. 

  
  

   

  
  

  As Bob chose the seat next to Collin, I stared at him with eyes that could easily be mistaken for that of a sick puppy’s.  His golden hair.  Those bright green eyes.  That crooked grin.  He gave me one brief glance and turned to Collin. 

  
  

   

  
  

  “Of course she’s Jewish,” he snorted, “Her nose is like…huge.”

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  “You’re a Jew?” Collin Thompson once asked me.  Several times.  And yet if the question were only asked once, it would not have been that abnormal.  Wissahickon Middle School had more ninety year old polio patients than Jewish people.  Had more bomb threats than bat mitzvahs.  And most certainly had no matzo whatsoever.  Which made Passover a living nightmare.  While everyone else unpacked their delicious subs and yeast-infested bagels during lunch, I reluctantly slipped out a measly buttered cracker and acted like it was nothing short of the Norm.  Matzos were not too difficult to get away with. It was Gefilta fish that was the problem.  Once witnessed, the sight of such a slimy gray specimen creatively placed in a transparent Ziploc bag can cause even the most orthodox of all Jews to convert to Buddhism.  Or in my case, eat lunch in the nearest bathroom stall.

  
  

   

  
  

  I wasn’t embarrassed by my religion. Nor was I proud of it.  I just lived through its cookie-cutter stereotypes day after day.  Questioning.  If Jews are so tan, why did I just get mistaken for cauliflower? If Jews drink human blood, why am I sipping Tropicana? If Jews are so filthy rich, why am I not attending some snooty prep school and buying my prissy poodle a new Versace sweater? And, unfortunately, the answers to these questions were not under my supposedly massive nose.

  
  

   

  
  

  One year and a mere three bat mitzvahs later, my family and I made the move from the suburbs of Pennsylvania to Short Hills, New Jersey.  Thirty-seven bat and bar mitzvahs since then, I’ve lived to tell the tale.  But barely.

  
  

   

  
  

  Short Hills/Millburn, New Jersey.

  
  

   

  
  

  If schools were people, Wissahickon would be Courtney Love and Millburn would be a Louis Vuitton suitcase, which costs just about as much as the average human being, anyway.  I mean, if the average human being put his or herself up for sale.  Basically meaning, Short Hills, New Jersey could easily be crowned Unofficial Jewish Capital of the East Coast without even breaking a sweat.  Or a professionally French-manicured fingernail. 

  
  

   

  
  

  With Short Hills came a great variety of changes.  The main one being the drastic alteration in the Jewish population.  Which, from what I hear, is about fifty percent of the entire town.  And although it is still uncommon to find a gefilta fish sliming around in a Ziploc bag, questions such as “Are you Jewish?” have transformed into “Are you not Jewish?” Statements like “I have a big nose,” may be followed by a sincere “Me too.”  And of course, a few of my own personal questions have been answered.  Sort of.

  
  

   

  
  

  “Where are you from?”

  
  

  “Short Hills.”

  
  

  “Oh. You mean that mall.  With a few houses surrounding it.”

  
  

   

  
  

  Why are Jews so filthy rich? I have yet to find out.  But I do know that a large number of them are.  And many of them take it out on mink coats, face lifts, and extended family vacations to their own private island(s).  Where they have servants who have servants who in turn have servants working for their servants.  

  
  

   

  
  

  Okay, not all Jews are like that.  I mean, some just spend it all on cars and drugs.

  
  

   

  
  

  Oh.  And for the good of mankind.

  
  

   

  
  

  No, but really.  Not all of them are rolling in Benjamins, or in more common cases, Botox injections.  A lot of us are pretty down to earth.  My family, for example.  Believe it or not, I have never gotten lost in my own house.  I do not have a single maid.  The sight of my nails would cause any manicurist to pay me to never show up at the salon again.  And all my clothes happen to fit in this compact space known as a ‘closet’, rather than an entire separate room. 

  
  

   

  
  

  Now, I must say, I definitely feel much more at home.  Here in Northern Jersey, matzos are abundant.  I’m not the only one that fasts on Yom Kippur.  Obsessing over large noses is but a thing of the past.  And although I am constantly surrounded by aspiring geniuses and snooty millionaires with small nations named after them, I nonetheless try my hardest to remain as close to the ground as humanly possible.  And spend all my college savings on Starbucks frapuccinos at the exact same time. 

  
  

   

  
  

  Bob Caine laughed at his own remark.  And just then, my heart felt as though it had turned to ice.  I stared back into his eyes, and now that I think about it….they weren’t really that green.  In fact, the kid strongly resembled an oversized squirrel. 

  
  

   

  
  

  “Mayseel toz” he said through fits of laughter. But, it sounded more like the chirping of some ignorant woodland creature.  Collin joined in.

  
  

   

  
  

  Yes. Bob Caine was nothing more or less than an anti-Semitic squirrel wannabe.  Who made fun of me, my matzo consuming ways, and my elongated nose for the sake of his own entertainment. 

  
  

  I stood up and slammed my chair back into the desk. 

  
  

   

  
  

  “It’s Mazel Tov, assholes.” I said just before I walked away.

  • 11:47 pm
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