When I have my wits about me, whenever somebody asks me my “heritage,” the latest PC (they would never say, “Apple” because in the PC world, everybody has an Apple) euphemism for “where you from boy?, “ I reply that I am a Thousand Islander. Yup. I am one of the thousand island people because, at the end of the day, you are what you eat except, of course, in those parts of the world where a cursory glance at the headlines would suggest that you are who you eat. Just kidding, of course. It’s whom! Whom you eat. Grammar is no laughing mattter. Don’t believe me? Just ask ‘er.
[not to be confused with Pacific Islander, one of the 5 entitlement categories for affirmative action benefits. I vividly remember a young African-American woman in a bar around the corner, proudly and angrily telling me, “you’re not a minority.” I mean, who the hell do I think I am, anyway, right? I’m not one of the chosen few, the brave, the proud, how does it go?, I’m not One of the Chosen people. I do recall a movie (can’t remember the title) in the 80’s, I think, about a young white guy who is cut off by his wealthy father but so recently that he doesn’t qualify for aid, so in a reverse of the so often copied, “Black LIke Me,” he manages to attend college by posing as a poor African-American student.] — ]
As for religion, I say, “I come from a long line on both sides of strict, devout, Orthodox Contrarians, none of whom got along with their fathers, either.
Now, about the thousandth time, somebody, usually on a job, asked me what kind of food I ate when I was growing up, I finally grokked to the realization that it was just another sneaky way of asking if I was Jewish. So, I came up with a stock reply: I come from a typical, assimilated Central and Eastern Jewish-American Family from the Upper West Side so I grew up eating Chinese and Indian.
I said this to a Puerto Rican friend of mine who said, “yeah, you know, when I was little, I ate Puerto Rican food at home, but as soon as I was old enough to have a little pocket money, my home away from home was McDonald’s. And then I remembered. For me too, typical American kid, as soon as I had a little pocket money of my own, my home away from home became McDonald’s. But, you know, when you get older you get more conservative, more traditional, so I’ve gone back to eating Chinese and Indian
“God Bless the Mama, and God Bless the Papa but God Bless the Child who has his own.” – Billie Holliday for McDonald’s. [Well, why not? We could let advertising pay for everything. “This stretch of highway was paid for by Cher” I recall seeing. I had a great idea for a beer advertisement, Marlon Brando in “Streetcar named Desire,” shouting, “Stella!.” I shoulda been in advertising (formerly show business, the expression will change to read though now it will say, “I shoulda been on youtube” (for the older no longer flexiblle generation to plaint.]
Last night, I heard something hilarious on tv (a rarity, right there.) A fascinating lecture on JBS (the Jewish Broadcasting Channel – channel 269 on RCN, it’s part of the family and entertainment or Premier Entertainment packages) by the former Chief Rabbi of the UK, now a professor at NYU and a prolific author. He spoke about the day he was knighted by the Queen of England. Since, observant Jews don’t kneel before anyone but God (which led to Haman plotting genocide as recounted in the Book of Esther and which the holiday of Purim remembers), they devised a special apparatus that would enable him to lean without kneeling.
He overheard Queen Elizabeth say, “So, how is this Knight different from all other Knights?” (By the way, he was putting out a fascinating premise that rather than modes of production, the major changes in history come from changes in modes of communication, as well as quoting another book that says that left to right alphabets like Greek are left-brained because they involve reading left to right and are better at breaking things into component parts hence contributions in math, philosophy and science, the the other way around for Hebrew which is about constructing meaning. And, despite Israel’s world famous contributions in Science and innovative startups, I heard on IBS news a complaint that they too are behind in math and science in school. Too much meaning, I guess.)
So, right now, I am riding a bus in Manhattan. A little earlier, the African-American driver was helping a man in a wheelchair to fasten the chair in and was telling him that he could turn the chair whichever way he liked. To break the momentary impasse, I suggested that we bring out a book of Feng Shui. She didn’t understand what I was saying at first, but then she did and corrected my pronunciation. I stood corrected.
I was playing in a string quartet backing up various kinds of non-classical music – pop for short. We backed up a Puerto Rican singer with a band in a park in Atlantic City, and he stretched the Puerto Rican flag behind him with arms outstretched like a cape (Ever since the movie Titanic came out, countless times, I have seen the bit played out by young lovers re-enacting the scene where she stands on the prow with arms outstretched while he holds her by the waist. They did this from the balcony at the time. I just saw it again outside a bar), we played a Ukrainian Church Christmas event” (more on this later) ], we played for an Italian-Canadian singer who exuded pride from every pore,waving the Calabrian flag – remember Calabria history, listen to the Calabrian music, buy my family’s Calabrian olive oil.
Now, when I had mentioned to my
Jewishly observant [I had more of a New Age upbringing. I am currently a devotee of the Tantric Dietary Yoga of Baba Ganoush; his teachings make you fel good, they don’t make you fel a(w)fel) my mother’s first cousin), do you know how many famous people are of LItvak descent, (Lithuanian Jewish, google it. It’s amazing: Heifetz, Copland, Elvis, Harrison Ford, Bloomberg, Emma Goldman, and on and on – and all but a handful of those who remained were murdered by their Christian neighbors and the Germans during WWII] he said, so what, everybody’s from somewhere. So much for our reputed clannishness.
So, wanting to get in on the flag waving fun, — or rather not wanting to be excluded – this, more than anything else, defines the assimilated Jew, Zelig being the tragi-comic personification of this (I prefer double hyphens to parens, Thomas Mann used them a lot in Magic Mountain; great for not losing your place) — I turned to the the second violinist, who ,happened to be Japanese, and I said to her. “You know what’s the thing that binds Jews together as a nation, as a people, the single most important unifying principle? She said, “What?” “It’s that we all desperately want to be Asians.”
[– And when I repeated this in the Green Room a few minutes later, a Jewish guy from Southern Jersey where we were playing, who just happened to be around, exclaimed, “really, I thought it was just me!” (He then got mad and left, when I started to tell the chestnut: A Jewish-American guy and and Asian-American guy are sitting on a plane next to each other. The Jewish-American guy throws his drink in the Asian-American guy’s lap who shouts, hey, what did you do that for? “That’s for Pearl Harbor.” “Pearl Harbor? Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese, I’m Chinese.” “Chinese, Japanese, what’s the difference?” Silence. A few minutes later, the Chinese guy throws his drink in the Jewish guy’s lap. “What was that for?” “That’s for the.” “The Titanic? The Titanic was sunk by an iceberg?!!” “Greenberg, Iceberg, what’s the difference?” (By the way, hats off to Sugihara, the “Japanese Schindler” who threw his career as a diplomat away but behaved like the good Christian he actually was, in saving the few thousand Lithuainian Jews who escaped by issuing Japanese protective papers (actually more like Wallenberg, but Spielberg made Schindler world-renowned, and hats off to Nancy Spielberg, his sister, for her film about the heroism of Israel’s fledgling air force which miraculously defeated the British backed mighty Arab forces during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948.) (I have also noted that this joke which, is about stereotyping — I don’t think Jews ever stereotyped Asians this way, it’s really a metaphor for anti-Semitism — still conflates the individual with the group, thus implicitly justifying Manzanar (which has it’s own Machiavellian pros and cons in wartime) , though I doubt anybody thought about it all the way through since it’s supposed to be anti-racist and stereotyping. Actually, I just learned that the Chinese exclusion act was repealed in 1943, when Japanese Americans were being interned, and if you look at the films of the time, they are sympathetic to Chinese and hostile to Japanese, in the thirties, it’ tended to be sympathetic to both, even if the main characters were often Caucasian, such as Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto or Charlie Chan which gave opportunities to Chinese actors like Keye Luke. but had a Caucasian (“White” really, the Caucasus is in Central Asia, I believe, hilariously) ) lead.
Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I played a Jewish wedding, even in a synagogue, that didn’t at least have a sushi bar, if not Vietnamese stir-fry. [I’ve heard the annoyed retort to this: “that’s recent!”] One of the oldest and most important Jewish prayers is the Amidah, the standing prayer, in Japan, Amida Budda, is Amitabah, the Buddha of Compassion, and one stands and recites the mantra, Namo Amida Butsu. In the Jewish Calendar, the fiirst and most important month, the month, in which Passover is celebrated is the month of Nissan which is followed, in rapid succession, by the months of Honda, Hyundai, Toyota, Lexus, Mitsubishi and Suzuki. The reason that sushi and lox look so similar is that, as the crow flies, their points of origin are in very close proximity. Lox comes from Murray’s and sushi comes from Ollie’s which is only two doors down. The farther south you go, the closer they get. 10 blocks down they come together at Zabar’s deli: They are right next to each other, right before the egg salad sandwiches, on the same shelf. Here we have the American influence. In Russia they steps, here in America we have shelves. You can take my word for it. If you knew Sushi Like I know Sushi, Oy, Oy, Oy.
“No Vay.”
“Vay”! (Might this be what one would calll Qvelling outside the box? Qvelling all cars, Qvelling all cars.)
pinchinat 