“As a Goy, I Say that Jews are Cool.”

Ner Tamid is a local Reform congregation in Green Valley Ranch, Henderson, Nevada. Indeed, Green Valley is named after the Greenspun family that has made a considerably favorable impact on the local community. Green Valley is named after the Greenspuns. I cannot explain to you the differences between Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative or Orthodox Jews because they all sing to their god like Tevye. A Reform synagogue,as I have experienced it, is more liberal in its approach, more open, perhaps to diversity. I went to an Orthodox synagogue between 1950 to 1953, learned Hebrew, Jewish history, was religiously conditioned, and sang from my Haftorah ( the readings from the Prophets — but don’t hold me to it) for my bar mitzvah. Of course, the power of the orthodoxy was in its rote memorization, for I can read Hebrew, poorly now, but don’t know what it means–such conditioning! It was five or so years after the war and no one in Hebrew school spoke about the Holocaust. It was a very repressed memory until the Eichmann trial.

With this as an introduction, I read that Abraham Foxman of the ADL was going to speak about his new book which dealt with the stereotypes we have of Jews and money. I also went with Jane in a feeble attempt to interact with my brethren. Foxman’s talk was personally aggravating because of some details he gave about his visit to Poland where anti-Semitic slogans, sayings or cartoonish images of Jews (long noses, etc) are used as amulets for sale throughout Poland. They are used as good luck charms! It really never changes in that hell hole, for it was the Poles after the war that slew 3,000 Jews in progroms for they feared they’d want to have their shops and homes back again. After the talk Foxman opened the floor for questioning. Immediately one man stood up and confronted  Foxman about his stand on George Soros, the billionaire, Jew, and supposedly camp kapo. What about the talk and his book! And he went on and on in an accusatory manner. Remember, poorly miscast Edward G.Robinson in the schlocky DeMille The Ten Commandments barking at Moses, snarling at him for having taken the Jews from out of Egypt and exposing them to harm’s way. The tradition is an ancient one. Think of Nathan confronting David about screwing around with Bathsheba. No man is higher than another if there is to be equality, a thrilling contribution to the world. And so this angry man went on until another audience member shouted out, “What is the question?”

Here is a guest to the sanctuary within the temple and before he can handle some softball questions is held to accounts. Please let this sink in and if you are not Jewish consider how such a “scene” might be experienced in your Sunday church. Jane is watching all this, for she is a keen observer and has the “hots” for Kirk Douglas, et al,  all the Jewish stars in Hollywood she had not been informed were, in effect, Jewish.  Yet she detected something in these men and women that was appealing to her mind and heart. Over the few years we have had together,  I have cued her in and she finds it intriguing, given that she views herself as not being an “ethnic,” just a Mormon, that Jews are appealing to her essentially for their intellect and looks. I will use the following word with care, for she was smitten that night with the dissent in the sanctuary, that ideas were contested without any concern or care for reverence. She whispered to me while all this was going on, “As a goy, I say that Jews are cool.” Yes, she did revel in the freedom in the sanctuary to contest, carp and challenge any other Jew freely and openly without any concern for false religiousities. Jane told me that in a Mormon temple it would have seemed unseemly, sacrilegious, rude, and way beyond the pale. I wanted to tell her that we were the original Protestants, just God and us, no confessor, no dogma and doctrine; that after 5,000 years — note that Yeshua ben Joseph came upon the scene 3,000 years into Judaism –we had distilled Judaism down to one word: Question! In fact, if Jews ever weary of the Jewish Star about their necks I suggest they wear a question mark.

I told her she should have stood up and made her thoughts into an announcement. Most if not all of us would have pissed in our pants. For whether she was a goy or not, the wise Jew admires truth regardless of its source.

Jane has also expressed some need to learn about Judaism. I, for one, married Jane as she was and have no need to convert my wife. My take on conversion is that the religion is for sale, that one is unsure of it to begin with and if one forms a crowd of converts, one feels more sure of one’s religion — flimsy, tacky, and pathetic. She has said she wants to learn more about Jewish history and so we may take a course  together; however, if she asked a rabbi how to go about becoming a Jew, he might very well say: “What do you need this headache (tsoris) for? Again, the question. Jews have no need to convert others, a singular distinction among the world’s religions. As far as I am concerned, Jane can go into the local desert hereabouts, so appropriate, uncap and pour a bottle of Mazola oil on her head, annoint herself as a Jew, and live as such and be a Jew without all the rigamarole.

There is a stale joke about the poor schlub who is mugged one day in a Hasidic neighborhood, no less, and when is asked what happened says that the mugger asked for his valuables and then hit him over the head with a book — in that it should not be a total loss. Jane is trying to grasp a sensibility which is not inborn, of course, but is a lifelong learning from interaction(s) among one’s brethren. Nevertheless, to be a Jew is always an existential choice, always will be so.