Thoughts following the Christmas Eve announcement that—surprise—you’re Jewish

By Haidn Ellis Foster on May 13, 2008

This actually explains a lot.
- Why you’re so into musicals and not gas chambers; gas chambers are so last mid-century. Others say retro, you say dead.
- Grandma’s affinity for matzo; it’s the only possible explanation.
- Your hesitation to accept a peace-and-love-and-bunnies hippie in a toga as your leader. You’ll take a messiah who’s grown a pair. Maybe the guy who turned that babe into a salt lick. Or the one who drowned the world (the world!). Is the bad ass who sent the locusts available? Wait, they’re all what? Yeah, OK—you’ll take him.
- Those annoyingly huge freckles.

Damn those lifetime Jews.
- They knew to pay attention to jokes about your people. What did happen to those two rabbis in the bar? If rabbis stopped going to bars, maybe people would stop making jokes about it, and you wouldn’t feel so left out. Maybe also the rabbis should let on to the priests; there must be some kid somewhere lighting the menorah and finding out he’s Catholic.
- For knowing bullshit when they saw it. Because it’s just so hard to keep clean? Ahem.
There’s a lot to do.
- Change your name to Goldstein to flaunt your newfound roots. Then change it to Goldston because nobody wants to hire another Jewish writer. Then change it to O’Connor, because Goldston wasn’t fooling anyone.
- Wikipedia all the Yiddish words that aren’t shlep or tuches.
- Develop an overwhelming pessimism balanced by an overwhelming guilt. The Catholic kid from a few points back can help with this one.
- You must also find out the point of a yarmulke, because you can’t help thinking it’s some ancient Jewish answer to sunburn, and that doesn’t sound right.
It’s a relief, however, that:
- You look pretty damn good (despite the freckles). Thank the celibate God for your father’s Swedinavian sperm.
- It’s not 1942.
- You can’t really be expected to marry a nice Jewish girl.