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mallorys_cameraI like the story of the Honduran Jews, descendents of the Marranos who fled from the Inquisition in the early part of the 17th Century. (Christopher Columbus’ navigator was one.) They quickly reverted back to their ancient religion but anti-Semitism in the New World was no less pronounced. Eventually they fled into the mountains. Over the centuries they intermarried with the Mayan Indians, grew poor and illiterate, lost every vestige of their religion save two – they resist Christian conversion with every fiber of their beings and they all tend to work as butchers, using skills presumably gained but far outlasting any resolve to keep kosher. Economics trumps spirituality every time.
I felt like a Honduran Jew yesterday, keeping my own private fast. The day before I had written little conciliatory emails to everyone I’d pissed off the year before: please forgive me. Long list. At sundown I stopped eating. No coffee in the morning.
Had to go to the store. Had to handle money. (Dear PG&E – Can’t pay the electric bill this month and I know you’ll understand: Yom Kippur fell on a Saturday this year, which is the busiest day of the week…)
Got incredibly light-headed around 2 PM. Hopefully I shortchanged more people than I gave too much money back to.
Ben came in from watching Max play football around 5. And I took off for the temple.
The temple, as always, was very bizarre and if God was in attendance, I didn’t notice Him. Lots of old guys who looked like my grandfather though. Lots of strange, middle-aged women sporting yamakas and phylacteries. Female cantor sounded a lot like Judy Collins signing in Serbo-Croatian. Broke fast at a table with a weird guy with a blinking tic, his vastly pregnant redneck wife and a bunch of students from the local CSU campus.
“So. Are you a member of the congregation?” one of them demanded.
“No,” I said. “I attended conversion classes a few years back but I came to the conclusion that it would be impossible to keep a Jewish home when my husband and my children aren’t Jewish. I’m not comfortable imposing a religious identity on them.”
The girl raised her eyebrows. “When I get married, I am definitely marrying a Jew. The faith is losing huge amounts of ground to intermarriage.”
“Why can’t you make your children come to temple?” asked the pregnant woman. “That’s part of being a parent, no?”
“It’s not what I’m about as a mother,” I said which strange and elliptical statement was met with the bewilderment and polite consternation it deserved.
The talk turned to Israel. The students had all been there, spent months or years. They couldn’t wait to go back. “The best year of my life,” said the girl who had initiated conversation with me.
“How so?” I asked.
“I can’t explain it. I felt alive there. My life felt dynamic. Here, I always feel passive somehow, like all I am is a reaction to something. A passive consumer, a passive voter. There, the air crackles.”
Israel. I long to go.
I felt like a Honduran Jew yesterday, keeping my own private fast. The day before I had written little conciliatory emails to everyone I’d pissed off the year before: please forgive me. Long list. At sundown I stopped eating. No coffee in the morning.
Had to go to the store. Had to handle money. (Dear PG&E – Can’t pay the electric bill this month and I know you’ll understand: Yom Kippur fell on a Saturday this year, which is the busiest day of the week…)
Got incredibly light-headed around 2 PM. Hopefully I shortchanged more people than I gave too much money back to.
Ben came in from watching Max play football around 5. And I took off for the temple.
The temple, as always, was very bizarre and if God was in attendance, I didn’t notice Him. Lots of old guys who looked like my grandfather though. Lots of strange, middle-aged women sporting yamakas and phylacteries. Female cantor sounded a lot like Judy Collins signing in Serbo-Croatian. Broke fast at a table with a weird guy with a blinking tic, his vastly pregnant redneck wife and a bunch of students from the local CSU campus.
“So. Are you a member of the congregation?” one of them demanded.
“No,” I said. “I attended conversion classes a few years back but I came to the conclusion that it would be impossible to keep a Jewish home when my husband and my children aren’t Jewish. I’m not comfortable imposing a religious identity on them.”
The girl raised her eyebrows. “When I get married, I am definitely marrying a Jew. The faith is losing huge amounts of ground to intermarriage.”
“Why can’t you make your children come to temple?” asked the pregnant woman. “That’s part of being a parent, no?”
“It’s not what I’m about as a mother,” I said which strange and elliptical statement was met with the bewilderment and polite consternation it deserved.
The talk turned to Israel. The students had all been there, spent months or years. They couldn’t wait to go back. “The best year of my life,” said the girl who had initiated conversation with me.
“How so?” I asked.
“I can’t explain it. I felt alive there. My life felt dynamic. Here, I always feel passive somehow, like all I am is a reaction to something. A passive consumer, a passive voter. There, the air crackles.”
Israel. I long to go.
