You are walking down the street, minding your own business and feeling a little guilty about not calling your mother. Suddenly, you are surrounded. Bearded men in bad suits obstruct your path, brandishing Shabbos candles.
“Excuse me,” they say. “Are you Jewish?”
In the background, you see a Mitzvah tank, the vehicle that transports these members of the Chabad movement to the various territories where they racially profile New Yorkers. They don’t bother dark-skinned Jews, but they are a plague upon Italians, short brunettes, and anyone else who looks enough like them to qualify for membership in their cult.
I hate being stopped on the street by anyone selling anything. But of all the opening gambits—Do you care about animals? Do you have a moment for abortion rights? How much did you pay for that haircut?—I find the roving Hasidim’s the most insidious.
Skilled salespeople establish rapid emotional connection with their victims. Being singled out in public and asked, “Are you Jewish?” cannot fail to arouse emotion in any Jew. This is, presumably, the last question you hear before they separate you from your Gentile husband and put you on the wrong train car.
When my husband first got to New York thirty years ago, two men stopped him in Union Square—he is a tall Norwegian, so it must have been a slow day—and asked, “Are you Jewish?”
He remembers a moment of panic. He was fresh from the cornfields of Wisconsin, and the only thing he knew about Judaism was the Holocaust films he had watched in high school. Who were these two strange antisemitic men, and what were they planning? His first instinct was to lie so as to protect any actual Jews in Union Square Park. Luckily, he told the truth, so they left him alone.
The first few times I got asked, “Are you Jewish?” I tried telling the truth, too. But any variation on “Yes, but I’m on my way to get some bacon-wrapped shrimp” just whips the bearded men into a sales frenzy. They will follow you an entire avenue block if they can, trying to give you candles or wrap you in a shawl. They must get paid on commission, although I’m sure women past childbearing age are worth the least points.
I have also tried lying, but this was even worse.
“No.” The word stuck in my throat like day-old bagel. “I am not…Jewish.”
I don’t even believe in God, and I still felt like He might smite me. And I could feel Grandma Bernice rolling in her grave. (If she’d had a grave, that is; Grandma donated her body to science, such was her love of doctors.)
A jazz critic who visited New York recently told us he was astonished when he was stopped and asked, “Are you Jewish?” Apparently, nobody does that in Detroit.
“But you’re not Jewish, are you?” my husband asked.
We were surprised to learn that he was. His last name is Dutch, and he talks like a sportscaster, so he failed my mother’s tests. When I was little, she taught me two ways to identify fellow Jews. First, you ask their surname. Second, you listen to their voice to see if it reminds you of any Jewish friends.
My mother is a font of apocryphal information. To my horror, she is forever asking strangers if they are Jewish. When I took her to Paris, I controlled this behavior for a while by refusing to translate, but soon enough she learned the word.
“Juif?” she would ask, pointing at random Parisians.
What was irritating was that she was almost always correct. Even when she wasn’t, the Moroccans and Algerians she fingered never took offense, but seemed delighted to discuss their religion and culture with two batty Americans. These conversations were among the best I ever had in that impenetrable city.
The last time I spoke to my mother, she was in a great mood, having recently gotten a call from Dr. Guttmann, who was scheduled to give her a colonoscopy. I remembered this doctor from an incident when I was twelve years old.
I had heard a frantic pounding on my bedroom door. Outside, Mom was clutching her throat and making terrible noises. I performed the Heimlich maneuver, named for Jewish surgeon Henry Heimlich. As it turned out, this was not necessary, because the pill was not completely obstructing her airway, but it was still a lot of fun. So was the ambulance ride to the hospital, where Dr. Guttmann intubated her.
I asked Mom if she had reminisced about this with him.
“No,” she said sternly. “When a doctor calls you back, his time is very limited.”
“Okay.”
“I did ask him if he was Jewish.”
“Of course.”
“He asked me, ‘Is that a good thing or a bad thing?’”
“And what did you say?”
“I said, ‘It’s a great thing! I’m Jewish, and so is my boyfriend Scott!’”
Guttmann was Jewish, too. Mom told him the double “n” at the end of his name had confused her. He said his parents had been Holocaust survivors, and the extra “n” may have been added as camouflage.
Before we hung up, Mom told me, “The best thing about being Jewish is that you don’t have to believe in God.”
Diderot coined the term “l’esprit d’escalier” or “staircase wit” to describe the phenomenon of coming up with the perfect reply only after the chance to deliver it is past. In Diderot’s day, that meant while descending the staircase that led out of the drawing room. In my case, it happens on the subway ride back to Brooklyn. I usually settle for publishing my tardy witticisms in print, but if you stay in New York long enough, certain conversations are bound to recur.
I was doing dishes at the public slop sink at my office. Suddenly, two maskless men in bad suits advanced upon me. They were coming from the direction of the vagacial salon down the hall, which also offers waxing and yoni steaming. (I’m not suggesting they were patronizing it; I just like using the word “vagacial.”)
“Excuse me,” they asked. “But are you Jewish?”
My heart leapt. I had been contemplating the question for a long time and believed I finally had the right answer. When I delivered my line, I tried to give it some of Mom and Grandma Bernice’s chutzpah.
“That’s none of your business!”
It hit them like Maccabee’s hammer. They backed away toward the vagacial salon, apologizing.
Emboldened, I yelled, “And you should be wearing masks!”
“Yes, yes!” they cried. “We’re sorry!”
I am not saying this is the most original or witty riposte, but it is true and it makes them go away. And what I really like is that it is such a Jewish thing to say, so they go away knowing they have lost a potential customer. I offer it here in the spirit of philanthropy for use by other New Yorkers. You don’t even need to credit me or send royalties. But if you can, you should probably call your mother.
Sarah Deming is the author of the novels Gravity and Iris, Messenger.
