This is a true story, though some details may have been altered or omitted for brevity and effect.
While shopping near my home, I found myself in a checkout line with a neighbour from my condo to whom I had never spoken. I engaged her in some small talk with topical whimsy. Her attempts to reciprocate were less captivating but I mentally awarded her points for effort. We shared a brief lament about the customer ahead of us who regretfully did not possess the necessary mathematical skill required to use the express lane. Some emotions were mirthfully articulated, and some superficial, yet revealing viewpoints were exchanged. My innate gift to quickly bond with others evidently created a sufficient sense of familiarity that emboldened her to ask a more personal question. “What are you?”. She said. Based on some very brief context, I responded trepidatiously…
“Well, I am many things, but I believe the answer you are looking for is Jewish.”
For one brief panicked moment, I thought I may have misread the situation, until she came alive with enthusiasm, proclaiming…
“Oh, I knew it! I so like the Jewish people…”
My comedic knee-jerk was “Yes. Me too. Some of my best relatives are Jewish!” But I couldn’t help feeling there had been more to the sentence that she intentionally withheld, like “… no matter what grandma says!”, to cite just one example.
She chuckled and added “See? That’s what I mean. THEY have such a great sense of humour.”
Now, as my mind reviewed scenarios of inviting her to some imaginary Jew party full of ex-girlfriends and some of my more distasteful Hebrew school alumni, I found myself far more amused than offended by her virtually anachronistic candor.
I should preface this by saying that this woman, in addition to being closer to twilight than say, late afternoon, was also rather white. I say “White”, not merely of her skin tone, but of various indicators of thoroughbred whiteness. Not ‘second generation European immigrant’ white. More like “Blue blazer-family crest-Equestrian Sundays-daily afternoon whiskey” white. I would say “Anglo-Saxon”, but she may just as well have been Catholic, or Presbyterian… I wouldn’t know. Those people all look the same to me.
The important thing is that she was pleasant and seemed sincere in her desire to convey that she found me to be an agreeable young (if only comparably) gentleman, and that this was the only criteria on which she judged people.
In other words, she was enlightened enough to care no more about my ancestors being Jesus-killing, horn-bearing, money-grubbing, disease-spreading vermin who invented the Holocaust, stole Palestine, and planned 9/11, than I did of her antecedents likely owning slaves, and despoiling land from natives, whose children they sent off and secretly buried behind schoolyards across the country. I mean, nobody’s perfect, right?
Instead, as I helped her transport her groceries across the street (Jews call this a “mitzvah”. Look it up.), and somehow heard (perhaps only in my head) a gospel rendition of “Put Your Hand in the Hand of the man…” there arose an unspoken understanding. In just this one brief, isolated interaction, we two virtual strangers from different worlds (but ironically the same building) had unexpectedly created a platform for peace. A template of forgiveness for the transgressions of our forefathers.
And as I bade her adieu, I wondered if a hug would be inappropriate, or if the touch of my skin might just awaken memories of the lampshade in her childhood home. I’m not proud of that thought but hey… Rome wasn’t built in a day.
“Those people all look the same to me” LOL.