“Jewish is in,” someone told me the other day.
“Jewish is in?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Jewish is in. Because of Lieberman, Jewish is in.”
And I wondered whether that meant that after all these years of trying to be a cool trendsetter — the standard by which other people judge themselves — did that mean that I, too, was in? I’m Jewish.
No, that’s not what she meant. She meant that if she plastered the word “Jewish” all over her press releases that newspapers were more likely to take notice. But she’s a public relations person and that’s how they think. Always looking for an angle to grab an editor’s attention.
But maybe she was on to something. Did Joseph Lieberman’s vice presidential nomination mean that after 4,000 years, Jews were now mainstream?
“It really scares me,” my friend Joan said when I asked her what she thought about Lieberman. “I’m afraid it will bring out a lot of anti-Semitism and that will make me really depressed.”
I know that fear. It’s born of insecurity, the suspicion that although we think we’re part of society, others see us as outsiders, as not really belonging. It comes from the off-hand remark made by someone you least expect it from, about Jews being cheap or having big noses. Comments that people try to excuse with “but you’re not like that” or “you don’t look Jewish.”
It made me think about a guy who once asked me out. When he found out I was Jewish, he asked about the Jewish conspiracy. I told him there was no such thing. He told me yes, there was, and that it was only a matter of time before my parents gave me the details. And on the night of our date, he stood me up.
Yes, anti-Semitism is depressing and it’s scary. What if Lieberman costs Al Gore votes? What if Gore loses, will the Jews be blamed?
And what about the director of the Dallas chapter of the NAACP, who said Lieberman was a bad choice because Jews only care about money? But he got fired and other African-American leaders talked about the bond between Jews and blacks. About how we were beaten together and went to jail together during the civil rights movement.
I don’t expect that synagogues will be flooded with people asking to convert any time soon. That’s not what Judaism is about anyway, but maybe there is something to this Jewish-is-in idea. Imagine little girls wanting to grow up to be just like Hadassah Lieberman. Could gefilte fish become the pâté of the 21st century? Instead of chocolate chip cookies, maybe Tipper and Hadassah will have a potato latke bake-off.
It’s possible. Already the words “chutzpah” and “mensch” have made the front page of several major papers. Maybe “plotz” and “tsuris” will be next. Maybe Yiddish words for which there is no English equivalent will become part of the American lexicon. And Lieberman is bringing Jewish humor to what would have been an otherwise boring campaign. Like his proposed campaign slogans “With malice toward none but a little guilt for everyone,” or “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your mother.”
I wonder, when Gore asked Lieberman to share the Democratic ticket with him, if Lieberman responded in traditional Hebonics and questioned Gore back with, “So…do you really want me to?”
Already several people have asked me what it meant when Gore referred to himself as Lieberman’s “Shabbos goy” or how Lieberman can observe the Sabbath and still be the vice president. For once, I was in the know. I had the answers and figured it was a good opportunity to educate people a little bit about Judaism.
And maybe in a year from now, if Gore and Lieberman are elected, no one will have to explain why requiring Jewish students to take a test or play in a football game on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur isn’t kosher.
Nominating a Jewish man for veep is a bold move, a first step toward breaking the barrier for a Jewish president or a black president, or an Asian, Latino, gay or female president. And then maybe, someday, religion, skin color or sexual orientation won’t be issues. It could happen.
Oy, I’m ferklempt.