Entry 6:

Hello, for the last time (in this forum at least, I'll track you down at Adas next month).

Yes, I love that Hadassah moment. After watching the speeches, I was thinking how they'd kept the Jewiness to a minimum, no chutzpah jokes, no God, and very little Holocaust. But then our mutual friend David Segal pointed out one fact I'd overlooked. I quote David's message to me in full: "Am I alone in thinking that Lieberman should not have introduced his mother at his speech last night? Do Jewish stereotypes get any more blatant? Why not just wave a piece of matzo around and yell, 'Hey, I'm Matzo Joe!' "

Another thing to note about the speech: You know how, whenever they mention some policy matter, the cameramen have to scan the audience for the right ethnic/gender/age representative? (i.e., line about Social Security, find the old guy; Vietnam, find the vet; affirmative action, black lady.) Well, this time they were scanning desperately for the Jews. But you can't ever really know, right? So, at least on the station I was watching (NBC, I think), they wound up settling for all the slightly odd-looking types: a dark-haired lady in a batty-looking hat; gawky teen-age girls with gleaming braces; bald, sweaty, fat guys. Basically, the un-Gores, and then of course that poor redhead with a kippa who ended up on camera this week 500 times (good thing he's not a nose-picker).

Well, after reading you and Jonathan Rosen, I think I've decided this is a good book set in slightly the wrong context. Maybe the story line to pull out was not Jewish civil war, but the resurgence of American orthodoxy. Then the stories about Cleveland or about the Yale 5 could have been juxtaposed with other stories about the rise of fundamentalism, say, the new generation of young Muslim women wearing the hijab, a Muslim town where the new radicalized types move in and demand the mosque install separate entrances for men and women, etc. But I suppose, practically speaking, Jews buy more books.  

Now for the hard part. You didn't really put your tuchus out there, since you never answered the question. You basically said you'd frown paternally either way. For purely selfish reasons, I think I'd prefer a Christian. Of course, it depends on the Hasid. Anyone who marries my son or daughter has to be relatively open-minded. But for the most part, I would feel like a stranger in their midst. I can't even imagine the number of faux pas I'd commit, reaching to give him a big fat mother-in-law kiss (oops), offering to give them a ride to the synagogue (oops), bringing over some homemade ham strudel (oops). On the other hand, having the grandkids come sing Christmas carols under my window. Oy!

Let's pre-empt this problem. In a few years, I will introduce my (soon-to-be-born) child of as-yet-unknown sex to your child of the opposite sex, and we will casually seat them next to each other at the day school and see what happens ...

Hanna