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Oy, Enough With the Jew Jokes Already!
By Ashley Tedesco / April 7, 2009
When I decided to embrace my Jewish roots, however short and stubby, I had no hesitation. My mother always said, "Just wait to see who you marry first!" as though my love life – or lack thereof - should have some bearing on my cultural and spiritual identity, but I understood it was a personal decision. And I made it on my own.
Maybe it was naïveté, but I never saw flares of anti-Semitism or prejudice when I spent time with my Jewish friends as a child. Even as an adult, I should probably count myself lucky to have never witnessed a malicious attack on Jewish beliefs or practices.
But there is one thing I have noticed: the more openly I’ve embraced Judaism, the more my friends think it’s okay to tease me about it. Yell Jewish-sounding words when I’m in the room – that’s hilarious. There’s nothing like a well-placed "Challah" to win a crowd over. I wrote before about mean-spirited ignorance, but I’ve also faced the obstacle of an over-abundance of seemingly charming and repetitively irritating Jew jokes.
I don’t mind when people say, "Ashley, you’re Jewish-what’s the deal with keeping kosher," even though I haven’t adopted all the laws of kashrut. I have no problem sharing my knowledge, as I continue to learn, with people less versed in Jewish culture or practice. It’s another thing entirely, however, when a person plays up his or her ignorance as a means to a laugh or some other sort of attention.
When I affixed my mezuzah to the door of my dorm room, I shuddered slightly at the thought of my non-Jewish friends (and hell, even some of my Jewish friends) giving me a hard time. It went up on Friday and it took only four days for a friend to walk up, touch it, and say in a silly voice, "ooh look, I’m Jewish now." Even though ninety seconds prior, I’d been scolded for alluding to an ongoing joke – "Come on, it’s old, it’s been a year and a half," he said. How do you think it feels when there’s no set time limit? How long until the Jew jokes are officially dubbed "old?"
Listening to people mock Hebrew’s guttural sounds, hearing them interject random words like"matzo" and "latke" into conversation because they think it’s funny, watching them assume I’ll only find a guy attractive if he’s sporting a kippah, and hearing them make jokes sprung from sheer ignorance has worn thin.
I am proud to be a Jew, and I’m prouder to be a Jew by choice. I sincerely hope I never become a person who tucks her Star of David away to avoid being thought of differently. I have no problem asserting myself as a young Jewish woman, affixing my mezuzah to my door, stacking ever higher my collection of books about Judaism for all to see, or engaging in long conversations about Jewish beliefs, culture, or upcoming holidays. I am not ashamed to be Jewish.
But seriously – Oy with the Jew jokes already! I won’t cast a net of judgment upon your choices if I’m allowed to get through a day without beingthe token Jew to cast jokes upon "all in good fun." Because eventually, the "good fun" fades and all that remains is bitterness and ignorance.
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(sigh)
I agree with you about 1 million percent when you express exasperation at the "What are you now, SuperJew?" question.
In my experience that usually comes from lazy people who think -they- are the "SuperJew," ostensibly because they were born Jewish. In my opinion that is a racist point of view.
First, I would have answered "No, I’m the woman who can kick your a**."Â And secondly I’d invite him to file a complaint with his rabbi.Â
Oh wait, that’s right…he secular and doesn’t have a rabbi.
You’re in the right. Don’t take crap from anyone.Â
Cheers :)
Erik
I too am a Jew by Choice, quite recently in fact, and I’ve noticed that some of my insensitive friends (or sometimes a friends paramour) thinks that now the joke season has begun. One friend’s boyfriend is particularly obnoxious, he keeps saying things like "now that you’re a JAP…" or talking about how un-endowed my Jew by Birth boyfriend must be (I’m sorry, isn’t that actually the opposite of the stereotype??). I usually give him the silent treatment when he starts up.
The other most annoying person is my BF’s secular Jewish brother; at certain holidays when my BF (the only really observant one in the family) and I say "Oh hey, we left this out" he kind of scoffs and says "Who are you now, SuperJew?" This is doubly annoying and insulting because A) If you are celebrating the holidays, even just for traditions sake and not for any spiritual experience, please be respectful of *all* the traditions, esp ones that are important to others at the table, and B) YOU’RE AN EFFING JEW TOO!
What is a Jew? What is an Irish? What is a Filipino? What is a Chinese?- and the answer is?…A human being.
It is easy for me this atheist, this evolutionist, this humanist to simply ignore any and all racial classifications entirely. Do I ignore racial characteristics though? No. Do I accept the fact that each racial group has evolved unique character traits? Yes. Abilities? Yes. Weaknesses? Yes. Heck, we human beings have bred dogs for years with every trait and characteristic imaginable. Yet, how do we classify dogs?…As dogs.
Racists live in a world of classification, where the weight of strengths and weaknesses enforce their ideological view of themselves and others. We humans create the eggshells that others must walk on, by allowing classification of ourselves within our species.
Get it?..Don’t look at yourselves as Jews, but rather as human beings on this earth participating in the Jewish experience or whatever experience you desire.
I am not Jewish and I know practically nothing about the Jewish experience. I do know what it is to be a human being though.
Jaleyah..When you can take this statement "They tried to JEW me out of it." and not see the word JEW as a noun, you will understand what I mean.
Dude you got JEWD.
They triend to JEW me down.
                or
They tried to JEW me out of it.
 I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say that.  Even co workers, with no shame. They all know I’m jewish.
I’m like "Really?" How does someone JEW you out of something? Why is it JEW’s fault that you’re a simple mind?
I remember when I lived in upstate NY and was big into trick biking, this one kid called me the flying Heeb and this other kid on my behalf beat the kid up – not only was I not offended I found the name endearing, needless to say some of my non-Jewish friends didn’t.
At least teach your friends some real Jewish stuff besides for the traditional – I used to teach my non-Jewish friends all sorts of shock value phrases they could say to an orthodox Jew if they ever met one.Â
I’m not a Jew by choice (although I might argue that in the US, any Jew is a Jew by choice) but all I can say is… get used to it. There are several standard tactics to respond:
1) Ignore them and blow them off.
2) Change the subject to something they are bad at.
3) Actually know enought to respond to everything. Â
I cannot expect if you adopt method three to get them to stop, but it’s a great learning aid to use their comments as a source of questions.
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