S**T Gentiles say to Jews…

After one of my hissy fits over yet another moronic comment by a non-Jew, I decided it was time to sit down and write out ALL of the idiotic things I’ve heard over the years.  So, strap on your seat-belts, lean back, relax and enjoy:

– I hope you don’t take this personally, but if I ever need a blood transfusion I won’t be able to accept yours since you have Jewish blood, and I don’t want that.

– I know you are Jewish and all that, but you still celebrate Jesus’ Birthday, right?  After all, he was Jewish.  Did you know that?

– Do all Jews have a lot of money?

– You must know a cheap nail salon being Jewish and all! (nail, hair, you name it).

– Are you only allowed to date Jewish men?

– I know you are Jewish and all that, but you still celebrate Easter, right?  After all, it was YOUR people that killed him.

– Oh I know a lot about Jewish people, the Old Testament really isn’t that different from the Bible.

– You are Jewish? How cute! My step-Father’s Uncle was Jewish. But then he became a Christian.

– You are Jewish? Oh well, that’s OK. My neighbor is Jewish, he is a lawyer. His name has something like Stein or Wein or Berg in it. Do you know him?

– I just love how you people are so good with money!

– I’m so sorry that you won’t be going to Heaven. But its not too late, you can still be saved if you just accept Jesus Christ as your Savior! (I don’t even know what that means).

– I know you are Jewish and all that, but do you want to come to Church with me? They won’t get mad that I brought a Jew, I promise. Christians are very accepting people, they don’t judge (yeah right).

– When I said Jewish people are cheap, I meant it in a good way.  You people are very good with money!

– Do all Jewish people have to learn to speak Hebrew?

– Why don’t Jewish people recruit, like the Christians? I’ve never seen a Jew asking a non-Jew to come to Temple with him, why is that? (because we don’t want or need you)

– Do all Jewish men make great husbands?  You know because they are so good with money, and you never have to worry about it…

– Your Father must be rich!

– You must know of great deals for everything!

I would love to hear some of yours, so I can add it to the list.

 

Holiday Card Etiquette!

When you receive your first holiday card, you realize that you’re officially in the holiday season, or as I like to call it, “The Holiday card nightmare”.  As we enter the holidays, we also enter the awkward holiday greeting card etiquette.  The other day a long-time friend asked me if I get offended when people send me “Merry Christmas” cards, instead of the obvious Hanukkah cards.  Well – I replied, do you like getting “Happy Hanukkah” cards instead of “Merry Christmas” cards?  No need for explanation here…

If you don’t know someone well, I understand the general “Merry Christmas” statement, but if you know that person is anything but a Christian, why not order an extra set of plain “Happy Holiday” cards?  My friend’s reaction was, so am I supposed to order separate Hanukkah cards even though I don’t celebrate it?  No, I like getting the ones with Merry Christmas crossed out and Happy Hanukkah hand-written on them, right next to the baby Jesus and folk chanting: Our savior has been born, let’s rejoice!  But Happy Hanukkah anyway, you sad, sad Jew who’s missing out on all the saving and rejoicing that’s about to go on in here!

We (and by we, I mean the Jews) get that unless you live in Israel, are in the minority in this country and throughout the world, however that does not mean that all Gentiles have to completely ignore the fact that there are millions of people that don’t celebrate Christmas.  Anywhere you go its an automatic “Merry Christmas” greeting; from grocery stores to workplaces.  Do we (the Jews) go around saying “Happy Hanukkah” to strangers and store workers?  Can you imagine checking out at the local supermarket and just as you are about to leave announce: Happy Hanukkah to you and your family, may the spirit of Hanukkah light up your Menorah!  Actually, I have done that last week to a store clerk, just so I could beat her before the usual “Merry Christmas”.  You know the reaction I received?  A blank stare followed by an awkward “I am not Jewish” statement.  Doesn’t feel so good, store clerk, does it? Didn’t think so.

My parents on the other hand take a very different approach to all of this; they just accept and deal with it.  That’s their advice to me as well, just deal with it like all the Jews have dealt with it for thousands of years.  Then they proceed to remind me how we used to “deal” with it back home in Russia: walk home fast during the holidays, making sure that the Menorah you have wrapped in newspaper is tucked far enough into your coat that it doesn’t resemble anything “Jewish”, if anyone asks what you have under there simply reply with a “Oh, this?  It’s just a dead chicken I was able to find at the store on Minskaya and Leningradskaya street.  You might want to hurry, I heard they were about to run out of them!”  Then you proceed to distract the gentile with something as you reposition the Menorah and walk briskly towards home.  Usually the whole ‘they-are-selling-chickens’ routine gets people distracted enough to make them forget they might be talking to a Jew, since chicken was comparable to a diamond in those days.  Another way how the Jews have been so-called dealing with it, mainly in the former Soviet Union is to pretend they are not Jewish or have ever been one.  It’s a very common practice, which many families still participate in to this day…  Our family however did not, only for the simple fact that there was no getting around ‘looking Jewish’ as my Father put it.

As much as I appreciate my parents input on how to deal with the holidays, they very well know I am not the one to ‘just deal’ with anything.  My approach is more of a head-on-attack kind of way, which usually means pissing off a lot of neighbors, friends, strangers and parents in the schools that my kids belong to…  People seem to forget that World War 2 started because people chose to ignore, and deal with the way things were changing in Europe.  Even the Jews went along with what they were told to do by the Nazis, only because they were afraid to rock the boat, and in a way they didn’t want to think that something so awful would ever be allowed to happen to them.  But it did happen, and in a way because people ‘just went along’ with every change that was happening.  That’s part of the reason I refuse to go along with this whole ‘do as you are told, say Merry Christmas and blend in’ routine.  Sorry, but if you send me a Christmas card with baby Jesus on it, you bet I am sending back a Hanukkah card that may say something like this:

” Happy Hannukkah, let’s celebrate our people’s battle from oppression and genocide, after the Greek-Syrians destroyed our Temple for the second time, massacring thousands of Jews, desecrating the city’s holy Second Temple by erecting an altar to Zeus and sacrificing pigs within its sacred walls, making the Jewish people pray to the Greek Gods and outlawing Judaism.  But thanks to Judah Macabbee and his brave army of twelve little Jews (all proudly under 5 feet 4 inches), who drove the Greek army (of 1,000 mind you) and finally rebuild the Temple. Let’s celebrate the many failed attempts of trying to wipe out the whole species of Jews – 5772 years later, somehow we are still here!  Happy Hanukkah!  We are still here, Biatches!  Not going anywhere, so stop trying!”

Well, maybe I’d leave out the ‘biatches’ part, but either way you get the point.  So, to quote Adam Sandler: drink your ginatonica, and smoke your marijuanica, and have a happy, happy Hanukkah!

My evening at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences

I went to the Academy of Television’s event honoring the TV sitcom ‘Hot in Cleveland’.  They often have these events for up and coming shows, mainly as a panel Q and A and a celebrity host/moderator.  This time it was the legendary Larry King moderating, asking questions and what he would call “making the crowd laugh”.  Since retiring from his long career at CNN, Mr. King decided to start doing stand-up, which doesn’t mean him actually getting out of his chair and trying to balance without the help of his 25-year-old wife, I mean actually performing comedy.  Yes, Larry King is going on tour to make people laugh…  As much as I admire his journalistic career and his longevity in entertainment industry, I will not be in attendance.

Back to the ‘Hot in Cleveland’ event.  It was to start at 7:30 p.m., therefore in my typical obsessive, compulsive fashion I left Orange County at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and arrived precisely at 5 o’clock at the doors of the Academy.  Again, the event started at 7:30…  There are no assigned seating, its on a first-come-first-serve basis, and having been late to a similar event for “Friends” many years ago, which led to having to sit in the green room because they ran out of seats, I was determined to never let that happen again!

I am not sure if any of you had noticed, but yesterday was one the hottest days in Southern California in months, I believe it reached the 80’s.  Where am I going with this?  I am going to the part of me sitting on a beach towel on the sidewalk, waiting for the Academy to open the doors, shwitsing under the sun, as the camera crews mistake me for the hired help, asking me to get my ass off the Red Carpet because I was blocking their way as they set up for cast arrivals.

Right about now, my husband will be getting very upset if I don’t mention that he was right there next to me, shwitsing his ass off too.  Here you go, honey:  My husband was right there next to me shwitsing his ass off too!

Not long after, we were joined by another compulsive soul who was utterly disappointed that we had gotten there first.  Relax buddy, the theater holds a thousand people, I am sure you will get your seat.  As I started chatting to this man holding an assortment of Betty white memorabilia, he divulged to me that he has been coming to these events for years.  Assuming that he is in the entertainment industry, and obviously a member of the Television Academy I asked him what show he works on.  “Oh, I am in financing.  Not in this business at all”, he replied.  A little confused about how one could get in to these events without being a member or knowing a member in the industry, I inquired.  Apparently, people that run these events are so used to seeing him there all the time that they just let him in.  Hmm, I started pondering about how many people I could have brought in with me…

Once we were inside, and the show started we quickly realized that this guy was not just a “fan”.  Something about Jane Leeves’ face told me that this guy was borderline stalk-ish.  I had never seen anyone take more pictures of a single person in my life.  He never put down his camera, and it became creepy when I could see how close he was zooming in to her face, legs and body!  But that was the security’s problem, not mine.  As hard as I tried to concentrate on people speaking, I just couldn’t take my eyes off this lunatic and his camera.

The Q and A part of the event lasted about an hour with clips of the sitcom shown before the cast arrived.  Mr. King had some good questions for the creators of the show, which most of them Valerie Bertinelli volunteered to answer.  I didn’t realize she was as much of a talker as I am!  She had something to say about everyone and everything, repeatedly interrupting King and the others.  It was cute to a point, after which it got a bit annoying since everyone’s microphones were already set really low, and made it hard to hear the responses with her butting in.  It was a disappointment when King announced that he had to leave halfway through the show, and the President of TV Land, Larry Jones took over.  Although Jones tried to ask questions, and be funny (and I use the word ‘funny’ in the loosest way possible), it was mostly the cast chiming in about how much they love, love, love this show and how lucky lucky lucky they are, blah blah blah.

Fast forward to the best part of the show when all were asked if they had actually ever been to Cleveland, which in my opinion was the most relevant question of the night.  Bertinelli blurted out something about her new husband being from Cuyahoga Falls, which automatically makes her an expert on anything and everything Cleveland.

Suzanne Martin, one of the creators of the show brought up the fact that in the beginning they kept getting hate mail from people in Cleveland, and even the Cleveland Plain Dealer called her to find out if the show will ONLY be focusing on the negatives of Cleveland.  Her response was that its the complete opposite, they are making Cleveland to look like Heaven!  I am paraphrasing of course.  As much as I love the people of Cleveland, I am not sure that there are any positives to living there.  Is it the constant below zero temperatures, the snow, the lack of any decent sports team, the utter disrespect to the city by certain athletes that shall remain nameless in order to refrain from starting a riot, again?  Of course the people are much nicer than anywhere else in the country, they truly want to know how you are doing when they ask: “How are you doing?”.  That’s pretty unheard of  in California.  Sure people ask all the time how you are, but not one of them actually expects you to tell them how you really are, or bother to stop and hear the answer!  Its a form of saying “Hello” here in California; you say it and you move on.  I stopped answering that question many years ago, because as soon as they ask you, they have already checked out.  They are gone.  I’ll be standing there with my mouth open, ready to tell them how crappy my day has been, as they walk right past me.

back to the show.  In the past, once the Q and A portion of the show is over, typically the actors will stay and mingle with us regular folk, pose for pictures, sign autographs, etc.  Not in this case.  Security rushed all of them out of the theater faster than I could get out of my seat!  The only person we saw left on stage was Jon Lovitz, who by the way is a lot cuter in person and just as funny as he is on TV.  He was one of the only ones making people laugh all night, well him and Carl Reiner too.  But God knows who the hell Carl Reiner was talking to anyway, half the time he was answering other people’s questions, and telling stories that no one asked about.  Don’t get me wrong, he was absolutely hysterical and charming as ever, but at times I wondered if he and Betty White even knew where they were!  She took at least half a dozen naps during the event, only to be elbowed by Wendie Malick when the host asked her a question.

So, my point is I absolutely love the show “Hot in Cleveland”, it is much better this year than it was the first season, however I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the lack of meet and greet afterward.  Why was poor Lovitz the only putz out there taking pictures and signing autographs?  All of the actors should have to endure that pain!

Supermarket Memories…

Every time I’m at the Supermarket, I start to remember my very first trip to one just like it.  When you come to America from the former Soviet Union and enter ANY grocery store, you are bound to go into shock.  As I’ve written before, the shelves of U.S.S.R.’s grocery stores were usually empty so when you see rows and rows of food completely untouched, you wonder how its even possible!  I kept thinking why do Americans need five different brands of Raisin Bran?  Isn’t one enough?  Aren’t they all the same Raisins and Bran?  I didn’t know that they made different kinds of stool helper?  What my Mother wanted to know was why in the world anyone would want to mix milk and bran together?  According to our Jewish stomachs, that would put you in a “diarrhea coma” for at least 3 days!  Why would Americans want to do that to themselves?

My then 10-year-old brother wanted to know why Americans can’t share and ship some of that food over to Russia…  It only makes sense, I mean when shelves are never empty, doesn’t that mean there is plenty of it?  If you don’t need it, share it.  That’s the Communist way.

These days when I stand in front of a cereal isle, I still find myself pondering which cereal to get.  Too many choices, too many varieties…  I am not good with too many choices, but give me two items and I can pick one with no problem.  Other people seem to know what they want, I watch them go down the isle, grab a box and leave.  Me?  Well, you can usually find me still standing there fifteen minutes later.  I guess when you grow up without any options, when you are given whatever it is that the government thinks you need… its tough to make a decision.  And it doesn’t ONLY apply to cereal, everything in life that requires a choice between many options, I have a hard time with.  America is overflowing with tangible things, I don’t know how anyone can ever make a decision.  That’s why I usually send my husband to do grocery shopping because if I go there, I won’t be seen for many hours.  But, I am learning and getting faster at it.  Last week it only took me ten minutes to pick out bread!