While browsing online…

As I started the process of preparing for my son’s very UN-traditional Bar Mitzvah, browsing online for venues, DJ’s, catering and various other elements I came across this gem for Wyndham Hotel

Bar And Bat Mitzvah Planning
Without All The Schvitzing…

With your child’s 13th birthday quickly approaching, it’s time to plan his or her bar or bat mitzvah. And with all of the important preparations for the actual ceremony, the process of planning a party on top of it all is the furthest thing from your mind. Where should the reception be held? How do you decide on the proper menu? What about decorations? Games? Entertainment? Do the countless details have you screaming “Oy ve”? Surely, the fact that your child is about to turn into an official teenager is stress enough in itself! Let Wyndham Hotels and Resorts put an end to all the “schvitzing and kvetching.” Our experienced staff will help you select the best facility, arrange for kosher catering, and book rooms for your out-of-town guests. With Wyndham by your side every step of the way, they’ll be plenty of reasons to dance the “Horah” at your child’s “coming-of-age” celebration, including:

Bar Mitzvahs

Looking for great party ideas for boys, but not getting any guidance from your son? Themes are a great way to ensure a memorable evening. Set the action and excitement in motion around sports, embark on an out-of-this world Star Wars adventure, or light up the party with a video-game extravaganza. Or host a traditional celebration, where the colorful personalities on your guest list are just about all the entertainment you need. Having your festivities at Wyndham ensures the best of both worlds – a spectacular and special celebration for your son, and smooth and easy planning for you.

Bat Mitzvahs

Does your daughter already have fanciful ideas for her dream bat mitzvah picked out? If not, host it with the creative style and flair of her favorite movie, simulate an around-the-world vacation, or make it glitz-and-glamour night. Let our caring staff fashion the perfect tribute to your not-so-little girl. With Wyndham’s help, your daughter will wish she could have a bat mitzvah every year!

Discover just how easy it is to plan and host your next bar or bat mitzvah – with Wyndham as your experienced guide. Use our online request form to tell us exactly what you need, and we’ll make it happen. It’s that simple!

And this is what I wrote in their ‘Contact Us for more information’ page:

Dear Morons, a.k.a. Wyndham Representatives:

While looking for a venue for my son’s upcoming not-so-taditional Bar Mitzvah, I happen to come upon this brilliant website. At first I thought it was a joke, but quickly realized that this was a very real Wyndham hotels webpage.

Here are some tips if you do in fact hope to get ANY Jews to hold their Bar or Bat Mitzvah at your hotels:

1. Oye Vay is spelled Oye Vay, NOT Oy Ve.
2. When trying to appeal to the Jewish population, it helps NOT to put every Yiddish phrase in “quotes”, as you eloquently do so in the whole “Religious Events” page.
For some strange reason, when seeing quotes around the words Horah, coming of age celebration, kvetching and shvitsing it almost seems as if you are laughing as you write it. But that couldn’t be, right? You would never make fun of the Jews, could you?
3. The use of the above mentioned words, along with other Yiddish phrases are strictly given to Jews only! But you already knew that, right? I am sure the webmaster is a Jew therefore gives him every right to use such rhetorical and condescending language.
4. When trying to get on the good side of the Jewish population by inviting them to hold their sacred, religious events at your hotels, it really helps to make fun of their whole culture and religious events! That will bring them out by the masses to your venue, I guarantee it.
5. Whichever Moron wrote and put together your website, and I am sure it wasn’t just one, I’d like to congratulate him or her because you just made my day!

Way to go, Idiots!

Sincerely,

Julia Bendis

And to read more, please visit my website at: easternblocklox.wordpress.com or
http://www.jewishjournal.com/chaim

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!

Overcoming my homesickness…

This morning was a bit of a somber morning for me…  Our six-grader headed out to a four-day overnight Science camp today!  I have to emphasize the OVERNIGHT part since it was the only thing I heard when first learning about this little adventure, which might as well had said a six-month-overnight-camp.  It all sounds the same to me, because all I hear is: my child will be without his Mommy!  It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t called me that in years, I still think of him as a three-year-old.  Surely, I am not the only Mother (or the last one) to worry about her child going away for days at a time, however I suspect I might be in the minority when it comes to everything else I did prior to his departure…

That would include:

– packing eight pairs of underwear and socks instead of the recommended four, as specifically stated in the camp flyer

– packing four pairs of pants instead of the recommended two, again as specifically stated in the camp flyer

– packing enough toothpaste to last him til next year instead of the recommended one-trial-sized-tube

– packing shampoo and conditioner to last at least two weeks because it was listed under the “optional items” section

– packing four pairs of pants instead of the recommended two

– packing eight shirts instead of the recommended four

– and of course packing enough snacks for the long 30-minute ride to the camp completely ignoring the section marked “what NOT to pack”, because like a good Jewish Mother I never let my kids leave the house with a little something to nosh on “just in case”.

The last few days leading up to today I kept thinking how much my son will be homesick, and me not being there to comfort him.  The more I thought about that, the more I started to notice that it doesn’t seem to phase him one bit that he will be gone for a whole four days!  All he cared about was getting his friends into the same cabin, and whether or not he can try sneaking in his iPod…  Every night I snuggled next to him telling him not to worry, that he will have a great time and to call me for any reason, no matter how small it may be.  And every night AFTER that I would overhear him telling his brother to be good and “distract Mom as much as possible because she will be a total mess!”  Nice.

When we finally dropped him off at school this morning, I quietly told my son that I love him and that I might cry a little bit when he goes.  He turned to me and with a straight face replied: “I know you love me Mom.  It’s OK, you can cry.  Just go do it over there somewhere, not too close OK?”

Not much more I can say after that, except for: looks like I’m the one with the homesickness problem, not my child.