Published: 17 December 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
So here we are. It’s taken less time than a bowl of soup in the office microwave and already I am faced with a question that will disclose my Jewishness. I could answer (honestly) that I am not fluent in any other language. Or I could mention that I’ve been learning Spanish and leave it at that.
But a fuller answer – some Spanish and some Hebrew – will inevitably lead to a question about being Jewish and quite likely an extended conversation about heritage/belief/culture while my soup cools.
This always seems to happen to me. I’ll be talking to an acquaintance at the gym about preferred forms of exercise and I’ll mention Israeli dancing. Or someone on a trip will ask in what countries I have spent most time. Or there will be a parental conversation about schools or gap years. Or…
If I wanted to do so, I could avoid saying I’m Jewish in most of these conversations, at least in theory. I tried it once, as an experiment. I lasted almost two weeks before something slipped. I am a forthright person with a preference for transparency and I suspect there’s a subconscious desire to be wholly myself that pushes it to the fore. You don’t know me until you know I’m Jewish.
I’ve been asking around, wondering if other Jews are as open as I am. I haven’t found anyone who will admit to deliberately hiding it but there are certainly some with a degree of caution.
A friend in the corporate world says she holds off for as long as possible because being Jewish makes her stand out. “It means I’m ‘other’ and then that’s what they remember about me,” she said.
A man tells me he is hesitant because he has noticed that saying he is Jewish derails a conversation. Whatever the topic, the interlocutor’s curiosity or opinion about something connected to Jewishness always seems to trump it.
Every time I mention I’m Jewish, I figure there’s somebody who has just learned that this ordinary acquaintance is also what is meant by the word “Jew”. I believe that’s a good thing.
There is also concern that the Israel-Arab conflict could creep into relationships. A lawyer who works in a suburb with a high Arab population tells me she avoids letting clients know she is Jewish for fear they might carry negative associations.
A uni student returned from gap year chooses not to wear a Hebrew hoodie on campus because of hostility to Israel. Some say they would have disclosed Jewishness to my colleague had she said she spoke Mandarin or Russian, but not when she said she spoke Arabic.
Others see their Jewishness as a private matter: religion is like sex, there’s nothing wrong with it but you don’t talk about it in polite company. Such circumspection is common among older Anglo Jews: as a young child I embarrassed my mother in the post office by loudly asking strangers if they were Jewish.
That’s why my generation is filled with Davids and Deborahs, names that nod to heritage without exposing it. Of course, if your family name is Cohen or Isaacs, a neutral given name won’t prevent you wearing your identity on your sleeve. But as multiculturalism has made non-Anglo names more usual, plenty of Jewish parents have chosen less commonplace Hebrew names that beg the question, “What kind of name is that?”
Looks are suggestive but unreliable. When I put this question on a Jewish Facebook group page, several frum English women said they had been mistaken for Muslims because of their modest dress. I’ve been cast as Greek or Italian by some, while others claim they “knew instantly” I was Jewish.
On the other hand, a black Jew with an Anglo name wears a Star of David necklace because she is sick of the reverse: the assumption that she is not Jewish because she “doesn’t look it”. Religious Jews who used to wear a hat or cap (and sometimes just go bareheaded in professional settings) are now more likely to wear a kippah in plain sight and plenty of people wear definitively Jewish jewellery.
The more observant you are, the more likely Jewishness will come up. Avoiding the pork when the office goes out for yum cha and ducking Friday night drinks because you have to get home for Shabbat dinner soon gives the game away.
At this time of the year, Christmas is impossible to avoid – though even I have been known to skirt the question rather than engage in conversation about comparative religion with a shop assistant.
Jewish reference points also make their way into serious conversations. There’s a limit to how long some of us can talk about history, literature or international relations before a Holocaust survivor grandparent, a Biblical reference or an Israeli perspective distinguishes us.
As Jews we are members of a very small minority and have often suffered from the ignorance of others. Every time I mention I’m Jewish, I figure there’s somebody who has just learned that this ordinary acquaintance is also what is meant by the word “Jew”. I believe that’s a good thing.
Illustration: John Kron
