"You don't need to get so nasty," I replied. "That's not nasty," she bellowed, "this is New Jersey!" Always the gentleman, I told her to have a nice day. I love this state.
There's more. There's always more.
This pleasant encounter was more complicated than you'd think. Her reference to me as "you" (as in "you people") was an anti-semitic swipe at the wealthy Syrian Jews, who have bought all the beach front properties for miles around here, including privatizing and closing off the very beach we were standing on in Loch Arbor. In essence, her deceptively simple outburst was the coded resentment of class and race. The nice white American lady mistook me for a carpet bagging Syrian (Sephardic) Jew from Brooklyn, whereas I am merely an Ashkenazi Jew from Eastern Europe. Wow, if she had known that, she might have come up with a better slur--uh, I don't know, bagel vendor, sheenie, kike, all of which I've been called in my own hometown. Thank יהוה that I now have Gem Gem to protect me.
There's more. There's always more.
This pleasant encounter was more complicated than you'd think. Her reference to me as "you" (as in "you people") was an anti-semitic swipe at the wealthy Syrian Jews, who have bought all the beach front properties for miles around here, including privatizing and closing off the very beach we were standing on in Loch Arbor. In essence, her deceptively simple outburst was the coded resentment of class and race. The nice white American lady mistook me for a carpet bagging Syrian (Sephardic) Jew from Brooklyn, whereas I am merely an Ashkenazi Jew from Eastern Europe. Wow, if she had known that, she might have come up with a better slur--uh, I don't know, bagel vendor, sheenie, kike, all of which I've been called in my own hometown. Thank יהוה that I now have Gem Gem to protect me.
