How do you find Jews in conversation?


Aish HaTorah
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I find Jews to be...  

7 members have voted

  1. 1. When you speak with Jews, how do you find them?

    • Intimidating?
      1
    • Scary?
      1
    • Aproachable?
      5
    • Aloof?
      3
    • Crazy?
      2
    • Unreasonable?
      2
    • Friendly?
      1
    • Open?
      1
    • Considerate?
      1
    • Crazy?
      0


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A few LDS people have asked me various questions regarding our view of Mormons and whether or not we find them offensive or disrespectful.  I am wondering what you think.  Do you know any Jewish people or have any Jewish friends?  Do you like gefilte fish?  (Sorry, couldn't resist throwing that one in.  ;))

I would love to hear your thoughts.  Thank you, and shalom!

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Not sure why I listed crazy twice in the poll haha.  Perhaps this is how I see myself when I have a conversation with myself.

Reminds me of a joke:  Q. How many old Jewish women does it take to change a light bulb?  A. Never mind, I'll just sit here in the dark.  *sigh*

I am not old, nor am I a woman, but I am Jewish.  I think you get the idea.

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I started in a physics graduate program at Penn State in 1990. In our year, there was a young woman who was a Jew and a very quiet young Jewish couple from an eastern European country. (Needless to say, everyone in the program had a stratospheric IQ. I felt like the class dunce. It was a humbling experience.)

The young woman was brash and outspoken. When she found out I was a Mormon, she started talking about how the Washington DC LDS temple looked like the Wicked Witch's castle in The Wizard of Oz and how she used to laugh at the Angel Macaroni.

Uh...okay. Whatever.

The quiet couple was a different story entirely. We worked in the same lab and took many classes together. They were always polite to me, and I imagined we had a sort of friendship going. Then one day they were very cold to me, obviously so. I couldn't figure it out. Finally I approached them and asked them if I had somehow offended them. They replied, "We don't like it that you're ashamed of who you are." I had no idea what on earth they were talking about, and told them so. They told me to quit pretending. I said, "I honestly don't know what you're talking about." They said, "You're Jewish, but you're too ashamed to admit it." Astonished, I told them that I might have Jewish blood, but that my genealogy had been done back for centuries, and so far as I knew, I was not Jewish, though I would be happy to be proven wrong.

Now I work with a Jewish man, a trainer for our company. He's a gregarious, friendly guy, self-deprecating, maybe a touch neurotic in a Woody Allen sense. Completely, even outspokenly, areligious, but his heritage is important to him. He does not wear a yarmulke, but he makes no attempt to hide his Jewish ancestry. He loves his wife, which makes me like him.

Edited by Vort
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3 hours ago, Vort said:

 

The quiet couple was a different story entirely. We worked in the same lab and took many classes together. They were always polite to me, and I imagined we had a sort of friendship going. Then one day they were very cold to me, obviously so. I couldn't figure it out. Finally I approached them and asked them if I had somehow offended them. They replied, "We don't like it that you're ashamed of who you are." I had no idea what on earth they were talking about, and told them so. They told me to quit pretending. I said, "I honestly don't know what you're talking about." They said, "You're Jewish, but you're too ashamed to admit it." Astonished, I told them that I might have Jewish blood, but that my genealogy had been done back for centuries, and so far as I knew, I was not Jewish, though I would be happy to be proven wrong.

 

What did they say when you responded thusly?

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4 hours ago, Vort said:

I started in a physics graduate program at Penn State in 1990. In our year, there was a young woman who was a Jew and a very quiet young Jewish couple from an eastern European country. (Needless to say, everyone in the program had a stratospheric IQ. I felt like the class dunce. It was a humbling experience.)

The young woman was brash and outspoken. When she found out I was a Mormon, she started talking about how the Washington DC LDS temple looked like the Wicked Witch's castle in The Wizard of Oz and how she used to laugh at the Angel Macaroni.

Uh...okay. Whatever.

The quiet couple was a different story entirely. We worked in the same lab and took many classes together. They were always polite to me, and I imagined we had a sort of friendship going. Then one day they were very cold to me, obviously so. I couldn't figure it out. Finally I approached them and asked them if I had somehow offended them. They replied, "We don't like it that you're ashamed of who you are." I had no idea what on earth they were talking about, and told them so. They told me to quit pretending. I said, "I honestly don't know what you're talking about." They said, "You're Jewish, but you're too ashamed to admit it." Astonished, I told them that I might have Jewish blood, but that my genealogy had been done back for centuries, and so far as I knew, I was not Jewish, though I would be happy to be proven wrong.

Now I work with a Jewish man, a trainer for our company. He's a gregarious, friendly guy, self-deprecating, maybe a touch neurotic in a Woody Allen sense. Completely, even outspokenly, areligious, but his heritage is important to him. He does not wear a yarmulke, but he makes no attempt to hide his Jewish ancestry. He loves his wife, which makes me like him.

Sounds as though you truly met some winners!  I am so sorry that they treated you with such disdain.  I am not surprised, however.  Sadly, many of my faith tend to act in just such a way to most goyim.  I hope that your experience changes with future encounters.  G-d bless, my friend.

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22 minutes ago, Aish HaTorah said:

Sounds as though you truly met some winners!  I am so sorry that they treated you with such disdain.  I am not surprised, however.  Sadly, many of my faith tend to act in just such a way to most goyim.  I hope that your experience changes with future encounters.  G-d bless, my friend.

Thank you. To be fair, only the young lady was disdainful, and I'm not sure even she was trying to be. She was rather pretty and extremely intelligent, and got a lot of attention for both those things, especially in a field with almost no women -- as far as I remember, the only other woman in the entire department, professor or student, was the wife in the eastern European student couple I mentioned. Bluntly put, the young woman was quite immature, and with a naturally loud and boisterous personality, that made for an interesting result. I expect she was just trying to show off how clever and funny she was, not intentionally insult me. (Though I don't know that it would have made a difference to her had she known she was being offensive.)

The couple thought that I was trying to "hide" my supposed Jewishness, so they really weren't treating me with disdain because I was a goy, but because (in their minds) I wasn't a goy. That was a just plain weird, uncomfortable experience, though a really interesting one which I'm actually kind of glad I had.

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38 minutes ago, beefche said:

What did they say when you responded thusly?

It was really interesting. The response I wrote above was a sort of summary of what actually followed. I asked them how they knew I was a Jew. They looked at me sideways, as if to say "you know perfectly well how we know", and said that Jews can just tell other Jews. They can identify each other by sight. It's an obvious thing.

Now, I have noticed throughout my life that some people just "look", I don't know, non-alien. Not necessarily friendly, but many people look "other". I'm not talking about race, because I had often noticed it in white people. (I didn't really grow up with exposure to many minorities.) The "alien" faces seemed somewhat wider, larger lips, I don't know. Just somehow "other" to my young mind. As I grew into maturity, I figured it was just that I found it more comfortable to look at people who looked like my own family, or perhaps who looked like Hollywood actors, those being the two groups of faces I was most familiar with. So when the Jewish couple said this to me, I immediately wondered if, just maybe, they were right (about me being Jewish, not about me being ashamed). It's like one of those ancient Recognition stories from Greece or Rome or early Christianity: my people recognize me and I recognize them!

So I had these rather romantic thoughts, not really well-formed, just sort of nebulous and floating around there, making me anxious but excited. I tried exploring this a bit more with them, but they eventually sort of clammed up. I eventually left the program for bioengineering, so I have no idea what ever became of them. I'm still rather enamored of the idea that I have Jewish blood and "my people and I" can sense each other, but that's just a silly, fun fantasy for now. Maybe I will survive long enough for genetic analysis to reach the point that we can actually identify ancestral subgroups of the Hebrews, and I can find out how much Jewish blood (or other blood) I actually carry. That would be cool.

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55 minutes ago, Aish HaTorah said:

May I please ask, what is a "beefche?"

"Beef" is part of my maiden name and "che" is a Bulgarian diminutive. My father is Bulgarian and I spent 18 months in Bulgaria for my missionary service for the LDS church. I embrace my Bulgarian heritage and love to celebrate it in any way that I can.

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9 minutes ago, beefche said:

"Beef" is part of my maiden name and "che" is a Bulgarian diminutive. My father is Bulgarian and I spent 18 months in Bulgaria for my missionary service for the LDS church. I embrace my Bulgarian heritage and love to celebrate it in any way that I can.

Ok, whew!  I thought it was short for "beef and cheese."  Not kosher.  :D

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39 minutes ago, Vort said:

It was really interesting. The response I wrote above was a sort of summary of what actually followed. I asked them how they knew I was a Jew. They looked at me sideways, as if to say "you know perfectly well how we know", and said that Jews can just tell other Jews. They can identify each other by sight. It's an obvious thing.

Now, I have noticed throughout my life that some people just "look", I don't know, non-alien. Not necessarily friendly, but many people look "other". I'm not talking about race, because I had often noticed it in white people. (I didn't really grow up with exposure to many minorities.) The "alien" faces seemed somewhat wider, larger lips, I don't know. Just somehow "other" to my young mind. As I grew into maturity, I figured it was just that I found it more comfortable to look at people who looked like my own family, or perhaps who looked like Hollywood actors, those being the two groups of faces I was most familiar with. So when the Jewish couple said this to me, I immediately wondered if, just maybe, they were right (about me being Jewish, not about me being ashamed). It's like one of those ancient Recognition stories from Greece or Rome or early Christianity: my people recognize me and I recognize them!

So I had these rather romantic thoughts, not really well-formed, just sort of nebulous and floating around there, making me anxious but excited. I tried exploring this a bit more with them, but they eventually sort of clammed up. I eventually left the program for bioengineering, so I have no idea what ever became of them. I'm still rather enamored of the idea that I have Jewish blood and "my people and I" can sense each other, but that's just a silly, fun fantasy for now. Maybe I will survive long enough for genetic analysis to reach the point that we can actually identify ancestral subgroups of the Hebrews, and I can find out how much Jewish blood (or other blood) I actually carry. That would be cool.

Yes this is weird. I have had relative strangers ask me if I am Jewish. I am blond, blue eyed with pale skin. I think it is because I always look familiar. People always think they know me from somewhere. 

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I too have been mistaken for a Jew on more than one occasion.  But frequently that is related to being a lawyer.  Some people just think any lawyer is a Jew.  

I also have been told I am not Jewish, but that was by an idiot who probably thought I couldn't be Jewish cause I didn't have a big nose. 

Apparently he, in his wisdom, never heard of Fixed Nose Jews.

I knew that some Jews did have their nose fixed, but I didn't realize there was a specific name for it until a girlfriend (Jewish) told me that, remarked about them.

In college and law school there were a high percentage of Jews, female, I didn't ever notice the males, and I was attracted to many of them.  As a result I befriended, well actually more than friends, a fair number of them.

That was long before I joined this church, just so you know.  They have a law of celibacy here, I don't think the Jews know about that one.

dc

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Just_A_Girl and I went to Philadelphia last year, which was the first time I'd been around Jews in any significant numbers--they were all over the historic district (isn't there a national museum of Judaism there?  We missed it, though . . . :( ).

Anyways, being parents of five, we were impressed at how the families--particularly the mothers--managed their generally large flocks of beautiful, well-behaved, impeccably groomed children (white collarless shirts and dark slacks for the boys; dark sweaters, skirts, and tights for the girls--even the babies).  The dads and teenaged boys did, generally speaking, come off as kind of pushy--had no problem cutting in front of you through a door, that kind of thing--but I just kind of figured that was more of an east coast/city-dweller thing, not a Jewish thing.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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I worked with 2 older Jewish women. Both of them began working with us in their late 60's/early 70's. They each worked until around age 80 before they finally stopped working.

One of them was hilarious (but she certainly wasn't trying to be). She was very OCD about things but was a great worker. 

The other one joked that she was my Jewish mother. She invited me to a couple of her Passover dinners. She went out of her way to make a separate dish of haroset (is that it???) that she did not use wine in (knowing that I don't eat or drink anything with alcohol). 

This same Jewish lady and her daughter came to the Indianapolis LDS Temple open house* and asked that I accompany them. I had a delightful time and spent the majority of the time with her daughter who had many, many questions about Mormons. 

These have been the only experiences that I've had with Jewish people. My Jewish friend is very open about answering any questions that I have and has never been offended at anything I've asked. Plus, she used to make desserts and bring them into me at work. :D

*An open house for an LDS Temple is an event prior to dedicating the temple where the community is invited to tour the temple. After the temple is dedicated, only recommended members of the LDS faith can enter the temple. 

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1 hour ago, beefche said:

I worked with 2 older Jewish women. Both of them began working with us in their late 60's/early 70's. They each worked until around age 80 before they finally stopped working.

One of them was hilarious (but she certainly wasn't trying to be). She was very OCD about things but was a great worker.

The other one joked that she was my Jewish mother. She invited me to a couple of her Passover dinners. She went out of her way to make a separate dish of haroset (is that it???) that she did not use wine in (knowing that I don't eat or drink anything with alcohol).

This same Jewish lady and her daughter came to the Indianapolis LDS Temple open house* and asked that I accompany them. I had a delightful time and spent the majority of the time with her daughter who had many, many questions about Mormons.

These have been the only experiences that I've had with Jewish people. My Jewish friend is very open about answering any questions that I have and has never been offended at anything I've asked. Plus, she used to make desserts and bring them into me at work. :D

*An open house for an LDS Temple is an event prior to dedicating the temple where the community is invited to tour the temple. After the temple is dedicated, only recommended members of the LDS faith can enter the temple.

Thank you for sharing that.  I am so glad she brought you haroset and not maror!  :D

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35 minutes ago, LeSellers said:

Do Jewish grandmothers come with pink slips?

Lehi

That is a distinct possibility.  They certainly come with:

1) Unwavering (and often ridiculous) opinions

2) A litany of stories of a life-time of suffering at the hands of everyone with whom they've ever made contact

3) A conversation with *sighing* being a prerequisite

4) Jokes that you don't know are supposed to be jokes and aren't funny anyway

 

edit:

Oh, and bunions

Edited by Aish HaTorah
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  • 2 years later...
On 4/16/2016 at 8:31 PM, Vort said:

I'm still rather enamored of the idea that I have Jewish blood and "my people and I" can sense each other, but that's just a silly, fun fantasy for now. Maybe I will survive long enough for genetic analysis to reach the point that we can actually identify ancestral subgroups of the Hebrews, and I can find out how much Jewish blood (or other blood) I actually carry. That would be cool.

Jew-dar, like gay-dar, is a real thing. And it is rarely wrong. Jewish souls recognize other Jewish souls.

There is a belief in Judaism that all Jewish souls, including the souls of future people, were present at Sinai and accepted the Torah. Unfortunately, some of those souls are born into non-Jewish families. Those people have the difficult task of figuring out that they are Jewish, have always been Jewish, and they convert to get their Jewish status recognized by other Jews. Other Jewish souls are born into families of those who were forcibly converted or those who lost their tradition due to the need to keep it secret - crypto-Jews. They too must usually convert to be recognized by the Jewish community. But the majority of lucky souls are born into Jewish families.

You say you have done your genealogy. Does it go back to Eastern Europe between WW1 and WW2? A lot of “Christian” immigrants to the US then left their Jewishness behind in the old country. Does it go further back, to Amsterdam, France, Turkey or the New World after 1497 and the expulsions from Spain and Portugal? Is your surname a typically Jewish one?

 

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3 hours ago, cathyyg said:

You say you have done your genealogy. Does it go back to Eastern Europe between WW1 and WW2? A lot of “Christian” immigrants to the US then left their Jewishness behind in the old country. Does it go further back, to Amsterdam, France, Turkey or the New World after 1497 and the expulsions from Spain and Portugal? Is your surname a typically Jewish one?

It does not. My roots are American back to at least the middle of the 19th century. Actually, that's not completely true; my maternal great-grandfather was born in western Germany around, oh, 1880 or so. All of my other ancestors came to America between 1700 and 1860. Most of them were English, with Welsh, Irish, and some Scottish also represented (plus my one-eighth German through my previously mentioned great-grandfather). My children have a quarter of their genome from the Alsace-Lorraine area of eastern France/western Germany. Somewhere back in all that, I'm sure we have significant input from Jewish ancestors, but we have not identified any as such.

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The poll doesn't have my answer:  No different than non-Jewish people - some are nice, some are aloof, some are funny, some are too serious...

I worked with an Israeli software company and everybody in the company that they sent to my site were Jews.  If that sampling is representative, I'd say all Jews are smart as all get.  These guys were good!  (Oh yeah, they were all guys!).

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