Stereotype? Just check my desk
CONGRATULATIONS. IF you have read this far in the paper, chances are high that you have read stories which cast doubt on the future of our community. Well done on making it through without having lost your will to live. Of course, it is important that we report on these stories (if you look, some have my own byline). One of the primary roles of a newspaper is keeping people informed — and when it comes to cases of UK antisemitism, other British news outlets look at how we report on such issues to judge their own coverage.
If the JC is not reporting on distressing antisemitism, why should non-Jewish publications?
But I know it can be depressing to sit back on a Friday night after your meal, unfold your paper, and be presented with a dozen solid pages of look-how-they-have-it-infor-us. And the reason I know this is that when I meet readers and they find out where I work, they tell me as much.
Having emerged from this downpour of depression, this avalanche of angst, the last thing you need is another column-full of ceaseless gloom. So here’s one full of mild irritation instead.
I have to tell you that, when I’m feeling downhearted, I think about how we live in one of the best periods to be Jewish in the last couple of millennia. I grant you, “the last 80 generations had it a lot worse” isn’t the greatest pick-me-up, but to be able to live openly and proudly as Jews is something many of our ancestors could only have dreamed about.
Of course, there is still plenty of antisemitism out there, but something that is also annoying is having to navigate a deluge of stereotypes, largely promoted by our own co-religionists.
To be a Jewish man in the 21st century is to have to fight 50 years’ worth of tireless work from Woody Allen (pictured), Jackie Mason, Larry David and a hundred other comedians, who have built their entire careers presenting us as a bunch of neurotic shmendricks, simultaneously both funny and pitiful, witty but weedy, sensitive but tight-fisted, rebelling against maternal authority while still helplessly enmeshed in its embrace.
What’s even more annoying is that, while most of these things are false, at least in some areas the stereotypes ring true.
For example, the idea that we all suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome. A few years ago, I went on a group trip with a wonderful communal organisation which provides vital aid to poor Jewish communities in the former USSR.
One day, I boarded the coach in the morning to find that one of our number was missing. He was having stomach trouble, I was told, and so would be staying behind at the hotel. I expressed sympathy, and offered my help.
“I have a great South African overthe-counter medication for upset stomachs”, I told the tour operator. “I’d be happy to provide some.”
He looked at me strangely. It turned out he had already told six other members of our group about the situation, and without exception, each had offered their own version of the miracle stomach cure. It turns out we really do all have IBS.
Some things, however, we can take into our own hands, quite literally. Another stereotype about Jewish men is that we hate doing DIY. Again, I am sad to say that in the past this has held true in my case. DIY has tended to be more a case of DI Why — as in, “why would I want to spend hours of my own time building a bookcase from scratch, when I could pay someone to fit it for me?”
But I was determined to rid myself of this attitude. After all, the book of Shemot contains detailed descriptions of how the Jewish people built the Mishkan
— the tabernacle — in the wilderness, transporting it with them wherever they travelled and reassembling it, with all its sockets, hinges and pillars, wherever they encamped.
And so, a few weeks ago, my fiancée and I went to IKEA, somewhere I hadn’t gone near for more than two decades.
I’m sure you will be delighted to hear that I have written this column while sitting at a desk which was built with my own two hands (along with the two hands of my talented fiancée). And, two weeks after completion, it is still standing, suggesting that it will last (as God-willing, will our marriage).
It’s not often that you get to build a desk and destroy a stereotype in one afternoon. I think I need some time to savour this victory before embarking on my next building project.
A couple of decades should do it.
We’re funny but pitiful, witty but weedy