Emily Stone - Did Jew Know?: A Handy Primer on the Customs, Culture & Practice of the Chosen People

For Ben, Isaac and Naomi

Copyright 2013 by Emily Stone.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4521-2957-0

The Library of Congress has cataloged the previous edition as follows: Stone, Emily, 1969
Did Jew know? : a handy primer on the customs, culture, and practice of the chosen people / Emily Stone.
256page cm
ISBN 978-1-4521-1896-3 (hardback)
1. JewsHumor. I. Title.

PN6231.J5S755 2013
818.5402dc23

2013013656

Designed by Lana Le

Chronicle Books, LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com

The first and most essential source for this book is my cousin/on-call late-night rebbe Mikey Stone whose sagacity and depth of knowledge in all things Jewish earns him the well-deserved moniker The Gaon of 77th Street. This book would not have been possible without him. Additionally, the following learned beings provided crucial information, explanation and analysis: Rabbi Ken Spiro of Aish.com, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin and Rabbi Joe Potasnik. Additionally, I am deeply grateful to the many other sources whose scholarship informed my research. Although I do not have the space to give them full mention here, a more thorough list can be found at www.chroniclebooks.com/didjewknow.

Other important humorists, scholars and supporters of this project and its author include Shawn Nacol, Marcel Brea, Amy Clemens, Francesca Bove, Jake Laub, Jillian Turecki-Baer, Chachi Luna Cruz, Damon Suede, Lauren Portada, Jordan Beckerman, Shawn Milnes, KG, David Bar Katz, Tina Benko, Jillian Gould, Mary Dana Abbott, Jessica Castro, Liz OConnor, Jasmine Tarkeshi, Marc The Gentle Gentile Ryning, Niki Russ Federman, Angela Norton, Aliza Stone Howard, Rebecca Stone, the always fabulous Michelle Tovah Barge, Park Bench and EDNA.

Additional props to my uncle Richard Stone for his input, my cousin Ilana Stone for the chance, my beloved brother and sister-in-law Daniel Stone and Ellie Carmody for shelter during the storm, amazing Shabbat dinners and elucidating dvar Torah and finally, my amazing, wise and loving Jewish parents Harvey and Danna Stone for everything.

CHAPTER 1
FROM CANAAN TO NEW CANAAN: A Short History of the Jews

CHAPTER 2
JEWIER THAN THOU: Hasidic to Reform and Everything in Between

CHAPTER 3
THE CHOSEN VIBE: Jewish Rituals and Customs

CHAPTER 4
HOLY DAZE: A Survival Guide to the Jewish Holidays (High or Otherwise)

CHAPTER 5
GOY VEY! Conversion, Assimilation, and the Art of Spiritual Mixology

CHAPTER 6
JEW BETTER WORK: How Jews Put the J Back in Job

CHAPTER 7
SPEAK LOUDLY AND CARRY A BIG SCHTICK: Jews in the Entertainment Industry

CHAPTER 8
THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK: Jewish Lit from the Bible to Superman

CHAPTER 9
BAD FOR THE JEWS: Schnooks, Crooks, and the Son of Sam

CHAPTER 10
LET MY PEOPLE NOSH: Jews and FoodA Love Story

CHAPTER 11
THE OYS OF YIDDISH: Yiddish Words and Phrases Even an Irish Cop Would Know (and Some He or She Might Not)!

Siz shver tsu zayn a Yid. (Its tough to be a Jew.)

YIDDISH FOLK SAYING

Welcome to Jew Hist 101, a (condensed) history of how the People of the Book became the People of the Bookbefore there was even a book! Speaking of book, this one is not meant to be a comprehensive history of the world and the Jewish people in it (I leave that to the great historian Mel Brooks); instead, it offers some essential highlights (and low points) of Jewish history, from Canaan to the Catskills, from capitalism to communism, and from God to now. So, whether you understand the Bible as metaphorical, historical, or hysterical, whether you think the history of Israel and its people is literal or biblical, whether you believe Jesus was the Messiah or just a complex if misguided cult leader from 2,000 years ago, this book is your captain through a journey that is bigger than your local miniseries and twice as racy and dramatic. In other words, Mel Gibson wishes he had it so good!

Indeed, as we will see, no literate people have suffered and survived so much and written, theorized, or sung half as much about it. But before we get into the Chosen Tribes massive contribution to world literature, entertainment, science, fashion, food, or intellectual history, lets go back to about 1900ish BCE , when the world was a still a patch of inhospitable sand and the Jews became the Jews.

Back in the Bronze Age (and possibly before), the Jews were just a Semitic tribe of desert nomads worshipping a mountain and looking for a land to call their own. It was the dog days of Sumer, and Abrahamthen Abramand his stalwart crew of swarthy sophisticates had just schlepped all the way to Haran (Turkey) from the city of Ur (Iraq). They were sitting around kibitzing and pondering how to improve their prospects when a disembodied, heavenly voice (allegedly) spoke to Abraham.

Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy fathers house, unto a land that I will shew thee.

(GENESIS 12:1)

Right away Abram knew it was the voice of God. After all, who else would say shew? So he, his wife Sarahthen Saraiand other assorted kinfolk left the creature comforts of the known world to follow the Voice to the land of Canaan, there to dwell.

As un-luck would have it, a grievous famine fell upon the land of Canaan. Famished and schvitzy as heck, not to mention seventy-plus years old, Abraham and Sarah didst sojourn to Egypt. There, in the land of the Sphinx, they didst pull a fast one on Pharaoh and told him Sarah was Abrahams sister, lest Pharaoh kill Abraham and steal his wife. Only, by the time Pharaoh discovered this little ruse, he had already tried to play hide the nonkosher salami in she who is a Jewish princess, and the Lord had sent plagues upon hima rift between Egyptian and Hebrew that would not be healed until the Camp David Accords in 1978, not to mention possibly the moment when the age-old notion that Jewish girls are easy was born, but lets not get ahead of ourselves.

DID JEW KNOW? The Semites are the people of ancient southwestern Asia, including Hebrews, Arabs, Akkadians, and Phoenicians, who are thusly named because they are assumed to be the descendents of Noahs son Shem. The term anti-Semite was actually coined in the late 1800s in Germany as the official term for Judenhass (Jew hatred). This has been its sole and unfortunate connotation since then.

Back to Canaan didst our J.Crew go, where the Lord eventually proclaimed unto Abe, All the land which thou seest, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed forever. (Genesis 13:15) And so it came to pass that in this desert wilderness Abraham and Sarah (Israels founding patriarch and matriarch) birthed the people in a book (the Hebrew Bible) that would much later be the People of the Book (the Jews) in a land that would later still become none other than the Holy Land itself (the modern-day State of Israel). Thanks, God! Next time, though, consider Boca: nicer neighbors, better bagels.

Unable to produce spawn, Sarah offered Hagar, her Egyptian handmaiden, to her holy hubby so that the Father of Many Nations might fill somebodys womb with his mighty, monotheistic seed. As more un-luck for the Jews would have it, this emission proved successful, and Hagar conceived none other than Ishmael, prophet and patriarch of Islam. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every mans hand will be against him. (Genesis 16:12) Reason number 1,007 why you should never, ever, ever hire a hot housekeeper, secretary, or nanny.