Ambijewity
Sandra Manoogian
The only question was, which one of the two brothers should I marry? Lee, the older of the two, was in the fourth grade and very intelligent. His time was spent either on homework or exotic electronics. Michael was closer to me in both age and disposition, but even he spent a good deal of time studying. However, when the two of them were not involved in any sort of academics, the three of us would spend hours together playing.
I did not have many people to play with on my street. Most of the kids were much older than I was, and very scary. The girls on my street were more like full-blown women, or at least they were about to be. They already had training bras; but even more frightening than that, they were developing hair in all sorts of places on their bodies. I, of course, wanted breasts, but felt I could do nicely without all that hair. My brother and sister were too young and boring to play with; besides, playing with them was more like punishment or a chore. Mom? She was married to her martinis and was constantly consummating that sacred bond. She had better things to do than spend time with her six year old daughter. That left Lee and Michael, and we spent our playtime in creative ways. The indoor games we would play were many and varied: Scrabble, Monopoly, Pick-up-sticks, and many different card games. Our outdoor games were more creative: Hit-the-bat, war, and our own version of tag, Doo-doo monster, which was our favorite. Naturally, being the only girl, and the youngest, 1 tended to lose most of these games, and I always had to be the Doo-doo monster first. But this fact never bothered me because with Lee and Michael I was almost always accepted, at least until the Holidays.
Around Hanukkah, they would play a fascinating game called Dreidel. This game was quite foreign to me, and when I asked them if I could play, their response was,
"You can't play, Sandra, you're not Jewish."
Not Jewish? What did that mean? My father, and his father, and his father's father were Jewish. My Aunts and Uncles and cousins were all Jewish. My brother was being groomed for his eventual Bar-mitzvah; they were training him, like a talking parrot, to recite parts of the Torah for that momentous day. Why wasn't I Jewish? I decided to ask my parents.
"Mom, Dad, are we Jewish?"
There was a pause, much like when the heart skips a beat, as they shot each other a significant stare.
I continued, "Lee and Michael say that we aren't, but we are, aren't we?"
My mother answered, "You can be whatever you want to be, Honey."
I had already decided that I wanted to be Jewish. That's what Lee and Michael were, and that's what I wanted to be. I began attending Sunday school at our synagogue with them, and that's when I discovered even more about the mystery that was my Judaism.
"Your mother converted," they told me, "so you are sorta Jewish."
That was good enough for me; I was elated! Besides, I had known for quite some time that I was. Two of the scary girl-women on my street, who were sisters, had told me that Hitler was buried in their front yard.
"Who is Hitler?" I inquired.
"Hitler is a bad man. He's the meanest man in the whole world, and he hates Jewish kids. If you're not a good kid, his spirit will come in your bedroom at night and get you while you're asleep!"
In my mind he was synonymous with Santa Claus, "He sees you when you're sleepingHe knows when you're awakeHe knows if you've been bad or good. So be good for goodness sake!" I was afraid to go to sleep at night because either Hitler or Santa was out there waiting for me.
When I mentioned this to Lee and Michael, they laughed at me and said no Jewish kids believe in Santa Claus. With this, their mother spoke up.
"Many Jewish children believe in Santa Claus."
I looked at them triumphantly, and thought to myself, "See, I was right, and your mother thinks I'm not just 'sorta Jewish,' she thinks I am Jewish."
At last I had a religion, and I knew who I was. But most important of all, I belonged and was not alone. Now it was back to concentrating on other issues: what game to play next, and which one of the two brothers should I marry.
My decision was made one sunny autumn afternoon while Michael and I were assembling a jigsaw puzzle. We were working on the floor of his family room, hunched over a sheet of plywood; a profusion of puzzle pieces scattered about. We had been there for quite some time when he turned to me, and with a low voice asked,
"Sandra, will you show me your bosoms when you're sixteen?"
This required a moment or two of thought on my part. Sixteen seemed an awful long time away; and would I ever have breasts? Still, I thought, if I'm going to marry him, I'd have to show them to him.
"Yes," I replied, "I'll show them to you, but you have to promise me we'll get married."
Needless to say, when he sprang up and ran into the kitchen to relay this information to his mother, I was extremely embarrassed. That emotion, however, was quickly extinguished when she responded in a harsh, raspy whisper,
"Don't be ridiculous, you can't marry her! She's not Jewish."
Even then I could tell that those words were not meant for my ears; but that made it all the worse. She, who was at the center of the family that had accepted me as a Jew, was rejecting me. I felt miserable, but continued to work on the puzzle. I remained friends with them. I never mentioned it to them but I carried it with me always. I stopped going to Sunday school, and I felt more alone than ever. This was a wound that time would not heal.
Years later, when Michael was studying medicine in one of the Carolinas, I had a phone conversation with his mother.
"Michael is getting married," she said matter of factly.
"That's great," I replied, "who is she?"
"Just some woman he met at med school," she spoke this more as a death knell, than as a jubilant revelation. He was, after all, her favorite.
I asked if their Rabbi would be performing the service.
"No," she responded. There was a long, meaningful silence before she revealed, "She's not Jewish."
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