Cheeseburger Bar Mitzvahs.

Okay, before I saw anything, I have to say that there is a guy in my class that wears a yarmulke. Okay, whatever, this is Israel, a lot of people wear yarmulkes. But this is seriously the smallest yarmulke I’ve ever seen. Like it’d even be too small for a baby. Seriously, I don’t even know why bother if you’re just going to wear such a tiny yarmulke, and I’ve developed this bizarre and completely irrational hatred of it. Every single time I look at this guy during class, I want to be like, “Look, if money is the issue, I will BUY you a larger yarmulke.” Or, “Do you realize you are wearing a Ritz Cracker on your head???”


We had a Tu Bshvat seder last night, and I couldn’t stop thinking about religious school. The seder was actually ridiculously fun, with singing and clapping and whatnot, and I tasted a pomegranate and a fig for the first time in my life. A friend from Belgium managed to get a particularly fantastic photo of me reacting to the taste of something nasty, and I hope to eventually upload it to this blog.

Anyway, about religious school. Maybe it was because of the fact that (being a liberal, LA group) we talked about Tu Bshvat a lot, probably a lot more than its importance would warrant. Or maybe it was because the guy on the guitar reminded me of the part in Hebrew School where we’d have to sing songs in Hebrew, and especially maybe because last night I sang “David Melech Yisrael” *WITH APPROPRIATE HAND MOTIONS* for the first time in my adult life…. But celebrating Tu Bshvat here in Israel keeps making me think of religious school. I just can’t help but think how weird it is that of all the people that I grew up with in religious school, I am the one that ended up in Israel.

Why is this weird? Because there’s very few things I actually remember liking about religious school, which was pretty much the only place I ever did anything remotely Jewish. What did I like about religious school? I liked snack time. I liked when we finally get to take a bite of challah after waiting for what seemed like hours as pieces were handed out, and everyone got settled, and then the Hamotzi was said. I liked when we would sing “Miriam’s Song” and we got to the part that said, “We’ve just lived through a miracle, we’re gonna dance tonight!” I liked learning how to read Hebrew. I liked learning about Haifa. I liked giving tzedaka for Magen David Adom, and I liked watching movies with about Israel’s wars and military operations.

But for the most part….I hated religious school. It was boring, we didn’t actually learn Hebrew, and we had to do these Gad-awful art projects led by this bizarre woman who (as it would turn out) looks exactly like one of the Women of the Wash. I hated Israeli dance lessons, and I hated learning Torah trope. I used to get called “The Mouse” because I was so quiet that I would even lip-sync the prayers. And starting in 4th grade things became even more miserable, because we started Hebrew School, which meant that we would have class immediately after secular school instead of on Sundays. And I was the only kid in my class to go to a private school, so I would be the only one who would have to show up to Hebrew School in my school uniform, and everyone would make fun of me in my stupid skirt.

It’s just weird to me that there were probably hundreds of kids that have gone through my religious school over the years who were infinitely happier than me in religious school, and who were infinitely “more Jewish” than me, and who were infinitely more connected to the Jewish community than me, and who ate far less ham and cheese sandwiches than me, and who made far fewer references to Jesus than me. And yet, I’m the one who fulfilled the mitzvah of aliyah. I’m the one who lives just a couple minutes from the Western Wall. I’m the one speaking Hebrew every day.

A couple weeks ago some close family friends from LA were in Israel, so they took me out to dinner. And these were the people that, growing up, I considered JEWISH. Their daughter, who was in the year below me at school, was the one who taught me what kosher is—at an age when I definitely should have known. My family maybe waltzed into synagogue once a year (ridiculously late, no less), whereas these people would be sitting front row center every Friday/Saturday. Their whole family would be outfitted with personalized or monogrammed or whatever yarmulkes or tallises or sidurim, and sit together looking more coordinated and serious than the LA Philharmonic, whereas each of my brothers would usually just grab one of those douchebag-yarmulkes (you know, the ones that don’t lie flat at all) that are by the sanctuary entrances as he was hastily adjusting his crooked tie on his way to find a seat, and while I fidgeted awkwardly with my skirt that was riding up, picked a tights-wedgie, and tripped over my fancy shoes. Then during the course of the service one of my brothers would realize that his douchebag-yarmulke had fallen off, and they’d end up on the floor looking for it, causing a total disturbance, most likely during the mourners kaddish.

So anyway, having dinner with this family now that I’m in Israel….was beyond weird. Here I am, secular, product of a religiously dysfunctional family, half-Jew Sam, now a citizen of Israel, with an Israeli ID card, Israeli health insurance, and a draft notice from the Israeli army. And these “good Jews” are going to go back to the U.S. in a week, with only souvenirs from Israel. The “good Jews” chose to cast their lots with a Christian nation, whereas the bad Jew is jumping off a cliff with the Jewish State.


And I ain’t gonna lie…I feel pretty damn smug about it!