But not really. I mean, my mother’s mother’s mother was Jewish, and my 3rd cousin had a bat mitzvah, but my immediate branch of the family converted a long time ago. And my dad’s family, they are basically WASPs, but really, really nerdy. And not in the good way. Because of this particular heritage, when I was a kid, I thought that all people in the world were either Christians like my family, or Jewish like my extended family and my childhood family friend Jacob Goldsteinowitcz.*
*I totally made that name up.
Also, since the Christian part of me was half Presbyterian and half Christian Scientist (oh, and the story of how I went to two Sunday Schools every week to accommodate my parents’ disparate religious beliefs, and what that did to me as a person, that will probably be my first published short story in the New Yorker,) I thought that all Christians prayed for healing (a distinctly Christian Science thing, as I learned later) and the only people who went to doctors were Jewish, because Jacob Goldsteinowitcz’s mom was always worried about germs. In fact, one time when we were six and visiting the science museum, Mrs. Goldsteinowitcz scolded me and Jacob for licking rainwater off of the railings outside the building. She told us if we kept doing that we’d get sick. In my head, I thought, “yeah, you might, because you’re Jewish and you believe in medicine that’s why you can’t lick the rainwater, but me, I have the power of CHRIST to keep germs from hurting me!” When my mom agreed with Mrs. Goldsteinowitcz that we should not lick the rainwater, I thought she was just doing it to be polite.
It wasn’t until sometime in early elementary school when I realized there were people in the world who were neither Christian nor Jewish. (You know, the 4 billion people who fall into the category of “other?”) The moment of realization came when we were preparing a holiday program, and our school teacher queried who was celebrating Christmas and who was celebrating Hanukkah. She looked over at Fatima al-Rahman** and said, “of course, I guess you don’t… um… celebrate either, do you?”
**again, I totally made up that name to kind of over-exaggerate my point.
Immediately, I felt awful for Fatima. If she didn’t celebrate either of the two holiday options, how in the world did she get presents? Would she be part of the “Jingle Bells” group or the “Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel” group? And furthermore, if she didn’t celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah what the hell religion was she? Unfortunately, I didn’t get the answer to that question until an grade history class when we spent one day learning about non-Western and non-American cultures. That’s when the lightbulb went off. Thank you public education! Without you, I would totally suck at trivia night!
In conclusion, for all those who are celebrating the festival of lights tonight, l’chaim! And to all those of you who are “other” (including my atheist heathens) does anyone have a Festivus pole I can borrow?
