ON THE MATTER OF JEWISHNESS

I was sent this heartwarming story of Sephardi Jews who miraculously survived the Holocaust having a son who went on to lead an effort to develop a vaccine for COVID-19.  Maybe it's a natural inclination to treat all ethnicities and worshipping beliefs equal, or ignorance, but it occurred to me that at my advanced age I knew very little about the Jewish religion.  

When I grew up in Hawaii, there was the dominant Caucasian sector, and everyone else as second-class citizens.  Being Japanese, there was also the matter of where Okinawans fit into this society.  My junior-year English-Social Studies teacher Mildred Kosaki and her husband had just returned from the Mainland, and she kept emphasizing the matter of Civil Rights, but we students just had no concept of Black-White relationships.  Nor were we aware that there was another group, Jews, in this national mix.

Then I went away to college, when I remember a girlfriend asking me if I knew what a Jewish girl looked like.  I immediately responded that she must be blonde because I had just seen Exodus, and one obvious Jewish female was a blonde Jill Haworth.  So I just checked, and 6% have this color hair.  While doing this research today, I stumbled across two more references, one entitled Funny, You Don't Look Jewish, and...

...the 10 Classic Types of Jew, and How to Decide Which One You Are, by novelist Shalom Auslander (right).  So on this spiritual Sunday, I will focus on Jewishness.  As their day of worship is Saturday, it seemed acceptable to summarize from this article written by a self-professed Bad Jew.  If you wish to get the traditional treatment, you can click on Jewish ethnic divisions, from Wikipedia.

So, anyway, Auslander describes the 10 classic types of Jews:

• Type 1:  Jesse Eisenberg, who is fast-talking, moderately intelligent, arrogant and has baseless superiority.  Blames this type for increasing the incidence of antisemitism, not Islamic fundamentalism.

• 
  Type 2:  Nathan Lane, who is the most oppressed of us all, hated by Jews and most likely gay.
• Type 3:  Franz Kafka, who is a sickly and scared sufferer, a wuss, the Jew who takes it...the victim, most commonly used in fiction.

• 
  Type 4:  Samson...tough, hard worker, Casino boss, who in The Bible, a narrative fiction source, he says, is corrupted and destroyed by his own power.
• Type 5  Mickey Sabbath (Philip Roth character), inverse of Jesse Eisenberg, obsessed with genitals.
• Type 6:  the Good Jewish Boy, a mythical beast, created by suffocating parents, where obedience was more important than happiness, who ends up being someone like Benjamin Netanyahu.

• 
  Type 7:  Bad-ass Jewish Girls, like Eve, Amy Winehouse and the Carol Kane character in Annie Hall.
• Type 8:  the Shylock, like Bernie Madoff, or more so Donald Trump, who should be Jewish.
• Type 9:  Alvy Singer (also in the right photo), Sid Caesar and Mel Brooks.

• 
  Type 10:  the Bugs Bunny, smart, has disdain for authority, is always being chased, and a troublemaker, Auslander's favorite.
• Auslander considers himself to be a Type 10, with a strong streak of Type 5, but feels guilty about not being a Type 6, so hides this by being a Type 9.  Others?

• Jesus of Nazareth:  began as a Type 6, grew into a Type 10, with a bit of Type 3 (for the Crucifixion scene).
• Anthony Weiner:  Type 5 with a streak of Type 7 and unintentional Type 9.
• Sigmund Freud:  Type 1 with a Type 5, but probably saw himself as a Type 4.
• Groucho Marx:  Solid Type 10/Type 5, and in a perfect world, would be model for a Type 6.

One traditional way to identify the different types:

• Ashkenazim, the Jews of Germany and Northern France (in Hebrew, Ashkenaz)
• matzah ball soup
• black hats
• most recognized of all American jews
• Sephardim, the Jews of Iberia (in Hebrew, Sepharad) and the Spanish diaspora
• first American Jews
• expelled from Spain in 1492 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
•  m, or Oriental Jews, from Babylonia and Persia
• a fourth, Ethiopian Jews, were nomadic

Then again, a more American way of distinguishing the differences are by branches of Judaism:

• Reform (41.4%): sort of a modernization of the religion.
• Orthodox (6.8%):  only developed after the reform movement, to maintain the traditional form.  New York Hassidic Jews (right) belong here.

• 
  Conservative (40%):  a second development that came in 1885 when Jews adopted a radical platform that included the rejection of kosher dietary laws.  They are the bridge connecting the other two.
• Actually, there are two more smaller movements:
• Reconstructionism
• Secular Humanistic
• 
  Can a Jew also be a Christian?  
• They are not theologically compatible.  
• Christianity split from Judaism only a few generations before the birth of Christ.
• Antisemitism could well have started that early, exacerbated by Roman rule then, but the term itself was popularized by German journalist Wilhelm Marr in 1879.
• While Adolf Hitler was the worst case example, this sense remains today through much of the world, especially in the Middle East.

If that was troubling and confusing, try Christianity, which has three branches (Catholic, Protestant and Orthodoxy) or six main groups (Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholilcsm, Protestantism and Restorationism).  And, oh, there are 45,000 denominations.  Which one would Jesus belong to?  Try Nicolas Kristof.  However, the New York Times won't provide access unless I pay $1/week.

So, finally, the reason why I entered this subject:

• 
  Only 2,000 Greek Jews survived of 60,000 because of the Holocaust.  
• A particular  family lived because the father happened to be out of the ghetto when residents were taken to Auschwitz and Birkenau, and the mother because a family member paid off the Nazi Party to save her from execution.  
• 
  Israel-Abraham Bourla was born of these two Sephardi Jews in 1961, and raised in Greece.
• grew up to be an animal doctor
• in 1993 joined Pfizer in Greece, moved to the U.S at the age of 40 and changed his name to Albert
• in 2019 he became CEO of Pfizer
• the following year came COVID-19 and now as Executive Chairman, dedicated the company to find a vaccine, regardless of potential financial returns
• this cure, which will save the lives of many millions was pushed by a Jew from Greece whose parents miraculously survived the Holocaust
• Pfizer did pay him $21 million last year

Before I end this posting, got to mention that the 93rd Academy Awards will be bestowed beginning at 8PM EDT, or 2PM in Hawaii.  However, ABC started the ceremonies from 7AM HST.  Read about the details here.  It also predicts the winners:

Best picture Nomadland
Best director Chloé Zhao, Nomadland
Best actor Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Best actress Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman
Best supporting actor Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah
Best supporting actress Youn Yuh-jung, Minari
Best original screenplay Promising Young Woman
Best adapted screenplay Nomadland
Best documentary My Octopus Teacher
Best original song Husavik, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga 
Best animated film Soul

Best international film Another Round 

Me?  Never went to a theater last year, which is really saying something because in the past decade I've gone to 50 films/year.  Netflix and Prime dominated my life.  I saw three of the eight nominated Best Pictures because they were on those channels.  Look for women of color accepting awards tonight.  Nomadland looks to be the big winner.  Rotten Tomatoes gave it 94/82 ratings.  I won't see it any time soon, for it is streaming on Hulu.

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