Party Like It's 5999!

Happy New Year...the Jewish New Year, that is.

Like I've said, I'm a sorry excuse for a Jew and very much unaware of most things Jewish.  I had to look up the Jewish calendar on Wikipedia to learn that it's the year 5773.  Apparently even Google knows when it's Rosh Hashanah as evinced by the shofar replacing "o" in it's icon.  To be honest, even when my family actually observed the Jewish High Holidays, I didn't know what year we were celebrating.

My only true devotion to Rosh Hashanah was due to the fact that, in New York, it meant no school -not in Maine, though, as I increase the Jewish population by one hundred percent.  It also meant another day off in ten days time for Yom Kippur.  Yom Kippur, however, is a bit of a downer, a day of atonement.  No fun.  Rosh Hashanah is a party!  Pump it up, Matisyahu.

Admittedly, I know very little of the holiday, so I decided to do a little research.

Did you know that this holiday is closely associated with sounding the shofar?   It's supposedly quite loud.  I wouldn't know, however, as I've never prayed in synagogue on such an occasion.  Here's something I didn't know:  Rosh Hashanah is supposed to represent the creation of the Universe (Wikipedia says to capitalize "Universe" in this case -must be a Jewish thing).   Ah, ah!  I knew this one:  Jews are supposed to call their relatives on the eve of Rosh Hashanah before sundown.  I've used that as an excuse before.  Faculty meeting after school today?  Sorry, gotta get home to call Grandy.  The new year and all...

I suck.

Let's face it:   Gentile holidays are way more fun.  Sorry, my Jewish peeps, I'm throwing you under the bus.  Chanukkah is okay, especially with its silent "c" and whimsical spellings, but even multitudes of American Jews celebrate Christmas.  It might as well be a Jewish Holiday.   Rosh Hashanah, come on!  There's no five tons of confetti tossed capriciously and drunkenly around. There's no giant ball of light dropping down in Jerusalem.  Nobody's popping corks of Manischewitz. No Klezmer band playing Auld Lang Syne.  Just some apples and honey and, if you're lucky, a little gelt...wait, that's Chanukkah.  See, you don't even get chocolate money?  No fun, Rosh Hashanah.

So, here's my moral epiphany:   in the Tri-State area, Rosh Hashanah is better known as Rosh-a-Home-ah because every Jew clogs the Long Island Expressway and the Saw Mill and the Garden State Parkway on the commute home from the city to be in by sundown.  Somehow, they all make it in time and, in days past, this included my father whose commute brought him in at exactly 7:42 p.m. every single night of my younger years.  We made sure we sat down to dinner, maybe with a fresh challah bread from the city, and we'd eat.

Happy Rosh Hashanah.

Hitler and Fashion

This is good.

As the global economy attempts to rebound, the fashion industry has been forced to experiment with somewhat unconventional brands. A new boutique birthed itself in India under the auspicious title, "Hitler." Charmingly, in much the same manner that a teeny-bopper adorned with friendship bracelets and "juicy" embroidered across her bottom dots her letter "i" with a heart, this Euro-stylized harbinger of what's "in" topped it's own with a swastika.

Shop owner Rajesh Shah's retort to the global media's criticism and Israeli political finger-wagging: "It wasn't until the store opened I learnt that Hitler had killed six million people."

I find myself curiously wondering what Hitleric fashion looks like in India, particularly given Adolf's affinity for the blond-haired, blue-eyed. It seems an unlikely marriage, though some argue India's independence and Gandhi's rise indirectly have Hitler to thank for drawing UK forces primarily into Europe and out of its territories.

Still, I ask, "Why this union?" and conclude it must be Indo-hipster fashion. Perhaps, Mr. Shah is offering a full line of Jewish star t-shirts for his patrons to wear ironically. Perhaps, for those unable to grow facial hair, he sells adhesive Adolf mustaches.

Actually, I think Mr. Shah might be onto something. Much like Banana Republic, Gap, and Old Navy, Mr. Shah might establish Hitler, Himmler, and Göring. In fact, Goebbels could be the Piperlime of Nazi footwear.

Mr. Shah has stated he will more than gladly change the name of the shop if compensated, as he spent 150,000 rupees for branding. Sure, sure. After all, I didn't realize naming my new bistro "Auschwitz" was so taboo.

My recommendation, Mr. Shah? Do a little more research next time.

Announcement

Before reading my latest post, don't forget to check out my online publications at:

• theNewer York!
• Intellectual Refuge
• WordPlaySound (also available on iTunes)
• Eunoia Review

Also, purchase The Alarmist's inaugural issue to read my story, The Lobster's Name Is Nick.

Now, read on...thanks.

Well, isn't this awkward?

Ladies and gentlemen, this is self-loathing at its finest: Csanad Szegedi, a former leader of Hungary's anti-Jewish Jobbik Party, recently decided to share that he, himself, is, in fact, Jewish.

Oops...

I imagine Szegedi's internal monologue as he thought of an excuse went a little something like this:

Well, you see, um, I guess I might have forgotten to mention that my mother was Jewish.

And, that Jewish tradition holds that I'd, too, be Jewish. And, maybe I failed to disclose that my grandparents had an Orthodox Jewish wedding.

And, that they survived the Holocaust.

But, hey, my Jobbik brethren...yeah, Adolf.

Now, one might be inclined as I was, at least initially, to laugh in Mr. Szegedi's face, to deem this the ultimate in denial, to use this to assert that the rumors Hitler was Jewish just might be true, to proclaim, "Take that, all you anti-Semitic a**holes!" However, this is actually bad news.

Szegedi's confession, a story that is both charmingly dark and chillingly hilarious, simply reinforces that we Jews are, indeed, self-loathing. It gives merit to stereotype. We're always the self-haters, the Eeyore's of the world, the we'll-lose-before-the-ref-blows-the-whistle-because-we're-just-not-that-good-at-the-game pessimists. This just supports the accuracy of every single Jews-are-self-haters joke.

Mr. Szegedi, you're a jerk! I don't want a confession that helps the other side! You couldn't have admitted to being Italian or Irish or Australian...Or Martian? No, this is what you leave me?

Thanks for nothing, d**k.

Announcement

My good people, I'm on Tumblr.

Follow me at http://adamrabasca.tumblr.com/

Now...keep reading to find out why my grandmother thought you could outgrow Chineseness....

Grandma said you can outgrow being Chinese.

I don't want to say my father's parents were ignorant but, upon meeting my aunt's adopted niece, Grandma Marie Rabasca said not to worry, that she would outgrow being Chinese.

I believe the girl is still Chinese and still waiting to outgrow it.

In the relatively recent past, my father, his brother, and the same aunt waiting for her adopted niece to outgrow Chineseness took a heritage trip to Calitri, Italy, to find our distant family. The trip was a success. They met first cousins, learned we are related to the man who hid the questionably mystical Shroud of Turin from the Nazis, and discovered that we are probably a billionth Albanian. Sometime during the height of the Ottoman Empire, a man named Rabasca emigrated from Albania, set up shop in the mountains outside Naples, and established a family that would eventually have a road named after the man who would eventually immigrate to America and eventually establish the family that would eventually lead to me.

The operative word here is "Albania." I'm pretty sure we cannot outgrow this. I'm also pretty sure that my grandparents are still turning in their graves over this one.

For the record, I don't personally have an issue with Albanians nor with anyone trying to outgrow their Albanianness.

My grandparents, however, would likely disapprove of our being anything other than fully Italian. It was a big step for them to accept that their youngest son would marry a Jewish girl. You can't outgrow that one, either...believe me when I say I've tried.

We do seem to be less and less "pure blooded"-sorry, Adolf. I recently read an article about Italian soccer star, Mario Balotelli, an adopted man of a Sicilian Jewish family.

Oh, by the way, he has been unsuccessful at outgrowing being black, specifically Ghananian.

Mr. Balotelli has endured a fervor of such ethnically hostile epithets that I'm surprised he didn't score against his own team in the Euro 2012 Cup. In Turin, the fans welcomed him by throwing bananas onto the field. I imagine the ones throwing bananas are also appalled at the idea that the Moors once invaded southern Italy, slept with Italian women, and shared genes that darkened their offsprings' complexion.

Come on, my fellow paisanos. Do we really have that much time on our hands that we need to hurl fruit at a man kicking a ball into a net because his skin's a reminder that "other" people are, in fact, out there?

At the center of this disproportionately reactive behavior lies the question we ask in America: who are we? Balotelli, an athletic hero, is redefining the meaning of "Italian," as we ask here, "What is an American?" We do seem to be less and less of who we think we are and it is threatening to a great many people. My own daughters are more Italian than anything else -that is to say that they are exactly one-quarter Italian. But, then again, they're one-quarter Jewish, which is to say that they would have been spared in the Holocaust, according to the Nuremberg citizenship laws. Their dad would have been out of luck. I haven't even yet mentioned that when you throw a dart at a map of Europe, chances are it'll land on a country from which they have blood. For some reason, in America, we place all of that ahead of being American.

Maybe Grandma's right...we're just outgrowing being Chinese.

Announcement

A short story of mine, entitled "The Lobster's Name Is Nick," will be available in print format in The Alarmist's inaugural issue on July 30, 2012.

Enjoy and thanks.