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What's Cantonese for Mazel Tov?

     Chinese and Jewish Families Mashup in New Jersey

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Meet Isaac Zhou M___ born 01/23/2022

 

            This beautiful baby, son of my nephew Yakov, gets his first name from the Old Testament’s Isaac, and his middle name from an ancient Chinese dynasty and his mother’s family.

            Biblical Isaac was the confused son of Abraham, the original Jew. God conv…

Read more

Kosher Chinese Food: The Experience

 

           Many Jews love Chinese food and don’t keep kosher. Offer them “Kosher Chinese Food” and they think, “Death Row Cuisine in a Poorly Funded Prison”. I didn’t grow up in a kosher home, and while my wife’s family kept kosher, they also kept the workarounds. Cover the table with newspape…

Read more

Jews and Chinese Masking Together

 

            It’s Christmas Eve, 2016. Two masked men enter a Chinese family gathering of about fifty people at a home in northern Jersey. Their masks are not ski, stocking, or Halloween. They’re blue surgical. No one else is wearing one or is concerned about the two men who are.

Read more

Ethnic Day, Part One

           

 

The preschool’s announcement: “Wednesday is Ethnic Day! Come dressed to show the place you came from.”

            “Came from?” Okay, Julianna’s grandparents, father’s side, arrived in New York from China and Vietnam in the 1960s, encouraged by communism’s ris…

Read more

Ethnic Day, Part Two

 

 

            Okay, kids, let’s line up and celebrate America’s diversity, if only to piss off the nativists.

            After Ethnic Day, the preschool sent pictures of the costumed kids, all with faces pixilated. here’s a sari on some girls, a turban on a Sikh (I g…

Read more

Jewish and Chinese Numerology: Mishugas with Numbers

 

            Most people think eighteen is just a good uniform number for a quarterback. For Jews, the number eighteen (chai, pronounced with phlegm + eye) means “life.” Remember the song in Fiddler? “To life, to life, l’chaim!”

            Snap your fingers and dance in…

Read more

The Hassid and the Girl from Shanghai

 

            In the spring of 2014, the third-year students at U of Virginia Law School looked forward to graduation. It was a busy time as they finished their academics and sought permanent jobs. The social highlight was Prom, law school edition.

            Tina Z, a third year,…

Read more

Jewish Girl Dates Chinese Man. Why?

              As far as we knew, the boys in Sara’s life were all Jewish.

            There was a Jewish guy she dated during her vegetarian moment, senior year at Marlboro High. He challenged her to eat a hot dog and even offered money to do it. When he got up to two hundred bucks, she …

Read more

Blog posts November 2021

Jewish Girl Dates Chinese Man. Why?

              As far as we knew, the boys in Sara’s life were all Jewish.

            There was a Jewish guy she dated during her vegetarian moment, senior year at Marlboro High. He challenged her to eat a hot dog and even offered money to do it. When he got up to two hundred bucks, she …

Read more

1 blog post

Blog Posts

Meet Isaac Zhou M___ born 01/23/2022

 

            This beautiful baby, son of my nephew Yakov, gets his first name from the Old Testament’s Isaac, and his middle name from an ancient Chinese dynasty and his mother’s family.

            Biblical Isaac was the confused son of Abraham, the original Jew. God conv…

Read more

Kosher Chinese Food: The Experience

 

           Many Jews love Chinese food and don’t keep kosher. Offer them “Kosher Chinese Food” and they think, “Death Row Cuisine in a Poorly Funded Prison”. I didn’t grow up in a kosher home, and while my wife’s family kept kosher, they also kept the workarounds. Cover the table with newspape…

Read more

Jews and Chinese Masking Together

 

            It’s Christmas Eve, 2016. Two masked men enter a Chinese family gathering of about fifty people at a home in northern Jersey. Their masks are not ski, stocking, or Halloween. They’re blue surgical. No one else is wearing one or is concerned about the two men who are.

Read more

Ethnic Day, Part One

           

 

The preschool’s announcement: “Wednesday is Ethnic Day! Come dressed to show the place you came from.”

            “Came from?” Okay, Julianna’s grandparents, father’s side, arrived in New York from China and Vietnam in the 1960s, encouraged by communism’s ris…

Read more

Ethnic Day, Part Two

 

 

            Okay, kids, let’s line up and celebrate America’s diversity, if only to piss off the nativists.

            After Ethnic Day, the preschool sent pictures of the costumed kids, all with faces pixilated. here’s a sari on some girls, a turban on a Sikh (I g…

Read more

Jewish and Chinese Numerology: Mishugas with Numbers

 

            Most people think eighteen is just a good uniform number for a quarterback. For Jews, the number eighteen (chai, pronounced with phlegm + eye) means “life.” Remember the song in Fiddler? “To life, to life, l’chaim!”

            Snap your fingers and dance in…

Read more

The Hassid and the Girl from Shanghai

 

            In the spring of 2014, the third-year students at U of Virginia Law School looked forward to graduation. It was a busy time as they finished their academics and sought permanent jobs. The social highlight was Prom, law school edition.

            Tina Z, a third year,…

Read more

Jewish Girl Dates Chinese Man. Why?

              As far as we knew, the boys in Sara’s life were all Jewish.

            There was a Jewish guy she dated during her vegetarian moment, senior year at Marlboro High. He challenged her to eat a hot dog and even offered money to do it. When he got up to two hundred bucks, she …

Read more

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