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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 …

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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 ate the hot dog, and scored the two Benjamins. She broke up with him (and vegetarianism) before she went off to Ramapo College.  

            All I knew about her college social life was the day I volunteered to pick up her prescription at Eli’s Pharmacy. The allergy pills I expected turned out to be a birth control contraption. A father can’t unsee that.

            After college, there was Dan. Sara said our family troubled him when we served Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner. What was his problem? He could have Original or Extra Crispy! He expected at least kosher style. Oh.

           “How’s your boyfriend, The Colonel?” I’d text.

            I pictured him at Sabbath services in a white suit with a string tie, white goatee, and yarmulke. Red and white striped bucket under his arm.

            Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi, this is Dan.

            They were hot and heavy for a couple of months, but after a panicked Saturday night call from Sara over some Dan-related crisis, we stopped hearing about The Colonel.

            Soon enough, Sara’s social life crept into a dinnertime conversation. She was dating another guy.

            What’s his name?

            Nothing scary, we hope.

            “Geoffrey, with a G.”

            Oh good. My friend Joel has a son Geoffrey-with-a-G, and we danced at his bar mitzvah.            

            “Tell us about him.”

            Meaning, Sara, is he Jewish?

            “He lives in Edison now…”

            In case we want to check him out or hunt him down.

            “…but I think he grew up in Fair Lawn.”

            That’s a respectable town, with Jews in it.

            What does he do?

            Sara, is he a doctor?

            “He’s an engineer. He graduated from Rutgers with a double major.”

            We are warming up to this fellow, even if he’s not a dermatologist.

             “What’s he like?

             Meaning, Sara, is he Jewish?

             “He’s very smart and has a good sense of humor. And he’s handsome, too.”

             Possible. But there are gentiles like that.

             “Sara! Is he Jewish?”

             “He loves brisket.”

             Cowboys love brisket too, but you never see a mezuzah on a saddle.

             “So, he’s not. What is he?”

              “I don’t know. I don’t think his family has a religion.”

              What kind of family has no religion? Do Atheists even procreate?

               “He’s Chinese.”

               And a stillness falls over Marlboro, NJ.

              Well then, Chinese.                     

            “And his last name?”

            Sara hesitated. “Lee.”

            “You’re kidding. You marry him, you’ll be Sara Lee. Good marble pound cake, but still.”

            Phyllis put her hand on my arm. “She’ll use her middle name.”

            “Oh good. Sara Rose Lee. Like the stripper in Gypsy.”

            Phyllis; “Keep your maiden name.”

            “We’re not getting married yet, Mom. That’s a long way off.”

             Hong Kong is also a long way off. But it’s out there.

          Of course, we’d prefer she find a Jew, always implied it to Sara, but never made it a rule. And it’s the twenty-first century. Ninety-eight percent of Americans, the goyim, are not in our tribe. We’ll have to deal with it. Plus, he’s Chinese. No religion of their own to get in the way. Brilliant people, too; they invented gunpowder and noodles.           

            “Why did you even start with this Geoffrey Lee?”

            “Like I said, Mom, he was in New Jersey Young Professionals when I got there. I had my eye on him all along. But he was always dating somebody, or else I was.” 

            “And when did Geoff become available?”

            “Well, his girlfriend moved out…”   

            The live-in moved out and (bam!) my little hussy made her move. Proud of my daughter. Carpe diem and all that.

            And we’ll just have to see how this Chinese thing plays out.

Spoiler: they did marry. Now I have a Chinese machatenisteh (ma+phlegm+ah+TEN+ee+steh, Yiddish for "in-law") 

 

Adapted from What's Cantonese for Mazel Tov? a new memoir by Henry Astor Levenstein. More at www.henrylevenstein.com

 

           

 

 

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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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