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Why I don’t want to see in the new year with my non-Jewish boyfriend
Chag evenings at my parents’ are always a bit bonkers, but at Rosh Hashanah they get really wild
September 22, 2025 11:33
Chag evenings at my parents’ are always a bit bonkers, but at Rosh Hashanah they get really wild
September 22, 2025 11:33Having very Jewish parents and a very non-Jewish boyfriend isn’t necessarily much of an issue for me in my life. Apart from when they come together. And especially when they come together for Friday night dinner or the chagim. You know what they say about East is East and West is West…
A couple of years ago when I told my boyfriend Kevin I was going to a big family Rosh Hashanah do at my parents, he asked me if he and his adult daughter could come too. I’ll be frank: I balked at the prospect, of how observed and exposed I would feel. How could I expect my goy-boy and his daughter to understand my parents? I don’t even understand my “Oriental” parents half the time. Most of the time.
Having chag evenings at my parents is always a bit bonkers. There was the time a shofar mysteriously appeared. My dad failed to blow it but almost gave himself a hernia trying. My son then blew it effortlessly and my dad said it was because “it was just a toy, not a real one and your son is a child”.He was 20. Some of the rules seem to change on an almost annual basis. I swear my dad suddenly remembers something they used to do years ago in Aden where he grew up, then incorporates it into the evening with no explanation and gets exasperated with us if we don’t immediately comply. Or my mother recalls her Persian mother telling her about an ancient custom from back in her youth, like eating pumpkins on Rosh Hashanah... and it is suddenly what we’re obliged to do.
The madness and unpredictability never change, though. None of us ever seem to know what’s going on and there’s usually some minor or major family blow-ups with EastEnders-style revelations. And that’s even before we get to the main course. Which isn’t surprising, because it’s usually several hours of drinking and praying before we get to anything resembling a main course to soak up all the wine.
It’s usually several hours of drinking and praying before we get to anything resembling a main course to soak up all the wine
My dad insists on praying at a rapid rate, probably because he won’t miss out a word and there are so many prayers to get through. And apart from my mother, who can follow most of it, the rest of us don’t have a scooby what he’s saying. All we know is suddenly he makes... sort of mooing noises at us to do something. He refuses to use normal words when he’s praying. He relies on making these animal-like noises and we (myself, my sister, and our children) helpfully and obligingly try to guess what it is he wants us to do. It’s basically like playing religious charades.
“Wash our hands?”
“Eat some bread?”
“Uncover the goat’s head?”
“Drink more wine?”
“Put my phone away? What phone?”
“Say ‘Amen’?”
“Stand up? Sit down? Be quiet?”
“Eat the goat’s head?”
“How many words? Can you say what it begins with?”
“What does it sound like?”
Fourteen of us crowded into my parents’ tiny flat in Stamford Hill that particular Rosh Hashanah. Outside, many hundreds of black-hatted frummers were on the streets, rushing home from their synagogues and adding to the exotic atmosphere of the evening, now that I was seeing things through the eyes of Kevin and his daughter Máiréad.
The giant makeshift table was festooned with a multitude of foodstuffs for tradition, symbolism and ritual. Apples, honey and pomegranates, of course, but also quince, beetroots, daled – pumpkins cooked hard so you can’t enjoy them – carrots, and chilbeh (a Mizrahi sauce made from fenugreek). Plus, the obligatory brown haricot beans cooked with sliced cow’s lungs and, in pride of place, the centrepiece of the goat’s head. Don’t ask. No, really, don’t ask.
Very soon though, during my dad’s interminable praying, questions were asked. Obviously not by me and the family. Oh no. We know better than to ask what was going on. By Kevin and Máiréad.
Why were we eating the chilbeh, they asked with interest, what exactly did it symbolise? My dad glanced up, looked bewildered for a moment, then looked down again and carried on praying. My mother answered: “Because of our bitter enemies.” Kevin and Máiréad nodded thoughtfully.
Why specifically were we now eating the pumpkins? asked Máiréad. “This is also because of our enemies,” said my mother. “We will tear up our enemies into little pieces, destroying them in the way they want to destroy us. More wine?” Máiréad, a quietly spoken, nice young woman from the Home Counties, paled a bit at that point and drank some more wine. Or, rather, gulped it.
When we got to the goat’s head Máiréad dared to ask again. “And why are we now eating a goat’s head?” My mother said “Because of our enemies. We eat a goat’s head so that we don’t eat its tail. The enemy can eat the tail.”
“Nan,” said my daughter Leora “you keep saying everything we eat is because of our enemies. It can’t all be that!”
My mother stared at her for a minute and then said, “What can I tell you? We have a lot of enemies.”
More wine?
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