2 min read
"So, what is kosher anyway?"
The outer layer of my double-wrapped, bio-hazard-protected kosher meal is still intact, but I already know what the next 30 minutes has in store.
Having hit a lifetime best of seven requests for Jewish Dietary Law 101 over the course of one meal this week, I've been researching The Awkward Question.
If you're unsure of your exposure to this global phenomenon, here's a game you can play with family and friends. (Think Family Fortunes, but I'm Les Dennis and the "100 people" are my Facebook friends).
So, I asked my Facebook friends, "What are the most lovely / shocking / interesting / ill-judged Judaism-based questions you've been asked by non-Jewish colleagues and friends?"
Now, based on the 90 responses I received within three hours of posting, award yourself a point for each of the following submissions you've encountered:
1.Do Jews actually have horns?
2.Do Jewish women shave their heads to make themselves look ugly to other men?
3.If you're running in the park and some pork flies into your mouth, are you still Jewish?
4.[Anything related to the deliberate cutting of bed linen].
5.Why don't you have those furry hats and curly-whirly sideburns?
6.So you do Christmas right?
7.Do Jews not eat bacon because they worship pigs?
8.What's the significance of the "Chanucah Armadillo"?
9.How long have you been in England and how is your accent so good?
10.Is that a nicotine patch on your head?
If you're scoring a solid 7/10 or more, you're straddling the religious and secular worlds with aplomb.
Many of us will have been asked these or similar questions, from people of all backgrounds and creeds. In their eyes we are the default representatives of global Judaism.
And, yes, I'd be omitting part of the story if I failed to mention that sometimes, sadly, it's not innocent questions, but rather deliberately racist slurs fired at us. But ask yourself: what percentage of the comments you've been on the end of have intended to harm?
My truth - and hopefully yours - is that the overwhelming majority of questions and misunderstandings I've experienced were made completely innocently, by friends and colleagues desperate to better understand us and our ways.
Yet, human nature dictates that we allow the illegitimate, worthless bile of a tiny but vocal rabble of ignorant losers to stick in our minds. It's this hateful gibberish of the irrelevant five per cent that we tend to remember and relive.
That's a mistake, and one that does a disservice to the wonderful 95 per cent who risk embarrassment to take an interest in us and the outwardly incomprehensible rules and symbolisms of our faith.
We should be grateful for an opportunity to explain. People distrust what they don't understand, and with the best will in the world, no web search is going to adequately answer: "Why do you drink our beer but not our wine?"
So, let's play another game. What questions have you asked people of other faiths, cultures or nationalities about their traditions and practices? How often have you put yourself out there - your lack of knowledge exposed - to learn more about a colleague or friend?
If the answer is lower than the questions you've been asked about Judaism, maybe you've got some work to do.
The only way to build understanding is to eradicate ignorance. You do this by exposing it, often in the form of a well-intentioned but potentially accidentally cack-handed, why-have-so-many-people-in-history-hated-the-Jews-so-much-type question.
So take the questions, take a breath, realise they're asked with the purest of intentions and give an answer.
Oh, and then ask your own questions.