09-16-2008, 06:43 PM
A couple of relevant stories:
When we lived in southern Minnesota, our Rabbi there told us that during an outreach trip to one of the rural areas, a girl came up to him and asked to feel his head. When he asked why, she told him that she wanted to feel for his horns - her parents had told her that Jews had horns.
When in college, I ended up very close - ultimately sharing a house with - a bunch of guys from all over Illinois. Three of them loved to toss around the term "I jewed him down" to refer to getting a better price on something. It caught me off guard - honestly, I had never heard that term growing up in Skokie, IL. When I asked them about it, they responsed, "C'mon - everyone talks like that - we don't mean anything by it... no offense, of course." It was a real learning process for all of us. In any case, I don't use the terms welched or gyped so loosely anymore. I remain very close to these guys, now 15 years later.
When in Minnesota, my wife worked with a woman (at IBM) who asked her if she celebrated Christmas. When my wife said no, the woman paused a second and then asked her, "Well then, how do you celebrate the birth of Jesus?" This is one of my favorite stories about this kind of stuff.
When I was quite young - around 8 or 9, our neighbor, who happened to be German, told me a joke he heard from his dad - "How to you get 10 jews into a Volkswagon.... 3 in the front, 3 in the back and 4 in the ashtray." I really did not understand the "joke," and neither did he. In the end, we decided (not understanding the ash tray part it) that it didn't have to be jews - any ethnic group would do. When I related the joke to my parents, they were pretty upset, and once they explained it to me, so was I.
When we lived in southern Minnesota, our Rabbi there told us that during an outreach trip to one of the rural areas, a girl came up to him and asked to feel his head. When he asked why, she told him that she wanted to feel for his horns - her parents had told her that Jews had horns.
When in college, I ended up very close - ultimately sharing a house with - a bunch of guys from all over Illinois. Three of them loved to toss around the term "I jewed him down" to refer to getting a better price on something. It caught me off guard - honestly, I had never heard that term growing up in Skokie, IL. When I asked them about it, they responsed, "C'mon - everyone talks like that - we don't mean anything by it... no offense, of course." It was a real learning process for all of us. In any case, I don't use the terms welched or gyped so loosely anymore. I remain very close to these guys, now 15 years later.
When in Minnesota, my wife worked with a woman (at IBM) who asked her if she celebrated Christmas. When my wife said no, the woman paused a second and then asked her, "Well then, how do you celebrate the birth of Jesus?" This is one of my favorite stories about this kind of stuff.
When I was quite young - around 8 or 9, our neighbor, who happened to be German, told me a joke he heard from his dad - "How to you get 10 jews into a Volkswagon.... 3 in the front, 3 in the back and 4 in the ashtray." I really did not understand the "joke," and neither did he. In the end, we decided (not understanding the ash tray part it) that it didn't have to be jews - any ethnic group would do. When I related the joke to my parents, they were pretty upset, and once they explained it to me, so was I.