scene from an intermarriage

by Philip Weiss on April 20, 2009 · 26 comments

My wife and I are going to a friend's house for dinner. In the country. I stopped in her office. "Hon, I'm not a WASP. Can I wear this?" I had on torn jeans. She looked me over and said, "Yes. Fine."

Related posts:

  1. A Sleepless Night, Due to Inner Torment Over Assimilation/Intermarriage
  2. intermarriage and yoga
  3. why I am secretly for intermarriage, though I shouldn’t proselytize
  4. Chicago Judge Likens Bar on Intermarriage to ‘Bigotry’
  5. I F— Up Another Dinner Party

{ 26 comments }

1 anon 0 April 20, 2009 at 6:05 pm

do as the local rabbi does. camouflaged yarmaluki where ever he marches. even if inappropriate no one will notice. all eyes are confused. dont even notice that he marches – as if to war.

5ds

2 anon 0 April 20, 2009 at 6:12 pm

NEW YORK – The Las Vegas Sun won the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for exposing a high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip. The New York Times received five Pulitzers, including one for breaking the call-girl scandal that destroyed Gov. Eliot Spitzer's career.

not sure the first is an expose. 20 years late and many already knew. still no one cares.

the 2nd was more a service to wall st and maurice greenberg(?)

5ds

3 Citizen April 20, 2009 at 6:13 pm

I don't know quite what to make of this. I'm not even slightly convinced it has anything to do
with being Jewish or WASP. I never went to my Jewish wife and asked, "Hon, I'm not a Jew. Can I wear this?" Perhaps this means nothing, but where I live Jews are huge, and have been for a long time. This is like something written for Curb Your Enthusiasm. Isn't there actually more to life
than Woody Allen or Larry David HBO? And, as to what's left of the WASPs, Wally's World, hillbilly cousin, and Fletch? Perhaps this has something to do with Ivy League schools?

4 Laurie April 20, 2009 at 6:23 pm

Of course you should dress the way you feel comfortable and dressing the way you feel comfortable says a lot about who you are. You say you are a Jew, so how does a Jew dress?…Like someone who wants to be a WASP.

Sorry Phil I couldn't resist. It was such a silly question.

5 Richard Witty April 20, 2009 at 6:40 pm

You missed the news today, Phil.

Harman, 11 posts or so. Originated by a Dreyfus.

Durban 2. Roger Cohen article. Excellent Bradley Burston piece in Haaretz. Gideon Levy article in Haaretz. Roxana Saberi spy prosecution in Iran.

A lot to miss. I know you're hot on any "dual loyalty" claim, or nefarious AIPAC activity.

6 rykart April 20, 2009 at 6:40 pm

Whenever I see someone in a yamaka, instead of saying "there's another Jew–like me" I now think "there's another NUT…like Baruch Goldstein."

Probably not entirely fair, but that's how it is.

7 Citizen April 20, 2009 at 7:14 pm

Orginated by a Dreyfus? Really?

Durban II. The white boys club stayed away or walked out, those Shabbas Goyhim. I guess what was good for S Africa
circa Durban I isn't good enough for Israel.

8 D. April 20, 2009 at 7:19 pm

TPM:
* Around mid-2005: The Justice Department expands its investigation into the AIPAC spying case to include whether Harman schemed with AIPAC to have wealthy supporters lobby House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi to reappoint Harman as the top Democrat on the House intel committee. In return, it was alleged that Harman said she'll press DOJ to go easy on Steve Rosen and Ken Weissman, two former AIPAC staffers implicated in the Franklin indictment.

Josh has this exactly backward. According to CQ, Harman was contacted in order to get the charges reduced on Rosen and Weissman. In return, she was supposedly offered help in keeping her Intelligence Committee job. (That's assuming she needed any additional inducement besides helping out the homeland.)

9 MRW. April 20, 2009 at 7:56 pm

expands its investigation into the AIPAC spying case to include whether Harman schemed with AIPAC to have wealthy supporters lobby House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi

Saban?

10 Laurie April 20, 2009 at 8:07 pm

I wouldn't call it The White Boy's Club citizen, I'd call them The Step and Fetch Club. White is more than a phenotype. Having said that, I still hold that Israel's actions do not come from racism, but bigotry.

11 r April 20, 2009 at 9:04 pm

Obama says that Israel is free to massacre 1500 people and if anyone so much as breathes a word about it at an international conference, we'll boycott the conference.

So that's that. Unending suffering and bloodshed for the Palestinians until Israel is wiped off the earth. The possibility of peace with them is zero.

12 anon April 20, 2009 at 9:25 pm

Phil, will yiu tone down the faggottyness just a teeny bit, please? You're supposed to be going to Gaza!

13 Conscientious Objector April 20, 2009 at 9:32 pm

It seems to me that I landed on some different planet than all the other commentators on this post. I would propose that Phil writes the Grea American Novel about intermarriage. Otherwise, all posts seem off-base. Hey, anon? Stop with the personal stuff on Phil or I'll kick your ass from here to Gaza.h

14 hasbarablaster April 20, 2009 at 11:05 pm

"The White Boy's Club" is good and "The Step and Fetch Club" is even better but how about "Israel's Ball Boys" ?

Last May I spent a day at the French Open with my daughter. What fascinated most were the rituals of the ball boys, creatures trained to run, race, scream through the air if a ball even hints at dropping. The toadying boys rocket about the court, chasing like dogs. …

“You in America are Israel’s ball boy,” a French intelligence source laughs at me one day when we start talking tennis.  It’s an embarrassing thought and I want to punch my source in the face for saying it, simply because he’s French and I’m American and I still have to pretend at pride in the whored republic.

(Christopher Ketcham from Counterpunch)

15 Margaret April 21, 2009 at 5:36 am

Israel's actions do not come from racism, but bigotry.

Yep.

Phil, are you indicating you disagree with George Will? Why is that no surprise!

16 Laurie April 21, 2009 at 6:14 am

"Israel's Ball Boys" – The BEST

17 Judy April 21, 2009 at 9:12 am

As a WASP married to a Gazan, I'm here to tell ya Phil: no torn jeans in Gaza!

18 JES April 21, 2009 at 9:38 am

Wow! What a sick puppy Phil is.

Personally, I don't have a problem with my (Jewish) wife or need to ask her permission on what to wear. I can only attribute this to having been raised by Zionist parents.

Phil, you should really seek professional help ASAP. Pathetic.

On another note, it's "yarmulka" rykart, not "yamaka". "Yarmulka" means "cap" in Russian and made its way into Yiddish.

19 Citizen April 21, 2009 at 10:06 am

As I said, I don't feel the need to ask permission from my wife on what to wear. That could be as simple as I have a classical fashion sense, or as complex as–exactly what? JES says his immunity
in context comes from his being raised by Zionist parents. That seems at least as political as Phil's self-described vulnerable conduct. So, JES, please explain yourself. On a side note, JES, a skull cap is a skull cap, whether a cardinal wears it, or an orthdox jew. Aesthetically, it is a joke. Further, I have yet to see a hot movie where the star wears a little clothe saucer on his head.

20 rykart April 21, 2009 at 1:05 pm

JES

My bad.

By the way–why would anyone be seen in such ludicrous headgear?

21 Mooser April 21, 2009 at 1:50 pm

To be real about it, my intermarriage is almost exactly described by the classic Band song, "Up on Cripple Creek"

Up on Cripple Creek,
She sends me.
If I spring a leak,
She mends me!
I don't have to speak,
She defends me!
A Drunkards Dream,
if I ever did see one!

And her family has always treated me as if I was some visiting Prince from far, exotic climes, and my marriage to their daughter a royal connection which guaranteed them good stock picks and free parking spaces.

22 Mooser April 21, 2009 at 1:52 pm

Phil, does Gene Simmons, former yeshiva boy and Rabbinical student, worry about whether his jeans are torn or not? I doubt it. And neither should you. In fact, I would say that modeling yourself sartorically after Mr. Simmons could do you nothing but good.

23 rykart April 21, 2009 at 2:09 pm

Forget the skull cap, JES. If you want to maintain your status as a seriously deranged Jew, you need one of THESE babies:

http://www.tefillin.co.il/

24 JES April 22, 2009 at 7:01 am

By the way–why would anyone be seen in such ludicrous headgear?

I don't know rykart. Perhaps you could ask a Muslim! (Personally, I'm completely secular.)

25 JES April 22, 2009 at 7:41 am

So, JES, please explain yourself.

Well Citizen, I grew up paying retail, not being overly concerned with conspicuous consumption, and not being horrified by the thought that my parents would let slip something about "the goyim". That is, because my parents were Zionists who, in their younger years had lived on a kibbutz, did not impart on me a shtetl mentality from which I felt I had to flee by marrying someone who was not like my mother and then apologizing to her for what I was wearing.

On a side note, Citizen, you say that a skull cap is a skull cap and that it is aesthetically a joke. Well I agree, but then aesthetics are, as they say, in the eye of the beholder. I imagine that the same might be said of a pork-pie hat or a turban.

26 Margaret April 23, 2009 at 4:32 am

So there – there's a right way to do things, and then there's what everyone else does.

Phil, are you having fun distinguishing yourself from George Will? Personally, I love three-piece suits, but also always have enjoyed dressing to the max, stilettos and all, to go motorcycle riding behind a guy with hair down to here, leathers over skin and bells on.

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