Being a Jew

by Suzanne Sadowsky

As a Jewish woman, I feel all the "otherness" that Jewish men may experience plus all of the "otherness" of femaleness in a society in which political and social control is in the hands of white males. As a full-time federal employee for more than thirty years, in an agency in which there were a mere four Jews out of 100 or so full-time employees in the entire West Coast, I felt quite isolated from other Jews. I was not only a Jew, but also a woman, and also a manager and also a New Yorker. For a while, until she retired, there was another Jewish woman, Olga, a Hoocaust survivor who was born in Berlin. One day, Olga came to me quite distraught because some of the guys in the office were telling one another Jewish Princess jokes. One of the guys was also a Jew (ironically also a Holocaust survivor), thus making the joke-telling "acceptable". When I suggested to the guys that their "jokes" were not only sexist, but also anti-Semitic, the response I initially got was "Aw, come on, where's your sense of humor?" But eventually, they quit. Needless to say, this was about 10 years ago, when JAP jokes were in vogue and before the days of "multiculturalism" and sexual-harassment training.

The objectification of the Jewish Woman in our society who is seen, alternately, as the "overbearing mother", the "pushy" business-woman, the "oversexed Jewess" or the "undersexed Princess" has unfortunately been incorporated into the psyches of many Jewish men. As a result it has been hard for many Jewish men and women to become lovers or marriage partners or even friends --witness the extremely high rate of intermarriage in our culture-- perhaps 50% or more in some communities. My Jewish women friends and I sometimes discuss this late 20th Century phenomenon without coming to any conclusions, but still wondering what it is about gentile women that so many of our male contemporaries are drawn to them. And alternately what it is about us that is so much more appealing to gentile men than to our own. Based on a sample of respondents (although, admittedly, statistically biased) of my friends and associates, I can clearly say that Jewish women would much prefer to have, as a lover or partner, a Jew rather than a gentile. On the other hand, for Jewish men, the desire for a Jewish partner is not so strong. They would just as easily (and perhaps more easily) fall in love with a gentile as with a Jew.

Is it to escape from our "otherness" as Jews that causes us --both men and women-- to look for validation from a non-Jew? Why is it that gentile men have responded to us more positively than Jewish men have? Some of us believe that Jewish women want both more intimacy and confrontation than Jewish men care to deal with. Because we know each other so very well, we Jewish men and women, the depth and intensity of the dialogue may be too emotionally demanding for many of us. Almost like the sibling rivalry of brothers and sisters of people who know each other almost too well.

"What is it that Jewish men want?", we wonder. Is it someone who will adore them and will appreciate their expressiveness and sensitivity? Is it that these qualities which Jewish women appear to take for granted in Jewish men are seen and treated as extraordinary by non-Jewish women? The "Jewish men make the best husbands" syndrome? Do gentile women make their Jewish partners feel more appreciated? And why is it that gentile men are not turned off by our Jewish looks --our strong features, our zoftig bodies, our sensuality or our engaging (confrontational?, challenging?) style of communication, but instead find these qualities appealing and interesting?

All that being said, what does this have to do with the JCSGV? It has a lot to do with it. Until we had a "congregation", I felt comfortable and happy living in the Valley having moved here in 1975 after a seven-year sojourn in Southern California. But I didn't have the same sense of belonging and being part of the larger community that I had growing up in New York or that I have now.

I didn't understand how my "otherness" as a Jew was perceived by non-Jews until some years ago when a gentile neighbor said to me, "You must be glad that 'L.' [a Jewish woman] moved into the neighborhood, so that you can be with your own." Until then it hadn't occurred to me that my gentile neighbors saw me as not just another one of their neighbors, but also saw me as not one of "them". Her saying that to me helped me to realize how important being a Jew among other Jews was and is in my life. When my daughter Heather (now 20) was growing up, we didn't know anyone else in the Valley who didn't have a Christmas tree or who lit Chanuka candles. I know now that there were many other Jewish families (some of whom actually did Chanuka candles), but back then we didn't know each other. Now we do. As Jews, we can "be among our own" (as my gentile friend so aptly put it) and still feel part of the larger community, perhaps even more a part of the Valley mosaic.

My "otherness" was also connected to being a single parent -- even though my daughter's father (a non-Jewish agnostic with strong Jewish affinities) is still very much a part of our lives. I used to feel this "otherness" when I went with my daughter to the other synagogues in Marin along the 101 corridor where Jewish men had more stature in synagogue life than Jewish women. My daughter understood her otherness, painfully, when she went to an Orthodox day school in the City for two years and was told by a Rabbi who, in her Torah class, taught that children whose parents were not both Jewish were mamzerim --illegitimate under Jewish law. I think and hope that this is beginning to change now among the more mainstream congregations, but a decade ago, single-parent families and especially when one of the parents was not Jewish, did not feel that they were first-class "citizens" of many of the shuls.

Of special importance to me in the Congregation are the women and the places we have found for ourselves. I really love being able to hang out with the "girls" --a term I'd scoffed at when my mother used it to refer to her Mah Jong friends, but which in these neo-feminist times I have grown to appreciate. So now when I go to shul, to our shul, I am not going either to a singles event or as a second-class family member. I feel part of a larger family of people who want to celebrate life together as a Jewish community, and who are finding, as I am, what it is to be Jewish in the world. When I am with our Valley congregation, I feel not so much my "otherness", not so apart. I feel more whole.

—from our February 1994 Newsletter

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