Sigh, I had yet another conversation with someone that was convinced that she can tell just by looking at someone that they’re Jewish.
For a second, I thought, look she’s really old. I should let her off the hook. But you know me, I couldn’t.
I tried…”You mean, you think you can tell when someone is a Jew of Eastern European descent?” (The woman was a German Jew.)
I added, “You know, because Jews from Morocco or Yemen don’t necessarily look like Jews from Eastern Europe. And black Jews don’t look like….”
She looked at me like I was growing a second head. The conversation went downhill after that.
Anyway, do check out this essay by Christopher Bonanos: “You know I’m not Jewish, right?” She didn’t.
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 
why don't people understand that we come in all sorts of colors? I'm freckled ashkefard, which makes me a mutt, and I like it (stupid sephardic genetic ick that I can trace back to freaking Yemen notwithstanding).
LikeLike
The other day, in the middle of Friendly's (our Rabbi hold that we can eat ice cream from in the restaurant), my 5 year old son says, in a loud voice “brown people can be Jewish too” Im just glad he realizes that early on so he doesn't turn into one of the idiots you seem to meet all the time. Now I just have to work on his political correctness.
LikeLike
i recently went traveling with a friend who is mexican. She wears long skirts and 3/4 sleeves but nobody believed she was actually jewish. when we went to chabad or shul together everyone just assumed she was my non-jewish friend who was coming with me as part of a “cultural experience”.
LikeLike