Christmas.”
Meaning chocolate coins aren’t necessarily Jewish.
Dad reads a sentence about the tension surrounding Christmas trees in interfaith households. As though it has nothing at all in the world to do with us.
In the evening, everyone goes out. My sister is visiting anold high school friend; my parents have a cocktail party with those members of their “Tuscany Group” who don’t winter in Florida. Degan, God bless him, has had enough of my family and decides to go see a movie by himself. Dusk falls; I’m alone. I take my stash of candles out of my suitcase and try to remember which way to insert them into the menorah. Left to right? Right to left? There is a mnemonic, but I can’t make it stick in my mind.
I arrange the candles haphazardly and carry the menorah gingerly to the front window. I imagine our neighbours across the street seeing it, the ones who are also members at St. John’s, the ones whose daughter was in my Confirmation class. I picture various members of my mother’s tennis club driving past.
The ledge on the windowsill is narrow; the flames lengthen, coming dangerously close to the gauze curtains. I move the menorah to the dining room table, but the table is too far from the window and nobody will be able to see it from the street. With no good solution—I can’t be responsible for the house catching fire!—I abandon the project, blowing out the candles and retreating to the couch in the family room, where I read quietly about the war in Nigeria and pray the New Year will be better.
Sometime later, I feel a hand gripping my shoulder. “Wake up,” Degan says. “We forgot to light the menorah.”
From the kitchen, I hear the sounds of the rest of my family returning home from their evening’s activities. Emily stomps the snow from her boots. “I’m going to walk the dog,” Dad says.
Degan calls out to him. “Do you want to join us in lighting the menorah first?”
There’s a pause. I can picture Dad looking to Mum, Mum shrugging as though to say: It’s up to you .
Emily calls brightly, “I’ll join you.”
Dad says, “Sure. We will, too.” I picture Mum looking to Dad to be sure, then wiping her wet hands down the front of her apron.
We gather in the living room. Degan remembers the mnemonic for the candles: Refill from the right. Light from the left. As he arranges them, he notices they have already been lit—evidence of my aborted mission—and raises his eyebrows at me. I shrug.
He leads us in the blessings, having somehow already memorized them. I watch my parents from the corner of my eye, vigilantly checking for disapproval, but see none. After, we all sit around talking. About the struggle I am having with finding acceptance, about the historical precedents for Judaism’s closed nature. Dad jokes, “If they won’t let you join, I’ll put in a good word for you with the rabbi.”
The next day Dad and I go over the Pick family tree he has given me as a Christmas gift. One of my ancestors bears the name Israel. Direct proof. And yet, part of me still finds it difficult to believe, as though the whole thing is an elaborate fiction. A story that belongs to somebody else.
After lunch Dad produces a shoebox of old family photos I’ve never seen. I extract one of my grandparents after the war, sitting around a table with people who look like business tycoons, diplomats. Bow ties, pearls, fur stoles. The gentleman beside my grandmother has his arm around her. She holds the hand of another man, an entrepreneurial type sitting at the head of the table. My grandfather—so handsome! so Jewish!—sits across from them. What was he thinking?
J’aime ta femme— “I love your wife.”
I pull another photo from the box, of Granny’s mother, Marianne. She stands with a man in ski pants in front of snow-covered mountains, her cheeks flushed from exertion, her full lips rouged.
“Who is she with? Is that her husband, Oskar?”
Dad shakes his head. “It’s
Meaning chocolate coins aren’t necessarily Jewish.
Dad reads a sentence about the tension surrounding Christmas trees in interfaith households. As though it has nothing at all in the world to do with us.
In the evening, everyone goes out. My sister is visiting anold high school friend; my parents have a cocktail party with those members of their “Tuscany Group” who don’t winter in Florida. Degan, God bless him, has had enough of my family and decides to go see a movie by himself. Dusk falls; I’m alone. I take my stash of candles out of my suitcase and try to remember which way to insert them into the menorah. Left to right? Right to left? There is a mnemonic, but I can’t make it stick in my mind.
I arrange the candles haphazardly and carry the menorah gingerly to the front window. I imagine our neighbours across the street seeing it, the ones who are also members at St. John’s, the ones whose daughter was in my Confirmation class. I picture various members of my mother’s tennis club driving past.
The ledge on the windowsill is narrow; the flames lengthen, coming dangerously close to the gauze curtains. I move the menorah to the dining room table, but the table is too far from the window and nobody will be able to see it from the street. With no good solution—I can’t be responsible for the house catching fire!—I abandon the project, blowing out the candles and retreating to the couch in the family room, where I read quietly about the war in Nigeria and pray the New Year will be better.
Sometime later, I feel a hand gripping my shoulder. “Wake up,” Degan says. “We forgot to light the menorah.”
From the kitchen, I hear the sounds of the rest of my family returning home from their evening’s activities. Emily stomps the snow from her boots. “I’m going to walk the dog,” Dad says.
Degan calls out to him. “Do you want to join us in lighting the menorah first?”
There’s a pause. I can picture Dad looking to Mum, Mum shrugging as though to say: It’s up to you .
Emily calls brightly, “I’ll join you.”
Dad says, “Sure. We will, too.” I picture Mum looking to Dad to be sure, then wiping her wet hands down the front of her apron.
We gather in the living room. Degan remembers the mnemonic for the candles: Refill from the right. Light from the left. As he arranges them, he notices they have already been lit—evidence of my aborted mission—and raises his eyebrows at me. I shrug.
He leads us in the blessings, having somehow already memorized them. I watch my parents from the corner of my eye, vigilantly checking for disapproval, but see none. After, we all sit around talking. About the struggle I am having with finding acceptance, about the historical precedents for Judaism’s closed nature. Dad jokes, “If they won’t let you join, I’ll put in a good word for you with the rabbi.”
The next day Dad and I go over the Pick family tree he has given me as a Christmas gift. One of my ancestors bears the name Israel. Direct proof. And yet, part of me still finds it difficult to believe, as though the whole thing is an elaborate fiction. A story that belongs to somebody else.
After lunch Dad produces a shoebox of old family photos I’ve never seen. I extract one of my grandparents after the war, sitting around a table with people who look like business tycoons, diplomats. Bow ties, pearls, fur stoles. The gentleman beside my grandmother has his arm around her. She holds the hand of another man, an entrepreneurial type sitting at the head of the table. My grandfather—so handsome! so Jewish!—sits across from them. What was he thinking?
J’aime ta femme— “I love your wife.”
I pull another photo from the box, of Granny’s mother, Marianne. She stands with a man in ski pants in front of snow-covered mountains, her cheeks flushed from exertion, her full lips rouged.
“Who is she with? Is that her husband, Oskar?”
Dad shakes his head. “It’s
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