If You Speak His Language
Every once in a while one of those magazines for learned Jews will publish a
symposium with the slightly mysterious title of "What Makes a Jew?" It may
contain a dissertation by a leading Jewish sociologist proving that Jews are
nothing more than an ethnic group with a common cultural heritage. Another may
argue that Jews are indeed a race apart as evidenced by their outstanding
intelligence and achievements. A renowned theologian will enunciate his thesis
that the belief in one God lies at the root of all Judaism and that a Jew is one
who adheres to the Jewish religion. Yet another may argue that religion is
irrelevant to Jewishness and that even an atheist can be a Jew if he or she
identifies as a Jew. My father was never one to quibble over such subtle distinctions. He had one
invariable standard for determining if someone was a Jew: if you spoke his
language, you were a Jew. That was it. No complications. This was obviously a gross oversimplification, which I knew wouldn't stand the
test when confronted with reality. And so I waited for Father's theory to meet a
challenge. It looked as if my chance had come one night in the mid-'50s when
Harry Belafonte appeared on our TV screen singing "Hava Nagila." "Howja like dot?" asked my father. "Not dot," corrected Mother, unperturbed by Father's twenty-year resistance to
the niceties of English pronunciation. "Not dot. Dat. T - h - a - t. Dat." For some inexplicable reason, Mother's tutorial method with a man who had never
mastered the alphabet was premised on spelling. I suspected this technique owed
its application not so much to Mother's belief in its validity as a teaching
tool but to her desire to demonstrate her own superior grasp of the language. "All right," said Father, in his I-stand-corrected tone. "Dat. Howja like dat?"
And, then he said, in astonishment and delight, "Herry Belafonte turns out to be
a Jew!" No amount of refutation from Mother and me had the slightest effect on him. "Herry"
Belafonte sang in Hebrew. Who else but a Jew would do that? He was obviously one
of those Black Jews, like those from Ethiopia. Strictly speaking, Hebrew wasn't my father's language. Yiddish was. But Hebrew
was the language of the Bible, the other sacred texts and, in recent times, the
language of Israel. That was good enough for Dad. From then on, "Herry" was a favorite in our house. On those notable occasions
when he made a TV appearance, the family would gather before the set and sit in
hushed and grateful silence. One of our own was on. Accordingly, it came as no surprise to Father when "Herry" divorced Marguerite,
his African American wife, and married Julie Robinson, a young Jewish dancer
with the Katherine Dunham dance troupe. "Nu," said Father, with that know-it-all
sparkle in his eyes. "What did I tell you? A Jewish fellah. First, he's got to
marry a shikse. And then he finds a nice Jewish girl." The acid test of reality never had a chance with my father. He had the
exasperating ability to conform reality to his own vision of it.
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