Apples and Honey and Tolerance

Jewish New Year starts tonight and continues tomorrow and the next day.   I’m taking Ax out of school for two days so we can go visit my family and celebrate with them. I resent that I have to take my kid out of school and that school isn’t just closed for this holiday. I also resent the fact that picture day is on one of the days, one of the holiest days ever. It’s like scheduling picture day on Easter Sunday, or Christmas morning. I know picture day is not that big a deal. There is a make-up picture day. And I know that I shouldn’t be upset that when I told the school Ax would not be here for picture day because it’s Rosh Hashana the administrator said, “What’s that?” And that when I told another person at the school Ax would be out this week for Rosh Hashana they said, “Which one of those holidays is that? There are so many and they all move around.”

It’s kind of my fault. I what I guess you could call an assimilated, secular, non-religious, barely keeping up traditions for the sake of keeping up traditions, Jew. What some Jews would call not a Jew. All the Jews I know are that kind of Jew. Some of us call ourselves, “Bad Jews.” We know we are Jewish, but we don’t make a big deal about it, we keep it under wraps, we don’t want to stand out.

I could spin stories about why that is and talk about history and talk about present and talk about being scared of people wanting to kill us and people thinking we own the media or own the banks or own everything and stuff like that. But I don’t generally pay too much attention to that kind of thing. That kind of thing is a downer, and I didn’t think that kind of thing was such a big deal in my lifetime. We survive.

But it is a weird feeling to feel so Other, so Different, even here in my liberal-y bubble of existence. I’ve been trying to think about what, if anything, I might do about it. I think I will bring some sliced apples and honey to Ax’s class for snack today. Who doesn’t want a sweet new year? I do. Happy New Year!