I pick up her jar of
pickles and absentmindedly
think aloud "How can a pickle not be
kosher? If I recall correctly, most of the kosher/
terefah issues have to do with
meat and
animals anyway . . . oh well."
"I think it's some Jewish thing," she drawled.
"It matters to them, but it don't mean nothin' to us."
This really
got on my nerves for two reasons. The first thing was that I could have been a
Jew myself, albeit an underinformed one, seeing as how I didn't know how a pickle could be terefah. (Hey, I have known so-called Christians who knew less than that about their
religion.) The second thing was the way she said "it matters to them, but it don't mean nothin' to us." A
cannibal tribe could say the same about our
culture frowning on human flesh consumption.
This also really made my
faith in my fellow townsfolk plummet. I hoped to
God that she was just a fluke and that the rest of the members of my
community were not as
ignorant as she.
Just in case she knew anything at all, I hummed "
Hava Nagila" while I finished bagging her
groceries.