When I was 16 my dad gave me his version of ‘The Sex Talk.’ It wasn’t exactly your typical birds and the bees discussion. My dad came into my room, took a seat next to me on the bed and said, “When I was 18 and in the Air Force I was stationed in a small town in Illinois for a short time. While I was there I was sleeping with a local girl (quite the Casanova in his day, he’d slept with lots of girls, so this came as no surprise).
He continued, “One day she called and told me she was pregnant.”
My eyes got wide. “And?” I prodded.
“She didn’t have an abortion,” he said.
He went on to explain that my mom knows, but it’s not talked about and he hasn’t spoke to the woman in question since the baby was born, for reasons that are another story entirely. He then said, “So, don’t have sex until you’re ready to have children.” The end. Well, not exactly.
Thirteen years later I was at my apartment in NYC on a Sunday morning, putting on makeup in front of the mirror in preparation for brunch with the girls when my phone rang.
It was my dad.
He said, “Jen, can you please come home?”
My parents lived an hour on the LIRR away in Long Island. Commack to be exact, or where Rosie O’Donnell, who also grew up there referred to as, ‘a suburban hell’ in her autobiography.
I asked why the urgency and he said, “Your sister’s here.”
I asked why my younger (and only) sister spontaneously came home from college in Boston and if she was all right.
“Not that sister,” he replied.
Silence.
Then off to Penn Station I went.
Enter my then 40-year-old ‘sister’ Lori. Lori was engaged and still living in a small town in Illinois, with her three kids, ages 8-18.
Lori, my mother, father and I had lunch at Bennigans where extended periods of silence were interrupted by uncomfortable conversation. Lori went home after the weekend but as the months went by my parents and Lori kept in contact and started learning about each other.
One fact I learned my dad had not yet told her was that he’s Jewish. Very Jewish. Not in the sense that we practiced, but that his parents met virtually escaping their respective concentration camps in Germany and he was straight off the boat, born in Germany and arriving in Ellis Island at three months old – because he was ‘too young’ for my grandparents intended boat to Israel.
Unlike my upbringing in Long Island, being from a small town in the Midwest, it’s possible Lori, and her children, had never met a Jewish person in their entire lives.
My sister and I devised ways to break it them. We thought about putting on our Facebook statuses (since we’re all FB friends), ‘Happy Hanukah’ or ‘What are you doing for Passover?” or a random “Shabbat Shalom.”
We thought about sending presents wrapped in dreidel paper or sending photos wearing Jewish star necklaces.
Cut to three years later. The middle child, Brittany, had graduated high school and wanted to come spend the summer in New York, to meet ‘grandpa.’
Since her stay extended from one week, to two weeks…one month, to two months…to near permanence, my parents had her get a job and she began working at a neighborhood deli.
One day she came home from work and joined my dad and my sister (the one I grew up with) in front of the TV. While my sister and dad were trying to beat each other to the punch solving the CSI case they were watching Brittany blurted, “I met a guy at work today who’s Jewish.”
My sister and dad looked at each other, then looked at her, waiting for her to continue.
“He said you can tell if someone’s Jewish by their nose, but how do you know what a Jewish nose looks like?” she asked.
Then my dad smuggled a laugh and simply pointed to his nose.
Surprise, you’re Jewish!
