Life as the Token Jew

I grew up in Northern New Jersey, which most people assume is a very Jewish area. They aren't wrong. There are at least ten synagogues within a fifteen minute drive of the house where I grew up - and at least two of them are giant mega-temples. Livingston and Millburn, both of which border my home town of Chatham, have an extremely high percentage of Jews. The same is true of West Orange and South Orange, both close by. Growing up, I heard a joke a few times that tells the whole story: Why is New Jersey the Garden State? Because there's a Rosenbloom on every street!

The Summit JCC: uniting token Jews from several Northern NJ towns.

But Chatham was always this weird dead zone, located adjacent to major Jewish communities, but largely uninhabited by Jews itself. (At least this was the case when I grew up; I think a few more Jewish families have ventured in during the last fifteen years or so.) There weren't even enough of us for one synagogue: our family belonged to a small temple in Summit, which served as kind of a regional center for the few Jewish families in Chatham, Berkeley Heights, New Providence and other little towns in the area. But I spent most of my time in high school, where I usually played the role of the token Jew.

In fact, I've often found myself in situations where I am the token Jew: Chatham High School, Kenyon College and the small, predominantly White and Christian (though nominally secular) boys' school where I teach. It's usually not such a big deal. Jews are pretty mainstream. (Exhibit A: Almost no one seemed to be talking about Bernie Sanders' Judaism during his run for the Democratic nomination. I actually had to look online to confirm that he is in fact Jewish. For comparison's sake, Mitt Romney's Mormonism was a frequent topic of conversation. As was Joe Lieberman's Judaism, when he ran as Al Gore's running mate in 2000.) I have almost never been the subject of overt anti-Semitism, save for a random e-mail that I received in 2001 from some random, anonymous bigot. (From Florida, I deduced. Shocking.) But my token Jew status has occasionally made for some awkward and, in retrospect, amusing situations.

Here are a couple that I remember well from my time in high school:

Shortly after my family moved to Chatham from the more diverse neighboring town of Maplewood, a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl from my third grade class asked me, out of the blue,

“What religion are you? Protestant or Catholic?”

The question confused me, because she seemed so certain that there were only two options, but I eventually stammered that I was Jewish.

The wheels turned inside her eight-year-old head. “If you’re Jewish, do you believe in Jesus?”

I hadn’t really considered this question before but responded that no, I didn’t think I did.

And this third grade theologian responded, “It’s not nice to not believe in Jesus.”

And then there was this:

During sophomore year, before one of my high school wrestling matches, the team captain gathered us together for a group prayer. The boys, most of them Roman Catholics of Italian descent, knelt down in a circle, bowed their heads and began crossing themselves as the captain lead them in a quick but earnest Hail Mary. Everyone knew the words. Not wanting to ruin the moment with my religious scruples, but also not wanting to mindlessly join the group out of a misplaced desire not to rock the boat, I simply stood on the outskirts of the circle, head half bowed in reverence. The incident passed without comment, but by the time the captain made the same announcement before a match the following week, he had apparently gathered that I wouldn’t be joining the team in prayer.

            “Everyone, we’re gonna bring it in for a quick team prayer,” he announced, then turning an eye to me in the corner, “Barron, you do whatcha gotta do.”

           

I think I responded with a solemn nod, but inside I couldn’t help but chuckle. His dispensation would have given me license to put on a tallis and teffilin and march the torah around the locker room, if that was what I “had to do.” But at least he was trying – and so were most of the Gentiles in town. It wasn’t their fault that for many of them, I represented a first brush with a religion other than their own.