An Israeli in America

One of Mrs. Stroock's cousins married an Israeli guy. He's young, he's Millennial, he's hip, he's tattooed; a no-no in Judaism.  

Last night he tried to give us that hand-clasp shoulder bump goodbye the kids like. We nearly dislocated a shoulder reaching up and wrenching his arm down for an actual handshake.  

He's a great guy, actually. The girls love him and enjoyed showing him off to the congregants at the synagogue; their little Israeli....

Anyway he's very interested in American Jewish life. He's not very religious and equates Reform Judaism with Israeli secular life. We pointed out to him that in Israel you don't have to do anything to be Jewish. One is simply Jewish by the act of being Jewish in Israel. In America, as a Jewish professor told us in college, being Jewish requires effort or you'll lose it - and no, watching Seinfeld and going to Kosher deli's doesn't count.

Hence the tremendous effort to see that the Stroocklettes are raised Jewish, Hebrew school, and yesterday's Bot Mitzvah.