shiksa

by Alice Mulford

Over the summer, I did something I had planned years ago, something I had assumed when I planned initially that would be dangerous and romantic.

I met an online friend in person.

We had been talking online for several years, actually. We “met” – how embarrassing! – on a Harry Potter website. Since then, we’ve emailed, IM’d, and become friends on Facebook. When we made the decision to meet in person this summer, I was not anxious. Over the years, we had learned a lot about each other, particularly about our ideas on relationships and our rather different religions.

When I “met” him, I had assumed we would accidentally come across each other someday and fall madly, wildly in love.

By the time I met him, I knew he was a Jewish boy named Ariel who had no reason to be in my home town (nor did I have a reason to be in his), and with whom I shared no common acquaintances.

We met in DC, outside of one of the Smithsonian buildings. I was aware suddenly that he had probably never strolled publicly with a shiksa like me. He had on a collared shirt and a yarmulke bobby-pinned to his head. I tried not to squeal in excitement. I was not allowed to hug him. I shook his hand, but I probably should not have touched him. There is a rule he follows about not touching women that he isn’t related or married to.

Every once in a while, Ariel would point out that we had passed another Jew. I couldn’t tell the Jews apart from the rest of the crowd, not if they weren’t in yarmulkes. I mean, come on. I couldn’t even distinguish Christians from the rest of the crowd.

We stopped for lunch. He commented on a Jewish family. He explained that he knew they were Jewish because the girls were dressed so modestly, among other things.

“They’ve been looking at us,” he said. “They’re probably wondering what I’m doing here with you. You’re clearly not Jewish.”

Clearly! His observation on the modesty of the Jewish girls felt like a stab at me. I was wearing what I had thought was a cute sundress, but I became acutely aware of the way the fabric clung tightly to my body.

I had become uncomfortable long before that. The only things we’d had in common all day was that we liked Reese’s cups, and that both of us found Smithsonian’s video on evolution particularly ridiculous. He began talking about the difficulties of being Jewish at his college, and I wanted him to know that it was hard to be Christian, too, at times. I wasn’t able to make my point – the very idea was dismissed quickly. As if I had never been the odd one out! I abandoned my personal say in the subject and allowed him to complain.

The last time I had had the opportunity to talk to a Jew for several uninterrupted hours, I had been on a train to Florida sitting next to a thirty-year-old woman named Sarah. Sarah and I found we had loads in common, and when we discussed religion, neither of us felt alienated. I felt – and if you asked her, I think she would agree – that the whole experience was enlightening and beautiful. We talked for eight straight hours, having to stop when the man in front of us turned around and asked us to shut up so that the rest of the car could sleep. I felt a heavy sickness on my stomach when this happened, but when I turned to look at Sarah, she giggled and it suddenly felt like we were at a sleepover and our parents had come in to fuss at us.