Is Your House Evil? Mine was.

I just finished reading "My Daugther's Eyes and Other Stories," by Dominican writer Annecy Baez. The book was a little too vivid, poignant and hardcore for me, dealing with things like child abuse (sexual and otherwise) and infidelity, but it made me remember a couple of details I had forgotten from my childhood.

Growing up there were a couple of religions in our house. My aunt was Buddhist. My sisters were Wiccan. My Mom dabbled in Catholicism and Santeria. I was flirting with Judaism. But my mother ruled the house so it was her way or the highway (I know this because one time she locked me out of the house in the middle of winter...near a highway).

So my mother had an altar which gave me the heeby jeebies. She put fruit sacrifices out to rot on the altar in devotion to the saints. When we were out of food, I gazed at the fruit in desperation. My sister went one better, snatched the fruit and got slapped for it.

My mother made us wear our underwear inside out to protect us from evil spirits. She made us wear azabaches around our necks to protect us from the evil eye. But one of her favorite things to do was to cleanse the apartment.

Sometimes, my mother mopped the floors in a goopy, soup-like potpurri and made us bathe in the leftovers. Other times, there was Agua de Florida, "general purpose spirit water” first manufactured by some crazy Quaker as perfume for fancy Victorian ladies in the 1800s, later to be drunk by shamans for its cleansing and healing properties and finally, adopted by crazy Dominican women like my mother who swore by it as part of their arsenal against evil. Because a happy house is not an evil one.

Hispanic Woman Walking

"Mami, pero tu si ta buena!" a tiguerito yells in the first chapter of my book that opens on a scene in Washington Heights. My Mom is pushing a stroller down the street while my sister B. and I walk on either sides and despite her brood, the hoodlum on the street can't help telling her she's fine. Even now when I think of Washington Heights, I can't get the picture of leering men on the street corners out of my head.

I'm currently trying to find a home for a piece called "My Mother Wore Tight Pants" which follows my travel from a culture of tight pants in the Dominican Heights to a culture of long skirts in the Jewish Heights. I went through many phases with those leering men. When I was young, I saw them as an affront to feminism. When I was a teenager, I needed their attention to boost my ego. And finally, when I was converting to Judaism, I was too covered up to have to suffer their gazes.

But my new modest wardrobe hasn't spared me completely. I have still been hollered at walking down the street in a long sleeved shirt and a long skirt. The first time, I remember looking back at the guy and being mortified. I looked myself over. Nope, still dressed modestly, I noted. But that hadn't stopped the guy on the street from making me into a sex object. And the guy on the street is always Hispanic or African-American. I've never gotten catcalled by a white guy. In fact, in college, some white construction workers nicely pointed out that my underwear was tucked into my skirt.

I really identified with "Black Woman Walking," a clip from You Tube, that chronicles the daily advances African-American women put up with when walking the streets. It could just easily have been called "Hispanic Woman Walking."

Stereotypes as art?

James Blagden isn't taking racism lying down. He's turning it into art.

Check out the main page of his website which claims "Asians are nerdy," "White Folks can't dance" and "Black People are obnoxious and loud."

Don't you wish you could turn all those racist experiences into beautiful art?

Jewish Students Under Siege

At UC Santa Barbara in California:



At York University in Toronto:

"Jewish students under 'siege' at York U"

"Jewish students 'held hostage' at Toronto Hillel"

At UC Irvine in California:

"Quiet war on campus: Israel remains under attack despite fewer public protests"

"Jewish students urged to avoid UC Irvine"

In the UK:

"Jewish Students Say U.K. Groups Ignore Anti-Semitic Acts on Campus"

Holla to Iranian Jews

I was surprised to open up yesterday's New York Times and find an article on Iranian Jewry. "There are still Jews in Iran?!" I exclaimed. Apparently, there are and according to Op-Ed columnist Roger Cohen, they are thriving there.

It's hard to believe such positive news when so many of us are still worrying about the Jews in Venezuela and wherever else response to Israeli warfare breaks out into violent anti-Semitism (did you hear about the students at York University in Toronto?). But "What Iran's Jews Say" paints a much happier picture of Jews in the diaspora, and amazingly, even Jews in Arab countries. Let's just hope the news stays positive.

Interfaith Couple Chooses Judaism

Here is an interview that should have been part of a larger piece tracking three interfaith couples and their religious choices.

Batya keeps kosher but her husband isn’t Jewish. She paints a different picture of the statistics of intermarriage. We’ve heard them all by now: “Intermarriage threatens Jewish survival. Over 70% of the children of intermarried couples are not raised within any religious faith. We ‘lose’ approximately 100 Jews everyday to intermarriage and assimilation.” But as Batya tells it, though her husband was raised Christian, her marriage is very much a Jewish one.

Batya, 21, always assumed she’d marry someone Jewish. She didn’t meet her husband until after breaking up with an Israeli Jew. “I never in a million years would have guessed that I’d marry a man who had been raised as a southern Baptist,” she confesses. But growing up and living in a Central Florida town where there is very little Jewish life made it difficult to marry Jewish. She met her husband Robert, 25, through a “matchmaker,” after a friend set them up. They have been married for 8 months and known each other for over two years.

Her father wasn’t Jewish but soon after her parents divorced, Batya’s mother became more religious and Batya followed suit. In Batya’s early teens, the family started attending Chabad services, keeping kosher and keeping Shabbos. But by age 17, it became harder to balance observance in a community that was primarily secular. “If I had been in a religious community, I would have been able to keep it up.” A lonely Batya slowly gave up observances until by age 19, she was “not doing anything very religious at all.”

She looks back on the time with sadness but admits that the one bright spot in temporarily losing her faith was finding her husband. Robert (who was unavailable to be interviewed) was raised by devout Christian parents who turned him off to the faith. They told him most indiscretions would result in “going to hell,” Batya confides. When Batya and Robert met, they were both going through a secular period in their lives. But this period would end soon after their marriage.

“It was a slow evolution. I started dressing more conservatively…lighting Shabbos candles…three weeks of the month…cooking Shabbos-style dinners. I wanted to become more religious again but I knew I would have to do it slow[ly] because when you go about making all these changes so fast, it’s a lot harder to maintain,” Batya says. When I ask her how Robert responded, she stammers softly. Robert isn’t “super crazy” about “tznius” (modest dress) and the conservative way his wife now dresses. He’s even less crazy about her covering her hair. “I try to remind myself that for him, it’s really weird.”

But when I prod and probe for more about the friction Batya’s new observance level has created in the marriage, I come up empty-handed. Robert is excited about keeping a kosher kitchen, something he’s researched extensively. The two already separate between meat and dairy meals. “He’s more supportive than not. We’ve set a goal to be completely kosher at home in 6 months. He thinks lighting Shabbos candles is really cool,” Batya offers with excitement.

Batya picks and chooses the holidays they observe. She didn’t go to school on Rosh Hashanah but attended one class on Yom Kippur and didn’t fast for health reasons. The couple doesn’t observe Christmas but Robert wants a Christmas tree. Batya is willing to compromise. She says, “I let him have it. It is just a pretty tree—with no religious ornaments or anything. We don’t do anything (aside from the tree) to celebrate the holidays he was raised with, and he doesn’t go to church ever.” Robert, instead, chooses to attend shul with his wife. “He likes going to shul with me, and loves learning about holidays and celebrating with me.”

If it sounds like the transition towards observance has been mostly smooth for Batya and Robert, then you haven’t met the mother-in-law. Though Robert’s mother move to another state has helped eased tensions, Batya and her mother-in-law have a very strained relationship. They pray to God at every meal, Batya tells me, “I struggle with more when his parents come over, which thankfully is rare. They insist on praying to Jesus before we eat. I do not know how to be polite but also insist on being respected in my own home.” Her voice fills with emotion as she explains that early on, Robert’s mother refused to meet Batya. Batya observes sadly that she believes her mother-in-law doesn’t like her because she’s Jewish.

I veer the conversation towards happier topics when I ask how Batya and Robert plan to raise their children. “We’re going to raise them Jewish. It’s something that I’m not willing to compromise.” Batya notes that she didn’t learn about Judaism until she was 6 or 7 and thinks it’s sad to be raised without a religion. She adds that as a doula, some of her patients have told her that they are against circumcision. But Batya is firm that her sons will be circumcised “for religious reasons.” She laughs as she admits that Robert is supportive because “he wants his sons to look like him.”

I do not ask the question that looms in my mind throughout our conversation. Batya surprises me by bringing the subject up herself. No, she hasn’t discussed conversion with her husband. “He never said he was interested. I never asked. Of course, I would be happy [if he converted] but it’s not a huge deal.” I quickly ask her if the Jewish community she’s loosely affiliated with has been welcoming to her family. Batya says, “Nobody [at Chabad] said anything negative. No one’s been anything but supportive.”

The most unsupportive comment Batya has experienced thus far came from an online group of observant women where one member posted an unpleasant response to Batya’s questions about going to the mikvah. Batya was considering observing taharat ha’mishpacha (the laws of family purity) and wanted to get some feedback on it. “That really hurt my feelings,” Batya says and for now she has tabled the idea of going to the mikvah until she recovers her confidence.

As I listen the pain in Batya’s voice, I wonder about my own biases towards intermarried couples. Have my hurtful comments stopped someone from deepening their commitment to Judaism? It’s certainly not easy being an intermarried-not interfaith-Jewish couple but Batya’s story seems to indicate that one spouse’s strong Jewish identity can bring both spouses closer to the fold. Perhaps then it’s the Jewish community’s role to accept the realities of intermarriage and respond with utmost sensitively.

“I’ve been letting my heart guide me on this whole process,” Batya says. In her heart, Batya wants to be a good Jew. Who are we to stop her?

Double Minority

When I was a kid, I brought my cousin O home to play. I introduced him to my friend Alex.

"This is my cousin," I said. This made Alex angry.

"He is not your cousin!" Alex screamed.

"Yes, he is!" I screamed back.

"No, he's not," Alex replied. "He's black."

I was stumped. When had my brown cousin become black? Wasn't he Hispanic like me?

To learn how black Latinos have become a double minority in America, read "Viewpoint: A double minority".

Rough Draft: Beyond Sammy

Here's a rough draft of a cultural criticism essay assignment for one of my writing classes.

No one talks about what Sammy Davis Jr. contributed to Jewish culture. Nor do they talk about what the newly converted Isla Fisher, star of the “Confessions of a Shopaholic” film and baby mama to Sacha Baron Cohen, is bringing to the fold. Perhaps, this is because their contributions are seen as adding to general popular culture, but not specifically Jewish culture. Or is it because neither wears, or wore in Sammy’s case, their Judaism on their sleeve?

Enter Y-Love, aka Yitz Jordan, an Orthodox Jewish rapper who describes his style as “global hip hop.” No article written about Jordan fails to mention that his conversion. His Wikipedia entry reminds us first and foremost that he left the Baltimore Baptist church of his youth for the Hasidic world of Brooklyn in adulthood. Adding to this the penguin-esque colors he wears and his black velvet kippahs (sometimes under a gray newsboy cap), Jordan falls easily into the role of your typical New York Modern Orthodox frummie. Or does he?


With lyrics in English, Yiddish, Hebrew and Aramaic, Jordan is clearly as serious about his Judaism as he is about his music. He’s serious enough even to win the 2006 Jewish Music Awards for Best Hip Hop. To snatch this prize, Jordan dethroned a Jew-by-birth Mattisyahu via internet voting, despite the Forward’s claim that the latter was “the best known Orthodox musician.”


No one questions whether or not Jordan is adding to Jewish culture. Even his album title, This is Babylon, proclaims Jordan as a Jewish artist in exile. XXL magazine argues that Jordan has made hip hop “kosher.” It helps that he raps not just about every day life but also Torah. 4024 MySpace friends and 998 friends on Facebook, which include a self-described rap hater like me, attest to Jordan’s popularity. But all this perhaps only highlights that Jordan is atypical. Like the new song he collaborates on with Crown Heights soul rapper DeScribe, Jordan’s music is hot because it brings “change,” a new perspective, to an Orthodox community that has thrived before on its insularity from the modern world.

Years earlier in the memoir of his conversion to Judaism, an African-American writer named Julius Lester wrote, “Who has ever heard of a black Jew? Few seem to take Sammy Davis, Jr., seriously as a Jew.” But no one seems to have trouble taking Yitz Jordan seriously or for that matter, Julius Lester himself. His memoir Lovesong is a lyrical, impassioned portrayal of a man’s long winding, titillating journey to Judaism. It is rich with insight into African-American and Jewish relations, relations that as Lester portrays have run the gamut from smooth to fractious.


As a recent Forward article on the inauguration of President Barack Obama shows, Lester has become a voice for both African-Americans and Jews. He explained the African-American perspective to his Jewish audience: “At long last, a majority of people believe that blacks have a place in our common humanity.” He also gave readers his singularly Jewish perspective: “I listened to the inaugural address not only as a black person, however, but also as a Jew. I felt excluded by the Christian tenor of the prayers. What a profound affirmation of our common humanity it would have been if Obama had invited a rabbi and an imam to deliver the invocation and benediction.” In one piece, Lester was able to represent two communities in an article that was as layered as his identity.


Was Lester’s perspective unique as a Jew of color? Probably not. More likely, his perspective is unique because of his conversion. As he relates in Lovesong, his decision to become Jewish led to exclusion from parts of the African-American community who saw his decision as a rejection. But it was not a rejection, being African-American and now Jewish, Lester became a hybrid. He is not just the grandchild of a former slave in America but also the grandchild of the Jewish slaves in the Passover narrative. He is of two worlds and through his memoir, Lester’s experiences hint at the idea that perhaps a convert is someone who can look at both his worlds with unparalleled depth, capable of both profound subjectivity and unique objectivity.

Comedian Yisrael Campbell is another convert who earns his daily bread because of his distinct outlook on the Jewish world. Though born an Irish-Italian Catholic, most of Campbell’s jokes are about Jews and they hinge on his perspective as a convert. The audience laughs hysterically as Campbell jokes that Israeli airport security always looks at his passport, which reads Christopher Campbell, and wonders “Where’s the bomb?” During his first run-ins with airport security, Campbell says he gave the officers a detailed explanation of why he converted but after learning more about Israeli culture, he’s changed his tune. “Now, I tell them I did it for the women,” he says. In one simple joke, Campbell offers witty cultural commentary. Sure, he understands Israelis but he knows that as a convert, he’s generally misunderstood. And that’s part of what makes his shtick so comical.


Campbell’s audience always knows that he’s not just laughing with his Jewish audience, he’s laughing at them. He mocks the little things no one talks about. He rails on why Jews light a specific candle the second night of Chanukah. So as not to hurt the other candle’s feelings, he says. “If this is people, a culture, a religion, that cares so much about the feelings of a candle, how must they treat people?” he asks in his routine. “Not so well, I find out,” he responds. “Not all the time. I’m sure we’ve all had our days, I now I have where I’ve thought, I wish I were a Chanukah candle.” Campbell chuckles. The audience bursts into easy laughter. They’re laughing at themselves right along with him.


Maybe converts do more than just add to Jewish culture and the cultures they have brought with them. Converts force Jews-by-birth to dance, cry and laugh with them in a newly Jewish way that couldn’t have been done before. Perhaps, this is because converts force Jews-by-birth to reexamine their own culture from a wholly new original perspective –through music, the written word and yes, even stand-up.

The Book of Our Heritage: Mis Abuelos and Abuelas

Todays's Jewish Treats on grandparents got me thinking about mine.

Mis abuelos, my grandparents, never had a chance to spoil me.

Because of a family schism, I didn't see my father's mother before she died. And I have only one faded, threadbare memory of her. I thought it was a recurring dream but my mother told me later that it was a real memory.

I was three years old and I was standing in the hallway outside of my grandmother's apartment. She was kicking my mother out. All of us, my mother, my grandmother, my father, me, were living on top of each other in a four-room apartment in Washington Heights. And like typical mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relations, things were not well between my mother and my grandmother.

There was a lot of screaming that night. I remember some sort of stuffed animal in my hand scraping the floor as I tried to reach for my grandmother. But my mother pulled me back. My parents got their own place soon after. In the privacy of their own apartment, they held their own screaming matches.

I only have one memory of my mother's father, too. We went to visit him at his store in the Dominican Republic. My mother explained that he was Spanish so I expected him to lisp over his words. He didn't. But he did tell us we could have any toy in the store we wanted for our birthdays that summer.

I was about 11 or 12 and I don't remember what I chose. But I remember that my five-year-old sister rescued a police car out of a corner. My grandfather laughed. "Oh that's for boys!" My mother, my sisters and me gave him horrified, dirty looks.

"My aunt is a police officer," I reminded him.

Of course, he would have known that if my aunt was speaking to him. But she wasn't. He'd never been a part of her life and she didn't want him to be. Later my aunt told me that my memory was false. I hadn't met my mother's father. I had met HER father. My mother had a different father altogether, one that I never met.

My father's father was a bit more memorable but again I have only one memory. He wasn’t the kind of grandfather that you called “Grandpa,” even in Spanish. Everyone knew him as Blanco, though he was surely no white knight. I had met my grandfather only once when I was eight years old. My mother had told us crazy stories about him like she had told us crazy stories about everything. But some of the tall tales about him were true.

My grandfather was nothing short of charismatic. A charisma that oozed from every twinkle of his eyes, every smile and secret sidelong wink. In my one and only meeting with him, he seemed to smolder and radiate. His smile was the widest I had ever seen and when he bequeathed to me a little toy cow, I had shuddered, I was seduced. Oh, what pleasure. What ecstasy.

My grandfather had, in fact, given so much ecstasy to so many women over the years that it wasn’t until his funeral that all of his children, handfuls of children, really knew how far reaching my grandfather’s love had been. They met there at his funeral.

My mother's mother is the only grandparent I've ever really known. The year before I was born, she gave birth to one of my aunts, my mother's youngest sister. So by the time I was born, our playdates were already arranged.

I spent so much time at my grandmother's house that I called her "Mami" just like I did my mother. I like to think that it was because we were close but maybe someone realized it wasn't right to be calling this thirty-eight year old woman "Grandma." (She'd had my mother at 16.)

When my grandmother and my youngest aunt moved back to the Dominican Republic, I was inconsolable. And when they moved back around my thirteenth birthday, they were more strangers than family. But four years later when I was running from home and I had no place to go, my aunt convinced my grandmother to take me in. When my mother found out, she was out for my grandmother's blood.

I went to church with my grandmother. I hung out with her in the afternoons. I tried talking to her in Spanglish. But our relationship never took. In no time, she was talking to my mother again and trying to convince me to do the same. I stared at my grandmother in disbelief. "Don't you remember what this woman did to me?" I asked her.

Eventually, my grandmother asked me to move out of her apartment. Later, she found out that I was living with my aunt, the cop. My grandmother told my mother and my mother started stalking me. Restraining orders ensued. Years later, my grandmother even tried to testify against me in family court when I was fighting for custody of my sister. I didn't get it but I realized eventually that my grandmother's relationship to my mother was more important than her relationship with me. I wasn't her daughter, I was just a grandchild, one step removed.

After I got married, my great aunt, my grandmother's sister who had missed the wedding, was in town visiting. She'd suffered a stroke recently and the family was concerned for her health. The only problem was that if I wanted to see her, I had to go see her at my grandmother's house. I debated not going. My great aunt told me that my great-grandmother was also living with grandmother and because she was (and is) still in her 90s, I wouldn't have many more opportunities left. I took my husband to smooth things over. He was a hit.

At one point in the evening, my grandmother confessed she was no longer talking to my mother. "Too much trouble," she said with a stony look. I looked at her and I realized that she was trying to apologize. It wouldn't make the last couple of years disappear but it was something.

Now I try to call my grandmother once a month. I should visit more often. During my last visit, I sat her down for hours and made her draw me a family tree and tell me about our ancestors. Apparently, there were some Puerto Ricans and Spaniards in the mix. I also learned that because of my brave grandmother leaving her town in Santiago in the Dominican Republic in her early 20s, my sisters and I are American today. Eventually, my grandmother ended the conversation because she had places to be. But for those hours, I finally got a taste of what it's like to have a real live grandparent.

In SAP, please.

An article on a Hispanic blog called "Hispanic Trending" written by Juan Tornoe claims that parents are now focusing on making their kids multilingual. In "A bilingual future: More parents are sending their kids to language classes" , Lourdes Rovira claimed, ''The key is the home. It depends on how much respect, how much value the parents place on knowing more than one language.''

I disagree. Even though, my parents placed premium on learning Spanish, my Spanish was practically nonexistent by high school. I spoke to my parents only in English by then. I spoke to my friends in English. By college, the other Latino students were questioning my Hispanic roots. I think the root of all my problems was being moved out of bilingual kindergarten into English-only first grade. Somewhere on the street, I picked up that bilingual education was for "the slow kids."

My Dominican-born little cousin is going through the same thing. Even though his parents speak to each other in Spanish, he's speaking to them in English. His American-born Dominican mom has relented and she speaks to him in English, too. He's learned somewhere, probably at school I'll bet, that the premium is placed on being good at the English language at the expense of his native tongue.

Naomi Steiner, author of 7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child ($14.95, Amacom) and a developmental behavioral pediatrician at Tufts Medical Center in Boston claims parents don't have to be bilingual themselves to raise a bilingual child, though having one parent speak the language certainly helps. ''There only has be a committed, consistent effort and a plan,'' adds Steiner.

I certainly hope that this applies to me. I'm having panic attacks that my children won't be able to speak to their grandparents or cousins in Spanish. I mean, my Spanish can be fairly lame and my husband's Spanish is only good for laughs. How are we going to ensure our kids speak English, Hebrew AND Spanish? I feel ashamed at how difficult it is for me to negogiate conversations with my grandmother in Spanish. And my Spanish-speaking prima hermanas (literally, cousin sisters, meaning first cousins) prefer practicing their English with their American cousin. So who is going to practice Spanish with me?

I asked my father when I visited him in the Dominican Republic if it bothered him that my sisters and I spoke mostly English. Wasn't he angry that we were (oh the horror) "assimilated"?He shrugged. He said as long as we understood each other, it didn't matter what we were speaking. Thanks Dad! Now can you PLEASE help me shape up my Spanish?

Moments from Writing Class

I’m part of a frum (pious) writers group. This works out great since the women in the group are a good range of the women who might eventually pick up my book (if I ever finish it). At our last meeting, two of the women said they were amazed that I took classes in non-frum environments. They said they’d be too afraid to see what their classmates would write about. I laughed it off until recently.

Though one of my Creative Nonfiction classes meets at a Jewish community center less than half of the students are Jewish. I’m pretty sure I’m the only Orthodox Jew in the group. The week I submitted a chapter from my book, “Goody Two-Shoes” about my overwhelming eight-year-old desire to be good, two other classmates submitted pieces about an affair with a married man and a piece about hooking up with middle-aged women.

The piece about hooking up with middle-aged women was actually really well-written. It was really a piece about the depths of loneliness. But parts of it reminded me that as a kid, I used to cover my eyes during the sexy scenes in movies. It’s kind of hard to do that while you’re reading but I tried for some equivalent while reading through the parts about sex and prostitutes. Somehow, I survived though probably not totally unscathed.

But I barely made it through the piece about having an affair with a married man. I couldn’t tell if it was well-written. I was too disgusted, too pissed off. I remembered that my friend, a pastor’s wife, had once told me that she refused to watch any film or TV show where people were having affairs. I finally understood her. Seeing that kind of stuff when you are single is nothing like seeing that stuff when you are married. It's too much. I did manage to finish the piece but the entire time, my skin was creepy crawly.

So imagine my surprise when the writer of the affair piece attacked the writer of the hooking up piece. She said the hooking up piece had a sexual violence to it and she seemed to be insinuating that the narrator, the writer himself maybe, was a misogynist. This happened after I had sat quietly through all the ever praising feedback on her piece about having an affair with a married man! I finally piped in and told her I had trouble reading her piece but even so, the whole time I was afraid of offending HER sensibilities! Perhaps, mine were already too far gone to worry about?

What's up, Doc?

I just got back from getting the medical excuse form for jury duty. The problem is now getting my doctor to fill it out properly. This falls on my general physician. The only doctor I barely trust.

When I moved to Riverdale, I stopped visiting my dazzlingly gorgeous rheumatologist in Gramercy Park. After many, many doctors, he was the only one who seemed caring and trustworthy. It wasn’t just that he was hot, I swear. But the commute alone was enough to drum up pain and exhaust me for a few days. So I tried to go to a rheumatologist in Riverdale.

The rheumatologist in Riverdale would only give me early AM appointments which I ended up cancelling often. The one time we met, I found her cold and unhelpful. We squared off over my depression. She said I needed to get cracking on fixing that, I said my depression might get better if I could actually get some pain relief. She told me she wouldn’t fill the one medication that had ever done anything for my pain because she didn’t like using it. Plus, she wanted to make me a lab rat again by running some other medications through my system as soon as I got her my files from my old rheumatologist. The old rheumatologist said my file was so thick, confusing and cumbersome that it was really a pain to send the files so they never did.

So now I have no rheumatologist treating me for fibromyalgia. And ever since developing fibromyalgia, I have developed a deep loathing for doctors. You think this would have happened growing up in Washington Heights when I had to wait as much as five or more hours in waiting rooms to see the doctors that accepted Medicaid. But no, I loved going to the foot doctor as a child even though I hated the special shoes he made me wear. I loved going to the allergist because it was the only time I saw the skyscrapers of downtown Manhattan. I loved going to the dentist because he always gave me new toothbrushes and the pharmacist at the same office gave me lollipops. But fibromyalgia can make you hate doctors.

Looking back, I think that the earliest signs of fibromyalgia cropped up around my 18th birthday. I went to cold Russian neurologist who ran some tests on my “phantom” pains and after MRIs, ruling out MS and Lupus decided that I was just depressed. I didn’t understand how depression would affect my neck, shoulders and back. I suggested that maybe I was using the computer too much. The doctor shook her head. I never went back to her. Luckily the pain went away on its own. But by my 22nd birthday, carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive stress injury were disabling me. Again, doctors were nice enough to run tests but couldn’t figure out how I was in so much pain when the tests weren’t so conclusive. I quit my job, switched careers and the pain was better for a while. But by my 25th birthday I had a toothache that turned into a full body ache.

For weeks at age 25, a Hispanic neurologist ran tests on me until he sat me down in his office finally to talk. I remember thinking it was so neat that I had a Hispanic doctor on Park Avenue. Nice to have such good insurance, especially since he never made me wait more than half an hour! But when he locked the door behind him, this neurologist, too, diagnosed me again with depression. The tests weren’t showing anything so it was obviously all in my head. He was cruel. He abused me verbally and sent me to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with a number of disorders, none of them related to pain.

Eventually, I found a nice Russian neurologist in Washington Heights. Despite my insurance, it was back to the waiting room for hours on end. In the waiting room, patients twice my age complained about chronic aches and pains and disability payments. It was a black hole for negativity and I was afraid it would swallow me whole. Everyone kept telling me I was too young to be there and I didn’t disagree. But I was in the right place because the neurologist and a physiatrist together decided that I had fibromyalgia and they agreed with me that my depression was only a side effect of this disorder that was turning my life upside down, causing me to eat through all my sick days which in turn led to dwindling paychecks.

When the neurologist told me to try hypnosis and the physiatrist sent me to a psychiatrist that said she couldn’t help me at all, it was time to move on. I don’t know how I found my fancy doctor in Gramercy Park but he was the only doctor who gave me hope. It was he who got me hooked on exercise while he tried every medication he could think of, medications that made me hazy, made me sprain my ankle and gave me asthma attacks as side effect. Some medications made me suicidal or vegetable-like. But I trusted him. So I trusted him when he finally said there wasn’t anything he could do for me other than tell me to exercise and learn to live with the pain.

Now I’m a full-time disabled person without the benefits. I know if I showed up at the social security office and tried to get benefits, they would look me up and down and turn me away. I try not to disable myself too much by writing and giving classes and speeches intermittingly. I exercise and pop muscle relaxers and opiates when the pain is too much to bear. The rest of the time, I just sit with it. I let it roll over me in waves until enough of it passes that I can function again. I curl in bed with it and I chronically cancel appointments with friends because of it. I don’t know that I have learned to live with it.

I know that having fibromyalgia has given me a whole different perspective on modern medicine. I used to think that when something hurt, when someone was wrong, that a doctor could always fix it with a prescription pad in hand. There wasn’t anything the doctor couldn’t write away, right? I was naïve. Now I am part of a medical gray area, a person suffering from a condition that most doctors don’t even understand or believe in. And in the end, the only person who suffers because of the things modern medicine doesn’t understand or believe in is me.

Dominican Family Guy

I can't stop laughing over these YouTube clips of "Family Guy" that a guy dubbed over in Spanish, specifically Dominican Spanish. My junior high school in Washington Heights even makes an appearance.

Friends and Fibromyalgia

No one can really tell you how chronic illness will affect your life. It is a bumpy road with unexpected twists and turns. In so many ways, it has mirrored my road towards conversion. My day-to-day life has changed so much.


I make blessings on food but it’s hard to hold a siddur (prayerbook) in my hands. I can’t talk on the phone on Shabbos but honestly, talking on the phone at all is now a painful process for me now. That means those hours I used to spend on the phone with friends are now nonexistent. The way fibromyalgia has affected me most is by isolating me and making it difficult to maintain the intense friendships I had before. And just as I’ve lost friendships because of my decision to convert, I’ve lost friendships because of my fibromyalgia.


Rivkah was my adoptive mom throughout my conversion. Whenever I arrived at shul, she’d come over to me and envelope me in a gentle hug. She tried not to set off any of the tender points (pain hotspots) all over my neck, arms and back. When I used to say my husband and I were staying by my family, I meant Rivkah.


Rivkah tried to help me acclimate to my new Jewish surroundings. She fed me terrifying Ashkenazi dishes and insisted I learn to cook “Jewish” foods. I squirmed in my chair but I tried everything I could stomach. When she told me to get over my childhood, I raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. When both Rivkah and her husband spoke to me in anger because I was trying to arrange to have a Shabbos dinner with my deadbeat dad who they had labeled a “lost cause,” I was quiet.


When I got sick, felled first by fibromyalgia and its chronic pain and fatigue and then by just as crippling depression, I cried on Rivkah’s shoulder. She listened but she was more concerned about my unemployment than my losing battle with depression. She urged me towards different doctors even though I told her mine was already doing everything he could. Basically, Rivkah became my sometimes intrusive but always loving Jewish mother.


I tried to escape my harsh reality at Rivkah’s house. It was the one place in the world where I could be myself. In her home, I thought I didn’t have to worry about the fine line between appropriate and inappropriate. Rivkah’s house was my home, too. I finally understood how other adult children felt when they went home to regress and be coddled by their parents.


After my last meal at Rivkah’s house, I received a scathing email. It detailed all the ways I had been inappropriate at the Shabbos table. Every single indictment was true. I had greeted everyone begrudgingly…through gritted teeth from the pain. I had put my socked feet up on her couch…when my back hurt from the pain. I hadn’t passed things at the table…because I was suffering from poor motor control because of the pain. I hadn’t offered to pour anyone water…because I was afraid I’d wet the whole table as I had done many times before. I always served myself first…eager to get it out of the way. I had even left the table, without excusing myself, to lie down…when the pain made it difficult to follow conversation. I never came back to the table. My husband found me curled up in exhausted sleep later.


I apologized for being rude. I apologized for being sick. But in the end, my apologies were not enough. My forever friendship ended with the last click of one final email. I was orphaned again. Sometimes, I can’t wrap my head around how many of my friendships have ended so dramatically. Maybe it has something to do with being a dramatic person myself.


But really, most of the friendships my conversion and fibromyalgia have deeply impacted have had quieter sendoffs. I can’t call. They don’t call. I can’t make it out to see them very often. They don’t make it out to see me. When I see advertisements for older folk who want people to visit them, I know exactly how they feel. Were it not for the Internet, my world would also be quite lonely. The friends I am really grateful for are the ones that are ever patient, the ones who understand when I have to cancel plans last minute again and again and the ones who continue to invite me to their homes for meals though I never invite them to mine. Perhaps, what fibromyalgia has done is whittled down my list of pals to include only the dearest of friends.

World Traveler

I was really nervous about spending a week with my in-laws in Italy. They’re great but we operate on alternative universes. My in-laws are fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants whereas I am plan, plan and plan some more. How was I going to relinquish control enough to do things their way without totally losing my marbles from the chaos that would ensue?

It helped that chaos ensued before we even took off. It was assuring. It was almost like it had been planned. Our flight was delayed for hours. Trapped together, my sister-in-laws (ages 6 and 20) were squabbling in no time. I pretended I didn’t know them. I was raised in a Dominican household where we DID NOT make scenes (well, except my mother). Finally, when we had all had enough, when we had spent all of the courtesy money the airline gave us for snacks, after changing the gate three times, after my wee sister-in-law kicked her father, we boarded a plane.

Between frequent flyer miles and the Euro, my in-laws planned on keeping things cheap so we ended up at a hotel in the suburbs of Rome. It was literally in the middle of nowhere. We think the building behind it was either a school, a convent or a prison. It looked a little like all three. Still, the rooms were nice. The carpet was gray and plush, the TV flat-screen and sleek, the décor just as boxy and smooth lines.

We headed into the city despite the late hour (we had planned to arrive early morning but it was already late afternoon) and I was bummed that we’d had to cancel our meeting with our tour guide, an American Jew expatriate. We might as well have been covered in maps head to toe, we had ones from tour books, ones from the hotel, ones for the Metro, but that didn’t help us when we got lost after visiting the outside of the Coliseum and the nearby arches. We wandered aimlessly and into a dead-end before we finally made it to the Jewish ghetto, ravenous, to gulp the first of many Italian pizzas.

After dinner, my mother-in-law insisted on getting directions on the way back but my husband insisted that the directions were incorrect according to his reading of the map. He was right. But a big screaming match ensued and I, again, pretended to blend into the cobblestone street. Eventually, we were head in the right direction but we walked long, seemingly endless distances, me in my bad Timberland boots, my poor six-year-old sister-in-law in her little pink and white sneakers, before we came upon the right train station.

The next day we would discover a revelation: the bus. The buses were incredible. I managed to get bus tickets at a Tobacco stand, which is where three Italian necessities are sold: bus tickets, magazines and cigarettes. I spoke Spanish to the clerk. He spoke Italian to me. We met in the middle and I walked away with the tickets and a smile. It didn’t occur to us until much later that the buses connected to the trains or that it made sense to get the Roman version of a 1-day fun pass Metro Card.

There is plenty of transportation in Italy but the easiest one to understand is the Metro, the two subway lines that foray into all of Rome. The problem is that some sites were off the grid and if you can’t bear to walk another foot, you have to figure out the buses. It helps that at every bus stop there is a sign that lists all the stops. At every bus stop, there are also tourists trying to figure out where all those bus stops fall on the map.

After getting lost for hours because buses were being rerouted around the Coliseum for the New Year’s Eve festivities, we ended up hopping a random bus, and as Hausman luck would have it, in the right direction. The whole time I was freaking out, of course. Who gets on a random bus and hopes it will take them to the right place? I imagined ourselves ending up over the German border, stranded in a dinky hotel. Did I mention that I have an active imagination?

We never got to ride the trams because we couldn’t figure out where they went. We also never got to ride one of those double-decker touristy buses I always see careening around the curbs of New York. And yes, we also didn’t ride a gondola. Did you know a gondola ride (in the freezing cold) is about 60 dollars? 60 dollars?! For some reason, it didn’t strike me as romantic. The much cheaper bus/boat was much more romantic. It had the same effect, right? I was still in a water taxi of sorts. I still sat, um, near my husband. I set the mood by humming Italian songs to myself.

We also rode trains in-between the cities, Rome to Venice and Venice to Florence and back. The trains were really comfortable. We got to ride in first class when economy was sold out. The seats were plush and snuggly. I learned Italians can be just as loud as Dominicans. I met some Swiss tourists who spoke every language I did and more. I learned that bathrooms can be really disgusting no matter where you’re traveling.

By the end of the trip, I was a pro. I could order myself tickets for trains or Metro in almost any language. I knew just where to stuff my Metro card so it wouldn’t get lost. I had mastered folding and refolding maps. I was ready to travel anywhere except home. A week was more than enough to see all the key sites but I was jazzed from learning to survive outside my element, especially in a place where I could depend on mass transportation (still can’t drive!). Perhaps even the girl who never wants to leave home has it in her to be a world traveler.

Racism: Less than Subtle

Delonas, the cartoonist, said to CNN, "It's absolutely friggin ridiculous. Do you really think I'm saying Obama should be shot? I didn't see that in the cartoon. The chimpanzee was a major story in the Post. Every paper in New York, except The New York Times, covered the chimpanzee story. It's just ridiculous. It's about the economic stimulus bill. If you're going to make that about anybody, it would be [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, which it's not."

Attorney General Eric Holder called the American people "essentially a nation of cowards" in failing to openly discuss the issue of race.

Venezuela and Jews

I've hesitated to write about the plight of Jews in Venezuela ever since the Israeli incursion into Gaza. I think part of that comes from shock. It's hard for me to process such overt hate, such overwhelming anti-Semitism, sitting comfortably in front of my computer in New York. It is easy for me to see how some Jews sat around in disbelief watching the events that led up to World War II without doing nothing. This is a very scary thing.

In the past few weeks, I've been invited to a rally in front of the Venezuelan consulate as well as to hear Dr. Daniel Benhayon, a guest speaker at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale during a recent Shabbat. Dr. Benhayon, a native Venezuelan, was one of the organizers of the massive rally protesting the heinous anti-Semitic attack that occurred on Jan. 30, at the Tiferet Israel Synagogue in Caracas, Venezuela. Unfortunately, I missed both events but was happy to hear that it was well attended. I know, I know, I should have been there as both a Latina and a Jew.

Here are recent articles regarding the situation in Venezuela:

"Venezuela’s Jews, Already Uneasy, Are Jolted by Attack"

"Venezuelan Jewish leader to address London conference"

Italy Trip Recap: The World in My Stomach

Who would have thought I would ever see the world? The first time I stepped out of the tristate area was to get married in a place I'd never been to before, Connecticut. Okay, actually, I had also been to Orlando, Florida to see Mickey with my aunt and even Pennsylvania to visit the Liberty Bell on a school trip. I know, I'm soooo wordly. When I finally headed out to Israel, it seemed make believe. I mean, who would have imagined that I would ever see Israel? I’m just a poor girl from Washington Heights. I couldn’t have told you where Israel was on a map before I visited.

But going to Israel definitely made me worldlier. I had been to the Dominican Republic but it didn’t count. In the Dominican Republic, I had no trouble reading the signs. It wasn’t home but I always had enough family members and comforts to make it feel like almost one. In Israel, I nearly collapsed in the supermarket trying to differentiate between yogurt and milk, not to mention trying to read Hebrew script (who knew Hebrew came in script?!). And the water, oh the terrible water, nearly killed me. Who knew that Israeli water was more hardcore than Dominican water?

Still, Israel prepared me for Italy. And yet, I spent a whole week before the trip to Italy completely hysterical. My biggest fears were keeping kosher abroad. In Israel that had been a snap, in the Dominican Republic, we had eaten rice and beans and soup for a week, in Italy, I had no idea what we would eat. I was fine daydreaming of myself gallivanting around Rome with its handful of kosher restaurants but Florence and Venice only had one restaurant a piece! Would I starve to death? I had been to Berkeley, California once and suffered from such slim pickings before. I’d barely made it out alive. Yes, I know have been spoiled by the endless kosher food that populates the streets of New York and LA.

But, oh, was there food in Italy!

We ate at the Gam-Gam restaurant in Venice. It was divine, a little nook by the water. My husband and I pretended to have a romantic candlelight dinner while the rest of the family sat together at another table. I think we had pasta. Every other thing we ate in Italy was pasta (or bread) but in Venice, we had pasta by the water. We also picked up soft bread and thick crust pizza at the local bakery.

In Rome, we ate in most of the restaurants in the Jewish Ghetto. (By the way, this was the first time the term "ghetto" really hit home outside of Washington Heights.) We tried burgers at Fast Kosher, a kosher burger joint on Via Maria del Pianto. The ketchup was bad and reminded me of that funny ketchup in Israel. The burgers were pretty bad but tasty. Not terrible but not great. The fries were frail. The mayo was thick AND runny. But then Italy isn't known for its burgers, is it? The bathroom was classically Roman, a tiny box of room, a toilet without a seat. I think you flushed with your foot.

We also ate at the kosher deli on the same block, Kosher Bistrot?, some meaty, unidentifiable treats wrapped in yummy bread. We ate at the dairy deli, Beteavon?, where everything was thick with different kinds of cheese. I tried not to think of my cholesterol as I popped a million Lactaid pills over the course of the trip. All the fish was smoked and I tried to swallow things down quickly so my sensitive taste buds wouldn’t notice.

In Florence, further into the land of no rice and beans, we ate at Ruth’s restaurant and at the local Chabad. Chabad was a mix of Israeli salads and cholent. The conversation was much better than the grub. I met an Italian Jewish woman who had lived in the Dominican Republic and we conversed, surprisingly easily, in Spanish. At Ruth’s, there was more delicious pizza and soup with beans (thank G-d, I was spared withdrawal). The great guy who runs the place packed us a day trip lunch with tuna and couscous balls that were so good I nearly ate the plastic they were packed in. And of course, there was pasta, always pasta. Yum.

But hands down my favorite eateries were in Rome, Ba” Ghetto and Nonna Betta! We ate dinner at Nonna Betta as often as possible. We had pizza. We had pasta. We had the famous Roman Jewish fried artichoke. I ordered fish and didn’t realize until it arrived that it was served alone because I had to ask for specific sides. The greatest part was watching the waiter rip the bones from the fish with quick finesse. His hands were a blur. The food was delicious and the owner was friendly. He had to step in with his English to help us order a number of time.

Ba” Ghetto was the most expensive place and it was on par, if not better than the Manhattan restaurants of its ilk. I went there for dessert, insisting on eating real life Italian tiramisu before leaving. My husband surprised me by ordering a whole meal with the kosher Roman specialty, spaghetti alla Carbona and my favorite, spaghetti alla Bolognese.

I learned that Italians like to chew their foods slowly in several elaborate courses and that service is just as slow. I learned that ordering American coffee means watering down your expresso yourself with the provided little pitcher of acqua calda (hot water). I learned that Italians eat a lot of carbs and some American told me the reason Italians might be so short is that the diet isn’t so nutritious. In the end, my taste buds were definitely worldlier but lucky my waistline wasn’t. I didn’t gain a pound thanks to all that touristy walking.

(My friend says I was totally negligent about writing my trip to Italy up on my blog. I was, I totally apologize. Chalk it up to being overwhelmed by jetlag, getting back to errands and work. I still think I have plenty of details to add and I’m promising to uncover my journals on it and get some more dirt on here. )

"Anger Does Not Equal Hate"

A friend of mine told me that he is not going to let me become the stereotype of “the angry black woman.” (Don't even get me started on how I feel about this stereotype.) This worries me. I worry that some of my blog readers already think it’s too late.

I am very sensitive to issues of race and write about these issues often, but I feel like people think I am spending too much time focusing on the negative and not the positive. It has always been my assumption that the positive doesn’t even need to be mentioned because it’s so obvious. For instance, just because I mention a racist instance in Riverdale, doesn’t mean I think that it speaks for all of Riverdale or all of white Jews. Obviously, there are white Jews who are NOT racists and by highlighting the few instances where I have found a few racists, I don’t mean to nullify their existence.

A friend of mine who also gives speeches is worried about the people who attack her at these events for pretending to speak for an entire people. I have been subject to the same when speaking about race. I am always well aware when I am speaking that I am speaking for myself which is why I couch many of the things I say in my own personal anecdotes, not impersonal statistics. I am just one person, one very short, little person at that, who is trying to correct the wrongs I see by striving towards a Jewish people that is always acting as light unto the nations.

Interesting Blogs:

"Angry Black Woman"

"How Not to Be Insane When Accused of Racism" (A Guide for White People)

Top Ten, Baby!

Check out the Top Ten Articles on theJewishWoman.org. That's mine at the top of the page!

Not a hypochondriac

I've never written a nasty email to a person in my life. That is, until now. As soon as Shabbos was over, I logged on to find an email from the National Fibromyalgia Association alerting me to a terrible Associated Press article on fibromyalgia. The article calls fibromyalgia, a "murky" ailment and then goes on in a totally slanted article to liken all fibromyalgia sufferers, pill-popping crazies.

Here's the little email I sent the AP:

I never thought I'd say this about another human being but Matthew Perrone is an a--. Can you say slanted reporting? Can you say what the hell is a Business Writer doing writing about a "murky" ailment?

Can he come over to my house and spend a week with me and come to all my doctors so he we can talk about how murky it is? Perhaps, he could run himself over with a car repeatedly and then he might feel something like what I feel every day on a constant basis.

I am so disgusted. Can you tell?

Obviously, I am still having trouble controlling my temper. I hope G-d will forgive me for calling one of his works an a--. Luckily, the National Fibromyalgia Association is more rational. They wrote up a great response that you can read on their website: "FM Community Responds to AP Article"

I can't tell you how often I have to explain fibromyalgia to my friends. It doesn't matter how much I do it, most of them still don't understand. One of my friends thinks it's cute to call me a hypochondriac and then apologize profusely after I scream at him. And every single time someone spots an ad for Lyrica or Cymbalta, they get all excited and email me about it as if they've discovered the cure. Even people who know nothing about it like to sit me down and tell me about all the miracle cures I should try: everything from energy healing to hard drugs to herbal therapy.

This is life as a sick person. It's a world healthy people are too often quick to misunderstand. Ever since becoming incurably disabled, I have really opened my eyes to how the well world treats those of us who are chronically, even momentarily, unwell. Unfortunately, those of us with invisible (but never silent) disabilities are at the bottom of the food chain for sure.

Jewish Guilt is Heavy

I recently finished "The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt." I was interested in reading it for many reasons. I wanted to read about Judaism through the eyes of people who don't live in the Orthodox world I live in. I wanted to understand Judaism through the eyes of secular Jews. I also wanted to read about Judaism through the eyes of Jewish women. But I'm not sure that after reading the book, I'm any closer to understanding any of these groups.

Surprisingly, there were some Orthodox writers in the book or those who had grown up Orthodox. The Orthodox world looked completely different through the eyes of both these writers. They talked about worrying about skirt lengths and community pressures. They talked about wanting to act out. There were rebellious undercurrents in their writing that didn't speak to my experience coming from the secular world to the Orthodox world. Looking at the Orthodox world from these vantage points was interesting, but at the same time I wondered if they were perpetuating a stereotype about Orthodoxy. But then, aren't some stereotypes founded in truths?

The secular Jewesses were no easier to understand. How did they still feel connected to Judaism without knowing much about its practices? Why was there this guilt about not knowing even when religious practice did not interest them at all? And were some of the essays written by these women Jewish only because the women identitified as Jews? What makes a piece of writing Jewish? Does it have to be about Judaism? What does that mean? I walked away with more questions than answers.

Then there were issues with just being a Jewish woman. The best essay in the bunch, the one I enjoyed the most, was by a woman rabbi, Rabbi Sharon Brous. I devoured her insights with such pleasure and sadness. It was a shockingly honest portrayal of how she feels about being a rabbi in a world that isn't used to, doesn't want, rabbis who are women. Her issues with being a Jewish woman made sense to me even if I couldn't relate to them at all. They made much more sense to me than all the women struggling against their Jewish mothers and grandmothers.

Obviously, I don't have a Bubbie, I'm not even sure how to spell it (Bubby? Bubbie? Bubbe?). I've even recently cut ties to Bubbies I've adopted along the way. I don't have a Jewish mother and apparently, a Jewish mother-in-law is not the same. So many of the women in the book were struggling to be good Jewish women in light of their strongwilled predecessors. Sometimes, the shoes were too big to fill. Sometimes, the shoes led to a lot of Jewish guilt.

It was nice, though, to read about so many Jewish women in one place. I'm kind of sad that Jewish Living magazine died earlier this year. It wasn't perfect but I think it leaves a void. I do wish there were more places to tell Jewish stories, Latino stories, women's stories and I wish that the places that are out there got the recognition they deserved.

Bless the hair, please.

This is what my husband hopes our kids will look like, of course.

Confession: I get a kick out of saying blessings. It was one of the first things I started doing after I converted to Judaism. I like the idea of saying "Thank you, G-d" as often as I can, even when I'm not particularly on good terms with the Holy One Upstairs.

My husband came home today and told me the blessing you say on "nappy" hair. Of course, the Talmud doesn't say "nappy," but it gets the same point across. The Talmud thinks my hair is "different."

First my husband tells me the blessing to say on albinos (like my uncle) and Africans (okay?)--people with unusual characteristics. And I wonder, do you think some Jews would say that one on all Jews of color? People need to get out more.

Here's the blessing so you know what to say the next time you see my head bobbing past you:

"Blessed are You, Lord our G-d, King of the universe, the True Judge."

My husband thinks it might be a little racist. But maybe so is saying blessings on albinos and Africans? I'm going to go ahead and say it's not racist (to me) but perhaps, one shouldn't count ALL their blessings in the same way.

You have to choose!

Having a job where I have no face-to-face human contact means that I tend to over-share when I do. So it's no surprise that when I went to the allergist today, I quickly started chatting it up with the secretaries. That's how I roll.

"I'm going to be on TV on a Latino show!" I said to the secretaries.

"A Latino show?" said the Dominican secretary. "You're not Latina anymore. You're Jewish!"

The secular Jewish secretary agreed. "You have to pick one!"

"Yeah," said the Dominican secretary. "You can't have your cake and eat it, too."

Cake? Luckily, I had been in this situation many times before and even written articles about it.

"Yes, I can! I like my gefilte fish with rice and beans," I said. "Gefilte fish is perfect with plantains!"

They stared at me blankly. "If you say so."

I do!

Leaving the Church, and Cynthia, Behind

"Leaving the Church, and Cynthia, Behind" is up on the Orthodox Union (OU) website. If you haven't had a chance to look at the blog version already, check it out. An alternate version has also made its debut on BeyondBT.com.

Speaking English

A Jewish friend of mine is calling a cab to get home to Washington Heights. I ask her if she's going to call a Dominican taxi service. I smile and say I only let Dominicans drive me. She just looks at me. (My Dad was a former taxi driver.)

Another Jewish friend says, "I think it's so funny when I call one of those car services and they speak to me in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish, I tell them." She laughs. I laugh, too.

"That's funny, they only speak to ME in English!" I say.

The third Jewish friend at the table says angrily, "I HATE when they do that. The worst is they make you press number 2 for English and number 1 for Spanish. Since when is Spanish number 1? This is America, they should be speaking English and English should be number 1."

Her parents are immigrants, no less.

I could have said, "For most of the people in the neighborhood, Spanish is their native language. Most of the people who call the car service are Spanish speakers and/or Spanish-only speakers. They're just making sure to cater to their clientele."

But instead, despite the fact that she's one of my closest friends, I hit her with my head covering. I didn't even think, I just smacked her in the head with it.

"Ow," she screeches.

After a couple of minutes, I apologize.

Then I say with a wide smile. "Don't worry when Hispanics become the biggest minority in the country, we'll all be speaking Spanish in no time. Maybe we'll even have an official second language. Wouldn't it be nice if we were like Europeans and we all spoke more than one language?"

"We'll talk when that happens," she says rubbing her head.

I go home and think about how I wish I had used words instead of my teal head scarf to get my point across. I discuss things with my always unusually calm husband. I'm hoping he'll berate me for my lack of anger management skills.

My husband asks if I hit her hard.

I say yes with chagrin.

He says, "Good."

P.S. "The United States does not have an official language."

Coughing My Brains Out

Cough. Cough.

I am sick.

This isn't unusual, is it? I mean, technically with fibromyalgia, I am always sick.

I am stuck in bed.

Again, also not unusual. It seems like every other day chronic pain exiles me to life between the sheets.

I woke up 24 hours ago with an itchy throat which I blamed on my allergies. And then, you know how it is, my chest hurt, my throat hurt, my nose started dripping despite my Nasonex nasal spray. By last night, I was a little wreck with the feeling that a fireball was being consistently launched from my stomach up through my throat.

So this is new. Ever since I got fibromyalgia, it's been kind of creepy how many times I get sick. It happens almost never. Thankfully. Though a cough or cold often disables the fibromyalgia, the facial pain of coughing and the fatigue and lack of exercise due to a cold can trigger it in full force. Usually by the end of a cold, I'm on muscle relaxers, painkillers and cough syrup.

I am trying to stay positive. I'm reading "Awareness: The Key to Acceptance, Forgiveness and Growth" by Miriam Adaham, a frum psychology book. I have learned that my personality type is "the Spiritual Alchemist or Decadent Depressive." This explains how easy it is for me to connect with G-d and with spirituality as well as with totally decimating depression. "Decadent Depressive" makes it sound much cooler than it is. Apparently, my motto is "I feel; therefore I am." My super-power is, among others, empathy and the ability to feel things deeply. My weakness is empathy and the ability to feel things deeply. Thin skin, you know?

I don't know if I should be offended that this book has got me pegged so well. Who knew I was so easy to read? Who knew there were so many other people like me (though apparently not so many because it's not the most common personality type)? Apparently, I need to work on discipline to get through depression so despite being totally sick, I went biking on my recumbent bike at 12am. I woke up at 6am (this wasn't so much discipline as an inability to stay asleep) and I will be totally disciplined about getting some writing done (but not so much that I strain myself) and of course, cuddling up with my latest Netflix fix, "X-Files: I Want to Believe."

15 Seconds

Have you seen this? This just made me cry so hard.

What to say and what not to say to a convert...(Rough Draft)

The number one question you want to ask a convert is exactly the question you shouldn’t ask. Asking someone why they converted, just after meeting them, is a little like asking to see their underwear. Don’t you realize you’re asking us to get very naked about something deeply personal in a crowd full of strangers? It’s enough to make anyone blush!


If you want to know why someone converted, ask them privately for their story. But if they give it up that doesn’t mean it’s your story to tell. My friend Danielle says her former roommate told everyone Danielle was a convert. Danielle didn’t want people to know (and no not because she was embarrassed about it, we’ll get to that later). It just wasn’t her roommate’s story to tell. Danielle says, “No one should know who is a convert unless that person decides to share the information.” Darn tootin’.


“James William? That’s not a very Jewish name!” People of color and blonds with oh-so-blue eyes, the “exotic” faces in the Ashkenazi Jewish fold, frequently get questions like this that try to get around directly asking, “Are you a convert?” Just like we’re not all named Rosenberg, Vilma, a convert of color, says it’s helpful to note that “Judaism is not a ‘race’ of white people. One of the things people should be mindful of is not to assume all people of color in the synagogue are converts (or the help, for that matter).”


But I know, you’re still dying to know if that person is a convert, aren’t you? Didn’t you hear that famous ditty about curiosity killing the cat? If you want to know if someone is a convert, too bad. Jewish law is pretty strict about embarrassing converts by reminding them of their past. It’s pretty clear that Jewish law is trying to ensure converts are treated as full-fledged Jews, not a special category unto themselves.


Poor Vilma says she’s been double-teamed at shul, and made to feel exactly like she’s her own special category. “Two questions get smushed into one ‘So did you convert? Why did you convert?’” she says. There she was just trying to finish sipping her wine and going for her cookie and bam! Someone was asking her personal questions in the middle of a crowded room. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Vilma’s friend says, “I just want to pray. What’s with all these questions?”


I hear that nagging question when the curiosity really starts to get to you. “But don’t they want to tell their stories?” Just like converts come in all shapes and colors, there are a few who are open, like me, to telling their story, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s interested. One Japanese-American convert told my friend she is sick of being asked for hers. She won’t talk about her conversion anymore. No, it’s not that she’s embarrassed. It’s just that she’s sick of over-sharing about her deeply personal choice.


Again, always avoid stepping on social landmines by asking the person one-on-one if they want to broach the subject. Danielle says, “I think for me it all comes off as egregious unless I am in the mood to talk about it. Or if the person is a potential convert or a convert themselves.” So putting converts on the spot at the Shabbos table or at the Kiddush is a no-go.


The worst is when “Why did you convert?” turns into “Why would anyone convert to Judaism?” We’re converts, not therapists. We’re not here to help you figure out why you can’t imagine that people would find Judaism so amazing that they’d turn their lives upside down just to be a part of it. If you’re staring at us in disbelief, you may not be prepared to hear the answers.


And the answers are almost never what you think they are.


Chaviva says the first question people ask after they find out she’s a convert is “Did you convert for someone?”


Our poor rabbis are rolling in their graves. After I met my husband midway through the conversion process, I noticed that people stopped asking me why I had decided to convert. They just assumed I was doing it for him. Okay, but I’m off the hook, right? I wasn’t part of a couple when I first made my decision so obviously I did it for the right reasons? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Just because someone is or was in a relationship doesn’t mean that they’re converting for marriage. Things are always way more complicated than that and if you ever stopped to ask the convert in a relationship (privately) about the real story, you might get some interesting results.


People convert for many reasons. Vilma says, “Often people assume someone converted due to marriage. As if people couldn't make up their independent minds to join a faith! There are people with whom Judaism resonates and [they] find their home in the religion. There are single people who convert. There are people who convert to reclaim their family heritage. There are so many reasons people convert.” And remember, not all of them are any of your business.


But one reason that frequently gets thrown around and isn’t very nice, and doesn’t work so well for someone from a non-Jewish family, is the idea that we converted to Judaism because Jews are just better than everyone else. One fellow told me that all that inbreeding has led to all those Nobel prize winners. So, what I’m polluting the sacred bloodlines? He’s lucky I think it’s impolite to hit people at the Shabbos table. (Kudos for Bar Rafaeli landing the Sports Illustrated cover, by the way.) Still, people don’t think twice about whether a convert is sitting in their midst when they tell the latest “How many goyim does it take to put in a light bulb?” joke.


If you’re pretty good about not telling goyim jokes around the table, then you probably don’t have to be told that words like shiksa and shaygetz, both derivations of abomination in Yiddish, don’t make converts feel welcome either. Blonds with blue eyes, converts or not, tend to hear these words more often than converts like me with olive skin and big brown eyes. Still, my first Pesach went south after someone repeatedly threw the word shiksa around along with some other ugly words about non-Jews. My first bar mitzvah was a goyim jokes free-for-all. Yes, ouch, indeed.


There are things I still can’t believe people have said to me. Fresh out of the mikvah, I heard, “But you’re not really Jewish. I mean I’m still more Jewish than you, right?” Oy vey. In the end, all converts want is to be accepted as good Jews. We want to fit in. Possibly the reason the Torah goes out of its way to tell you to be kind to us is that there are so many ways you can make us feel left out. It only takes one insensitive word. Sometimes, the most innocuous words can be utterly cruel. So, be careful with us. Turning our lives upside down to join your ranks should at the very least earn us a little respect. And maybe even a “Welcome home.”

Dos and Don'ts

Who is this guy?

Listen up, fellow converts and friends who are just curious about those who chose the fold. I'm writing up a piece on 'what not to say and what to say to a convert.' Any ideas? Converts, what questions do you wish people would stop asking? Friends, what questions come to mind when you think about converts?

From Muslim to Jew

I stumbled across a brief story (actually feels really unfinished) on Ynet about a Muslim man who hopes to convert to Judaism in Israel. "Muslim seeking to convert: I'm Jewish in Spirit" highlights some of the challenges converts face as well as some of the rewards. The story has inspired 61 comments already.

Fan of Y-Love

So I'm watching this music video while my sister is over at my apartment and she says, "So you're a fan of rap now?" Nah, not a fan of rap (or techno for that matter). But I am a fan of Y-Love. He was my first interview subject and I'm gearing up to write another piece about him and some other converts where I look at how they have contributed to Jewish culture.

The Jewish Writer

So, anyway, how in the world did I become a Jewish writer? If anyone would have told me five years ago that the first big story I would sell would be about my conversion to Judaism, I would have laughed it off. And yet, five years later, my bread and butter comes from Jewish stories more than anything else. I certainly didn't laugh off the first story that earned me one lump sum of $1500.

As a reader noted, I write many of my Jewish stories through the lens of my conversion even when I don't mention it, which I often do. To these Jewish stories, I bring the perspective of a person who has come to Judaism "late in life" and is piecing it together into her life along a decidedly rocky past. I think that this vantage point speaks to many readers, those who are looking for a fresh perspective on rote behavior and those are struggling to incorporate new observances into their life.

Another reader accused me of being an expert. For a lot of Hispanics and prospective converts out there who are discovering Judaism, I have become a kind of "Dear Abby." This strikes me as a little insane. Who am I to give anyone advice? But the emails just keep on coming. I've found that the more of them I uncover in my mailbox, the better I feel. Once a teacher, always a teacher I guess so it's easy for me to fall into the role of helping someone learn new things and guiding people towards their next destination in life.

So I'm a Jewish writer. It still sounds funny but I'm working it. Right now, I'm bombarding editors at different websites and publications with my ideas hoping that I'll be able to tell my stories in new places to new readers. In the meantime, I'll always be telling them here first. Thanks for listening.