“My mother made me go to the mikvah before my wedding, so I show up at this old dingy hole in the ground in the basement of our synagogue that reminded me of the pool at the Y and I meet this old lady caretaker who tells me that I didn’t go in enough and am not kosher. She keeps saying that I need to dunk all the way under the water – and I’m thinking that there’s no way in hell I am getting my hair wet on the day of my wedding.”
So went one of the stories about their brushes with orthodoxy from the table of little old ladies who I was having lunch with in a random retirement community in South Florida. Everyone had their own story, and this was the first time I had met so many older folks that had not grown up orthodox. I think that when you grow up orthodox, you are convinced that everyone born before 1940 had to have been raised the same way but that just isn’t the case. I used to think that everyone over age 70 knew way more about orthodoxy than people from younger generations, but I was proven wrong.
One woman piped in about how she agreed to make kosher chicken wings once and she swore never to cook or eat kosher chicken again because of all the plucking. I have never noticed the feathers in kosher chicken (probably because I never actually made any), but these ladies made a big deal of it, and don’t even get me started about their salt woes.
I am not a fan of Florida, but could see how some people could like it. Take a drive around South Florida and everything looks exactly the same. Sure there are palm trees standing tall against the sunny sky and it’s 70 degrees in the winter – but other than that, Florida doesn’t have much to offer. That is, until I discovered how much fun old women are.
I met my girlfriend in Florida so I could be introduced to her grandmother who lives in one of these places that make you very disoriented if you don’t know the address of the building where you are staying. Every house looks exactly the same and the streets all wind into one another. There are golf courses everywhere with white pants wearing folks taking swings and the only cool thing about the whole complex was the rather large rosemary plant that was sitting in front of the house.
Grandma is an 85 year old woman that plays bridge, goes out to movies, volunteers at the soup kitchen, and invites people over for meals. She leads a pretty active life and acts very young for her age – though maybe 85 is the new 75. She also felt the need to compliment and question my religiosity and tell me that I was one of the only religious people with whom she has ever had a chance to converse.
Shabbos at Grandma’s was an interesting experience. After she got home on Friday from her weekly movie night, Grandma asked me about Temple. Did the men wear jackets? No. Did the women all wear hats? No. Did the Rabbi speak? No he wasn’t there. Did they have an Oneg Shabbat? No, why would they do such a thing? The questions went on and on. She was genuinely curious, but I still couldn’t believe she didn’t know anything about orthodoxy. Apparently the conservative and reform shuls that she attended always had an Oneg Shabbat after shul. I wondered about this. She told me that everyone eats before shul which is something I never heard of before.
Grandma was very gracious, and although she was curious about my religious practice, she wasn’t disparaging. That is, other than when we got into a discussion about how orthodox Jews are of a politically conservative bent – this she couldn’t get over. She went on and on about how we have minority status and that the left wing presidents were best for Israel and so on. I told her that it depended what you thought was good for Israel. I always had figured that old folks would generally be conservative (not just politically) but she was very liberal and not old fashioned at all.
Grandma scheduled a lunch visit with a bunch of her friends on Sunday and that was loads of fun. This was the first time I got to hang around fully functioning older folks. Most 90 year olds I meet are dying or should already be dead, but these women appeared to have years of life left. They drive themselves and live alone, though few do still live with their men – did I mention that almost all the men are dead? I did meet one guy who looked like he was 50. It turns out he was 87 and in really good shape.
I am fascinated with older folks because I think they are super cool. They have this wealth of knowledge and experience into which I always try to tap. It doesn’t hurt that I love history and hearing how things used to be. It also doesn’t hurt that every older person I met seemed to have the thickest almost caricatured Jewish New York accent possible.
Why would older people all be Orthodox, much less Crown Heights Orthodox?
They weren’t always old.
The polarization between Charedi and secular is a fairly recent thing. There was a lot more variety a few decades ago when Reform, Conservative and Orthodox were all viable branches of Judaism and interacted more.
Haha, I’m in Fort Lauderdale airport right now (to come back to NYC) reading your post, and I thought the same thing when I was walking about the Lauderhill neighborhood when you’ve described Florida.
South Florida is great. It’s like living in the Caribbean, but with all the trappings of a big city. Next time you come down here, don’t head for the homogeneous bedroom communities of Broward and Palm Beach County where the people are as dead as the neighborhoods they live in.
Instead go down to South Beach, Brickell, Coral Gables, and the Keys, where you are sure to see unique architecture, original landscaping, endless water views, and lots of beautiful young people. I have nothing against grandma, but that’s hardly a way to experience South Florida.
Yeah I agree with Anonymous… not to mention, you’re such an outdoors-man. I can’t believe you didn’t go kayaking in the mangroves. It’s so incredibly beautiful and exotic.
Florida is one of my least favorite places on the planet to go
I used to think that all old people were Jewish, although not necessarily orthodox.
i grew up in a conservative shul and loved davening every week at the exact same time (8:00) after dinner and then following davening having an oneg shabbat (a lite sit down kiddush with shmuzing). this enabled a lot of the people to make it to davening all year round.
I think that’s how the Conservative movement used to deal with Friday nights. In the last fifteen or twenty years though, I think it’s pretty universal that they do Kabbalat Shabbat and Mariv with or without Mincha roughly around sunset and then you go home for dinner. I don’t really know too much about how the Reform movement does it these days outside of a Hillel environment. I know they used to basically center their lives around Friday nights, at least if they didn’t hold Jewish Mass Sunday morning (no joke, the ultra liberal Reform synagogue by my house had “Sabbath” services on Sunday…), but I am reasonably sure that there was a period when the rabbi gave his d’var and the Torah was read on Friday night in Reform congregations.
– RC
This joke is clean but relevant:
Old Lady 1: Congratulations, I hear you have a new grandson!
Old Lady 2: Thanks!
Old Lady 1: What’s his name?
Old Lady 2: Shlomo!
Old Lady 1: Oh!
Old Lady 2: Yes, he’s named for his great-grandfather, Scott!
Touche tesyaa!
But his grandfather’s name was sean! 😉
I was at a BT wedding in Forida at which there was an eldery great-aunt present.
Her parents had abandoned Orthodoxy when she was less than 12 and she had no idea how an Orthodox wedding was conducted. The couple was centrist or possibly left of center and she kept refering to them as “Ultra-Orthodox.”
Hesh,
The overwhelming majority of older folks are democrats. This isn’t surprising with the tremendous reversal that the 2 parties have done over the last 80 years. if they had kept up with the times, most likely these folks would have switched sides too, but you know us Jews, stubborn as mules to change our ways,
The overwhelming majority of middle-aged and younger Jews are also Democrats. Obama won 77% of the Jewish vote, and if we presume that Orthodox Jews voted for Mccain at a disproportionate rate, that would mean probably 80-85% of the non-Orthodox voted for Obama. This is not a generational issue, it is a cultural/religious issue.
“…she swore never to cook or eat kosher chicken again because of all the plucking….”
This is human nature.
1. Have a pre-concieved opinion about something or somebody
2. Find some picky picky “defect” in that something or somebody
3. Complain forever and ever about it.
This has happened to me and to people I know. As we are all aware, no human is perfect. So if you want to you can always find something to complain about another person. Just find that one picky picky little defect and amplify it until is is the most horrible character trait in the world. Don’t like Chasidim? I know a Chasid that picked his teeth at the table. There. Hate them all. Dont like Kosher? Don’t like the Idea of Kosher? I ate in a kosher restaruant once and the food was served cold. Hate all Kosher. Tell all your friends.
And by the way, “all old folks used to be frum” would qualify on scopes.com as an urban legend and totally untrue.
It used to be, for comparison, like Catholics are today. One Catholic son will become a priest. One will get a job. One will, well, do something else. There is no anamosity one to the other over how “frum” or “not frum” each of the brothers seem to be. They won’t “sit shiva” if someone goes “off the derich”. The concept is foreign to them.
Jews used to be that way until Reform / Mendelsohn and the reaction to that by the “Orthodox” / Chasam Sofer. That’s when we got crazy. All of us.
Don’t get me started.
“…did I mention that almost all the men are dead?…”\
Q: Why do Jewish Husbands die before their wives do?
A: Because they want to.
biddibum rimshot.
In the Reform community where I grew up, the Friday night service was the ‘big one.’ It was held at 8 (6:30 once a month for Family Services), and had a long sermon, lots of cantorial pieces, and was followed by Oneg. It was very nice. On Saturday morning, there was a parsha class, Torah reading if there was a minyan, and a short service. If there was a Bar Mitzvah, they’d have a full service that week. In high school, I went to a conservative shul that had sunset kabbalat shabbat, with a fixed time in summer, just like the orthodox shul. Their davening was indistinguishable from the orthodox other than no mechitzah.
No surprise to me. Where I grew up many of the grown-ups finished Yom Kippur a few hours early with a hearty meal.