And that’s my gripe with Judaism nowadays. People are too busy defining! Are you Reform? Conservative? Reconstructionist? New Age? Modern Orthodox? Orthodox? Ultra-Orthodox? Yeshivish? Chasidic (one or two S‘s?), Charedi (Haredi)? And are you Ashkenazi, Yekke, Pollack, Litvak, Hungarian, Romanian, Ukrainian, or White Russian? Are you Moroccan, Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, or Persian? And I can tell you the difference between a how a Jew from Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, and London pronounces his Hebrew and thinks he’s better for it, is nothing to the differences between a Mashadi, a Kashani, an Esfahandi, and a Teherani!
Do you “keep” Glatt, Gebroicks, Cholov Yisroel (Yisroel, Yisrael, Israel)? Are you Shomer Negia, Shomer Shabbes, or Shomer fiddle your neighbor? And now in Golders Green we have another one called “Shomer interfere with someone else’s wife.” But for that you need a full beard.
Or take me, an English Ashkenazi Mitnaged. Now rav, rabbi, or Rah Bi (yes, I do know what the late Rav Moshe Feinstein intended by that usage) of an American Nusach (Nusah) Sefardi (no, not Nusach Sfard) Persian shtible or Shtiebel or Shtibel. Either way, it’s the wrong word.
Gosh, we take ourselves so seriously. Where’s the humor? Where’s the variety, and why, for goodness’ sake, can’t we embrace differences and love them, instead of using them to discriminate, humiliate, and to fight about, let alone to prize young love apart? So don’t tell me how to spell, or pronunciate, and above all don’t tell me that your customs or nuances or idiosyncrasies are essential to being a good Jew or anything else. I am me. Accept it? Fine. Don’t? Too bad.