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The Daily Bang Archives:

My Sister's Grand Dragon Boyfriend
Alisa green

80's movie UWS Dating Lessons
Remfan

Modern Orthodox Quiz
Ahava Leibtag

National Geographic's Journey to the Upper West Side
Avi Korn

60 ways to appear frum and intellectual
Michael Winner and others

Before the West Side was Won
Momoney

Questions New Yorkers can Never Answer
travis from Queens

TV: Bad for Israel?
arye dworken

Date to keep in Shape
benji joffee

Film: Conjuring Before G-d
Jon Duker

YU Chooses New Pres
Eli Clark

Jewish Deep Thoughts
Ari Greenberg

Inside Dougies
Evan K.

Observant Observations of OZ
simmy kustanowitz

Jew Years Resolutions
jenn goldi

Hollywood L'atid Lavoh
Jordan Hiller

Meeting the Parents Scorecard
Gary Strong and Avi Korn

Jewish Featured Headlines
arye dworken

Canceling Simchat Torah?
Leah Granoff

The UWS "Al Chaits" Isaac Galena

Choose you own Dating Adventure Ahava Leibtag

Entertainment Rebbis
Isaac Galena

The Dating Dictionary
Ahava Leibtag

Single Gal Wedding Guide
Jessica R./Jessica M.

New York Vs. Out of Town
Chuck Cohen

WWF star Chyna, Frum?
Arye Dworken

Dividing things Jewish and Goyish
Isaac Galena

The Jewish 80's
Noach Bernstien

Datin, the Cheap Way
Avi Korn

J-escort service
Eli Goldmann

"It" Girl
Miriam Abramowitz

Foot-IN-Mouth Epidemic
Avi Korn

Jaded by Zemiroth
Lon Smolensky

Purim Special Report
Judah Levine

Press Your Luck
Danny Fax

Upper West Side Story
Arye Dworken

Guta Neshama Hunting
Arye Dworken

Casting Calls to Conference Calls
Isaac Galena

“Isn’t he fantastic?” my sister chirps into the phone. I picture Fran, her eyes shining. She is in love. “Who knew,” says my sister, “that I would end up with such a fabulous boyfriend?”

And who knew that Fran might become seriously involved with a man whose loyalty, caring and consideration would be unfailing, but whose background would cause me such discomfort.

My sister’s boyfriend is not Jewish. Not only is Cletus not Jewish, he is also a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. A native of Vernon, Alabama, Cletus, who is 35 is the son of a man who remembers when the Jewish men took over Hollywood, and the grandson of a man who banned the importing of shmaltz herring during the 50’s.

For many Jews, “being a Grand Dragon is like the worst case of not being Jewish,” says my friend Daniel, whose own sister married a Klansman much lower on the totem pole, which my parents do take great pride in. He may not be a doctor but Cletus is the head manager of a division of skinheads. “Being in the Klan is like the opposite of being Jewish.” Daniel’s family initially “just freaked out” at his sister’s union.

“There’s a presumption that the person is going to hate Jewish people,” says Daniel who adds that his family eventually came to embrace the brother-in-law. Literally. “We made the condition that we were allowed to hug him with our “filthy, impure” skin.” After much convincing it was resolved that after hugging, the Klan brother-in-law, would not “call his brothers and seriously [expletive] us up.” Daniel continued “that the family shanda was completely eclipsed” when his sister left her Klan husband and then came out as a vegetarian.

Of course, Cletus, born some 30 years after the infamous herring boycott, is not culpable for the sins of his forebears (no, he is responsible for his own sins). A man of few wasted words (most of which are things like “hey, you dropped a penny" or “you just jewed me there”) and a wry sense of humor (“did Jew eat?” always gets a laugh), Cletus is passionate about burning crosses in our backyard (he is sensitive enough not to do it on the front yard), baking pork in our kosher over and of course, my sister.

They’ve been dating now six months and though I’m saddened that Fran may decide to marry outside our faith, her glow of happiness (or maybe it’s the glow from the aforementioned burning crosses) diminishes my disappointment on this matter. After all, this is an aisle that’s been walked down by many of our cousins: while my family celebrates its Jewish heritage with gusto, we’re no strangers to intermarriage (or a good serious “Klan beating” either).

But I can stomach some interfaith unions more easily than others. Even six decades after the horrendous herring incident, I find I’m somewhat uneasy, and even a bit queasy, about the prospect of Fran choosing to settle down with a Grand Dragon. Besides, the ironing and hand washing of the robes, the demands of hosting the local Klan sect is high-demand and stressful. They like their Jews rare, not well-done.

At first, I vehemently deny such thinking to my sister. In private, meanwhile, my husband and I find ourselves stereotyping, joking that Fran arrives with sawed-off shotguns these days, now that she’s acquired Klan habits. In private, we wonder about Cletus’ sense of the Klan and their dislike for Jews. I decide it is time to talk.

“As a Grand Dragon I should know as much as possible about the Zionist Conspiracy to take over the world and tell other people so it doesn’t happen that the [expletive] Jews do own my property,” says Cletus. “This is part of my culture, part of my upbringing. I should be able to defend myself from the devil inside my girlfriend, Fran. I do love you, Fran. But not your devil.”

As a teenager, in history classes, Cletus said he learned about the Jewish experience of taking Christian blood and using it to make the jelly for Gefilte fish and how he is supposed to sleep with his sister. “And then, it stopped. There was no questioning about what has survived. So this is exciting to me, to see live Jewish culture and then make fun of its Satanic-like qualities.”

This spring, during Passover, Cletus ate dinner with my sister every night, becoming reacquainted with his love of potatoes (when later, I walked into the kitchen, I noticed Cletus making special “little hooded guy-shaped latkes.” “Aren’t these just adorable?” he asked me). He complained less than my own Jewish husband about food depravation. After all, he had stopped at Denny’s before the seder and made fun of their “equal opportunity colored staff.” After our family seder, he went to the library to research why "we all talked like Woody Allen."

He says that should he and Fran decide to marry, they would raise the chidren up as English-speaking anti-Semites. Already they speak a bit of the same language.

“There’s schlepp and schmutz. Kitsch works. Meshugah works,” says Cletus. “It’s those certain words I need to learn to infiltrate the Jewish circles in Hollywood so we don’t have more movies like Men In Black II.”

Should they plan a future together, Cletus says he’ll want to “educate myself so that when Fran is away on a trip I can take care of buying the beer. If I showed up to a Klan meeting not drunk, someone would get their butt kicked. And it would be a Jewish butt. Or even a colored butt. Whatever it is, it will be a minority’s butt. ” Raised as a Protestant, Cletus willingly entertains the idea of conversion to Judaism. Well, entertains it as “a really stupid idea,” that is.

Cletus and Fran marvel at how well they understand each other. “If you grow up in the same time and find a little thing you can relate to like the shop on the corner or how we both like the song, “Freebird”—it’s not so exciting.”

On the other hand, “it’s so amazing,” says my sister to meet a soul mate who really hates her but also really loves her. “I find the mixture such a turn-on. Isn’t it so dangerous?”

At first, Fran admits that she “didn’t take the relationship seriously because I couldn’t see the future with someone who was wearing storm trooper uniforms on our dates to the movies. And he was always goose-stepping too loudly, even when we were sitting.”

Now she finds that Cletus makes her think more deeply about her roots because she may be pretty soon seeing them up close if she burns his dinner one more time. Fran says, “whenever I’ve dated anyone Jewish, Judaism was not a part of my life. I feel like with Cletus, either because he’s Cletus or because of the small Grand Dragon thing, it’s become a more important part of my identity. Now excuse me while I set the VCR for Full House. Cletus just loves that show.”

I’m staying tuned. Perhaps one day, I’ll have a young niece or nephew who can tell me the story of Chanukah and recite the Turner Diaries or explain how to build a sukkah and then burn it down. Yes, they’ll be speaking in the language not only of David Duke but of Ed Koch.

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This article was based on “My Sister’s German Boyfriend,” a Back of the Book feature in the Jewish Week, July 12, 2002. This editorial, by no means, represents the views of the BangItOut.com staff. It is a satire. Take it as you will.

Please send all comments and criticism (which I fully expect) to me