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The Kosher Top 10
Top ways you know you
were part of the Orthodox community at Penn
(or "Are you down with OCP?")
by Seth
Isenberg and Avi Korn
- Despite all the lip
service of Diversity and Open Mindedness, all Jews live in a single dorm
building, affectionately known as "the Ghetto".
- If there isn't any
mention of 'biblical criticism' or 'woman's roles' in a shiur's title -
it's crap!
- You have digital cable
or satellite, yet you still pine for the days of fuzzy, VCR quality Resnet.
- Since your first Spring-Fling you no longer believe in the prohibition
of listening to live music during the omer.
- You
can easily spot the Penn imposter who talks about the great times hanging
out in "High Rise West."
- Teachers still think you are making up holidays like Shemini Atzeres and
the second days of Passover - {"But didn't you already celebrate
Passover last week?})
- Compared to the days
when Jews were shunned from the Ivy's, the school effectively shuts down
for Pesach and Yom Kippur
- You wonder if the other
teams in the Purim Panoply know that you've had years of intense Jedi-like
Quizzo training.
- Where else can you find College Football Games that have a "Shabbos
List" for orthodox entry.
- When someone tells you
that YU made it into the first tier this year, you reply, "They
will never reach the Ivy League!
MUHAHAHAHAHA!"
- If you're at a shabbos dinner, and you can't find chicken cutlets in BBQ
sauce, cranberry crunch, or broccoli kugel with corn flake crumbs, it must
mean you're not in Penn that shabbos
- Watching the movie 'Unbreakable'
makes you think about two things: Penn Football and graduation.
- Mechitza comes down after davening quicker than inner city gangs can
pull a pistol at the Penn Relays
- If you don't know what DBH is, it obviously means you haven't spent much
time looking at scattered pieces of paper on the floor of the Penn Hillel
- The college fraternity with the highest aggregate GPA? Penn Hillel
- Every shul on the UWS
you walk into is full of other Penn grads you know, but you don't feel
like talking to any of them.
- Every party you walk
into on the UWS is full of other Penn grads you know, but none of them
feel like talking to you.
- You tried to leverage
your orthodox upbringing by taking Jewish-based college courses......but
you found out they all centered around Biblical Criticism.......
- You found yourself liking them.
- You felt a bit embarrassed when Jews from all over filed onto Penn
campus for Simchas Torah, yet you felt a bit proud when Jews from all over
filed onto Penn campus for Spring Fling
- When you give dvar
torahs today, you must make a cute joke about your upenn.sas.edu
mail being down so you didn't even know you were giving a dvar torah
- You were shocked to hear
that really religious girls do not go to mincha minyan everyday.
- You spend hours mocking
the idiots who went to YU, despite the fact you and all your roommates all
transferred from there
- You spend hours mocking
Stern College girls who had zero school pressure and were married by 19
- You still dream of
having no school pressure and being married by 19
- You feel at home at the
Jewish Center, but it is way beneath you to be among the bourgeoisie at
OZ.
- The only people you
forward this list to are Penn people; cause those are the only names you
have in your address book.
- When you heard about
popular historian Stephen Ambrose's death you wondered when the great
Thomas Childers would rise up to take his place.
- You wonder what new
kosher restaurant has taken over the old "Waterwheel" spot this
year.
- Every time you walk into
a bar you look at the board for the Quizzo schedule.
- You can impress people
with your Wharton six-digit income, but you consider Harry Potter to be
heavy reading.
- The initials DRL make
you shiver uncontrollably.
- You always feel the need
to quote Benjamin Franklin at the end of every d'var torah.
- 50% of your junk
mail consists of solicitations from The Penn Fund.
- Every time you hear
havdallah, you hum unconsciously.
- Getting into any Jewish dorm room on Shabbos only requires you to find
the nearest fire extinguisher cabinet.
Readers Comments: To submit your own comments to this
list, please send an email to
submit@bangitout.com
: and include the title in the subject header. Include your name and location to
get credit! THANKS
From wberger@uchicago.edu
Penn is in the Ivys? ... Wait, I guess it is. Well who would have thought?!
From Alon Krausz Penn '96,
Still paying...
Great job guys! I guess some things never change... May I add:
1) 90% of the people you dated after you graduated were Penn grads you
were friends with during college.
2) The Jewish Center works if you were in Wharton. SAS grads are
at KOE. Nursing school - married in Teaneck.
3)Everything you know about alcohol you learnt on Friday nights in a
lounge
in the High Rise North.
4) Your favorite zemer still is "Creation went on for six whole
days..."
From Seth Galena
To the Penn-outsider, this is how every conversation with you sounds:
"I was Penn, Penn, Penning a Penn, remember Freshman year. and suddenly I Penned Penn which was Penn but Penn Penn without Penn's Penn, Dean's List. Penn Penn Penn, High Rise North. Penn, for 3 credits! Penn Penn Penn Hillel. Penn...were you saying something? No? good. Penn Penn Penn goto class on holidays Penn Penn..." (sorry if I left out a few vital Penns)
From Rachel Dulitz New York, NY
- you think that having Baskin Robin's on Sat night is part of the obligation of Melave Malka
- you've tried "ghosting" and ended up in an "03" with someone named Ming
- you think it's perfectly appropriate to sing Chad Gadya or Mareh Cohen on Simchat Torah, Shabbat, or any
other religious occasion
- "mashing" has a whole non-heavy metal concert meaning for you, and everyone else just doesn't seem
to get it
- you have all the requisite Penn paraphernalia - the coffee mug, the 3 sweatshirts, 10 t-shirts and if
you're really cool, the David Broza T-shirt
- you managed to avoid actually meeting a non-jew through 4 years of classes. Oh wait, you were a Jewish
Studies major - make that three years
- You've experienced a fire alarm that someone set off during simchat torah at 3 am while drunk
- you've experienced a fire alarm that a Jew set off in HRN because there are no markings on any of the
oven or stove knobs
- You found yourself traumatized by the whole pig roasting outside one of the frats every spring fling
- you still think that whole Christian Association, davening to statues of Jesus thing, was just a little
sketchy
- You deem it necessary to sing the heil hitler hurrah hurrah Pennsylvania at every Penn wedding - right
after eishet chayil
- you think frum girls only wear pants in their apts. and really frum girls wear pants with skirts on top of
them
- and of course, last but not least, you knew that Harvard Yale and Princeton were the real safety
schools
From Mend100@aol.com
The number 1 sign you were part of the orthodox community at Penn: You'
re still bitter that you were not accepted to Columbia
From Memphis, TN
It's about time we had some insider Penn humor on this site--well done Seth and
Avi!
Here are a few more...
-Your goal in life was ever to get an "03"
-No matter where you are davening on Shabbat morning, you smile when they start
singing Etz Chaim after Ve'Zot HaTorah, and then shush louder than the singing.
-You still feel an uncontrollable urge to end every d'var Torah with "here
at Penn..."
-You know all the words to Marei Kohain by heart.
-You dream about white cake and still have nightmares about that Pesach cake
they kept disguising with fruit toppings.
-You ever sat around on Friday night having a group discussion about who would
be the next community member to get engaged.
-You are an expert on the exact angle at which one must turn a High Rise North
table to get it through your apartment door.
-You spent 4 years in Philadelphia (if you were REALLY in the OCP, more like 3
or 3-1/2) and the only parts of the city you've seen are along the SEPTA route
to Trenton and New York.
-You've contemplated what they make in Trenton and why the world is taking it
anyway.
-You sing your school song at all of your friends' wedding.
-You sat with the 5 other OCP people in your classes all through college.
-Every extra-curricular activity listed on your resume is somehow related to
Hillel.
-Breakfast is not the same without the DP.
-upenn.hillel was more than just a newsgroup to you.
-You recognize that any kiddush not involving ice cream and Entenmann's is
seriously lacking.
-You miss Penn. :-(
Hurrah hurrah Pennsylvania!
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