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The Kosher Top 10

Top 10 uncomfortable things said to me at Work in Reference to Me Being Jewish
From Bennet Ave. correspondent , Noach Bernstein

10. "Can you skip leaving early for the Sabbath this week? We need your help on meeting this deadline."

9. "Is pot kosher?"

8. "You can't eat swine (that exact lashon) unless it's blessed by a rabbi, right"?

7. "Do you shower with your little hat on?"

6. "So you can only marry Jewish girls....what if she is not Jewish... but she's blessed by a rabbi?"

5. "Hey Noah, be careful with that letter opener, or you'll give yourself another circumcision." (I swear I've gotten that one)

4. "Boy, do I love humantashen...is it that time of year yet?"

3. "When is that hut holiday?"

2. An overabundance of inappropriately used "Shaloms", "Mazel Tovs," and "I'm Faklempts" (or other coffee talk references) in all emails sent to you.

1. "Did you kill Jesus?"

Please send all comments, questions, and phone numbers to Noach Bernstein Readers Comments: SUBMIT

From Flamebaby2007@msn.com 1 ) Can Jews get VD?
2) (On Learning about the Holocaust with the rest of my 8th grade class) You're a Jew. Where's your yellow star?
3) Can you say Kaddish (pronounced Cattish) with your mouth full of Oreo cookies?

From abaron@erols.com
All of these things have been said to me at work at least once...

"You can work on Christmas, right? You already had all that time off in September for that holiday of yours. What's it called? Jew Day?"

"So Ari, Is it true you guys have to cut a hole in a..." "NO!!"

"Do you know people in the entertainment industry? I mean, you're Jewish, you've gotta know someone. Can you get me an audition?"

Having co-workers convinced I'm part of a top-secret conspiracy.

From Anye M. Sellers,  Austin, TX:
1.  "Do Jews believe in G-d"?  (from a Catholic who obviously never read
her "Old Testament")
2.  "What's kosher?"  (Boy, living in the south is fun)
3.  "What do you mean you can't come in on Saturday?  What's more
important, religion, or your job?"  (The only correct answer to this is
a blank stare.)
4.  "Well, I think it's more important to be a good person than to
follow all those rules." (--from my non-observant mother.  What, are
they mutually exclusive?)
5.  "Why do you go to church on Saturday?" ('Cuz we were here first.)
6.  "I'm Jewish too!" (from Baptists, who then try to convert me.)
7.  "Are you a convert?" (from other Jews, upon hearing my
not-really-Jewish name before I got married-- like it's any of their
business)
8.  "Why don't you celebrate Christmas?" (Uh, because it's a Christian
holiday...)
9.  "Is your husband Jewish?" (from other Jews, after I got married --
again, like it's any of their business)
10.  (Not actually a statement).  Getting racist, anti-Arab emails from
coworkers who think I want to read it.

From Aaron Spool: Top Ten Things I hate Explaining to my Goishe Friends and CoWorkers

1. No, I am not a rabbi nor do I want to be one.

2. No, there is no religious law prohibiting Orthodox Jews from exercising.

3. How did that patched-bearded, unemployed, wack-job get that hottie sixteen-year old?  He wears a black hat.

4. Yes, I miss treif.

5. Bacon is the arse of a pig, no I don’t find it appealing no matter how much you smack your lips.

6. No, I can’t have sex before marriage.  Even if I’m drunk.  Even if she’s really hot.  Even if she and I are both drunk, AND she’s really hot.  DAMN!

7. Hole in the sheets??? Absolutely.

8. No, Orthodox Jews are not color blind, they just don’t have a sense of fashion.

9. Shadkins are NOT pimps.

10. Yes, I paid $200 on a dinner and a movie and I didn’t “get any”.  ….why, what do you do on a date?

From Yudi Finkelstein 
10. When referring to my Tzitzit - "What are those little strings for?"
9. Regarding Kashrut - "We're going out to lunch. You don't have to be kosher all the time, do you?"
8. On not having contact between men and women - "You mean you NEVER touch a woman other than your wife? Where's the fun in that?"
7. From my office mate (who is female and single) - "Why not come over to my house to review these documents?" (Not what you think. Go wash your mind out with soap)
6. When I won't look at our beautiful, 20-year old secretary when she wears revealing clothing - "Man, I could never be a Jew. You miss out on all the fun."
5. From office mates when I bring my own food to fancy restaurants - "Come on, you can eat here. The foods good."
4. Regarding davening (after coming out of my office after Mincha prayers) - "You mean you pray three times a day? How much can you have done wrong between prayers?"
3. When I wear a non-white shirt - "See. You can look like you have some sense of clothing style."
2. From the VP of our department - "With your little hat and long beard you look Jewish."
1. Finally, from my boss - "It's 2PM on Friday, go home and get ready for shoppis."

From TK: 7 annoying things said with regard to being Jewish :

7. "It offends me that you can't even eat my food. (I can still eat yours though, right?)"  --my roomate

6. "I'm sorry to be rude, but...what ARE you?" --frum person, with an breathless intonation I would reserve for people requiring the monstrous deformity or unusual beauty brachot, not an unaffiliated Jewish girl :)

5. "Re-a-ally?  I thought Jewish girls were ugly!" --acquaintance in Baltimore

4. "Oh, so, you're not married!  I thought you had a husband and had to rush home to make dinner for the children!" --potential employer, upon meeting me (she knew about the "Shabbos thing")

3. "Yo she look like a Jew!  Yo you see them Jews on the train?"  --group of rowdy youths on the L-train, who proceeded to throw a baseball cap at me with considerable velocity

2. "Mommy, a goy?  A goy?" --infant at frum pizza place

1. "Did you fast?"

From Dena Z. 10 more "uncomfortable things said to me at Work in Reference to Me Being Jewish"

------ 10. "But wait! You're not allowed to draw pictures of people!" (in reference to a "stick figure")

9. "Are nuts meat or dairy?"

8. "Don't you wish you'd ever tried shrimp/lobster/cheeseburgers?"

7. "Oh, no, these cookies _are_ kosher! They're homebaked, I made them myself, I swear there's no lard. Have some!" (This of course from the well-meaning non-religious Jewish co-worker with the glatt traif kitchen.)

6. "Oh yeah, it's Friday afternoon, you turn into a pumpkin."

5. "Wow, you must have like 50 hats."

4. "Are you upset that Joe Lieberman didn't become the VP?"

3. "It's Hanukkah, why are you here? Don't you have to go home and pray?"

2. "Happy Hanukkah!" (typically said about 2 weeks AFTER chanukah is over)

1. (This was _actually_ said to me, out of the blue, in public, by one of my superiors, a few weeks ago.) "So Dena, you must feel like just going over there with an AK-47 and shooting some Palestinians, eh?"
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!


from ettah:
hey man i work at a juvenile detention facility and i get the strangest stuff so here it is... hope you get as much of a kick out of them as i do...



really? you don't look jewish....

so are you alowed to flush the toilet on your sabbath?

can you use a cell phone and beeper? cause my cousin she's a jehovah's witness and she can't use anything like that.... so can you?

but you don't have a jewish nose at all!!

are you sure you're jewish?

do jewish teens have problems? (i work in a juvie facility so i get that question alot)

i know someone jewish..... my mother!!

do you have horns? can i feel them? (no i was just being sarcastic when i said yes)

my brother wanted to marry a jew but my dad threatend to kill him so he broke up with her.

my dealer is jewish and he is real religiouse too... he don't sell to me on his holidays and sabbath at all.

from mbmund@sas.upenn.edu:
Last year I had a non-Jewish roommate who spent a good deal of time learning about Jewish rituals, so this year a few days before Passover she said: "So, did you do the bread fairy dance yet?"

From Linda Alexander

MS4, East TN State Univ. Quillen College of Medicine

Said to me by a fellow medical student (emes!): So how can your religion still be around if there's no more animal sacrifice?

From Anonymous
So did you were jealous growing up that all your classmates got Christmas presents? ( I went to a BY)
Would your parents kill you if you were out after sundown? ( about leaving early on fridays)
Come on, you just dont want us to know where you party? ( not going out with them on friday nights)
Your parents must be really rich to have so many kids.

I could go on and on and on.....


From Yonaton Jacobs:

1. "So, is it true about the hole in the sheet?"
2. "Are you kosher or are you strictly kosher?"
3. From a devout Muslim: "After you have relations with your wife, do you shower before you pray?"
4. Party organizer when informed that the hero sandwiches at a staff party would not be kosher: "That's ok, you can eat the fruit."
5. "I have a lot of respect for the Jewish people. They're very smart. I just read this great book about them - The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
6. "You got a raise? You must have a really good Rabbi."
7. A security guard after the metal detector went off: "It's probably [the clips on] your little beanie."
8. My boss: "Fuck, fuck, fuck! Oh, I'm sorry for saying that in front of you; you're pretty pious."
9: Also my boss: "You guys don't do any drugs or alcohol, right? You can be my spiritual advisor."
10: My boss, once again, when told that new employees would have to undergo drug testing: "Damn, I couldn't even pass that test. I just got stoned last week!" (Not Jewish related, but how could I leave it out?)




From Mike Edinger, Baltimore, MD
Fine, we won't call it a Christmas party, we'll call it a Holiday party, is that OK ?

For males only: Usually near Bathroom area: You got some strings hanging out of your pants.

Steve Goloskov These were said to me:

1. "It's very cloudy out and I can't see the sun (at 1pm Fri. afternoon), so you have to leave now, right?

2. "Do you sleep with your little hat on?"

3. "So if you're orthodox, why don't you have a beard and black robe like those Amish looking ones?"

4. "So, what makes beer kosher?"

From Tzachie Shalev:

1. Is this whole "I don't spend money on Friday night" just to make us buy you drinks?
2. Do you feel weird because you're the only person here who doesn't believe in Jesus?
3. So you just sit in the dark all Saturday?