Grandma’s food prep. led her to Judaism

-62nd in a series-

Exit 45, Pine Valley, California

By Donald H. Harrison

PINE VALLEY, California – Although she was raised as a Catholic, Judy Hunter Osterberger felt a certain restlessness about religion as a young woman. “I wanted to get to the genesis of things and read the Bible for myself” she recalled.   She investigated several different faiths, but found herself drawn to Judaism.  Her family always had felt comfortable among Jews.  Her mother had many Jewish classmates at Hoover High School in San Diego and her aunt had a Jewish boyfriend.But perhaps the most compelling reason for the attraction were the things that her maternal grandmother did.

“Cracking eggs for instance,” Osterberger related in an interview.  After Osterberger became acquainted with the rules of kashrut, “I’d ask, ‘Grandma, why do you do that?  Cracking them separately into a bowl, instead of putting them into one bowl together?’  She’d say, ‘You’ve got to make sure there is no blood in them.’  I didn’t understand.  Most store-bought eggs didn’t have blood in them, but that was her habit.  And she never mixed milk with any meat, ever.  ‘You just don’t do that!’  She ate lamb almost all the time.  And if she ate chicken or meat, I would find heavy salt on the counter.  ‘What are you doing that for?’ I’d ask.  And she’d say, ‘You can’t have any blood in the meat.’

Clearly, grandma was following some of the practices of keeping kosher, but why?  Her great-grandma long had been rumored to have had Jewish roots. She may have converted from Judaism to Catholicism when she married Osterberger’s great-grandfather  Great-grandma’s name was “Engesser” or “Engasser,”  and one can find both Jews and Christians today with that name.

When Osterberger asked her grandmother directly about it, she was told that whereas there had been a lot of speculation that Great Grandmother Marie  Engasser Warlop was Jewish, it never could be substantiated.Wanting to satisfy herself on this point, Osterberger had her DNA tested by 23andMe, a genetic testing company whose name refers to the number of pairs of chromosomes in a human cell.  The test revealed that among Osterberger’s matrilineal genes was one that was very common in Syria, Lebanon and among the Druze. Additionally, the test found that Osterberger had DNA relatives who were Jewish, including one third or fourth cousin whose name is Engesser.

Fascinated, Osterberger began delving  further into online genealogical research.  Initially, she made informal inquiries of Rabbi Samuel Penner, z”l, of Congregation Beth Tefilah, and later undertook formal study with Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal of Tifereth Israel Synagogue.  Eventually, she converted to Judaism.  In fact, she became so involved with Tifereth Israel that she became a member of the board of directors of that Conservative synagogue.  She also is affiliated with the downtown San Diego Chabad.

Her husband, Les, who has remained devoutly Catholic, was accepting of Judy’s religious quest.  Mezuzot went up in their house, where no hanging crucifix is to be found.  On the other hand, Les, who grew up as an outdoorsman, likes to decorate other portions of their home with the mounted trophies of animals that he has successfully hunted.  While Judy enjoys shooting skeet and other forms of target practice, she personally but does not like killing animals, not since she once wounded a rabbit and heard its screams.  “They sounded like a baby’s,” she confided with a shudder.

The couple met through the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and plumbing business. Judy, whose degrees from Humboldt State are in political science and environmental engineering, went to work for University Mechanical Engineering, where she met her Les briefly before he left that company to work at A. O. Reed.  Subsequently at industry conferences she would run into her future husband.  It caused quite a stir when they became engaged, because  A.O. Reed, in which today he is a partner and a vice president, was the major competitor for University Mechanical.  Avoiding conflicts of interest, Judy resigned from University Mechanical to focus on the couple’s rental properties.

While Les likes to hunt ducks, Judy raises a half dozen or so chickens for home use.

That started one spring day on a visit to a nearby feed store where she went intending to buy some outdoor pottery.  She spotted in the store some baby chicks “and they were so cute. They were itty bitty, just three days out of their eggs.  I picked out six or seven, which all looked alike.  I got white leghorns and some araucanas, which are the ones that lay the blue eggs.  One little itty bitty one charged my hand and I said,  ‘Oh, you charged my hand, you must like me.’  I kept them in the kitchen with a heat lamp.  One day, when I was out there building with chicken wire, I realized that one that had been charging me was a rooster,” a Rhode Island Red.

One of her white leghorns was a brooder, who would sit on her egg, hardly ever moving.  Judy said she gathered three other eggs and put them under that hen, and the four were later hatched.  Back then “we named our chickens, but you should never do that,” not if they might end up on someone’s dinner table–and it would never on mine!  We have given the chickens away but we have not sold them.”

The Rhode Island Red, named Jimmy,  “was the meanest thing.  My step-daughter would run from him in the yard, yelling to her daddy (Les) that Jimmy was bothering her.  “Our neighbors had a bright light, a motion light, and whenever it would come on Jimmy would think it was the sun and cockadoodle-do.  I had to take him from the roost and put him into a dog kennel kept in the garage every night.  He got habituated to being in that dog house.”  One day, when Judy came back from an errand, she found the rooster all alone, going crazy.  The hens had been given to a neighbor across the street.  “I had this candle holder  in the shape of the hen, and I put the fake hen in the kennel, and when I went out there later, Jimmy had cuddled up next to it.”

The Osterbergers keep their hens during the few years which are most productive for laying eggs.  Judy and Les both love to have fresh eggs in the morning, and Judy is particular to the blue ones because “they taste so good.”

In fact, “I only eat the blue eggs ,” said Judy.  “The reason is the other ones are usually fertilized and they have blood on them, and it gives me the creeps.”

Shades of her grandma and  great-grandma!

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Take Pine Valley exit 45 and follow the road into town.  The Osterbergers live on a private street off the main road.

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  You may comment to him at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com