NEW YORK — It may seem to be gastronomic heresy to invoke a communications system named for a taboo leavened-bread item during Pesach. But this one is legit and kosher any time.
It’s “bageling, a usually subtle — sometimes not-so-subtle — device by which a Jew discreetly but deliberately finds out whether another is Jewish, and how an individual lets others know that he or she is Jewish.
A real-life example: decades ago, a woman stranger approached my mother-in-law on the street and, suspecting she was Jewish but not entirely sure, asked if she knew where to get herring.
My mother-in-law gave the information to the woman, now revealed as a fellow Jew. The connection made, they struck up a conversation, and became lifelong friends.
The woman’s instinct was correct, but sometimes identifying someone as Jewish turns out to be mistaken. Some fictional stories reveal this truth.
A rabbi heading for shul on a Saturday morning is greeted by a youngster with “Goot Shabbos, rabbi.”
The surprised spiritual leader returns the greeting, then asks the boy, who doesn’t look it remotely : “Are you Jewish?”
“No, rabbi,” the youngster responds,”I’ve got enough tzuris being what I am.”
We all take pride, even rejoice, when a fellow Jew, known to us or not, does something praiseworthy but cringe when someone obviously Jewish, does something to be ashamed of . (I’ve long felt that we won’t have truly arrived until we can slough off both, especially the shameful deeds as not a reflection on us.)
There are people whose Jewishness is very obvious, such as the young man strolling on a street in Manhattan who had his tzitzes (fringes) flowing from beneath his shirt. A man came out of the building he was passing, looked directly a the youn gman, and asked, “Are you Jewish?” He invited the boy inside to help for a minyon for mincha. We used to feel certain that such government figures as former Senator William Cohen, who served in the Clinton cabinet, was Jewish, but he wasn’t. Neither was David Cone, major-league pitcher. But some of us treated him as one of us, when he won, but not when he lost.
An old illustrative anecdote (the only kind I know) underscores the point:
A Jewish woman happens to be seated next to a bearded man on a New York City subway. He’s wearing a black fedora, long black coat, black pants and shoes, and intently reading a small book.
“Excuse me, sir,” she says, “but for years, I’ve been trying to figure you people out. You all dress alike, all in black, you live in neighborhoods with very similar people. you hardly associate with people who are different, you don’t watch television or go to the movies. Many of you don’t even listen to the radio. You men don’t dace with women.
I don’t understand your type of Jews”. .
The man softly makes a correction. “I’m sorry, madam, but I’m not Jewish, I’m Amish.”
“Wow,” the now-euphoric woman replies. “I respect you people so much. You dress modestly, don’t watch tv or movies, don’t dance with members of the opposite sex. You’re truly inspirational.”
Some Jews, of course, hide their ethnicity, say, by changinh their names, sometimes for something as frivolous as to be eligible for membership in a restricted country club. Or to rise in an occupation known for discrimination.
But there can be very serious motivations, as U.S. combat soldiers in certain areas of the world rubbing off the “H” (for “Hebrew”) on their dog tags in case they were to be captured by an enemy who’d treat a Jewish captive more inhumanely than others.
Why the device of deliberately seeking out fellow Jews is called “bageling,” I don’t know. But it goes more trippingly on the tongue than, say, “kishkaing” or tzimmising or “brisketing,”
Jewish reaction to “bageling” is mixed . Some recoil, saying “oy vey is shmear” but others feel that on the hole, it’s more than okay.
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Humorist Joel H. Cohen lives in New York City, where everyone has an opinion about where to find the best bagels.