Back from the dead, or something

Several weeks ago, I think it was the day before Yom Kippur, if you're interested, I was walking to the bus platform in Lawrence Station on my way to class and I was stopped by a young Orthodox Jewish teen and his two friends, "Excuse me, Sir, but do you happen to be Jewish?" "No, sorry, I'm not." "Oh, it's just a ritual thing."

All apologies aside (I wonder now why I apologized for not being Jewish) it was an interesting event, for two reasons. First, for some reason I can pass for just about any European or Middle Eastern ethnicity, I've been mistaken for Italian, German, French, Spanish, Lebanese, Persian (Iranian), Portuguese (which I am ethnically, but don't identify with culturally) and now, Jewish. I understand that Judaism is a religion that spans many ethnicities, but if a Jewish boy thought that I might be Jewish based on my appearance, there must have been some reason, it's not like he was asking everyone. I didn't even see him ask any other white males, then again maybe I embarrassed him and he gave up... I seem to have lost track... well the point is that I seem to have a very neutral look.

Part of the explanation can be that despite having two Portuguese parents, these parents actually came from the Azores, a group of islands far off the coast of Portugal, practically in the middle of the Atlantic, that social archeologists and historians believe was a meeting point for people from all over Europe and North Africa, so it is entirely possible that my ancestry could include Portuguese slave traders, Irish immigrants originally bound for America, French Canadians returning to France, Moroccan prisoners of war, West African slaves, Italian sailors and maybe even Portuguese or Spanish Jews escaping the Inquisition. I could be anything, and really when I say my ethnicity is Portuguese I do so out of simplicity, rather than accuracy.

The second reason is that in highschool, and still today among those same friends, there has been a running joke that I am Jewish, or that I will convert to Judaism. This had more than a little to do with my appearance. If you ask me I can probably drum up a good picture of my profile to show off my nose. It went so far that my drama teacher once bought me a pack of Star of David stickers. It was all mildly racist (at the very minimum) but what is to be expected of a Catholic school? Also, at work one of my co-workers has been led to believe that I am Jewish, but I didn't start that. I have, however kept up the charade to the best of my ability. I don't know why... I guess I should question these things a bit more often.

Keep on Tranglin,

Anthony