I was born a WASP and a Jew which means I'm both at the same time yet neither fully one nor the other. A cultural epicene. Complex, contradictory and conflicted, I carry with me all the baggage of someone who's had to ponder the existential question: If I had been living in Berlin, in 1939, would I have turned myself into the Gestapo?
My mother is the Jew. She raised us with a healthy understanding that our heritage includes eating your way through guilt, using Yiddish expressions laced with a hint of Brooklynese (even though we never lived near Brooklyn), expressing your emotions ("geshtalting") whenever and wherever possible, and blowing things out of proportion so that anything that wasn't a big deal (like a fever) became a huge deal (needs medical attention) and anything that was a huge deal (getting your first period) became a monumental deal (let's throw a getting-your-first-period party and inviting everyone the neighborhood to celebrate).
My father is the WASP. He raised us with a healthy understanding that our heritage includes drinking your way through guilt, avoiding any topic of conversation that could lead a person to accidentally express an emotion of any sort, and wearing whale or lobster-embossed corduroy pants without a whiff of sartorial irony.
With all their differences, my parents were somehow attracted to each other rather than repelled. I chalk it up to the late 60's when idealism was in vogue and tradition, once the backbone of civilization, was treated more like a passing fad and considered less whimsical than pet rocks but taken not quite so seriously as EST.
As a byproduct of my parents' youthful rebellion/religio-cultural experiment, I've had to learn to synergize their Old and New Testament identities into a more mutually dependent relationship - much like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, relativity and string theory, or Van Halen and David Lee Roth. But considering the way Van Halen broke up, I can't be sure if this pairing is a recipe for disaster or success.
The confounding complementary incongruities of my nature have lead me to compile a list of WASPy Jewish (or Jewy WASPish) traits in the hope that if you recognize these qualities in another, you'll sidle them up to the bar and buy them a shot of Manishevitz - for life as a cultural epicene, while interesting, is not without its challenges.
WASPy Jews:
- Feel ashamed about sex and guilty about everything else.
- Are neurotic that they're not neurotic enough.
- Drink a lot of Virgin Marys.
- Think money is a taboo subject, unless we're talking rent control.
- Think the greatest character of all time is "Welcome Back Kotter's" Juan Epstein.
- Eat a lot of roast beef, but only on white bread with mayonnaise.
- Belong to country clubs where the bar is small and the buffet is huge.
- Monogram initials on button-down shirts in Hebrew.
- Are reserved about being over-bearing.
- Will sleep with someone even though they're not in love, but when they do fall in love, stop sleeping with them altogether.
- Put a Star of David on top of their Christmas trees.
- Play sports well, but only tennis, squash or golf.
- Have a lot of sex, but only missionary style with the lights off.
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Not me.
So this isn't always a WASP type of personality trait.