Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

The Only Jewish Blogger in Savannah
Wednesday, February 21, 2007

I'm on my way to Savannah for the weekend. With that in mind, Arnie Belzer is an old friend and the rabbi of my hometown congregation, Mickve Israel, in Savannah, the third-oldest congregation in the country. He and I were exchanging emails this week and he sent me a link to a self-described "only Jewish blogger in Savannah," who had attended a Judaism 101 class that he taught recently. Twelve hours. Several hundred people. Very few Jews, it turns out.

"A few innacuracies," Arnie reported of this post by at yoyenta.com, "but mostly right on!"

My eyes did their usual wandering around the room with its classic nave structure and breathtaking stained glass with inscriptions from the 1800’s, but was distracted by the sound of pens scratching on paper. I saw that some people were listening very attentively and taking notes. I had my pen out, too, of course; I’m always scribbling stuff to collect for this blog, and perhaps one day, a book. Since when do Jews listen to the rabbi, let alone write it down? I thought. Could it be that I am not the only Jewish blogger in Savannah? Then it dawned on me: These people weren’t Jews.
It seems the rabbi’s Judaism 101 talk is immensely popular among Christians looking to find out more about our religion, for various reasons, some earnest, some scary. Not that there weren’t a good number of congregants there, too; I recognized several senior Yentas from my weekly lunch with my mother-in-law. The rabbi, who I’ve always liked a lot but many find to be a little showy for the third oldest congregation in the country, unapologetically framed religion in marketing terms, and admitted that Judaism has pretty lame PR: We don’t seek converts, we don’t believe in original sin and we don’t promise eternal salvation.

I started to get down with the basic explanations of Judaism, learning what I must’ve slept through in Hebrew school. Did you know that Reform Judaism was developed in the 19th-century South in keeping with the Protestant aesthetic so popular in America at the time? Or that the Southern Baptists fund Jews for Jesus? (Rabbi B. invoked meshuggeneh pundit Dennis Prager when one of the non-Jews asked why one couldn’t be a Jew for Jesus: “It’s like being a vegetarian for meat.”)

The piece includes at least one questionable joke by Rabbi Belzer that YoYenta finds funny. You be the judge: A Liberal Protestant, a Catholic and a Jew are discussing when life begins. The Liberal Protestant says: “At birth.” The Catholic disagrees: “At conception.” The Jew trumps them all: “When the kids leave for college and the dog dies.”

Labels: Judaism

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