Journalism and Jews

In the last two weeks I’ve been to a Mosque during Ramadan and an Orthodox temple for Yom Kippur.

Both were interesting, to say the least. At the African American Mosque  in Brooklyn I stuck out like a sore thumb. Still, everyone was pleasant. I received a second glance or two, but they were really looks of surprise, not a "get the hell out of here you white devil" kind of look.

Afterwords I went with my two Muslim friends to eat Halal food (their version of Kosher food) and talked about the relationship between Jews, Muslims and African Americans. Being somewhat liberal minded, we essentially agreed that ignorance breeds misunderstanding and leads to fear, hate and suffering. Yoda truly was wise in the ways of man.

About a week later on Yom Kippur I went to an Orthodox temple with a friend who just moved to New York and really wanted someone to come with him to pray.

My first reaction was how similar the two were.

The women were kept in a separate room. The men were gyrating and bowing their bodies back and forth, mumbling foreign words while wearing funny hats and a robe.

While I blended in a little easier at the temple, it was still painfully obvious that
I did not know Hebrew and wasn’t familiar with how Orthodox Jews pray. (The only prayer I recognized I think came from the musical Fiddler on the Roof).

This became an issue when they asked if there was a Cohn in the temple.

Cohn’s are part of a special tribe in Judaism. Back in the day we were the high priests and were relegated certain privileges and had to do special prayers that only we were allowed to do.

My friend ratted me out and soon enough I had a temple full of orthodox Jews looking to me to perform my family’s special prayer.

I confessed my rustiness in Hebrew, but they didn’t seem to mind. They walked me through it step by step and word by word. While I felt a little silly giving a special prayer for these people, who were obviously more religious than myself, they were into the idea that a Cohn was going to give them a blessing — so who am I to deny them that. Still, you can imagine the awkward feeling I had when I stepped down from the alter and everyone was finally explaining to me the words I just said and the history behind the prayer that only I could do.

Going to the Mosque and the Synagogue back to back gave me an interesting perspective on New York and religion in general. I’ll file those under the interesting experience section of my mind.