Friday on Jaffa Road. June 2018
[from FB post: June 19, 2018]
Funny Life Moments
When I lived in New York people always asked me, "Are you Jewish?" Apparently, I had such a nice Jewish sounding name.
Now I am in Jerusalem. I order food or coffee and say my name is "Matthew".
"Mattu? Mathu?" Lots of puzzled looks.
I am just like...
"You are kidding me, right?"
Back in the Washington Heights [see: Magaw Place] days when I worked in the Village at New York University [see; NYU Kevorkian Center] there was one question I always was asked: "Matthew Glotfelter, is that GERMAN name?" and the tone of the question almost seemed accusatory. I thought, "World War Two was years ago, let it go". My reply was, of course, "Actually, it's Swiss" and the conversation abruptly ended. This went on for a long time. Finally, I asked my Jewish, Egyptologist friend at NYU, Eric Lieber, why the questioning? He laughed and replied, 'They aren't asking if you are German. They want to know if you are Jewish." Ohhhhh, the lightbulb came on for me. I lived in an old German-Jewish neighborhood after all. Statistically speaking, New York City is 13% Jewish and that jumps to 20% in Manhattan. I am sure in the northern part of Washington Heights the percentage would have even been higher. NYU was also known to have a large Jewish student population. So yeah, my name apparently sounded like it COULD be Jewish, and people wanted to know.
In the Milford years, my good friend from Jerusalem, RN, came to stay with me a couple of times. He also joked with me about my nice Ashkenazi sounding name. Although not a popular name in Israel, Mattityahu, existed. How strange to have this quintessential Christian name, yet at its heart, it's quite Jewish.
Finally, I made it to Jerusalem. Right down the alley from my hotel on Jaffa Street there was a coffee shop. The place was local, not a Starbucks. I went in to get my caffeine fix. When the barista asked my name and I said "Matthew", she just paused. She asked me to repeat it. I said it again, "Matthew". Then I had to spell it out. In my mind I was back in New York being asked if I had a Jewish name (which my Israeli friend had verified as existing) and suddenly in JERUSALEM, someone acts like they never heard the name "Matthew" before. I wanted to say to the woman, "you are f.....g kidding me, right?"
Georgetown bestie, MA, insisted that my name is just "marked" as a Christian name. I wasn't buying it, but then again, what did happen? Maybe the Western version of my name really WAS Christian and unless I used the original Jewish one, no one recognized it? Even if Jerusalem was religiously conservative, there were people coming there from all over the world. I was astonished that anyone had never heard my name, especially with its Jewish roots.
I finally make it to Israel with my very Jewish first name only to have no one recognize it. I think I still don't really understand it, but it made me laugh
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