SuperJew at San Antonio Print E-mail
Written by Laura Kraus   

Texan Jew Has Matzah, Will Teach
My first semester at San Antonio Junior College was a lonely one. First of all, the SuperJew comic strip I’d fashioned for art class was definitely under-appreciated. My professor and classmates wanted to laugh, but they didn't get the allusions to Yiddish humor or the references to Judaism in general. The one thing they did recognize was the picture I had drawn of the Reform temple that lay just outside campus.

"That's a Jewish church?" one of them asked upon studying my drawing of the domed building. "I thought it was the planetarium."

"Jews don't pray; why is he sitting in the lotus position meditating?" demanded another.

And finally, the most asked question, "What's he wearing a beanie for?"

San Antonio College was definitely ready and willing to receive the ethnocentric award of the century. Of course in their defense, the majority of the citizens of San Antonio, Texas are Catholics. Next would be Baptists or Protestants, and ever-increasingly, Evangelicals.

Of course everyone was curious once they found out I was Jewish. They saw me in a different light. Depending on their background, they could be defensive or full of questions. So as I hectically searched for a major, I found myself in an entirely different role in the college: Representative Jew.

The second semester of freshman year was a turning point. My Freshman Composition teacher was a non-denominational New Yorker who spoke Yiddish better than I could. He asked me what shul I went to. Not what "Jewish church," but what shul!

Since my Freshman Composition course, I have become determined to promote a Judaism that did not involve Jewish churches. Of course there were a few other Jews, ones who wrote articles in the school newspaper about the High Holidays and why the Temple shut off half the student parking during late September/early October. But in my three years there, I have only met two other Jewish students.

So I started doing things my way: I started passing around matzah. On several occasions, friends came back to me reporting on the space Judaism filled for them; a moment of salvation on a day of forgotten lunch.
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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.
 
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