So, let me tell you about the time I dressed up as an Israeli soldier and totally hit on some Birthright girls. I was, like, this close to scoring, man. This. Close.
It wasn’t entirely my idea. At the time, I was on a non-Birthright student trip to the land of our ancestors. The program consisted of sixteen Americans and six Israelis, and on the night in question, we were stationed at a fabulously ritzy hotel in Jerusalem. At dinner, someone noted that there were more sore-thumb Americans in the building than usual. Sure enough, a mob of giggling co-eds wearing Birthright t-shirts had descended upon the area and were staring all around, wide-eyed. My heart leapt.
It was my first time in Israel, and I wanted to fulfill what I’m still pretty sure was part of the Zionist dream—hooking up with hella women. No more of this Diaspora, Woody Allen, nebbishy, intellectual Jew stereotype crap, where you have to make a girl feel sorry for you in order to nab her. My personal mandate in Eretz Yisroel was clear and simple: I may have been a wimp back home, but I was going to redeem my masculinity in the land of milk and honey. The girls on my own trip seemed slightly aloof, even the Sabras. But all the guys on the program who, unlike me, had done a Birthright trip in the past, told me that the girls on those whirlwind free tours put out like crazy.
Later that night, I was doing what I did on most nights of the trip—pretending I was the kind of guy who stays up all night drinking, so I could impress the soldiers on the trip. We knocked back Gold Stars at the hotel bar until closing time, and as we stumbled back to our rooms, we noticed that the Birthright group, abuzz with jetlag and sexual excitement, was stationed on the hotel’s outdoor foyer.
As we all tumbled into our beds, one of the Israelis sat up with an idea. “’ey!” he shouted to me, “You should be putting on my uniform and kissing Birthright girls!” He unzipped his travel bag and handed me the duds of a submarine commander. Before I’d even finished outfitting myself, they were all laughing like hyenas and I immediately decided that I would carry the adventure all the way through. “What the hell,” I roared with outstretched arms, “Let’s go snag some chiiiiiicks!” Cheers rang out, and a detachment of 6 IDF fighters followed me down the elevator to the foyer.
I took in a deep breath and held up my hand to signal that my soldiers should hang back while I go in for some recon. My boots clopped down on the Herodian stone, and I made a pass along the perimeter of chairs and kids. A girl at the far end of the circle caught a glimpse of me walking around the group and audibly screamed “Oh, shit!” in an excited stage whisper. All engines were go. I continued my casual stroll and came upon two pretty, chatting brunettes. It was then or never.
I leaned in close and the chatter stopped. Both stared at me, wide-eyed.
“Ey-lo, I sorry, but you are Taglit group, no?” I used the Hebrew word for Birthright trips. My accent was abominable. I was on a roll.
“Oh, uh, yes! Yeah, we’re a Birthright group!” She didn’t even seem repulsed.
“Oh, and, ah, where are you…from? In America?”
“We’re from Los Angeles. In California. Where—where are you from?”
Her friend elbowed her and hissed, “He’s from Israel, obviously!”
If you will it, it is no dream, folks.
“Ha ha ha!” I chuckled heartily, “No, is okay question. I am from Haifa. You know where is Haifa?” They nodded.
“So, do you, ah, know any movie stars? From living in Hollywood?” I asked, my hands feeling around for my pockets. They said they didn’t, and I chuckled some more. They asked me what I did, and I told them that I was a submarine commander. They nodded at that. But then…there wasn’t much left to talk about. “So…we are going to my room, yes?” didn’t seem to be the greatest option.
I was contemplating an exit strategy when, to my great relief, a scream suddenly broke the awkward silence. We all looked up to see one of the Birthright girls with her head stuck out of a third-floor window overlooking the foyer. She was being tickled by a boy and shrieking for help.
Tickled as well, I called out, “You need assistance? I am officer—I am allowed to beat up him!”
She squealed out with joy at being attended by two virile young men. “Yes! Please come up here! My room number is—” but then she mumbled out something between the laughs that I couldn’t understand, and the two of them ran off. I started frantically asking various Birthrighters what she’d said, but no one knew.
The real soldiers couldn’t stop guffawing at all of this. Seeing that I needed backup, they strolled over, and one of them did his best cowboy accent. “Say, thar, can I get a pikshur with yew, Mister Soldier?” I complied. But then, the Birthright group dispersed, and it was all over before it even really began. My IDF pals snapped more photos and continued laughing about my high school Spanish-inflected accent. My giggles stopped long before theirs, though. Somewhere in my inebriated soul, I guess I really thought I’d had a chance to be the New Jew—the kind of guy who casually hooks up with pretty girls. Instead, I went to sleep that night knowing I’d just put on another Borscht Belt Vaudeville routine.
In the end, all was not lost. I ended up competing for—and inexplicably winning– the affections of an American girl on our trip. My rival? A six-foot-tall Israeli soldier. Over the course of a few weeks, I managed to beat out his washboard abs and stories about “awesome hikes.” But my tactics for winning the lady fell squarely within the domain of the Old World Diaspora Jew. I did what I do best: I made self-effacing jokes, I talked about feelings, I gesticulated wildly. Apparently I woo the same way I write.
Then again, Woody Allen always gets Diane Keaton in the end of the movie, right? Sure, maybe it’s a little more believable when Al Pacino ends up with her in those other pictures, but Woody’s got a certain _j’ne c’est quoi_. I guess I’m saying that I don’t know the right answer. Should we neurotic Jewboys toss aside our wacky antics and copies of “Portnoy’s Complaint” and make sexual Aliyah? Or should we be proud of what we have, and avoid putting on a fake show of overblown machismo? Like most Jewish questions, it’s sort of irresolvable. Some rabbis say yes, some rabbis say no.
But—oh, hell. What’s one more identity crisis for a people whose history reads like one epic identity crisis? But maybe, just maybe, I’m a little bit closer to finding out how to spice up my antics with some Sabra charm. Closer to becoming some wonderful new hybrid-model Jew.
And when that happens?
All you Birthright girls in the foyer best be on your toes.
