I must have been a pretty mean third-grader. My family was living in Chadron, a town of 5,000 in the most northwestern corner of Nebraska. Being part of the only Jewish family for three hundred miles in every direction, I was already the oddball. And being a rather scientific kid, I felt it necessary to save everyone on the playground from a most ridiculous myth: Santa Claus.
Exactly how many parents had to conduct Santa story damage control remains unknown. Across California, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, Texas and Oregon, legions of little boys and girls were rudely awakened from their dreams of sugarcanes and lollipops. Remorselessly, I continued my crusade for scientific enlightenment throughout my father’s career as an Army recruiter across the West.
Currently I chuckle at all my culture shock moments: A dinner guest asked us with pleasant surprise, “You’re Jewish?” he said. “Oh wow, where do you do your sacrifices?” Beg’ pardon? The classroom was no haven either. My teacher failed to understand that, no, little Ben could not make Christmas paper chains because Judaism wasn’t a different type of Christianity, it was a different religion. That same year, a classmate and I bickered over whether or not Hell really existed. I told him to get a shovel and prove it. (It was brilliant logic at the time.)
In the pine forests of Nebraska, the plains of Texas, the grey Rockies of Colorado, and the pristine Pacific Northwest, I held my Judaism close. I felt different than everyone else. None of my holidays were no-school days, I couldn’t hang out on Friday nights, and nobody accepted a crumbled matzoh-PBJ sandwich as a fair trade. So I had two options: cherish the thing that made me unique, or assimilate. I came to see myself as an emissary of my people; Ambassador Ben of the Jews. Pressed to answer questions“Why don’t you believe in Santa? What’s Hanukah about? Can I come over and light the candles too?”— Over the years, I pulled every Jewish book off the shelf searching for answers.
But culture shock took on a double edge when, upon attending college in Seattle and later after relocating to New York, the joke turned on me. Around other Jews for the first time, I couldn’t help but be disappointed at first, and confused thereafter. It is easy to talk about the unity of the Jewish people if you’ve never experienced our factitious politicking. As a religious Jew, I came across Jews who didn’t give a damn about Judaism—as I’d known it, anyway. They had something called “Jewish culture” instead. My culture was an amalgamation of California surfer dude, cowpoke intellectual, and Judaic Boy Scout. Similar to being the only person who hasn’t seen a favorite TV show, I’m still hoping somebody will explain everything in due time.
I realized belatedly that just as I’d brought my Jewishness into the Midwest, the Midwest brought itself into me. Over dinner a couple months ago with some Jewish vegetarian city dwellers, I joked that as soon as I found some “down-home” people from Montana, I was going to find a steakhouse. (Though I’ve been known to mangle many a good punch line, their silence seemed to say more about them than me. Relating anecdotes that hinged on Montanans’ discomfort with urban gay flamboyance, my friend inquired, “What would you talk about with those people?” My jaw hit the pu pu platter. It never occurred to me that not everyone grew up near the country, that an understanding of small-town America might be as foreign to these friends as Jewish day schools were to me. Am I now Ambassador Ben of the Country?
Dozens of young men and women across the nation had their faith tested by a little boy’s comedic myth-busting. But they also shared my Hanukah candles, my hamentashen, and my rabbinic folklore, and opened their eyes to the beauty of another world faith. In turn, I now stand in New York—some say “Jew York”—and relate the beauty of the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the plain honesty of small-town America. I’m cool with being Ambassador Ben, of both Jew and cowpoke.
