Jewish Assimilation
Caroline Rothstein
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“L’chi lach to a land that I will show you
Leich l’cha to a place you do not know
L’chi lach on this journey I will bless you
And you shall be a blessing
L’chi lach” *
Moses stands at Sinai holding faith in two tablets; he tells us that we are free
We are free from Egyptian slavery; the angel of death passed over lambs’ blood
smeared on the thresholds of our doorsteps and we are free
But our exodus and our redemption song
Are still being sung
It’s just that no one wants to admit it
No one wants to admit that Jewish power and privilege are just a mirage
We’re suppressing our ethnicity so much, that we’re still in captivity
Masked by the guise of the largest conspiracy to conform in history
My people, we are still not free
And it is because I cherish my heritage and ethnicity that I call for this voyage
to finally be free
See, we’ve been blessed with birthing hips, voluptuous breasts, and a body
frame untamed by Vogue or Cosmo; so perhaps the mass market purchasing
of nose jobs at my synagogue is some type of attempt to blend in, but
We are not white despite 50 years of supposed white privilege there are White
supremacists who live to wage a Racial Holy War to send me to my grave
We are not white
That’s just a minor mistake society made when nana and papa arrived at Ellis
Island
Where customs workers sewed our names with Golds, Mans, Roths, and
Steins to bracket us off in America, just like our jackets with a yellow star in
Europe
And while I wear my name with pride and joy, I just question its origin as an
anti-Semitic decoy
I just question whether my name encompasses the scorn of ghettos
When our ancestors were herded like cattle in pens marching to Auschwitz
carrying candlesticks, Talit, and prayer books
Now several of my people march themselves away from Synagogue as we
straighten our hair, wear Prada bags and Gucci shoes to become the minstrel
show of a black faced Jew
There’s this small, loud minority disrupting the reputation of the larger
majority
Plastering Jewish American Princess nouns and Jappy adjectives into
contemporary vocabulary as if tributaries of our hereditary genes aren’t
enough to separate us
My father had the shit kicked out of him every day in 196 because he was
the only Jew at his boarding school so he started working for the local pizza
shop and sold pizzas on campus to make the beatings stop; he didn’t highlight
his hair, shave his nose, buy fancy clothes and start giving gifts on Hannukah
to be just like Christmas
Why can’t we be comfortable lighting candles and playing dreidel?
Why do we further dismantle the destroyed temple with commercial material?
3000 years of persecution and we’re still assimilating to some dictating
institution
We’re still wandering in the desert praying manna from heaven will rain
Instead fear and shame reign our minds and chain our wrists like clandestine
candlesticks in 1492 when the Spanish Inquisition converted Sephardic
marrano Jews
It’s as if we’re creating our own ghettos on Wall Street and Hollywood so that
if they come for us in this century, we’ll have slightly more luxury than in
1933
If they come for me, I couldn’t hide, and I wouldn’t hide because I’m a part of
a family that is an engrained, metaphysical part of me
“L’chi lach and I shall make your name great
Leich l’cha and all shall praise your name
L’chi lach to the place that I will show you
L’sim-chat cha-yim
l’chi lach” *
* Quoted text from Debbie Friedman song “L’chi Lach”
Caroline Rothstein is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences majoring in Classical Studies and minoring in Theater Arts. This poem was performed as part of Penn’s spoken word perfomance group, The Excelano Project.