JEWISH LIKE ME

by Diana Stoneberg



What's in a name? A lot if you have an ethnic sounding name.

Many people automatically assume because my last name ends in "berg" that I am Jewish. Actually, I grew up with an Irish Mc something name. I also grew up with a Swedish mother who was forever chastising myself and my brothers for being Irish. Even though she had nothing good to say about her husband and our gene pool we knew that our sense of humor wasn't coming from her side.

I read John Griffin's "Black Like Me" and it had a big impact on me. After many years of the shame of being Irish had been drilled in me I decided that I would just stop being Irish, change my last name to my mother's Swedish name and suddenly become Swedish. After all, there wasn't much anyone ever had to say about being Swedish. Sure, the occasional sex innuendo but other than that there didn't appear to be any problems with a name like Stoneberg.

Little did I know. I soon realized what it must be like to be Jewish. Because no sooner had I changed my last name than all of a sudden I was entering a new world and becoming acquainted with customs I had never heard of before.

People would ask things like, "did you marry someone Jewish, because you don't look Jewish." Or Jewish people would say things like, "I'm Jewish, and ...." then they would wait for me to say if I was or not.

One guy who was Jewish was relived to find out I wasn't and then loosened up when he was talking to me. Another guy who when he found out I was Swedish started talking to me as though I didn't understand English.

The ethnic name game applies to others as well. I've got a friend who is Anglo and through marriage she has a Spanish surname. She has been asked over the phone about her green card status, whether she married her husband so he could enter the country. And when she was in the hospital the nursing staff couldn't locate her because they were looking for a Spanish lady.

Things really started to get confusing when I married a guy from Germany. I would get calls from the Sam Weisenthal Organization. They were asking for contributions to help seek out and bring to justice the Nazis still living in North and South America. Evidently they had obtained my name from some list and assumed I was Jewish. Whenever I was mad at my husband I would threaten to turn him in.

During work experiences I also had a number of "name related " incidents. I was a writer for The Bozo Show in Chicago. It was two other guys and myself who wrote for the show. Just prior to the Christmas season the producer turned to me during a production meeting and said, "now, Diana maybe you could write a Chanukah bit". I rolled my eyes in disbelief. After several years of being "Jewish Like Me" I had obtained some knowledge about some of the Jewish holidays. What little I knew made me think what in the hell could possibly be written as a Bozo bit for Chanukah? Gee, maybe Bozo blowing out trick candles each night? Or maybe spinning a giant dredle into the audience? I couldn't believe what he was asking me. Then when he found out I wasn't Jewish he seemed relieved. I can only imagine that it was because he was dreading having to ask me to come up with a Yom Kippur Bozo bit.

I've had complete strangers wish me "Happy Jewish New Year" and then when they see the puzzled look on my face they almost want to take it back. I've become so accustomed to this behavior that it doesn't surprise me.

Recently, I wrote an article entitled "My Neighbor the Nazi" and was immediately asked by someone if I was Jewish. I also am on a women's business mailing list where someone has recently started to share their conspiracy beliefs about the US government and all of the media being owned by "the Jews." (What this is doing on a women in business mailing list, God knows.)

In response to that I'd just like to say that I don't feel you have to be Jewish to hate Nazis and I don't own any part of the government However, I do have the right to express myself in the media even if I'm not Jewish like me.

Diana Stoneberg writes "Biographical Biopsies". Her piece The Will To Live appeared in Grrowl! #5.