"YOU" JEWS AND YOUR FISH

America is a young country. When a Jew says that his family has been in the US for 100 years, it’s like a Jekke saying that his mishpocho has been in Frankfurt for a millennium.

When my parents and I moved to San Francisco, we discovered a pair of distant, distant relatives who established their roots there two generations before the Great Earthquake of 1906. Cousins Charles and Frances, a brother and sister, were a dotty 90-year-old couple who spent most of their time at the opera, ballet, symphony, and theater.

They were a delight to have around, as they regaled us in stories of the Great Earthquake, the graciousness of the old days among the wealthy, cultured German Jews, the charity balls with the Sutros and Fleishackers, and the arrival of the slothful Ostjuden with their Old World nonsense.

They told me, the astonished yeshiva bochur, how their Reform temple celebrated the Sabbath on Sunday, of its Quad Suite organ, and its magnificent choir resplendent with voices from the opera.

The only thing plebian about Charles and Frances was their passion for fishing. Given their love for my folks, though, they never shared the fruits of their expeditions. Then one day they appeared at the door, somewhat sheepishly, bearing a neatly wrapped package of rockfish from Half Moon Bay. They wrinkled their noses self-consciously.

As Frances presented the fish, she said in her usual genteel voice, “I don’t know too much about the kosher laws, but I know that fish have to be soaked and salted to make them acceptable. I couldn’t bear it, so I broiled one, and I couldn’t even touch it, it was so tough and salty.”

I could see that my mother was about to try to explain, but then she thought the better of it.

On went Cousin Frances: “My goodness, how long do you have to salt your beef? No wonder that Jews like ‘them’ have such high blood pressure.” There could be no doubt as to the “them” to whom she was referring. “I guess that’s why ‘you people’ are always saying how hard it is to be a Jew. How ever do you prepare your eggs?”