Vivid dream: Jewsweek

The situation in the Middle East is so upsetting, it’s invading my every subconscious moment. The other day I thought I saw the headline “Jewsmakers” in Newsweek when it was actually “Newsmakers.” But then I thought it would be really funny to have a spoof publication called Jewsweek, and I got so into the idea, I really let it spin out in my head for about an hour. (There is actually a website that’s called Jewsweek, so it’s not an original idea, apparently.)

A couple nights ago I had a dream about a Jewish newspaper in Philadelphia. The paper was unnamed in the dream, and it must be said, bore no resemblance to the actual Jewish newspaper here. (I don’t want to get into any trouble. They hate me already.) For now, let’s call the paper Jewsweek, just for fun.

The dream began with a call from a Jewsweek reporter. She wanted to set up a secret meeting to talk about the Jewsweek’s “covert racism.” We sat in PW’s editor’s office and listened to her tale: As they were putting the paper together for that week, an obituary came in over the transom, as they say. It was for an African-American man, and the staffers at Jewsweek decided not to publish the obit because they didn’t want a black guy next to the Jewish people.

The young reporter was horrified. Now she wanted to write a story for us about working there, sort of like an undercover report by a slaughterhouse employee.

The idea seemed great. If this was true about Jewsweek, it would run counter to the radical community spirit that blacks and Jews shared during the civil rights movement and beyond. It would be a shocking turn for a newspaper that claimed to represent the voice of Jews, an ethnic and religious group traditionally known for being progressive, if not communists. Comedians and activists: two proud Jewish legacies.

The reporter returned to her gig, and we awaited her story. Then we heard through the grapevine that she was not, in fact, Jewish, as she’d implied. This changed things significantly. It’s one thing to air the community’s dirty laundry, which is already taboo. It’s another thing to have a shikse do it.

In the end, we decided not to run the story. I was relieved because there were people in the Philadelphia Jewish community who’d heard about it and were pissed off, even before it ran. One of those people was an elderly woman holding a squeaky faux-leather handbag like my grandmother Yetta used to favor. She hit me over the head with it and called me a self-hater. I woke up bathed in sweat and guilt.

“Am I an anti-Semite?”, I wondered glumly while I brushed my teeth. “I can’t be. I love being Jewish.” Oy vey.

liz | 12:33 PM | Uncategorized