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From Whoopsy Magazine, April 2005 STOPPAGE TIME by Joe Mitchell Yeshu, Miriam, and Joseph! I Think I'm a Hebrile! Hybrids seem to be raging big-time on this plane of reality nowadays- hybrid cars, hybrid scooters (they look like friggin' motorcycles to me!), and even hybrid ethnic identities- Eurasian, Eurafrican, etc. One recent cultural predilection, the hybridism of white suburbanism and urban hip hop, has been burdened with a hideously pernicious label. Even I, Mr. Cranky anti-pc, cannot utter the term that drops the "n" from the cruelest racial epithet ever and replaces it with a "w." Perhaps we can give these earnest, yet confused middle class white kids a kinder, gentler sobriquet like "dislocated urban poet emulators," ("DUPE"). I may be traveling a road parallel to DUPE Boulevard. I've noticed over the years that my rather white, redneck, viciously protestant, small town Texas self has taken on an odd propensity for all things Jewish. If you're Jewish, I pretty much do my best to befriend you, especially if you've been to or lived in Israel. When anyone asks me "do you need anything?," I have this annoying habit of answering, with all earnestness, a "nice Jewish girl, please." In restaurants, this statement is usually met with the deserved "this guy is a bit cracked" expression, along with calls to the Austin State Hospital inquiring if any big ugly white guys have recently escaped. Funny thing though, this odd request actually worked once, many years ago, with an Austin waitress originally from the East Village of Manhattan. She had a hankering for slow, polite Southern Boys like me who address their "significants" with "Yes, ma'am, " as a sort of disarming control mechanism disguised as polite deference. "I used to be 'a nice Jewish girl,'" was her demur rejoinder. She was a loud, brash sort who scared most Southerners, but her cracking, deep-throated (settle down, folks) "H" pronunciations tended to inspire my testosterone levels. We were happily paired for about a year before I stupidly ran off with some blonde ditz (Shicksa) who wouldn't know Matzah from Mitzvah. I've had several torrid relationships with Jewish women since I got up the nerve to do "the courting thing" oh so many years ago, and the non-Jewish women with whom I've been involved, strangely enough, have quite often had a similar penchant for all things Hebrew, too. I've recently begun calling us Gentile "Heeb Lovers," Hebriles. My most recent girlfriend, who made a very abrupt and demonstrative crossing of the thin pink line between love and hate (restraining order, gunshot wound, black magick curses, and all) just a few months ago, was the queen of the gentile gourmands of Judaica. She could describe every Jewish Holiday in detail, knew their dates for that year, could quote the books of Moses at will, and count to 100 in Hebrew as well as say "I love you," "Good morning," and tons of other small phrases. She owned every word ever written by Theodore Herzl and could give you a timeline of the complete history of Yretz Israel from its founding to that very minute. In truth, she knew more about Israel and Judaism than a lot of Jews. Even my rudimentary Judaphilia, consisting of peppering my speech with Yiddish and a deep admiration of Mossad (Israel's coldly effective Intelligence and Special Projects (a nice way of saying assassinations and kidnappings of state enemies) Agency) has earned me the reputation of being "Jewish, though not a Jew." So what's up with Hebriles? Where are we coming from? While the DUPES see hip-hop culture as some sort of cool, liberating thing, a way to escape the conformist monotony of the suburbs, we Hebriles embrace our fetish for the opposite reason. Being urbanites, we admire Judaism for being staunch and traditional, something quite the opposite of our hectic lives. We're usually over thirty, come from conservative protestant backgrounds, have much more education than our parents, and, much to our chagrin, work as subordinates in our careers. Hebriles may have been wildly liberal in college and its immediate aftermath, but as we get older, we're slowly scooting to the right. It's a cold hard fact that Hebriles are a bit weary and in need of some inspiration. We look to the Jews and see a people who have not only survived thousands of years of persecution and a few attempts at genocide, but have actually managed to thrive in the face of it all. It is like looking at our own quandaries in this cruel, unpredictable world of late capitalism, but magnified to the septillionth power. Looking to Israel, we see a speck of land on the Mediterranean under constant threat from the frothing enemies surrounding it. We admire how it only seems to get stronger when its innocent citizens are randomly slaughtered while doing the most quotidian things like standing in line at a disco or going to the market. Again, we see our own vicissitudes to the septillionth power and beyond. Israel is the ultimate reflection of our own domestic dreams- a stable home amid the chaos. Are you Hebrile or know someone who is? I am doing a study on the subject,
and would love to interview you or your friend. Email me at joe@joemitchell.biz.
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