Chosen

Until the age of twelve I had confidently been a lifelong member of The Chosen People. In late
July of 1959, at eight-days of age, my parents had the tip of my penis removed in the traditional
barbaric manner and also I had no tattoos, which are pretty much two of the three basic
prerequisites for a Jew to become Chosen. Family mythology about my bris holds that I bit my
Uncle Harry who was holding me, when he tried to get the wine-soaked napkin1 into my
screaming mouth. I was a bit miffed at being treated so rudely,2 and I left in a huff, vowing to
never frequent the establishment again.3
As an adult I guess I have some questions about the whole circumcision thing:
1. The mohel, who is this guy? Lets be honest with each other: removing foreskins is not what
you might call a regular profession. Whats the screening process? Is it like the volunteer
army and you just have to take whoever happens to show up? Im thinking that not that many
people actually show up and you gotta wonder, just a little bit, about anybody who does show
up. What Im saying is, that maybe the people who are drawn to this profession are just a tad
different than you and I, and is that the sort of person you want near your eight-day-old sons
penis with sharp objects?
2. Wheres the quality control? Is this an ISO 9000 or Six Sigma process?
3. Can you take just a little off the sides but leave it long in the back for a comb-over? You
know, in case the Nazis ever come back.4
4. If you make a mistake, does it grow back?5
5. Um, are you shittin me?
As far as Chosen People and major religions go, the Jews were first in line; how is it then that
circumcision is what we ended up with for a covenant with God? Other tribes, which came along
1

It was a 59 Manischewitz, bottled in June.

The March vintage would have been a better pairing with circumcision than the June swill that they served me.

I returned the next day, having squandered my bris loot on a couple of Rockettes, some diapers and a bottle of 59
Latour. The wine was immature, but then, so was I.
4

Can a Jew write anything without making a reference to Nazis at some point? Probably not.

I dont think it does.

Chosen

much later than the Jews, get earrings or tattoos, they go on vision quests, kill a wild animal, take
hallucinogenic substances, or shave their heads. The natives of Pentecost Island invented bungee
jumping. That sounds like fun6.
So where did this circumcision thing come from? Actually, this is a pretty funny story, and by
funny I mean, not at all. Back in the good old days, six or seven thousand years ago, Egyptian
warriors would return from their conquests with body parts of their vanquished enemies. This
brutal display of manliness started off with simple things like ears and fingers and was meant to
show how bravely you dispatched the enemy. But then some macho bozo who was probably a
little insecure about his sexuality, lets call him Dickus Cheynus, would accuse his fellow
warriors of removing body parts from enemies who were wounded but not dead. To prove his
extra super-duper manhood, Dickus Cheynus would remove the genitals of the enemies he killed.
A penis in hand7 would surely prove you had killed the man it came from because, after all,
someone still alive might not quibble about an ear or a pinky, but might put up quite a fight about
his manhood. So the Egyptians started cutting off the penises of their dead enemies.
After some time they realized that killing their enemies was actually a waste of humanity that
could be put to better use as say, slaves, who could build skyscraper mausoleums. So they began
enslaving their enemies. But just to make sure their captured enemies were humiliated, and easily
identifiable as slaves, they were circumcised.8 Eventually the Jews adopted this sign of a slave as
their trademark. Im guessing that maybe they liked the look (Rachel, did you hear what Sarahs
husband did to his putz?9 Very sleek. Its the latest fashion. And hes not even a slave.). Anyway,
its kind of a bad-ass thing to dolike in the 1980s when African American street gangs started
dressing like convicts in ill-fitting denimsits an effective way to co-opt intended denigration
and make it empowering.10
6

Contrast and compare circumcision with the Christian covenant of waterboarding. What are the messages here?
That Judaism will emasculate you and Christianity will drown you?
7

is worth two in the Bush?

Im not even making this up, heres the citation: Remondino, Peter Charles, History of Circumcision from the
Earliest Times to the Present, (Philadelphia & London: F. A. Davis, 1891) p.18
9

see also, schmuck, petsele, schlang, schlong, mileh, schmeckle. Why do the Jews have so many words for penis?
Because its important, thats why. Are you suggesting my penis isnt important?
10

But many thousands of years later it just seems silly. I mean, are you a slave right now? Other than to your
mortgage, your job, or your mother? Then why celebrate that of all things? Slavery as a covenant with God, what a
great message for the kids. I propose a new covenant: Jews for Bungee Jumping.

Chosen

From a casual feminist perspective its a dirty stinking patriarchal world that we live in and that
belief is certainly borne out in this practice in which only men have a covenant with God.
Whatsa matter, arent women good enough for this God? Ah, but there is something else
interesting going on here: while Jewish men have the slave mark put upon them to signify their
special relationship with Whatshisname,11 it is only a Jewish woman who can make a Jewish
child.12
I later surmised that the bris ritual is a metaphor for life, i.e. you think things are going along
swimmingly and then, without asking permission, some stranger lops off part of your body,
though usually there isnt any wine afterwards.13
Current misgivings about the snipping notwithstanding, I admit to a fair amount of strutting
about in my early years as one of the Chosen. I mean, how many people get to make that claim?
Here I was, a relative newcomer to the planet, and already Im one of The Chosen People. How
cool is that? Jews kick ass! Hell yeah! We invented monotheism, beotch! Take that you
polytheists.14 Look at me, Ive been Chosen.
I dont know if I can overstate the importance that being Chosen held for me. Were I Herman
Melville and this a Victorian era fish tale (yes, yes, I know, a white whale is not a fishI was
making a pun about fishermens tales and the size of Melvilles bookoh, never mind). Allow
me to start over. Were I Melville, I would spend 200 or so pages dissecting the differences
11

When I was growing up in the 1960s we werent allowed to write God, we had to use G-d which, coincidentally
or intentionally, is also an abbreviation for goddamn. Those religious fruitcakes who knock on your door twice a
year took the unpronounceable Hebrew for Gods actual name, Yhwh and added some vowels back in to create the
name of their cult, Jehovahs Witnesses. There are also other fruitcakes knocking on your door from time-to-time,
the baby-faced boys wearing ties and calling themselves Elders are Mormons. Everyone else knocking on your
door is just a garden-variety evangelical Christian or pyramid-scheming Scientologist. One of the best things about
Jews is that they will never come knocking on your door; except to sell you macaroons before Passover. The Jews
dont want you in their cult, you are not welcome in their clubhouse, you cannot join in their, um, reindeer games.
The God of Abraham is so exclusive that His Chosen People are not even allowed to say His name. In Jewish
prayers we skip over the Yhwh and say Adonai instead, which to my ear always sounded like, I dont know or
Im annoyed. In any case, when I have occasion to call God by His first name, I call Him Whatshisname. I figure
its more dignified, and accurate, than Idontknow. It may not be more accurate than Imannoyedfor a God, He
seems fairly pissed off much of the time. You might think that omnipotence would compensate for any selfperceived shortcomings in His work, but apparently thats not the case.
12

It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs. Margaret Thatcher

13

Foreshadow Alert. This is a standard Class 1A Foreshadow Alert, as required by the Patriot Act, Article 87, SubSection 3, Paragraph Q.
14

Mormons and other primitive people. Also, Christians with their weird Trinity thing, its more than a little
suspicious.

Chosen

between Chosen and Not Chosen and then you, having slogged through said 200 pages would
know from your bleeding eyes the gravitas of this point vis vis this story.
I mean, on the surface, it seems brain-dead easy to choose between Chosen or Not Chosen. It is
not dissimilar to Eddie Izzards Cake or Death postulate which arose from his exhaustive study
of the Inquisition. But when we look at the raw data, how many Christians, Muslims, and Hindus
there are (and Im not even counting Zoroastrians) versus how many Jews, you can clearly see a
trend in that many more people seem to be choosing Not Chosen. This presents a contradiction
because in Izzards research, more people choose Cake over Death. Why then would fewer
people choose Chosen? Are there not direct correlations between Cake and Chosen; Death and
Not Chosen? It is a conundrum and as you can probably tell by now I could easily go on for 200
pages analyzing this issue. Know this then: it was 200 pages worth important, but I am too manlazy to actually lay down that much overblown verbiage just to make one point, or to belabor this
dead joke any further. Please take my word for it and we can all move on. Thank you.
So while the knowledge that I was Chosen gave me a modicum of self-satisfaction, it meant
bupkis15 to the bully who would torment me on my way home from violin lessons in 4th grade.16
He was a few years older than I and lived near the elementary school. Suburban boredom drove
him to haunt our towns lifeless streets in search of easy prey for his entertainment.17 He came up
behind me on a gray November afternoon that hinted of coming snow.18 He snatched the woolen
watch cap off my head and dangled it in the air beyond my reach. I felt puny and weak as I tried
to take it back. But then indignation and pride welled up in my heart. I stopped jumping for the
hat and leveled a gaze at him, Im one of the Chosen People, you son-of-a-bitch.
The world stopped spinning for a moment, as I suppose it must when someone says or does
something preposterous. He blinked at me. What did I think was going to happen? What was
15

Nothing, zero, zip, zilch, doughnuts, nada, baby.

16

I am acutely aware of the clichd nature of this story, the little Jew being tormented on the way to/from his music
lesson; be assured that this really did happen to me. But instead of the mean city streets of the Lower East Side or
19th Century Minsk, where this clich has its origins, my experience took place in a suburban shtetl on Long Island,
where poverty usually meant having a ranch house with a one car garage instead of a split-level with a double.
17

This was before Pong and cable TV.

18

This is not foreshadowing. If I were Hemingway it would be and it would mean that everyone was going to die.
Everyone is going to die, but probably not in this story. In this instance it means that it was about to snow. Although,
snow does fall on top of ones head and two paragraphs from now there will be phlegm on my head, so maybe this is
foreshadowing. I dont really know. Why didnt I finish school like my mother begged me to?

Chosen

going through my 10-year-old head? That Whatshisname would appear? That acting by proxy an
angel would stay the hand of this petty villain? That lightning would strike him down? I don't
remember, low those many years ago, what my thoughts were at the time. I remember only the
fear, the white-hot anger, and the tears burning down my cheeks.
The world restarted and my tormentor laughed at me, You want your hat back? He inhaled
deeply through his nostrils, making a great noiseimagine a donkey being violated by a
hippopotamusand then he thwopped a fat loogie into my cap. He placed it back on my head,
making sure to squoosh it down firmly. Finally, because a thick wad of his phlegm on my keppe
did not seem to be bullying enough, he shoved me to the ground. It did not occur to me at the
time, laying on the cold sidewalk in tears, that my tormenter was also Jewish, and not terribly
impressed that I was Chosen.19
Bullies, I would soon learn, could bruise only my pride or my body. It would take Hebrew school
to inflict long-lasting psychological and metaphysical hurt. I began my religious education with
some distinction, and again I must refer to family mythology for this tale. The first time in class
we were shown the candle lighting ritual for Shabbos,20 I exuberantly yelled out happy
birthday! Things went downhill from there.
It was three years later that I ran into the real trouble of this tale. In retrospect one could blame
the Rebbe21 for breaking me out of my reverie about Jenny Steinstein.22
Jenny was lovely girl. She was smart, pretty, athletic, and while those qualities are important, my
daydreaming focused exclusively on her breast buds, which were far more interesting than the
biblical blather I was ignoring.23 After all, wasnt it enough to know that I was Chosen? Who
knows, maybe if the Rebbe had left me alone that day I would have never questioned a thing.
19

As a teenager I would avenge this trespass by urinating into his parents swimming pool one stoned summer
evening. Sometimes revenge is a dish best served at body temperature.
20

The Original Day of Rest. Not Friday, not Sunday, but Saturday.

21

Rabbi, which means teacher or pain in my ass.

22

The first Stein is the same as beer stein, the second is the same as in Bruce Springsteen. Stein-steen, if you will.
Beer and the Boss, a terrific combination. Sadly for many Jews, the Boss is Dutch, not Jewish. We were so hopeful
in 1973 hearing him sing about exotic treif things like hot rods and girls named Rosalita.
23

In the comfort of my middle years I now understand a great deal about the multiverse and how it operates. For
example, if called upon, I could explain to you amortization, Cartesian duality, or how to operate the remote control
for your DVR. But I do not yet comprehend how, or why, a cluster of swollen lipid cells couched within a pocket of
flesh contains so very much beauty, power and mystique, as well as basic nutrition.

Chosen

Maybe I would have been content to spend the waking moments of this life fantasizing about
Jenny, who perhaps could be persuaded after class to lift her shirt and show me the pink
Hersheys Kisses that now magically adorned her chest
Yochanan.
Huh?
Yochanan, we are reading from Exodus and you seem to have left the room.
Yochanan was my Hebrew name. My full name was Yochanan ben Zvi which means Jon son of
Zvi. To my chagrin, and the delight of my bully, if only he knew, my Hebrew name sounded like
the hocking of phlegm. Zvi was my father, Harold. How the three little letters of Jon became the
eight big letters of Yochanan was confusing enough, but then they made the six letters of Harold
into the three letters of Zvi. All I wanted was a little logic in the world, for things to make sense,
was that too much to ask for? 24
Yochanan, we are learning about what happens after our people escape from the Pharaoh.
Um.
Look in your book, Yochanan.
Now, just because I had been a Jew for all of twelve years and took a large measure of pride in
being Chosen did not mean that I had ever, even once, paid any attention to what this belief was
based on. I had never intentionally read a word of the bible. I remember the Anita Bryant
interview in Playboy magazine a few years later, wherein she proclaimed that Jews were going to
Hell, and then she admitted that she had never actually read the bible herself. She didnt need too
you see, because she had faith that Jews were going to Hell. I didnt need to either because I was
Chosen, you see.
I did as the Rebbe told me, I looked down at the open book on my desk. Big mistake. If I could
go back in time and relive that moment, would I put out my eyes or fake a seizure? Instead of
letting the words enter my consciousness would I just maintain that perfect picture of Jenny in
my head, the sparkling braces of her knowing smile, the twinkling Star of David as it dangled
over her awakening breasts? I wondered, did the star give them their power?

24

Yes.

Chosen

Yochanan!
What?
Almighty God is giving instructions to Moses. What does He say?
I reluctantly read aloud the passage of Exodus 21:2 that would irreparably and violently change
my life:
If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall
go free, without paying anything. If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife
when he comes, she is to go with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons
or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall
go free.
But if the servant declares, I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go
free, then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the
doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.25
Very good, Yochanan.
Umm.
Yes? You have a question?
Erm.
Panic. Fight or flight? Hands down, flight seemed the more worthy, but then raw terror moved
into the penthouse suite of my brain and put its dirty feet up on the coffee tableit seemed like
flight was off the agenda for the moment. That left me with fight. I did not want to have a
question. Id never had one before and I saw no reason why I should have one now. Questions, as
all children intuitively know, lead to trouble. I dont mean ordinary questions like: Daddy, is
grandma dead? or, Are you sure this is an ounce? I mean the sort of questions that directly
challenge any information presented by an adult and meant to imply, by its very existence, that
THIS IS HOW THINGS ARE.

I had always been content to just let such things be. I was one of The

Chosen, thats all I ever needed to know.

25

Okay, why isnt ear piercing good enough for a Covenant with God? It still denotes slavery so it works on a
metaphorical level, women can do it too and the bonus is that there is jewelry for everyone. Its a win-win
proposition; put down the damn knife already. Bungee jumping is what you want. And some nice earrings.

Chosen

I had never before asked a question in class. And now this thing, this filthy question wanted to
kibitz26 with the Rebbe, without my consent. Doesnt anybody ask permission anymore? The
words wanted to come out. I could not stop them. They were self-possessed.
Rebbe, didnt we just get freed from slavery?
With a slightly sinister smile, he made a joke at my expense, And I thought you werent paying
attention, Yochanan. But yes, of course. Merciful God delivered us out of Egypt.
But
I fought the words coming from my mouth. I chewed on them and tried to twist them into a
request to use the toilet. I clenched my teeth as if good dental hygiene could deter the words
from their mission.
Speak up, Yochanan, youre mumbling.
I could hold back no longer, But that passage just said that we could own slaves.
Yes.
Hebrew slaves.
Yes, Yochanan. He gave me the stern look of an adult who knows his authority has just been
openly challenged, but in a conciliatory gesture, proffered a weak defense for the past by adding
gruffly, We know slavery to be wrong now.
Four minutes ago my world consisted chiefly of Jenny Steinsteins pretty little boobettes. Despite
their petite stature they loomed large in my mind. How could something like that just grow out of
nothing, where previously, maybe just yesterday, there was only barren flatness, and her
application to join the Itty Bitty Titty Committee was met with jeers? Their magic and potential
ignited my imagination and desire. I was consumed by them, they had my heart, my body, my
soul. My needs were so simple at the age of twelve; but then thishow do you reconcile
I
Yes, Yochanan?

26

To offer unwanted, meddlesome advice.

Chosen

My poor little keppe imploded like some distant star collapsing in on itself from too much
gravity.
***
Just so you know that this is some serious shit we are talking about here: Every single Jewish
prayer begins with Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha'olam, Blessed be He, the Lord our
God, King of the Universe. Theres no fucking around in the phrase, King of the Universe. There
is no levity, no ambiguity, no grins, no doubts, no half-measures, no crossed fingers, no maybes,
no bullshit, just straight-out, booming voice in the desert, GOD IS THE TOP DOG. God is the
Beginning and God is the Endin between those two points is your puny little lifeand you
must always acknowledge that first with Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha'olam, before
you even think about asking Him for something.
And now that man, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the Rebbe, had just assured me, after
reading from a bible, that God Almightyon Whom we bestow our daily blessings, from Whom
we seek mercy and justice because YHWH knows there is so little of either in this screwed up
world the King of the Universe Himself made a personal appearance here on earth to free the
Jews from generations of subjugation so that His Chosen People could now become
slaveholders of His Chosen People.
I was flabberfucked.
There was no mistaking what had just transpired. There was no room for interpretation. There
was no Venn diagram with overlapping gray area in the center in which to take refuge. There was
no Talmudic Spin Cycle on Fox News to rejigger this history into a kinder, gentler servitude. The
intrinsic, obvious and absolute wrongness of that premise snatched the yarmulke off my noggin,
hocked a juicy loogie into it and placed it right back onto my head. Then, like a metaphysical
mohel brandishing a mila knife, it deftly lopped the Chosen from my body.
And there was no crappy wine afterwards to quell my screaming.
***
Thus began my affliction with existential dyspepsia for which there is no antacid. That incident
was my I-dont-think-were-in-Kansas-anymore moment. That first question which forced its

Chosen

way out of my mouth greased the proverbial slippery slope, opened the can o worms, slipped the
jokers back into the deck, and tossed me body and soul out the door of my comfortable house
where I would never dwell again.
I had also suffered some collateral damage: I would never again be able to lust after Jenny
Steinstein. Thoughts of her would invariably make me think of slavery and the betrayal I had
suffered. In hindsight, the sudden short-circuiting of my brain saved me from giving voice to the
next insistent question which jumped right to the front of the line, rudely elbowing its way past
Jenny Steinsteins training bra with nary a glance in her direction, Um, Rebbe, how come if
were the Chosen People, we were enslaved in the first place? But the subsequent questions did
not mean as much as that first one which had pulled the Chosen right out from under my People.
And I am glad every single day for it.

- fin -

10