Erroneous Assuptions

Not too long ago the comedienne Sara Silverman was being interviewed on the Andy Cohen Show. Silverman was saying that she was born and raised in New Hampshire. But for some reason when she got to college and later began her professional career, people would always say to her after being introduced Are you from New York?

She quickly realized that New York was the code word for Jewish.

Last week while I was visiting Kara in Atlanta I drove myself to get a manicure and pedicure while she was in class. As I was soaking my feet I found myself sitting next to a man slightly older than I and his 87 year old mother.

The man engaged me in conversation.

I told him that I was from Long Island, New York and that my daughter was a student at Emory. I also mentioned that my husband worked as a CPA and one of my daughters lives in Murray Hill.

To which he inquired Have you been to Israel yet?

And because I wasn’t clear of his thought process and did not want to presume his intent in asking,  I said The biggest trip I have ever taken was to Italy on my honeymoon.

I believed this was a clever yet neutral way of indicating that I was Italian-Catholic.

But I was mistaken.

The man then excitedly turned to his mother and said This lady is Sephardic!

And what Sara Silverman and I learned is : If you are Jewish, people assume you are from New York; and if you are from New York, people assume you are Jewish.

And what this white man with his erroneous assumptions from Atlanta would never guess is that when I would tell my New York friends (Christian or Jewish) that Kara’s roommate, in her freshman year at Emory grew up in Atlanta, they would always ask Is she black?

 

Because New Yorkers have their own set of erroneous assumptions about people who live outside of their region.