Many of you may not know that I work at a Jewish Temple. Most people think this is hilarious mainly because I am Catholic. Well, Christian/Catholic, whatever THAT means. Anyways, it’s much different then being Jewish. This is why it is funny. I have been immersed into a completely different culture, way of life, and environment where few non-Jews have gone before me. Lucky for me, I am super open minded about most religions, and love people in general no matter what they believe.

Usually I don’t do much along the lines of acting Jewish at the Temple except for saying, “Shabbat Shalom” on Fridays, eating challah (soft/doughy bread), and pretending to know what all the Jewish terms mean. There are a lot of them I assure you. Much more then the familiar Bar/Bat Mitzvah. That’s just the beginning. Well, yesterday I was invited to the Sukkah. Basically, Jewish people build these little, I don’t know what you really call them, “huts” or tents” for everyone to eat in. My head Rabbi invited us all over to lunch at her place, and this is where I partook in my first very Jewish event. Okay, let me just side step for a moment. I would say it’s my second. I was also present at the “High Holy Day” ticket counter selling tickets for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. That was a very Jewish event as well. I even got hit on by several (what seemed to be wealthy) Jewish men, but they all knew I was not Jewish after a few sentences. I did not know how. Was there a certain wink I should have given, or maybe in my awkward intonation on, “Shana Tova!”. Either way, my cover was blown, and they were outta there faster then I could say, “Oy!”. Oh, or it may have been that I was drinking a latte at the table when it was a day of fasting (my bad). I digress…

Anyways, there I was in the Sukkah. Eating hummous, babbaganoush (how the heck do you spell that), and quiche! I said, “Where’s the meat?” Well, duh Venetia, you can’t have meat AND dairy for that is not kosher! Either way, I felt like I was let into a secret society for an hour of my day.  The funny thing about being non-Jewish at a Jewish table is being able to crack witty jokes like, “Oh, I’ll read the torah!” Ha! Obviously no.
They began reading Jewish texts (they read back to front making it impossible to follow along), we sang songs (they got so loud I was fearful the rikkity sukkah held by a couple iron poles and a branch or two) was going to fall on us.  They said Jewish prayers – and then the head Rabbi said, “Let’s go around and invite someone who has passed away into our Sukkah to share this feast with us”. As everyone went around and spoke of grandparents, parents, teachers, or whoever – I felt so welcome. I invited my Grandpa too. I felt this closeness to their community, as an outsider looking in, and thought, wow – how cool for me to be let into a world so few people outside of this community actually get to see.

The best part? They told me the best places around town to get the amazing food we had. They also warned me which places to not go in (where they cut the heads off live chickens), but that’s a different story all together. Just another crazy adventure out here in Los Angeles – where I may not be sure where this journey is headed, but I certainly love the different opportunities to open my eyes a bit wider every day.