When Jews adopt black babies, the reaction they get from fellow Jews can shock them. Many Jews, particularly the more traditional, do not believe that a black can ever really be Jewish.
Most traditional Jews, I suspect, think that a Jew who pairs up with a black, even a black Jew, is severely damaged.
NEW YORK — I find great joy in seeing non-Jews benignly jest and jape at Jewish customs and stereotypes. When they kinda think they know what a Bar Mitzvah is or when they start throwing the hard Chet sound around where it doesn’t belong. I don’t think I’m alone in this, and I think other ethnic groups feel the same way. (My unscientific proof: one semester I roomed with an Indian-American who would lose his mind whenever Apu would show up on “The Simpsons.” And if it was a particularly Apu-heavy episode, the phone would be ringing off the hook as he and his pals called each other, doubled-over. It was great.)
It’s this aspect, and this aspect alone, that held my interest in Lifetime Network’s “Kosher Soul” for as long as it did. Whereas most reality television would have me tossing the pillows on my couch in a furious search for the remote after thirty seconds, “Kosher Soul” held my attention for at least 10 minutes. Considering that each episode clocks in at only 20, that’s not quite the disaster you might think.
Miriam Sternoff is a cheery, warm, under-40 New York Jewess transplanted to Los Angeles (it happens). When we meet her in the first episode of “Kosher Soul” she is engaged to an African-American comic from South Carolina named O’Neal McKnight. Their love for one another is true and delightful and manifests itself for our viewing pleasure right there on their couch, where they zip and zing one another like a Greek Chorus commenting on their own lives. What’s fascinating is how they both fit in the box of their own ethnic stereotypes, but also frequently burst out. (It’s almost as if, gasp, they are their own people.)
O’Neal is a performer (and, while the show is very vague about the specifics, used to work for some heavy hitters in the music business) and is as representative of mainstream, affluent culture as anyone. This isn’t to say he isn’t in touch with his African-American history, but he’s hardly a dazed kid from the ‘hood.
Miriam has a bit of a taste for the finer things, but anyone expecting JAP-y Jeannie Berlin from “The Heartbreak Kid” is going to be disappointed. Her trip to the New Age mikveh is pure Southern California not Safed. She’s very funny, but a lot of that is playing the straight man, setting up O’Neal for the killer punchline. They really are a great fit.
