He walked into the park and found his three friends with their three dogs.<\/p>\n
"We have to be careful," she said. "The police were just here. They warned us about letting the dogs off the leash."<\/p>\n
His friends let their dogs off the leash and one of them ran over and harassed a homeless man lying in the grass.<\/p>\n
The police come back and write my friends tickets for having their dogs off a leash.<\/p>\n
She lights into the police. "You’re harassing the wrong people," she says. "We’re hardly even in this dog park."<\/p>\n
"That’s the thing," says an officer. "It’s not a dog park. It’s a park. We’ve been getting complaints about dogs running off their leashes."<\/p>\n
"You’re picking on the wrong people," she says. "This man here," and she points at me, "he’s a rabbi."<\/p>\n
"We’re not saying you’re bad people," says the officer. "We’re just giving you a ticket for breaking the law."<\/p>\n
After dinner, he’s alone with her on the bed.<\/p>\n
"I want to meet your relatives," he says. "I want to the meet the roshei yeshiva, your uncles."<\/p>\n
"NO!" she says. "They could not even say your name. It’s so goyish."<\/p>\n
"So introduce me as Levi Ben Avraham," he says.<\/p>\n
"Just looking at you, your facial structure, your blue eyes, they’d know something was wrong," she says. "The Ben Avraham would give it away. It’s not a normal name."<\/p>\n
"Why won’t you introduce me to your family?" he says.<\/p>\n
"They might have you killed," she says. "I’m not kidding."<\/p>\n
"Why?"<\/p>\n
"Because you make Jews look bad," she says. "If you were a goy, they wouldn’t care. But you’ve penetrated the tribe. It’s like you’ve infiltrated Orthodox Judaism to write bad things about Jews. They’d freak out about you. They’d ban us from their homes.<\/p>\n
"You have to admit your Judaism is goofy. You’re used to Judaism lite here in LA. You have no idea about Brooklyn Judaism. They take it seriously. You with your hee-hee, your Alexander Technique and your yoga and worst of all your blog, it would never fly in Brooklyn."<\/p>\n
"I want to go to Uncle Moishy’s for Friday night dinner," he says, "and show up with a Debbie Friedman CD as a gift."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He walked into the park and found his three friends with their three dogs. "We have to be careful," she said. "The police were just here. They warned us about letting the dogs off the leash." His friends let their … Continue reading