Shiksa

This is too good to make up. We have been sharing stories about ourselves in ulpan class. Today we heard from Precious, I kid you not. In halting Hebrew, she explained that she was raised in California and is living here with her Israeli boyfriend whom she met in China. They want to get married but, she announced, "Ani shiksa" (I am a shiksa). I thought I would explode trying to contain my laughter. Edna, our teacher, said (in Hebrew), " What is this shiksa? That's not Hebrew. You should say, I am not Jewish." Then there was a conversation about how difficult it is to convert here.

Two other young women in the class moved here to be with their Israeli boyfriends. A woman from Brazil met her Israeli husband at carnivale in Rio. Shia,from Japan, works in a Japanese restaurant in Tel Aviv and lives with her boyfriend who, she explained in Hebrew laced with a thick Japanese accent, comes from a "not good" city. When Edna asked the name of the city, Shia could only remember it was in the south. Edna asked her if it was Beersheva and she said yes. Edna cracked up. She said Beersheva's bad reputation is undeserved. She told us that although she was born in Tel Aviv and lived on Lasalle St. (the street where Ulpan Gordon is located), her next door neighbor, David Ben Gurion, told her that Beersheva was a great place to live and suggested she go there. So she did, spending 22 years there while raising three children.