Sephardi Me Tonight

I confess, I like to look olive skin men in the eyes, for long periods of time. I have tried to hook up with Sephardi guys.....it never works out. They all share a fear in common when they think of me, together with them. They are afraid that my friends and family will think they are from Gaza, like we don't know the difference. There was one from Gaza once....boy that was a disaster.

Mr. I need a Green Card would always tell my friends (in Hebrew) that he was from Palestine. They took on worried poses, he looked barely old enough to have lived in Pre 1967 Israel. I would correct him only to defend my people, my homeland. We would argue then in Hebrew and if I was really in a colorful mood, I would toss in my Yiddish. I would say things like, "go, go in good health, G-D Bless you, here today gone tomorrow, nu,? such a face." That was all I know from when my parents would speak in Yiddish to secure their autonomy. Instead of teaching it to us, to preserve our mother tongue, we would know to leave the space as we learned that all Yiddish was defined by our parent's need for privacy.

In these rare and good moments, Mr. I Need a Green Card would look like he understood me and then he would slam some Arabic with Spanish my way and when no one was looking, he would slide his new English over to me and that would do it. My friends called us the deluxe combo, the International House of Freak. I loved our debates, so often and so complex, five languages, one issue, communication. We couldn't do it.

Sephardim have different sorts of egos than Ashkenazim. You can look a Sephardi in the eyes and it becomes a match of whits, they won't look away. It's a challenge to take a gander. Eastern European men on the other hand ask what your looking at, as if you lost something along the way and think they may have it. It seems that romance is not defined with these men. Romance may be procured among the Ashkenazim, I wouldn't know. I can't fall for one of them to save my life. It's a power struggle of some unearthly type. I don't ever understand it and so I step back and yield to the culture. Nebishy is how I refer to these sort of men. I know a Jewish mechanic, he says their not men. He won't even call them Nebishy, he refers to them simply as Nebs. He understands me and he has encouraged me to stay clear of such guys. "Find a man for goodness sakes. You'd do better with a non Jewish guy then with a Neb, a Jewish mamma's boy." The search has dropped off into the back drop of my life. I am no longer on line looking at profiles. I am not shul hopping. I am not suggesting much to friends, except that I would baby sit while they go out for an evening, leave the DVD to me and the Leggos. Lately, I have seen my fair share of family rated movies, I hated Bewitched.

The Sephardim are not easily offended when I look into their eyes. Their eyes speak to me. My eyes widen and accept the view that is projected onto my mind. With this to consider, I wonder often if I am in the wrong culture, in an opposite world. Maybe inside me is an olive skin toned Goat Herder wanting to come out. Maybe I am the mistress of a dark Arabian yid who like me could care less of what people see when they realize that he is for real. Regardless, I want to go to Israel now. I can find other eyes. I would look long and hard, knowing that he might be from Palestine, raised up in the boldness of the War of Independence. He may have fought in the Six Day War. When we would meet, he would look and see me, not his mother who may have smothered him in false hopes, that he is the only fish in the sea. My dreams whould unfold too.

My friends and family would in fact not trust him as I would grow to love him. In Hebrew and English, he would help me learn Yiddish so that I could go back in time and have words with my parents that linger on my mind, like the pictures that form there yet remain speechless. The new Mr. I Need a Green Card would get one by me as he would need it, to come and meet the kin folk.