Mistaken Identity

Yesterday was the first day of Passover. When I got to work, my boss asked if I would be leaving early. I thought the question was weird. I said “Not unless the snowstorm they are predicting gets really bad.” He didn’t know it was supposed to snow. He then walked away.


It was only later on that a realized why he was asking me if I was leaving early. My boss thought I was Jewish. He himself is Jewish.

I have been mistaken for Jewish since I was really young. Granted I did have a “jewish grandmother” (C.f. entry entitled My Jewish Grandmother), I never understood why people made that assumption. Was it because I lived in a very Jewish neighborhood in NYC and was a little bit sassy and had chutzpah? What made non-Jews think this about me? After a while I decided it was based on the stereotype that people had of Jewish people having big noses. I have a very Roman nose. A Roman nose, not a Jewish nose. I honestly don’t even know what a Jewish nose looks like. I didn’t get too upset about it because I figured that the people asking me if I was Jewish were not Jewish themselves and they were making assumptions based on very dumb criteria.

Then a lot of Jewish people mistook me for Jewish and then I was confused beyond belief. What I assumed was just an intolerant and ignorant comment in the past was now coming from the people who would know best. I still to this day don’t know why people think this about me but that’s fine. I didn’t think I acted like any of my Jewish friends. I guess that in this world of mixed races and ethnicities, it’s understandable. But it’s still baffling. It makes me really want to look up my family tree and see if there isn’t some basis for this common confusion surrounding my identity.