Wired Mesh

Bloomenbergansteinthal

Just in time for Hanukkah, an important Salon piece from Baz Dreisinger on "the new Super Jews": twentysomething Jewish hipsters who mock their own neuroses, insecurities and stereotypes. Dreisinger isn't thrilled:

"Today's Jewish tastemakers lust not after inclusion but the edginess that comes from exclusion... What's new about "new" Jewish comedy like "The Hebrew Hammer," then, isn't its jokes or the black-Jew buddy fantasy it indulges, but the way it has recast these things: Jewishness -- otherness -- as a trendy accessory that can be taken on and off at will. This sort of identity-making is in line with today's "big fat [insert ethnicity] wedding" trend, in which ethnicity is both particular and universal at the same time. It's also of a piece with the triumph of the nerd, whose pop-culture poster children include director Spike Jonze and N.E.R.D. über-producer Pharrell Williams. Otherness is cool, as long as it's as kooky, funky and freely styled as the latest trend in Brooklyn's hot Williamsburg neighborhood (the hipster, not Hasidic, section)."

As a cultural Jew far from the homeland (New York City), I quickly identify with the attraction of this "new Jewishness" -- and with Dreisinger's concerns. When I chat with my (half) Jewish quasi-hipster friends in Chattanooga about our ethnicity, it's usually in a joking fashion. And I have often teasingly embraced the ways that my background does make me a bit of an outsider. Depending on the day, I like and loathe that outsider status. But when I'm trying to make and establish connections with other, gentile people (say, most of my closest friends), I'm quick to ignore any differences my background may have created between us. In that sense, my Jewishness does feel like an "accessory that can be taken on and off at will." And we haven't even started talking about what it means to be Jewish and love Jesus.

I realize that these thoughts are hopelessly jumbled. Perhaps they can be sorted out in the comments section.