The Jew in the Jungle
Joy Rothke
I know about being different. I grew up in Orange County, Calif., in the early 60s,
when Jews were about as uncommon as chewy bagels.
Nevertheless, there was a small Jewish presence. Perhaps just a handful of Jews
sprinkled throughout the county, but in numbers sufficient to support several small
synagogues. And if bigger shot of Yiddishkeit was required, well, Fairfax was only
30 minutes away on the Santa Monica Freeway, and everyone had family or friends in Sherman
Oaks or Encino or the West Side.
I attended “Saturday school” weekly,
went to Camp Hess Kramer every summer, belonged to the BBG and USY and had Jewish friends.
That counteracted a series of childhood traumas including the first day of school being
scheduled on Rosh Hashanah, being asked by a teacher to explain the “Jewish
Christmas” during show and tell, and beseeching my parents (unsuccessfully) to not
let us be the only family on the block with an undecorated house in December.
Like a suburban Sacagawea, I lived among the gentiles, and learned and understood
their ways. Except for a year living in West Hollywood, and another as a New Yorker in the
mid-80s, I’ve always lived in primarily non-Jewish communities: Orange County in the
60s, Phoenix in the 70s, and for the last 20+ years, San Francisco.
I was a Jew, but I didn’t think about it a great deal. I had an adult bat
mitzvah when I was 40, and belonged to a large Reform congregation. (Where sometimes they
didn’t see my face for months at a time.) But if I wanted to go to shul or
shop for Judaica or buy kosher food or join Hadassah, I knew all were there waiting for
me. My level of observance may have varied from year to year, but my identity as a Jew was
bred in the bone.
Then I became the Jew in the Jungle. Last
year, my husband (a lapsed Catholic atheist) and I relocated to La Fortuna de San Carlos,
Costa Rica. This is a little town of about six thousand people, three hours north of San
Jose, the capital. The area around here is rain forest, and the economy is primarily
agricultural and tourism-based. (The active volcano six miles from here is a popular
destination.)
Roman Catholicism is the official state religion,
and 95% of Costa Ricans are Catholic. (The statistics list the remaining population as 4%
Protestant and 1% Other.) “Are you Catholic?” and “How many children do you
have?” are the questions I’m most frequently asked.
There are Jews in San Jose—as well as a couple of synagogues, Chabad and
B’nai Brith chapters (mostly of American retirees.) There’s even a small but
long-established Tico (native Costa Rican) Jewish community. Their great-grandparents
headed south about 100 years ago instead of heading for Ellis Island like mine.
La Fortuna has no Jews but me. It’s quite likely that except for the locals
who have traveled outside Central America, few have ever met a Jew or learned a single
thing about Judaism. (Inexplicably popular
though, are Star of David pendants. I’ve seen men, women and children wearing them.
When I asked a neighbor if her young daughter’s pendant was a religious symbol, she
was mystified. No, she told me. Just a pretty star.)
People here aren’t anti-Semitic in the least. They are simply unaware of Jews
and Judaism. I didn’t anticipate this would be a problem for me, because I’m not
very religious, right?
No. Wrong, wrong and wrong. Call me a suffering Jew. Remind me of an unfortunate
propensity to take things for granted or some strange innate desire to have what’s
unavailable to me. You’ll hear no argument.
I bitterly miss what I treated so cavalierly—services, Jewish libraries and
other cultural institutions, the simple ability to purchase a memorial candle for my
father’s yahrzeit or a package of High Holy Day cards. Most of all, I miss
other Jews and my connection to them. Jews are a tribe, and I’m currently a lost
member.
What can I do? Pray, for one thing. I never regularly said the morning and evening
prayers, but I do now. And I find myself praying throughout the day—for strength, for
hope, in thanks. Frequently I silently repeat the Shema to myself, as a sort of
mantra. My mezuzah, packed away three years ago when our apartment was painted, now hangs
on my door. I try to study Torah regularly, read any Jewish books and magazines I can
obtain (not easy out here) and keep up with Jewish and Israeli news and issues via the
Internet.
But what I wouldn’t give to go to a bar mitzvah, buy a box of matzo or have
someone understand me when I say “oy vey”.
La Fortuna de San Carlos, Costa Rica |
