The Little Hat on My Head

The morning after a tornado swept through my neighborhood in suburban Kansas, I stepped onto the patio and discovered a 60-foot tree lying at my feet. It was soon obvious that clearing the tree would be too much for a DIY project, so I hired a professional.

He showed up a few days later. Early forties, like me. Built solid from a career outdoors, American flag tattooed on his forearm—the kind of guy who shakes your hand and means it. Over the three days he worked in my yard, I learned that he volunteered at his church; that he had adopted his special-needs niece when his sister’s addiction left her unable to care for her; that he loved his work because it let him help people on the worst day of their week. By any honest measure, he was an all-American mensch.

By any honest measure, he was an all-American mensch.

It is very clear that mine is a Jewish home. I wear a kippah. I have always connected with wearing my kippah, no matter where I have been on my journey of religious observance. Israeli flags hang inside my home. Galgalatz plays on my smart speaker and there are mezzuzot on every door. My name, Yosef Silver, is obviously Jewish (to anyone not trying to slip an extra “u” between the “o” and “s”).

This guy was curious, and not at all shy. He asked about my life and community— coyly breaking the ice by inquiring about the “little hat” on my head, and whether all Jewish people wear them all the time. He asked about the stream of friends and kids and neighbors who kept nipping in and out of the house unannounced while he worked. He overheard phone calls about Shabbat potlucks and summer barbecues, and he asked about those too. I was happy to share.

He told me about how rich his life was, thanks to his church and his community, and how happy he was to see a sense of unity in a society where so many people don’t know their neighbors’ names. I told him about the “youth group for adults” I had founded to break down barriers for people who weren’t certain where they fit in and needed a new place for Jewish expression. He liked that; he said his church was trying to figure out the same thing.

For three days, we worked alongside each other, falling into an easy rhythm, schlepping branches and tree limbs from the backyard to his enormous woodchipper parked outside my home, and clearing felled trees not just from my yard, but from neighbors’ yards, too. I sipped cups of tea while he joked about the American revolution and drank his Big Gulp. My kids came out to watch as large branches were felled, and logs were chopped into firewood. And then, the work was done.

We stood by his truck. He shook my hand, said he’d come back anytime I needed. We said we should grab a beer. And then, with the same warmth he’d carried for three days, with the easy smile of a man who had decided he liked me, he said:

“I don’t know why guys don’t like you Jews. You look white, anyway.”

I didn’t say anything. I just stood there. While the impact of his comment washed over me, he got in his truck and drove away.

That was four years ago. Every time I tell this story, I feel like I did that very first time. That comment—intended as a kindness, intended as acceptance and welcome—unveiled something else. He had looked at me carefully, even gotten to know me, and decided that I was acceptable. That because I was white-passing, American-passing, normal-passing, I had been cleared. We never got that beer.

My house is still filled with the joy of friends dropping by, unannounced. On Fridays, I don’t even bother closing the front door. People come through the screen door and drop off a challah or pick up some hummus, share some cookies, or show up with flowers. Because that, too, is what being Jewish looks like today.

It doesn’t matter what you look like, Jewish or not. This Jewish home is open to you.

Friday nights filled with the sound of Shalom Aleichem, Shabbat tables squeezed to the max. Sukkot parties that look like a small city has descended on my home. Late-night seder tables and Hanukkah parties that go on into the night. A house filled with song and laughter. Havdalah on the patio, and firepits in the yard burning the wood from that fateful summer tornado—the tree that started all of this now keeping us warm.

It doesn’t matter what you look like, Jewish or not. This Jewish home is open to you. My kids are living lives that, less than a hundred years ago, others tried to stop.

Perhaps that is what the man with the chainsaw needs to see.

This article originally appeared on Zibby Owens' Substack On Being Jewish Now.

Featured image: by Greg Johnson on Unsplash