Here’s the thing: My best friend in college was Jewish. And he still is my best friend. Most of my close friends in college were Jewish. I joined a fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon Penn Gamma chapter, where at least 30 percent of the brothers were Jewish.
This was at the University of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania sometime in the... well, let’s just say a while ago. So to say that I hung out with a lot of Jewish people back then would be an understatement.
Because I was a “foreign” student, many of them would invite me over to their homes during holidays, which often meant staying with my best friend’s family in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
They never treated me any differently. Quite the contrary, I felt more at home with them than when I stayed with a Filipino-American family whose son, who belonged to another fraternity, invited me over for Thanksgiving. I still remember the first meal I ate at the Maisels’: vegetable lasagna. And it was delicious. For breakfast the next morning, I was surprised to find bacon on the table. “I thought the Talmud forbade Jews from eating pork,” I innocently blurted out. Mrs. M looked at me with that “I-feel-sorry-for-you” expression and, with a straight face, told me that it was bacon, not pork.
I know what real bacon tastes like, and it was as real as it could get. But hey, they didn’t seem to mind, so why should I? And what’s a little religious transgression among friends, I always say.
When I had to return to the Philippines, my best friend suggested that I marry his sister so I could stay legally. I thanked him for the offer and told him there was no need; I wanted to come home.
We have managed to keep in touch all these years. Usually, he would call me when he and his wife were at his parents’ house in Cherry Hill so I could say hi to them too. Most of the time, we would talk, like we did back in college, about politics and current affairs.
He knew my dad worked in the Middle East and that I went to American schools in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. He knew that I had Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian friends in high school. He knew how I felt about the conflict in Israel. Yes, we argued on the subject—a lot, in fact. But he was willing to listen to my side of the story, and I, his. In the end, we would agree to disagree.
We considered ourselves liberals back in college. But age, and perhaps time, have transformed us into conservatives. I mean, we still believe that a woman is someone who is born with a uterus and an ovary, which allows them to bear children. No need to go into chromosomal pairings and whatnot; it’s as simple as that.
He has a daughter who, I’m pretty sure, often wondered why her father would be up so late, or so early, talking to a guy from the other side of the planet about the controversial Canadian professor Jordan Peterson.
One time he called to say he had just gotten back from a trip to the Holy Land. It was his first time. He talked about the places he visited, the people he met, the food he ate. I couldn’t begin to understand how he felt, as an American Jew, to be back on the land almost two thousand years after the Romans expelled his ancestors and even banned them from entering Jerusalem.
Aside from his parents, I also know his siblings and many of his relatives. I know that each one of them knew someone who died during the Holocaust. It wasn’t something they brought up at the dinner table or during normal conversation; it was the elephant in the room they had learned to ignore.
I haven’t spoken to my best friend since January, when I showed him the Sinulog contingents that passed right in front of our office and explained to him the Cebuanos’ fanatical veneration for the Child Jesus. I don’t think he understood, or cared, considering he is a non-practicing Jew himself.
But I’d like to talk to him now and discuss the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Iran. Many are quick to vilify and judge one another, but, trust me, it’s not simple. Despite being an avid historian who has read about the trials and tribulations of the Jews over the centuries — their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula, the pogroms in Russia, and the genocide in World War 2, to mention a few of the many atrocities their people have had to face — I won’t insult my best friend, his family, and the Jewish people by pretending to understand the inner burden they carry. Although, I have to admit, I have a tendency to romanticize the diaspora. I hold a similar sentiment towards my Arab and Iranian friends who have negative views of Israel.
It must be difficult going through life with a tragic history as a chip on your shoulder.