Jewish Geography: The Home Edition

Long before Facebook became all the rage, Jews practiced their own version of Facebook, aka: Jewish Geography. I'm sure that this game is played in other minority cultures, but Jews take great pride in networking through Jewish Geography. After finding out which city a new-to-you Jew resides in, they will get peppered with inquiries as to whether they know so and so from their home city. After all, new Jews are never strangers - they simply friends you have not met yet.

Most Jews who are even remotely observant will go to Jewish camp or join a religious youth group. Combine that with the fact that there aren't that many of us to begin with you and it's easy to see why the chances of us knowing people in random cities is pretty high. That stranger you just met from California? It turns out that you went to camp for ten years with their first cousin. Meet a nice guy at a bar? Don't be surprised if his mom and your mom were in a synagogue bowling league together back in '83.

Jewish Geography is especially useful when trying to play matchmaker. Last weekend I attended a party in Boston hosted by a friend who grew up in Rochester. His friend from home came in, we hung out, and took a couple of pictures together. Friend goes home and uploads pictures onto Facebook where they are spotted by his aunt, who is convinced that we have a connection. It turns out that his uncle and my uncle knew each other while studying in Cleveland 35 years ago.

The fact that Rochester guy and I met once and live 350 miles away from each other has not prevented our over-eager relatives from harrassing us all week. We've fielded questions from "how did you two meet?" (randomly, at a party because beer brings people together) to "when do you plan to see each other again?" (when I go on Jerry Springer to reveal that he's the daddy). Honestly, though, it's nice to see the old people getting so excited, even if there's really no reason to be.

Screw Rock Band 2. This year I want Hanukkah Harry to send me Jewish Geography: The Home Edition.