I've been thinkin' about Jew

So the other day I was driving home from work on a Friday afternoon (I LOVE how I finish around lunch time on a Friday) and I was chatting to my Mum about Elsie Ida, my grandma. I’d had some crazy dreams about her recently and as I’d been told repeatedly when I was growing up that I was like her in ‘every way’ so I thought it would be great if I had some photos of her. I rang Mum and said, ‘Can I please have some photos of Grandma in her heyday… like when she’s in her 30s?’ (assuming I am in my heyday RIGHT NOW).

Mum was a bit confused and asked why – especially as I am exceptionally slack with going to visit my living Grandma, Annie Grey, who is also an amazing lady I love. Man, now that I have a car I have no excuse not to get in the freakin’ car and go to visit. Bad bad bad granddaughter.

Anyway, I don’t even know how it happened but somehow I said something like, ‘You know, how Grandma was Danish.’ My Mum said calmly, ‘Well, you know she was actually Jewish?’ I shrieked and slapped the steering wheel with glee (I was driving). This was a dream come true!!! I am Jewish!!! (I hadn’t worked out then that my newfound Judaism was through my Dad’s side yet, but that was not the point).

It transpired that when Elsie Ida’s grandparents immigrated to Australia in the later 1800s they changed their German Jewish names to something vaguely Danish and from the day they landed on Australian turf told everyone they were Danish. I’m not sure how long Elsie Ida knew this and I haven’t even talked to my Dad about it yet but I am terribly excited. It’s great to discover a family secret.

It was also hilarious when I told my sister and she said that she’d recently told her kids they had big heads ‘because they were part-Danish’. Ha. Rewind!

Despite the fact that this history is from the ‘wrong’ side of my bloodline, I’ve been fantasising about being Jewish for a couple of weeks: I could maybe even have a retrospective Bat Mitzvah, I could practise Chrismukkuh, I could join Jdate. Oh, I could go on … but I won’t.

P.S. I totally wish I had pics of both my grandmas in their ‘heyday’ to post right now but the pics are in the family archives in Darwin.