I was sitting at a rather hippie trippy shalashudos (seudat shlishit for the shtetl lingo illiterate) and they broke into the classic spehardic dror yikra that is mandatory at any ashlkenazic meal worth its weight in kibbe, I tried to explain the social connotations of a bunch of suburban white folk singing one of the shabos zemer’s like a bunch of cave dwelling Arabs, but I think it was lost on my friend who doesn’t have as vast as a back ground as mine when it comes to frum social critiquing. Another friend said it was sephardic envy and that me thinking. I rarely write about sephardim, mostly because I don;t have much to do with em, but sure I admit it – I’m a bit jealous of them and their cool customs (probably because the grass is always greener on the other side.
Do you have a sephardic envy?
Slapping each other with scallions at the seder sounds awesome to you
Kitnyot – need I say more
You like the sound of morano better than kike even though it means swine
The Ethiopian Airlift was way better than the kindertransport
When you’re spehardic you can get away with talking and looking black (you won’t be called a whigger)
Turbans kick black hats any day
Olive skinned women
Sephardic food is actually good enough to serve to the public (you don’t see many restuarants selling cholent, kishke and schmaltz
Dudu is so much cooler than Dovid
Beating your wife sounds like a good idea
Sephardic music is actually cool
You don’t have to deal with all these sects – (it gets confusing trying to figure out if you’re modern orthodox liberal or shomer mitzvot)
You get to wear tight pants without being called a hipster
Arabic is way cooler than Yiddish
You’ve always wanted to tell people about your ancestor who lived through an auto-de-fe
Baal Shem Tov stories pale in comparison to stories of the holy Ari
Ovadia Yosef is badass compared to the big rabbis of the ashkenzic community
You really just want to wear sandals to shul and not be given crap about it
You want to sing dror yikra with a bunch of towel headed dudes who have chest hair poking out of their robes
Speaking of chest hair, I hear the sephardim are even fond of back hair – sounds good to me
You’re sick of being judged by the type of yarmulke you wear – yarmulkes are optional – woohoo!
You want to get some good old minority benefits
In the ashkenzic community being short, stocky and bald gets you nowhere – but it seems like those guys still get hot wives in the spehardic community
Your rabbi will still show up to the wedding if there’s mixed dancing
You’ve always wanted to do away with lengthy challah cutting and adopt the bread tearing and throwing tradition of the sephradim