Nooooo, Ivory! Sigh. I don’t want to give a damn jewishy gift! I just want EXACTLY WHAT I ASKED FOR IN MY OP. I don’t know why I can’t communicate clearly with you today, but Ivory you are driving me crazy. Haha, I mean that with the most affection possible.
The stuff that went wrong has NOTHING to do with gift giving. I know EXACTLY what went wrong, and it has zero to do with gift giving. Gift giving is just a VERY COMMON thing with a lot of our interactions, I have seen people do stuff in this biz that I know is wrong, like contacting and constantly calling observing Jewish landlords on Friday nights, or like my own faux pas of trying to shake one’s hand. So I am just asking general advice and this thread has been awesome, and thank you Ivory for your great suggestions.
ETA: Ok, Hello Again, I thought it meant something like a store that just sells a lot of things that Jewish people may like? Haha, like the African stores in my neighborhood.
There’s kosher and there’s kosher. There are people who will only eat really specifically kosher products. When I taught in a yeshiva, my kosher Hanukkah gelt was rejected for not being kosher enough for that community.
Yeah, but susan, if one is super kosher, and someone brings you something not ‘kosher’ enough, but kosher all the same…you may not love it, but probably wouldn’t be offended.
Ivory, my apologies. I just noticed one of my character flaws. I am over sensitive to anything I perceive as being patronized to. Forgive me.
I’m not sure where you got that I was trying to patronize you, but I am sorry that it came off that way. I did try to say I knew you weren’t trying to, but that may have been lost in the post. I hope you see now that I wasn’t presuming you were stupid or trying to patronize.
Anyway, my comment had more to do with checking out Judaica shops., which would result in a more “Jewishy gift”. You seemed enthusiastic about that, so I wanted to give a caution. My very first suggestion in this thread was simply to stay away from anything risque or bawdy and keep it kosher, so I fully understood what you were asking and tried to help.
Since you gave few details about why you needed to “mend fences”, I wanted to give a perspective from someone who has traveled, even a little bit, in that world.
Yeah, I was over sensitive about something I perceived that wasn’t actually there. It is something I am noticing about myself that I need to be aware of. Sorry about that.
Hmm, I guess as a non-Jew I didn’t really notice that the store wasn’t really a gifty place either. I just remember them having lots of little tchotche type things and thinking that something like that might make a good gift, but apparently I didn’t pay enough attention while I was there. I still think it might be worth your time to talk to someone in a Jewish business (whether that is Judaica or Zabar’s or whatever) and ask them what they would recommend, simply because they are going to be much more likely to know what you should be looking for. Best of luck!
Also you might wish to keep track of when Passover is. Kosher in general does not mean it’s Kosher for Passover, that’s a separate thing. For example, most whisky might be made with a grain that renders it not Kosher for Passover… chocolate also needs special supervision for that holiday.
Just to clarify: so-called “modern” Orthodox certainly do care about the hand-shaking, and will not shake hands with a member of the opposite sex when it can be avoided without embarrassing the other party. However, they are less squeamish than Hassidim about doing it in order to avoid embarrassing them. Even the Hassidim know that (in Jewish law) it’s more important to not embarrass people than to avoid contact, but their more sheltered environment gives them a natural aversion that’s less easy to overcome.
I can’t claim to be entirely innocent of this myself. I have no problem shaking hands, but once, (at a company holiday party) a woman hugged me as a friendly greeting, and I pretty much just froze up awkwardly. Perhaps that sort of thing is common in the non-Orthodox-Jewish world, but it was completely unexpected by me.
Ha, I get hugged all the time for work. Mostly it’s people I interview for stories, and after spending a couple hours with them talking about subjects near and dear to them, I suppose their enthusiasm spills over to me! I’m all for more love in the world, so I accept them.
I’m not Jewish and can’t give any advice, but just feel compelled to chime in that I would give flowers routinely if I had to give routine gifts. Personally, if people brought me flowers every day of my life I’d appreciate it immensely.
Also Leo Bloom, don’t call people assholes here. It makes you a jerk. Nzinga might have tolerated it with good grace, but it’s still against the rules.
Depends on where you are- when I was young it was common only among Italians in NYC. Now it seems that people of every ethnic group except Orthodox Jews hug as a greeting. It’s often not between friends as most of these greetings are between coworkers who neither see each often nor know each other well. It’s the people who only see each other at holiday parties or training, not the ones who work next to each other every day.
No only people who don’t know Yiddish use it transitively. Assholes make comments like the above. The word schmooze means something “chew the fat with”. I am not sure what word is intended, perhaps “schmear”.
Anyway, a sealed box of chocolates with a circled K ought to be safe, at least for most. A bottle of kosher wine is always appreciated.
I’m all for more love in the world, so I accept them.