# Post your closest "Jewish influence" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 17, 2015, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917 "2015-10-17T18:18:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/41 "2015-10-18T02:07:38Z")
Also – living in Brooklyn – a large percentage of my buddies are Jewish. ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/42 "2015-10-18T02:25:13Z")
I work at a Jewish university, so… a lot. And I have Jewish friends I see on a daily basis. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/43 "2015-10-18T02:27:31Z")
My parents. My brother and his family. My relatives. My classmates from Hebrew and Sunday school. The members of the last band I was in (our drummer had a daytime gig as the Rabbi at the local Jewish old folks home). I’m fairly non-observant myself. And I couldn’t walk for about a year after I was circumcised. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/44 "2015-10-18T02:50:40Z")
I’ve been eating a lot of bagels this week. But they’re pumpkin flavored so I don’t know if that counts. If it’s a Halloween thing, isn’t that a Satanic influence? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/45 "2015-10-18T02:54:40Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Inspired by [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=772269) Pit thread. > > While I’m a pagan, I work in a store owned by Chassidic Jews. Let’s see… My wife is half-Jewish, and looks more Jewish than black ( though she self-identifies as the latter). One of my closest friends is a secular Jewish archeologist. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/46 "2015-10-18T03:22:33Z")
The head of marketing for my company converted to Judaism to mary her husband. Also one of my friends from grad school is Jewish. Out side of that I’ve gone to middle school with a Jewish kid and high school with a different jewish guy. Oh and my realtor is Jewish. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/47 "2015-10-18T03:36:22Z")
Also I like to sing “Cohen Owes Me Ninety-Seven Dollars” when I’m drunk. It’s such a cool song that my Jewish friends enjoy it, too. Also I like to make and consume pickled beets. What is the point of this thread, by the way? Are we trying to show that American Jews are jus’ folks, to screw with the anti-Semites? ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/48 "2015-10-18T04:28:59Z")
The closest I can think of is my high school history teacher was Jewish (and the father of a professional tennis player, but I never met _him_). I took an accounting class at a privately owned business school that was run by Ukrainians and Russians. I asked one of the teachers if she was Russian or Ukrainian and she said, “I am a Jew.” It shocked me to realize that that was considered a separate nationlaity. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/49 "2015-10-18T04:40:27Z")
I’m atheist raised United Church of Christ\* until I was seven, but my dad was born and raised in Skokie and some of his closest friends are Jewish. I kinda picked up some Ashkenazi Jewish culture through osmosis and, later, my own study; it was never a big deal one way or the other in my upbringing, but I know broad outlines of the religion and culture and a smattering of Yiddish. \*(AKA “Unitarians Considering Christianity” 😉 . The denomination Obama claims, and the polar opposite from the Southern Baptist and otherwise Evangelical Protestantism I lived around until I left the Southern Midwest at fourteen. They’re the most broad-minded Generic Protestant group you could ever imagine. I was actually my church’s first altar boy, which seems odd but there was enough ceremony to involve candles so I got to light them while wearing robes. When my family moved away from Du Quoin, Illinois, we left that church and never found another.) ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/50 "2015-10-18T04:48:08Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > What is the point of this thread, by the way? Are we trying to show that American Jews are jus’ folks, to screw with the anti-Semites? I think we’re trying to show that calling out Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for being under Jewish influence because they each have a Jewish son-in-law is ridiculous, and that millions of people can claim that degree of influence. My God is my closest Jewish influence, but you’d probably have to work harder to find a non-Jewish influence in my life. With the exception of a few close co-workers, my entire monkeysphere is Jewish. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/51 "2015-10-18T05:03:20Z")
None. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/52 "2015-10-18T05:05:27Z")
Where I used to live there is a small synagogue near me but most of the Jewish families who went there were very orthodox and rarely talked to outsiders. Now I broke into their little circle because one time I helped one of their women get away from a pack of wild dogs and after that her husband and family made it a point of opening up and talking to me. My sons Boy Scout troop meets partly at a synagogue and partly at a Christian church. I work out at the Jewish community center. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/53 "2015-10-18T05:07:12Z")
I dated a Jewish guy for a while a couple of years ago. Nice guy, but we didn’t quite click. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/54 "2015-10-18T05:07:30Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > None. You’ll never be President of the United States of America at this rate! ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/55 "2015-10-18T06:22:42Z")
Sorry. I don’t know any Jews. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/56 "2015-10-18T06:53:30Z")
My ladyfriend has some Jewish ancestry (a grandmother or great-gran, as I recall it) but is by no means Jewish. And I am happily **un** circumcised 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TheSpeculationElucidation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@TheSpeculationElucidation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheSpeculationElucidation)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/57 "2015-10-18T09:31:20Z")
Side note to earlier conversation: All of the men I’ve been with have been circumcised except 1, and none of them/their parents are Jewish. It’s very common in America to just automatically circumcise your sons. Doctors suggest it for ‘sanitary reasons’. Heh. I have quite a few Jewish friends. I’ve talked to them about Judaism on a few occasions. I am also Pagan, and there’s never been a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/58 "2015-10-18T12:06:35Z")
my neighbor and pharmacist and the national jewish association headquarters and club at the end of the street. it would have been the jewish school but we sent the children to another school because of places open. ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/59 "2015-10-18T12:21:48Z")
I don’t know any Jewish people. I watched a YouTube video by a Jewish woman who lives in Texas. She’s influenced me to buy certain cosmetic products. That’s not what you meant, though, was it? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917/60 "2015-10-18T13:16:18Z")
My graduate advisor was a Jewish woman. And a couple of friends during that time were Jews. My best friend right now is Jewish. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-closest-jewish-influence/734917.md?page=4)