Home is where the house is?

In this final entry, Miguel dicusses his experience living in the States, subtle and not so subtle anti-semitism in El Salvador, and his feelings about nation and identity.
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(Did you feel like you were living in exile when you were living in the States?)

Yes. I didn’t make many friends. My friends were Salvadorans that lived nearby... Guillermo Lassally and people like that. We would get together once, twice a week. That was our big social event, dinner party at this house, dinner parties with Salvadoran people. I did not make one friend in our neighborhood, which is still our neighborhood, because we still have the same house. In my work, I would go, work, talk to everyone, do my work. But it was a tough, tough job. Growing mushrooms is not easy at all. So it was a blessing to come back to El Salvador and be with my friends, be with, really, my people, in a way.

(And then a big moment happened, right? When you went to a wedding?)

Yes, yes, when I went to Danny Cohen’s wedding. As I said, I would go to bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs. The service was long. I didn’t understand it. Still it’s long and I don’t understand. But Gustavo [Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik, former Rabbi in San Salvador], there was something that clicked.

(With the rabbi?)

With the rabbi, with Gustavo. It was Danny Cohen’s wedding. A beautiful guy sang from Costa Rica. It was very inspiring, very nice. I enjoyed it very much. And I said, “Well, Delia, would you like to go and study a little bit of Judaism? I don’t know anything. Let’s see what it’s all about.” I still don’t know. Delia knows. I still don’t. (laughs) And I will never learn, probably. She said, “Yeah, I’ll go with you.” You know her religious background and everything…. And so I asked Gustavo, I said, “Look, rabbi, when are you gonna give classes?”

And she [wife Delia] said yes. Don Chepe Baum. We used to go to Don Chepe and Doña Mercedes’s house from time to time to say hello. They enjoyed my bad vocabulary and my jokes, my way of being. We would spend some time with them when Ruth was here. He would always say, “Look, you’re going to go back to your roots, to Judaism.” I’d say, “All right, Don Chepe, please, no, established things are not for me.” And they’re still not. “Please, Don Chepe.” Doña Mercedes would say, “Ah, I know, Miguelito, you’ll go back.” That was a joke between them. So I went to class. He said, very seriously, he was not very friendly towards me—

(Gustavo?)

Gustavo. He said very seriously, “Call me after the Fiesta de Agosto.” After the Fiesta de Agosto I called him. “We’re gonna start classes such and such a day.” So we started going to synagogue, not knowing diddlywink what was going on. And we started going to classes and we started with Jonah. And it was so interesting, because he was so interesting. He was the life of the whole thing. I couldn’t—my personality came out in classes, and it did a beautiful thing with Gustavo. There was a rapport. I would say jokes and I would answer things funny, I don’t know, the way I answer, and he would answer me back. It was pleasant times, you know. Delia would bake cakes and things like that. Gustavo left, and the rest is history. We kept going to synagogue. Delia converted, out of her own free will. I didn’t have anything—being I’m not pious, how could I say, “You convert or—”? Not at all. That’s not in me anyhow. I’m not going to force anybody into doing anything they don’t want to do. So she converted. Being studious, I tell her, I put my years of study when I needed it. I don’t want to study now. So it’s, “OK, I know what that is.” So we go too and I participate as much as I can. She learned how to read, as you know. She’s much more into it than I am. But I would be a liar to tell you that I would ever be pious. I don’t believe in praying the same thing every week and reading the same thing every week, I don’t care what it is. I just don’t believe in an established—that I have to go to this place to be a good man.

You don’t need to be religious to be good, or be a participant of Shabbat to be good. That’s Miguel talking. I don’t believe in that. So I think who believes, whoever believes in it, great. I’m very happy for them. I can’t. But I enjoyed the classes.

(How do you feel now?)

I like our new Rabbi. He prays, he sings with his heart. I believe in that. He’s a very good teacher. I’ve never been to one of his classes, but when he talks, he’s a hard worker. Everything that—I cannot compare it to Gustavo, each one is their own. But I like him very much. I think he’s gonna be very successful in the community, very, very much so. Because of the—and she [Rabbi’s wife] is also very, very nice, very down-to-earth, not presumptuous, not wanting to prove anything. Wanting to do good, wanting to teach good, and wanting to do everything the good way, the nice way.

(What does being Jewish mean to you?)

Oh, my God! (chuckles) I don’t know. I was born into Judaism. I was born. I mean, it doesn’t mean more than I am a Jew. I am Jewish and that’s it.

(Do you volunteer that information when you meet people?)

Oh, yes! Now, yes. I’m very—I shouldn’t, but I—

(Why shouldn’t you?)

You can get into a lot of trouble by being so vociferous about Judaism.

(Really? Tell me, how can you get into trouble?)

Oh, my goodness, gracious, yes. In a way, I was at a dinner party one night, before I started going to the synagogue, so this is before, and they were talking about Christianity and Catholicism and Jesus and I was outside and I didn’t say anything. I had my Scotch, drinking it, and all of a sudden—and these are professionals, they were not any—they were professionals, and I got in one moment so upset, I turned around and said, “Look, what religion was the Virgin Mary?” They said—this is 11 o’clock at night—he didn’t even blink the eye, this is an architect, he said, “Catholic.” I said, “Oh, my God! Look, she was Jewish. She was born Jewish. She died Jewish. And when little Jesus was sick and had a cold, she gave him matzo ball soup, chicken noodle soup with matzos inside.” People’s hair went like this, like saying, “What an intruder!” They never invited me again with those guys to that house with that group of people. I encountered many, many, many people which just don’t—they don’t know first of all their Christianity, their religion, at all, because they think the Apostles were Catholics. That type of thing. I’ve encountered that many times, ignorance.

One time, many years ago, ’79, ’78, we were at a party. Naturally, ninety percent of our parties, I’m the only Jew in town at the party. When I’m lucky we’re two. Now with Delia we’re two. One girl started talking, she started talking about how wonderful Hitler was. She knew I was a Jew. She was sitting behind me talking. How wonderful, and too bad that Hitler did not exterminate all the Jews. At that moment I said, “God give me—illuminate me. I cannot turn around and cuss her. I have to turn around and say something. I have to talk.” So I turned around and I said, “I agree with you. Too bad they didn’t exterminate all the Jews. Naturally, as you know, I would have been exterminated, because my mom and dad—I would never have been born. Because my mother and father were Jewish. They would have been killed. But let me tell you, after exterminating the Jews, he would have come here, to America, and you would have been exterminated, too, because you’re not Aryan. You have Indian blood in you, and that’s not Aryan. You don’t have pure blood.”

So yes, I’ve encountered that, even, as I said, 1979.

(But you don’t mind? You still tell people, “Oh, I’m a Jew”?)

That’s right.

(You’re ready for it, I guess.)

That’s right. Why, why not? I mean, you know. And—there’s nothing to—it’s not a disease. It’s the basis of all the other religions that they all are boasting about. That’s it. And I always tell ‘em Jesus was a Jew, and he never preached anything but Jewish things. He never preached about Saint Augustine and praying to saints….Other people talked about ‘em, but not him.

(If someone went up to you and asked you, “Where are you from?”—?)

From Santa Ana, El Salvador. Definitely.

(Or if they said, “What are you?” what would you say?)

Salvadoran. What religion? I’m Jewish.

(You’re Salvadoran?)

Yes. What else am I? What can I tell them, I’m Jewish? I’m not. I was born into the Jewish religion. But I was born in El Salvador. I have a Salvadoran passport. So therefore I’m from El Salvador, of Jewish descent, Jewish parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. Yes. I can’t say I’m Polish. I’m not. I mean, I come from Polish parents, but I’m not Polish.

(These are your people?)

These are my people. These here are my people. I’m from El Salvador. This is my home. This is where my father made his living. This is where I studied. This is where I met your mother and my classmates. And we spoke Spanish. We didn’t speak Hebrew. We didn’t speak Yiddish. We didn’t speak anything but Spanish. This is my home. I can’t be anything else but Salvadoran, of European descent. I get very upset when they tell me, “Oh, but you’re Polish.” I say, “No, I was born in El Salvador, so therefore I’m Salvadoran.

….That’s my answer to people.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC