According to www.urbandictionary.com, Jewdar is the innate ability to detect Jewishness in another person. It is short for Jew-radar. It is like a sixth sense. I am quite proud that I have a quite finely attuned Jewdar. Since Jews are such a small minority in Kansas City, I get to use my “Jew finding” skills often. I usually accomplish this by searching for fellow Jews in large crowds of people wherever I go.
Naturally upon entering a room, a restaurant, the movies, etc. ... I look to see who I know, who is Jewish, etc. ... Perhaps this is a small town thing or perhaps it is human nature. We usually seek and gravitate toward those that we feel a connection to because they are similar to us. While on vacation in Miami for 10 days, my Jewdar was running on overdrive! It is very weird to walk into my favorite South Florida deli, Mo’s in Aventura, and realize that in this particular place it is easier to pick out the non-Jews, because almost everyone is Jewish. Russians, Latin Americans, Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Israelis … you name a possible Jewish group and I guess they can be found at Mo’s Bagels & Deli.
It became a game for me to try to observe people and not only identify them as fellow Jews but try to figure out where they were from. Since Mo’s is one of the closest restaurants to where we were staying, we ended up going there quite often. I was charmed by a certain waitress that not only was obviously Jewish but had something quite heimish (familiar) about herself. Her demeanor reminded me of the people in Kansas City. With great surprise I found out not only that she was originally from Saint Louis but after a few moments, we could identify some people we knew in common. I managed to combine two out of the three top Jewish games, a Jewdar with Jewish geography (the third top Jewish game is kvetching — trying to convince someone that your tsuris is greater than his or hers).
Ultimately, these two Jewish activities, having a Jewdar and playing Jewish geography are all about our need to find our own wherever we go as well as figuring out how to connect with them. I believe that this is due to “Kol Israel arevim Ze Laze; All of Israel (all Jews) are responsible for one another.” I always feel less alone and less of a stranger anywhere I go, if I know there are other Jews around. As Jews we define ourselves in the collective, as a people. Most of our important prayers, like the Vidui on Yom Kippur, are said in the plural. When I travel, I seek Jewish sites because they give me a sense of belonging even in places that are totally foreign. The farther we travel, the more we want to find the familiar.
