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Pastrami sans mayo: How one Greenfield Catholic became a Jewish mother

By Amy Waldman
Special to The Chronicle

May 21st, 2009

Greenfield native Sally Srok Friedes hadn’t been to Mass in more than a decade. She adored her fiancé, and had attended Passover seders and High Holiday services with Michael and his mother on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

No one mentioned conversion, but Michael asked her if she’d be willing to raise their future children as Jews. She readily agreed, unfazed by her own lack of Jewish literacy.

“I said, ‘That’s okay. You’ll teach me what you know,’” she recalled in a recent interview from her home in Piedmont, Calif.

Because Srok Friedes and her family had been active members of their parish until her teens, she took for granted that Michael would be the family’s religious role model, figuring his once-a-year attendance and the family Passover gathering were the norm for religious observance. She had already fallen in love with her mother-in-law, Bernice, and Michael’s extended family.

The story of how she moved from being a member of a Jewish family to being a Jewish family member is the focus of her newly-released book, “The New Jew.”

Although she completed her conversion nine years ago, Srok Friedes does a terrific job of reaching back to remember what Judaism looks from an up-close but outside point of view, and an equally good job at turning some of those moments into comic relief on the page.

There’s religion-connected culture shock when she discovers that she’s expected to read aloud through half of a 175-page book with Hebrew in it — before dinner — at her first seder.

Then there’s the just plain culture shock in the form of Michael and his mother explaining to a very pregnant Srok Friedes why the crib cannot be delivered or the nursery set up until the baby comes home.

As she becomes more involved in the Jewish community through her family, she also comes to understand the differences between Judaism-as-culture and Judaism-as-religion.

“After successive seders at my mother-in-law’s home, I became more and more familiar with the text of the Haggadah, helping me to leave my anxiety about pronunciation behind.

“Pastrami had become my favorite deli food, and I even found myself ordering it on rye bread sans mayo — unthinkable for a Milwaukee girl.

“Yet, for all the customs that were becoming part of my life, I still longed for some meaning behind the traditions. I wanted to know what the Sabbath was really about and all the ways the Torah was different from the Bible.

“But when I asked my friends and Michael’s family, they weren’t able to answer any of my questions. I was discovering that many Jewish people felt tied to their religion with very little spiritual energy behind their attachment.

“There had to be more to Jewish culture than I knew, something so innate that it glued people to it without their being able to verbalize why.”

That quest eventually leads her to the rabbi at the Larchmont Temple in Larchmont, NY. Though previous rabbinic contacts had left her feeling burned and excluded, she finds a teacher and a community in Larchmont. When she speaks from the bimah about her journey, a congregant offers to teach her Hebrew.

Two years of studies with Rabbi Jeffrey Sirkman leave her well equipped to reassure — and educate — her Catholic father while visiting Milwaukee shortly before her conversion. He tells her that his two Jewish friends have informed him that she’ll “never really be accepted as a Jew.”

She tells him how sad that is. When he agrees with her, she elaborates.

“I mean it’s sad your friends feel that way,” she tells him. “Pity the converted Jews who come their way, because I’m not experiencing that at all.”

Today, Srok Friedes makes a mean brisket (her late mother-in-law’s recipe). She and Michael are making last minute preparations for their son Harrison’s bar mitzvah and have regular Shabbat dinners.

And Srok Friedes never tires of hearing her children’s admonition: “You’re such a Jewish mother!”

Sally Srok Friedes will read from and sign copies of her book “The New Jew” at 7 p.m. June 24 at Boswell Books, 2559 N. Downer Ave. For more information, call the bookstore, 414-332-1181.

Amy Waldman is a Milwaukee-based freelance writer.

 

I was discovering that many Jewish people felt tied to their religion with very little spiritual energy behind their attachment.