The Māori creation myth tells of Ranginui (Sky Father) and Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) who were locked in a tight embrace, keeping the world in darkness. Their children, living in this cramped space, decided to separate them to bring light, resulting in the creation of the world as we know it (Te Ao Mārama). Tāne Mahuta (god of the forest) pushed his parents apart by placing his shoulders on his mother and his feet on his father, creating space for light. Their children became the gods of the natural world: Tāne (forests), Tangaroa (sea), Tūmatauenga (war/humans), Tāwhirimātea (winds/storms), Rongo-mā-tāne (cultivated food), and Haumia-tikitiki (uncultivated food). Humans were later created by these gods, often described as being formed from the earth (red clay).
Australian Aboriginal creation myths are varied. One example of a creation myth begins with a time when the spirits slept, and the Earth was still. The Great Father of All Spirits was the only spirit awake, and woke the Sun Mother and commanded her to wake the rest of the spirits and give them shapes. As the Sun Mother arrived on Earth, plants grew as she walked, but conflicts arose when the creatures she created began arguing. The Sun Mother returned to Earth and created two children, the Morning Star, and the Moon – these children are said to be the first people.
These, of course, are oversimplifications of the rich stories told by the indigenous people of New Zealand and Australia to explain the creation of the universe and the first humans. I apologize for any cultural insensitivity I’ve shown in the description of these stories.*
Where did we come from? That seems to be a question that fascinates us. Consider how many movies involve the origin stories of superheroes. Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider; Superman journeys to Earth from the planet Krypton. The X-Men, Batman, Iron Man and so many more characters have their own origin stories, and, if ticket sales are any indication, there is something about these stories that resonates with the general public. Films from the Marvel cinematic universe have grossed over $30 billion worldwide.
When it comes to our own stories, as technology has advanced, so has the desire to discover where we come from and to whom we’re connected. 23andMe, one of the larger genetic databases, has annual revenue in excess of $300 million. That’s a lot of cheek swabs.
My personal origin story is bifurcated – there’s the genetic path and the historical path. I’ve never swabbed my cheeks to find out where I’ve come from or who I’m related to (not much mystery about my genetic makeup). My historical origin story is much more easily explained. I’m a member of the first natural born Neale generation.
My father always told the story of his search for a civil engineering job in the 1950’s. At the time, his last name was Nissenbaum. The creation myth of the Neale family involves his difficulty in getting a job because of his obviously Jewish surname. According to him, he would go on job interviews with his friend Murphy and, even though my father claimed to have been a better student than Murphy, he would be told there were no openings, yet Murphy would emerge with a job offer in hand.
My father decided he would free himself of the ethnicity of his last name, and changed his name to Neale. The additional “e” at the end was purely aesthetic – he said he just liked the way it looked. I’m not sure how he came up with Neale to begin with, and that final “e” has consistently proved to be vexing to people trying to spell my last name. I’ve been Neal, Neill, and even O’Neal.
I’ve experienced the shelter from my family’s ethnicity that my father intended. Until I went to college.
I grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood on the South Shore of Long Island. We moved from Brooklyn when our Flatbush neighborhood was starting to see an influx of African Americans – yes, we were part of the “white flight.” Because our neighborhood on Long Island was so heavily Jewish, one’s “Jewishness” was never really an issue. My friends and I went to each other’s bar and bat mitzvahs, saw each other in Temple during the High Holy Days, and ate the same horrible honey cake each Passover. I took societal acceptance for granted.
Things changed dramatically when I went to college. I went to Princeton, where the Jewish population among the students was something like 5%. My first week of my freshman year, the university held elections for student government. There was an obviously Jewish candidate for undergraduate student government who had, like many of us, put some aspirational comment in his high school yearbook that, in retrospect, he probably regretted. I woke up the morning of the election to find handbills stapled to trees all around campus asking if the student body wanted this “asshole Jew” to be president.
I was shocked – so much so that I wrote a letter to my hometown rabbi to ask for guidance. His response was basically, “Welcome to the real world.”
It happened again months later. I was a competitive swimmer in high school and walked on to the swimming team in college. By comparison to most of the other team members, I was, at best, a benchwarmer. Nonetheless, I felt an obligation to stick it out just to prove to myself that I could.
Over Christmas break, the team would travel to West Palm Beach to continue training. I still have nightmares about diving into the 65 degree water at 6:00 a.m. The trip was supposed to be a team-building exercise, and we were often left to do our own thing once our second practice finished in the afternoon.
One evening, I went to dinner with some of my teammates and ordered a hamburger with no onions. When the burger came, there were onions on it. Today, I would just pick off the onions; back then I found myself trying to get the waiter’s attention to get rid of the onions. One of my teammates said to me, “Don’t be so fucking Jewish about it, and just eat it.” What made this statement even more upsetting was the fact that he said it believing that I wasn’t Jewish. I responded by saying, “Actually, I am Jewish.”**
Those four words completely changed my relationship with the other swimmers on the team. I became an oddity that was excluded from outside activities, and the joking between me and the rest of my teammates took on a very different quality. I don’t think they were consciously anti-Semitic; to the contrary, I think they just didn’t have any experience dealing with Jews – it’s like someone telling you he’s a nudist. You know what it means, but you just have a hard time envisioning exactly how that works. In any event, I stopped swimming after my freshman year.
Ultimately, even my manufactured last name couldn’t shield me from the ugliness that exists in the world. I am no longer shocked by anti-Semitism (or anti-anything for that matter). Nowadays, I enjoy telling people I’m Jewish when they’ve assumed I wasn’t. I had a client who complimented me on my oral argument on his case, and he made a comment in Yiddish, assuming he needed to explain what he was saying. When I said I was Jewish and understood his comment, his face lit up and he said, “Mishpucha!” That’s “family” for the non-Yiddish speakers.
And I suppose that’s the point. While my religion has the capacity to isolate me, it also has the capacity to connect me. Now I don’t clobber people over the head with my Jewishness, but I also don’t shy away from it when the issue comes up. Even though I’m a Neale, I’m comfortable with my Nissenbaum origins.
* Unlike our Judeo-Christian origin story (let there be light, etc.), I learned that the creation stories of the Maori and Australian Aboriginals involve a much more diversified vision of the establishment of the elements and humankind. Everything is predicated upon interactions among spirits and gods that have very human qualities; contrast this with Western religions which are based upon the existence of a single supreme being that (at least in Judaism) lacks human frailties and faults. If the Maori/Aboriginal gods can make mistakes, get consumed by petty jealousies, or act selfishly, it’s easier to be tolerant of those same shortcomings in your family and friends. In that regard, what I experienced as the characteristics of the societies that have grown from the creation myths in New Zealand and Australia – warmth, generosity, openness and genuine friendliness – reflect the tolerance and understanding that has been around since the beginning of time.
**Another favorite of mine that I’ve heard from people who assume I’m not Jewish is when you “Jew someone down” to get a better price on something.
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