(submitted by Mike S. and written by Natalie K.)
While their parents had to contend with truly frightening maladies that disproportionately affect Jews like Tay-Sachs or building pyramids for Pharaoh, today’s JYAs take a more domestic approach and focus their grievances on highly specific and sometimes counter-intuitive gastrointestinal complaints that are the resulting of eating incredibly common foods.
Frequently, JYAs will claim to be lactose intolerant but will make an exception for goat cheese. Perhaps is it the same midrashic compulsion to find loopholes that gives us Shabbat Elevators that is responsible for the widespread refusal to acknowledge the lactose contained in goat cheese. It is not uncommon to witness a JYA send a meal back because there is cheese on it, but then be seen eating off a nearby goy’s plate or shaking parmesan cheese over the now cheese-bare dish.
Another favorite complaint of JYAs is a mild (never life threatening) allergy to wheat or gluten. Wheat and gluten are contained in everything delicious that is not lactose based, including pasta and bread. One might surmise from self-reporting that eating a cheese sandwich would kill a JYA. Observation would suggest that wheat and gluten allergies do not prevent JYAs from consuming these foods, it just grants them license to complain about the state of their stomach for hours after any meal.
JYAs are, however, prepared to combat these problems by using their arsenal of stomach medicines, but only after the requisite period of voiced anguish. A glance inside a JYA medicine cabinet will reveal at least three of the following: Pepto-Bismol, Rolaids, Beano, Tums, Prilosec, and/or Pepcid.
Mild food allergies allow the JYA to be as picky as a vegan without having their choice looked upon as moral posturing and in fact without having to substantively change the way they eat. The ubiquity of dairy and wheat products does not suggest to the JYA anything about food culture, rather it is a symptom of a world unfairly prejudiced against the Jewish people.
Amusingly, many JYAs who claim to be intolerant to lactose may actually have some form of intolerance to milk fats or proteins (which are actually different between goat and cow cheeses). One would think such an educated group would be able to do the minimal background research to learn to make this distinction.
I always find it surprising how there’s always one JYA in a group of ten or so who is highly, if not deathly, allergic to peanuts. Always.
I agree with Dan! There is a big difference between lactose and having a bad reaction to the fats or proteins. For instance, I am allergic to Kasine (sp?) which is a preservative for milk products, but you don’t see me complaining or calling myself lactose intolerant. If I want some milk in my cereal you better belive I am going to have it!
You are leaving off one of the most common jewish allergies…..the seafood allergy. Somehow in a group of Jewish People there is always one person who is allergic to ALL seafood……except Tuna Salad on a Bagel, but thats it, deathly allergic to all other seafood.
What I love about this site is how many of these “stereotypes” are also common among young adult Quakers; of course, as the rabbi once said “Some of my best Jews are Friends.”
We just say we are allergic to things like milk so we dont have to drink it with meats. We say we are allergic because we either find it nasty in a glass (but perfectly fine in cereal bowls), or we dont want to explaint to non jews why we dont drink milk. Saying your allergic to somthing is easier then saying you dont like something, because you dont want to upset the hostess if you dont like what they made. Its all about saving energy.
Actually, about 25% of humans are gluten intolerant. Around 1% have celiac disease (an autoimmune disease). AND about 80% of Jews are lactose intolerant.
I think that makes this whole thing null, void and highly insulting.
(FYI, my brother (age 14) is lactose intolerant, Jewish and has gluten intolerance. It is not fun or nice to hear him up at night crying and throwing up after he’s eaten one of those things.)