Awe, shucks Stepping out of the trappings of Stealth Jew and into a yarmulke for a few days BY ALAN OLIFSON

I realize the last name Olifson conjures up images of a strapping blond Swede careening down the slopes of the Alps, but truth be told I’m a little Jewish man. You can just imagine the string of disappointed blind dates I’ve left in my 5’8" balding wake. Even in person, though, most people are surprised to find out I’m Jewish. Surprised, and sometimes very uncomfortable, i.e., "Yeah, I love my new computer, but the guy totally Jewed me on the price." "You know, I’m Jewish." Awkward pause. "What? Oh. No ... yeah ... I totally knew you were Jewish ... yeah, when I say ‘Don’t Jew me,’ I mean it a good way, you know, like ‘Don’t Chosen People of God me.’ "

I guess I’m kind of a stealth Jew. Which I always thought would make a great comic-book hero: Stealth Jew, heroically putting cocktail-party bigots in unbearably awkward situations. Known for his catch phrase, "Um, actually, I’m Jewish." Take that, evildoers!

But I recently dusted off the yarmulke and tallis from my bar mitzvah and shed my stealthiness. The Jewish high holidays, otherwise known as the Days of Awe, were upon us. Beginning with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the Days of Awe are a 10-day bender of introspection, repentance, and brisket, culminating with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, a day of fasting and worship when God decides who gets written into the Book of Life. (Compared with the traditional Western holiday season of stuffed turkey, presents, and an all-night alcohol binge, it becomes much clearer why Christianity took off so fast.)

Around the high holidays I find that a lot of people, on top of being surprised that I’m Jewish, are surprised to learn there is a whole separate Jewish calendar. But, for reasons I assume are obvious, we generally don’t go by the death of Christ as our Year Zero. Instead, we use the logically irrefutable process of — I shit you not — adding up all the ages of people in the Bible back to creation. Mystery solved. This puts us, currently, in the year 5765.

The Jewish calendar also deviates from the modern January-through-December arrangement in that it is basically a lunar calendar. This means each month begins with a new moon. The problem with strict lunar calendars, though, is that months have the tendency to drift through the seasons. So a month that once took place during spring harvest eventually winds its way to winter, making lunar calendars pretty ineffective benchmarks for when to wear a scarf. After a few centuries of walking outside in sandals to plant crops, only to get pummeled with hail, ancient Jews — through a series of mathematical and astronomical calculations performed 1700 years ago with an abacus, and still completely out of my arithmetic range — established a more-fixed lunar calendar. This calendar involves a leap month sporadically added on to years throughout a 19-year cycle. The end result being, one rabbi living in his mother’s basement in a Jerusalem suburb knows exactly what day it is on the Jewish calendar and just sends out occasional memos.

I stopped going to temple for the high holidays years ago, when I realized not going resulted in neither the appearance of a vengeful God nor a good talking-to from my mom. But I recently started dipping my toe back into the spiritual kiddie pool. And so this Rosh Hashanah I found myself in full Jew garb, sitting on a folding chair in the auditorium of a community center. Four small disco balls left from a previous event — I hope — hung over the congregation. My girlfriend, Jess, and I were looking for a service that — while ostensibly celebrating the beginning of a new year — didn’t feel like we were getting our molars removed with pliers. And so a friend hipped us to this upstart congregation, which was apparently renting this hall — the home of a recent sock-hop — and we decided to give it a shot.

We were initially excited but, as the day approached, we became increasingly skeptical. Mostly because of the Web site. It started out promising enough, asking, "Not interested in counting pages and watching the clock while sitting through interminable High Holy Day services again this year?" Why, no, no we’re not. Please do go on. "We create a participatory, communal worshiping experience. We will pray, dance, study and sing through the liturgy of the High Holy Days," the site continued. Jess and I turned to each other. Um, did it say "dance"?

Don’t get me wrong. We love to dance. Weddings, bar mitzvahs, we have boogied down to more interpretations of Kool & the Gang’s "Celebration" than is probably healthy. We’re even prone to the occasional jig in the kitchen while waiting for chicken to cook. But as we stewed over this vague phrasing, with its somewhat hippie undertones, our imaginations went wild. By the time D-Day arrived, we were picturing an outdoor celebration filled with hacky sacks and a drum circle.

Our fears were somewhat assuaged upon entering the building. Disco balls notwithstanding, the organizers had managed a sense of decorative dignity normally elusive in community-center interior design. Plus, there was no drum circle.

Then, near the start of the proceedings, I was sold. In a spirit of celebration so appropriate for New Year’s but sadly lacking in the temples of my youth, kids came dancing in from the children’s service dressed in makeshift crowns and, inexplicably, trash bags, as we rose and sang songs of jubilation (or, perhaps, songs of absolute subjugation to a spiteful God, I’m not really sure, I don’t understand Hebrew. But the tunes were catchy). The rabbi was young, smart, and, dare I say, kind of hot. I mean, in a nebbish-y, female-rabbi kind of way. Though it’s only 5765, I’d venture to say we partied like it was 5799. One kid even clung to a stuffed Torah. Learning they make stuffed Torahs was in itself worth the trip.

The Days of Awe are now behind us, and I’ve returned my yarmulke and tallis to their rightful place: on the shelf in the back of my closet, next to a pair of ripped Levi’s I’m hiding from Jess. I have myself returned to the secular world as Stealth Jew. But I’ve returned rejuvenated, my spiritual tank topped off with enough fresh insight and inspiration to proudly declare, when duty calls, "Um, actually, I’m Jewish."

Alan Olifson can be reached at alan@olifson.com