On Writing from Right to Left - Immigrant Pt. 2 - An old Jewish joke

I usually write from right to left, using my left hand. However, in this instance I am writing from left to right, still with my left hand.

I write this way because I'm Semitic. Semitic, from Shem, ten generation from Isaac, Abraham's son, who changed his name to Israel, and created a nation.

Isaac and Ishmael. The first, the chosen one. My father if it were. Laughing at his superiority. Leader. The latter, the outcast, the eternal immigrant. I can see a lot of me in him – Ishmael.

The son of Hagar, which in Hebrew stems from the root of the word convert, or immigrant. Hagar is the mother of all immigrants, the one who Abraham had a one night stand with and went back home to Sarah. "Call me Ishmael", the cry for the father who left and the family that never was, or heard, hence "Ishma", Hebrew, to listen. What would have happened if Abraham would have stayed with Hagar, the young, prettier, easier going than Sarah who bore him his first son?

Would be more of a centered, serene, nation? Sarah, sitting in the living room, crying to her quilting group friends, who would remark: "That Abraham. Not only is she half his age she's mixed race!"

I am an immigrant and the whole world is my home. Not in the "Mehndelssonian" way, but that where I can create and think in a way that is more free.

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I am Semitic, but not the kind you know. I am not well read, not well "red", I shave to work and frankly I can't grow a beard. I am not good with numbers and when I add them up, they don't amount to much. My side burns are attached to my face, and my skin is bare and burnt. I don't like show biz and my mother isn't overbearing. I believe in nature, not nurture.

I do not walk around in hats or cross the road when I see you. I will walk straight, eyes forward, like a noble stead on a country road.

I have grown a rough neck and a heavy heart.

I will not go again, to the European forest. Never again will I ride a train for free. I will walk tall with my brother, shout, so the whole world can hear.

I am the true immigrant, only now I have a home.