I have felt a tad weird after having an essay published not once-but twice in two large publications: FAIR and The Future of Jewish. I have picked up a few new subscribers, and while again great, it has resulted in me having a tiny anxiety attack around writing and therefore retreating into drawing.
I will warn all new readers—this probably has spelling mistakes in it. I usually correct them after I press publish.
I can’t help it! I miss things my first go around—but I do fix them because I will re-read this essay around 20 times after it’s up on Substack and the mistakes inevitably cause me more anxiety!
Just a heads up—I’m not great at this writing thing it’s very new and still strange.
I am not a conventional Jew. I did not grow up attending synagogue or having a Jewish community. My parents raised me and my sister intentionally secular, with no Jewish traditions, no customs, no markers—I do not even own a magen david necklace.
I went to inner city public schools in the Rust Belt where I was normally the only Jewish kid in my class. I don’t observe Shabbat, I eat pork, and I sometimes feel so outside the Jewish experience I occasionally feel like an imposter.
While I was raised surrounded by old Holocaust survivors and Ashkenazi war refugees, most of them were very covert about their Jewishness. This was a silent trauma that infected my family where assimilation was prized and tradition was rejected.
I understand that in many ways my parents were doing their best to protect us from what they considered an unnecessary burden of a culture and a history that had caused unimaginable pain to my family. But without a community, and surrounded by old Jews with number tattoos and traumatic stories they only told in whispers, I was left grasping at a people and a past I wanted desperately to be a part of, but never felt truly connected to.
Which is why Kinky Friedman, a crass talking, cigar smoking, outlaw country musician from Texas is my kind of Jew.
Since the death of Kinky Friedman in late June of this year I have been ruminating on his artistic legacy, and what his music in particular means to me.
One of the things I respect the most about Friedman was how diverse his interests were. Friedman was not only a musician, but wrote novels, had a regular column in Texas Monthly, and a brief but eventful political career.
As a child he took up an interest in both pop music and chess. When Friedman was seven he was as one of 50 local players to challenge U.S. grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky to simultaneous games in Houston. While Reshevsky won all 50 games, Friedman was, by far, the youngest competitor.
I remember being introduced to Friedman through a CBS News 60 Minutes interview on his 2006 run for the Governor of Texas. “Vote for Kinky Why the Hell Not?” was a curious and amusing campaign slogan that stuck in my brain for years before I ever listened to any of his music or read any of his books or essays.
Friedman’s gubernatorial platform included being pro gay marriage, anti death penalty, raising the salaries of teachers, and advocating for the legalization of marijuana. He received 12.6% percent of the Texas vote netting him 4th place in the governor’s race against incumbent Rick Perry. Quite a feat for a Texas Jew Boy running as an independent.
Friedman’s fans were also diverse and particular. He gained the respect and admiration of musicians such as Bob Dylan who he toured with briefly in 1975 and 76, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. The cast of Saturday Night Live including comedic titans such as Robin Williams and John Belushi would regularly attend his shows in New York.
And, Nelson Mandela famously owned only one record while in prison, and it was Kinky’s 1973 album “Sold American.” The South African political dissident and social justice activist would play the record on repeat. The track “Ride Em Jew Boy” Friedman’s tribute to the victims of the Holocaust was allegedly Mandela’s favorite song, which he listened to obsessively.
“You never know who you are going to reach” Kinky famously said after discovering that Mandela was a fan.
I have always respected how Kinky was able to infuse humor and social commentary into his music. My favorite Kinky song is “We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To You.” In the song, Kinky conveys what it feels like to be the wrong kind of Texan given his “Jewishness” and the wrong kind of “Jew” given his “Texan-ness.” As a person who grew up without a strong connection to other Jews my age, in an urban environment that is not exemplary of the more stereotypical American Jewish experience, Kinky Friedman’s music resonates with me.
When I read about explanations for why younger disconnected Jews join anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, I viscerally understand their alienation from the larger Jewish community. I know what it is like to be told inaccurate half truths about Jewish history and have these distortions feed into self hatred. I spent my teenage years hating my curly hair, bushy eyebrows, and stereotypical “Jewish face.” I spent my early twenties apologizing on behalf of the Israeli government and distancing myself from more religiously observant communities—I might be a Jew, but, “I’m not like those Jews.”
Of course I am now embarrassed of this behavior—but I still feel a distance between myself and the larger American Jewish community as a whole.
And, “as a Jew” who has felt isolated most of my life, I am also offended at the notion that my assimilated upbringing would be the only factor in making Jews like me self-hating enough to become antisemites advocating for the destruction of the only Jewish state.
In addition, I feel like those of us who have been raised outside of establishment Jewish institutions, have been unfairly demonized for the perplexing and bigoted behavior of ifNotNow and JVP Jews by legacy Jewish non-profits like the ADL. Its a cheap shot and a contrived and easy softball explanation for why anti-Zionist “as a Jews” exist.
I may not have had a bat mitzvah, or attended Jewish summer camp, and I may not know what direction you light Hanukkah candles in (also there is a direction?) but I’m also not donning a watermelon kippah and screaming “not in my name.”
There are Jews like me and Jews like Kinky. Jews who have always been somewhat on the outside looking in, but who still understand why Israel exists. This is why Kinky Friedman for me is such an important figure. Friedman’s music speaks to my reality as a cultural misfit who still has a moral compass. I’m a Jew who may like bacon and uses her phone on Fridays after sundown, but I’m also not duped by social media driven hate campaigns funded by foreign governments.
And, while I may be a Jew who can’t do the holidays correctly, this year for the first time, I did observe the new year—in my own way. I spent October 4th through the 8th drinking Manischewitz around a camp fire while listening to Kinky Friedman.
At this moment in time, when antisemitism is skyrocketing, I wish Kinky was still with us, he died of Parkinson’s Disease on June 27th of this year. Friedman was the perfect Jew for our cultural moment. A politically incorrect dissident who never took himself too seriously, who loved cowboy hats, and made music about beating up white supremacists in dive bars. A keen observer of American and Jewish life who never quite fit in, but who managed to make great art about being a weirdo.
November 1st is Kinky’s birthday. He would have been 80 years old. My 35th birthday is the day after on November 2nd. In honor of both our birthdays, listen to “Sold American,” Nelson Mandela’s favorite record, and an album that still holds up as cultural commentary on the American society of today.
Rest in Peace Kinky Friedman. You were a true Jewish American hero.