Twitcher: Someone Who Likes to Watch and Study Birds

When I suggested to my family that we take a trip to Baltimore, I shouldn’t have been surprised that they didn’t all stand up and shout hooray. Baltimore is not exactly a top ten destination in America; in fact, it’s not even in the top fifty. But it’s my hometown and only an hour from Washington D.C., and I wanted to go. I wanted to visit my aunt, but I also wanted my kids to see some of the fun stuff that I remember from when I was a kid visiting my dad. Maybe they'd think it was fun too.

After a grueling nine hour drive, we arrived at my aunt’s house in Pikesville, a predominantly Jewish area of the city, around dinner time. While we waited for her to come home, we sat in her living room and relaxed. My older daughter, E, looked at the front window and announced, “Hey, Mom, there’s an orthodox Jew walking down the street.”

Now, before you get all bent out of shape, remember that my family lives in the Baptist-centric South. It ain’t every day we get to see an orthodox Jew. We are members of a reform Jewish temple and the girls attend religious school, but we don't know anyone who keeps Kosher or speaks anything other than dirty Yiddish words. You might also want to remember that we as a family aren’t known for our subtlety, filter, or tact.

We all plastered our faces to the window to watch this man in his black suit and large-brimmed black felt hat walk down the street. All except for my husband, who isn’t Jewish, and also has a better filter. He sat politely on the couch, ignoring both the Jew outside and us, the Jews inside.

“Look, there’s another!” S, my other daughter, screamed excitedly.

At almost precisely the same time, doors up and down my aunt’s street opened and out walked dark suited men, some in beards, some not, some in felt hats, some not, all in dark suits, and all moving quickly with a purpose.

“What is going on? Where are they all going?” S asked.

“It’s Friday evening,” I said. “Where do you think they are going?”

“Oh, that’s right, to synagogue.”

“It’s like the Exodus,” E said.

My aunt arrived home soon after and discovered us on the couch,  all still facing the window and watching like it was a television show.

“What the hell are you all doing?” my aunt asked as she walked into the room. “Why are you staring out the window?”

“We’re Jew watching!” S announced.

“Don’t say that!” my aunt said. “It sounds horrible. Besides, there will be even more tomorrow morning.”

“They aren’t being rude, “I told her. “They’re just excited. We all are. It’s not every day we get to see orthodox Jews flocking towards shul.”

“Well, it happens here all the time.”

She put down her things and gave us proper hugs and kisses. The sun set and we went about our evening, having dinner and getting settled for the night.

The next morning, my aunt got up and started making breakfast for all of us. “Bagels okay?” she asked me. “I have lox and whitefish salad too, and some cream cheese.”

“Oh, I wish you didn’t go to all that trouble for us,” I said cautiously.

“You don’t eat lox, do you?” she said.

“Um, no.”

“And the girls, they don’t either?”

“No, they don’t,” I told her. "Neither does my husband."

“Well, then whitefish salad is out of the question. I wish I had known before I bought all that fish.”

“Me, too,” I said. “We just don’t get exposed to a whole lot of real deli food in our town. We do have a good bagel shop, but that’s about it.”

We put the bagels in the oven to warm them and went in the living room. Sitting on the couch, watching the morning walk to services, were my children.

“What are you doing now?” my aunt asked them.

“We’re watching more Jews,” said E.

“Can’t you say something else? You make it sound like you’re at the zoo,” she said.

I noticed the plethora of bird feeders in my aunt’s yard. “Maybe they can say they’re bird watching?” I suggested.

That’s how I made it worse .

For the rest of the day, the Sabbath for many of the residents of my aunt’s neighborhood, the orthodox Jews enjoyed visiting each other and the beautiful weather outside. Women in wigs or with covered heads, their many young children around them, walked along the sidewalks, their husbands greeting each other warmly. The children ran freely from yard to yard, playing in their old fashioned clothes, the boys in yarmulkes, the girls in skirts and dresses.

And every time we happened upon another family, one of my girls would yell,” Look! A bird!”

By Saturday afternoon, my aunt had had enough. “Look, girls, you need to be more tolerant. They aren’t bothering anyone. It’s their day of rest. Sure, they might dress funny or walk in the middle of the street, but they have their own customs, and you need to not criticize them.”

“They are being tolerant,” I tried to explain to her. “They are thrilled, actually. These are girls who are one of maybe three or four Jewish kids in their entire school. They can’t fathom a whole neighborhood of Jewish people, let alone Lubavitch orthodox ones. They aren’t being prejudiced. For them, it’s like a trip to Israel. You get to see them every week. This is a once in a lifetime experience for the girls.”

At which point S shouted, “Look, a whole flock of birds!”

If you asked my kids about their trip to Baltimore, I bet they would talk about the orthodox Jews before they mention anything else. And isn’t that what travel is all about? To see new sights, meet different people, and have new experiences? If we wanted to see a bunch of people driving to church on Sunday, we would have stayed home.