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‘Mendel’s Search’, ‘angry Jew’, helped me embrace my heritage

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In 2014, three Friends of Israel were released Angry Jew, a game about an angry but pretty Jew who goes back in time to Russia in 1894 to kick the cossacks of the Cossacks. Originally An Android application, the latest version is also available Apple store. The tiny hero Mendel is struggling to recover the stolen religious books: he digs and spins the evil ones played by the sickle, “Goyim!” While he shouts. “Dreck!” “Gevald!” or “Sheigetz!” With a thick Yiddish accent, as in my dreams.

When Avishai De Vries introduced the idea for the game to friends in programming Gil Elnekave and Edo Frankel, they found it ridiculous — and crazy. “It’s the perfect trick,” Elnekave thought, but “he has no reason to make any money.” However, believing in the talent of his friends and looking for a side project, he jumped on board.

The most important aspect of the game is the appearance of Mendel. He smooths out a shtreimel worn by Orthodox Jews, and has a beard that would make Drake jealous. She has black hair and a ginormous nose. When I was younger, I was taught that these traits were hidden: people who resembled me, who came from similar backgrounds, were not heroes, but we were embarrassed.

Jews have used humor to process trauma in vaudeville, movies, books, theater. But Angry Jewthe creators didn’t see it in video games. “It’s another representation of the same game,” De Vries said. A brother fighting back. He explained that it was non-Jews who created this stereotype, “so I will take power.”

In my case, the stereotype struck me that my parents moved me from Niskayuna (New York, where there were so many Jews) to Voorheesville, New York, when they named me as one of my only fifth-grade Semites. -class. In the 90s (and all other times), children were (are) very good. I advocate for the normalization of the “locker room debate” (I see you Trump) because I know how racist, homophobic, sexist, Islamophobic, and is anti-Semitic. In middle school, I threw in pennies. Once, I saw a classmate place a quarter between his thumb and ring finger. The coin rolled down the hall, sawing into my eyebrow, leaving a scar.

My family is a typical story of Jewish immigrants. My grandfather moved to America from Poland in the early 1900s to escape pogroms and rising anti-Semitism. In New York, I went from scrap metal trafficking to owning a paper shop, which my father took over. After my bar mitzvah, I became a stock boy, smashing paint cans, stepping on price stickers, and dusting the shelves.

Deitcher’s Wallpaper Outlet ads were occasionally aired on local TV. My classmates followed me down the halls of the institute, mocking my father’s voice from the ads: “Come ta Deitcha’s Wallpaper Outlet. We’re not going to sell much. ”I despised the kids who looked at me, but I also despised my family, questioning how we had whitewashed our way to white and Christian America.

I tried to fight back, but I couldn’t figure out how to throw a punch that my opponent felt. At level 11, I came up with a new way to survive: to make fun of others before I could. I started looking for pennies in the room. I called myself the Hebrew Hammer (a few years before the movie), Killer Kike, and the Jewish Juggernaut, all funny because I was a stringy bean.

After finishing high school, I accepted that I was tied to my legacy. I also studied undergraduate; while I drank every night and went into and out of detox. There were many Mendels who protected me in those years, Mendel who helped me heal when I was just 25 years old gave me Shabbat dinners. I learned the Torah with me. He taught me to collect Tefillina.

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