I Saw the News Today, Oh Boy
Report on Hispanic crypto-Jews has inexplicable weirdness
February 08, 2011
(KRGE News)
Maybe I don’t watch the local news enough, so the segment below just reminds me of this brilliant British parody.
Maybe it’s that much of this Albuquerque affiliate’s report on the crypto-Jewish Hispanics of northern New Mexico seems, er, inspired by a Harper’s article of more than a year ago.
Maybe it’s the shockingly morbid turn it takes when we learn that a genetic mutation more common among Sephardic Jews has helped decimate the women of one family, many of whom either sustained mastectomies and hysterectomies or succumbed to breast or ovarian cancer; maybe it’s that it then almost hints at extremely dark humor, noting that a 100-year-old man in the same family has the same mutation.
Maybe it’s the sight of a menorah in prominent place on the altar of a Catholic church.
Maybe it’s that I found this clip in the first place from the not-really-Jewish basketball star Amar’e Stoudemire’s Twitter: “Check this video out,” he writes, “DNA unlocks Hispanic-Jewish history – 1 of the 12 tribes of Israel. Learn about it !! Shalom.”
Look just, do me a favor: Watch this, and tell me what you think.
Earlier: Harper’s Writer Finds U.S. Crypto-Jews
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.
