I have to admit, I walked back to that very familiar Israeli restaurant this past weekend. You know, the one with the strong scent of za'atar and a particular kind of warmth I always seek out, whether it’s in Germany, France, or even here in New York. This time, though, the usual familiar welcome felt… heavy. Strangely so. I tried to carry myself with that quiet grace I often do when alone, you see, like stepping into an old, trusted room, but there was this tension, an unspoken current humming just beneath the surface.
They say New York is a city of secrets, and so maybe part of this feeling is a familiar hum of old unresolved questions. When I arrived, the air felt strangely expectant, like stepping into the quiet pressure of an unopened door.
Ah, perhaps you sensed it too. I felt it the moment the door clicked shut. One of the waitresses, bless her quiet heart, looked me over with a gaze that held a faint, almost hesitant surprise. Not the familiar ease I sometimes feel in Jewish company here, but something… different. Those glaring blue eyes and my ***** almond shaped eyes. Almost as if she was waiting for something, or perhaps, the weight of history was settling somewhere in the air behind her eyes. And it started with that flag-looking stick she picked up almost absentmindedly. It hung there, waiting, like a silent marker in the space where the past quietly
enters the present.
Then, the waiter. He was already there, I noticed, and as I pulled out my chair, his gaze was directed somewhere beyond me, somewhere perhaps less comfortable and more… distant. I understood immediately. You see, I didn't explain it to them in German, not really. I just arrived, sat
down, and tried to blend in, just like my mother taught me. But I didn't grow up in Tel Aviv. My family is German Jewish, a part of my identity built on survival and legacy, not the natural flow of being Israeli. And maybe, just maybe, that difference is still palpable in this little room, in the air my grandmother breathed generations ago.
There I sat again, in my warm-up suit, the traditional shoes, glasses polished, feeling like an outsider again. It's ridiculous, isn't it? This place I thought would always feel like home feels like a stage set for judgment. I felt the eyes, that restless hovering patron, making me feel
like a dish quietly left uneaten because it didn't quite match. They kept fetching water, perhaps thinking I was thirsty, a silent, unspoken need perhaps they couldn't read on my face, like Anne trying to decipher the endless layers of human feeling in the diary she called her Kitty. I
didn't tell them about the Adidas shoes, though sometimes, late at night, I imagine telling Kitty how the simple desire for comfortable sneakers felt like a small rebellion against… well, everything.
It wasn't just the staff, you know. There was a particular sort of guardedness in the way everyone was grouped together, families speaking Hebrew, laughter ringing out, completely natural, while I was just… alone. And the food. Oh, the food! It is delicious, as always. But that simple
pleasure felt… complicated this time. Perhaps they didn't like my shoes, perhaps I didn't belong. And yet, I felt the weight of their presence, that unspoken tension, a ghostly echo from a past I carry with me still.
I sat there slowly, trying to understand the geography of my own unease. I thought of B 9949. Or rather, B 9174, the number of the survivor, of the husband and father. It is tattooed on his arm, a number that has been worn like a badge of memory, not identity. I didn't tell them about
that number either, not really. It was always Anne's story, isn't it? The girl in the hiding place. Her experiences are the most visible, the ones they remember. But my blood carries the same weight, the same history. Edith Frank understood this better than most, the way the
misidentification, the deep, deep roots of hatred, shaped generations. I think of my own grandmother, who fled Germany to start over in Berlin, and the shadows that followed her.
The girl sitting in the Israeli restaurant, eating slowly, trying to blend in, feels like a paradox to her. It is Anne's story that they remember, that makes sense. The survivor is just the quiet afterthought, someone who carried the weight but didn't leave an indelible mark, like the
man with the number. But sometimes, late at night, when the silence settles, you feel the echo of your grandmother's journey, the German Jewish history that shaped you, even if you live in another land. You feel yourself walking back through those unresolved questions, trying to make
sense of a world that still sometimes feels suspicious, even in a place that should be safe. And perhaps, it is enough that you carry the memory, even if it still sometimes feels like an unearned burden. I
love their food still, deeply, so very, very much. But maybe… maybe now I will try
to tell my story too, not with loud words, but in the quiet space between, in the feeling, the unresolved echo of what it means to be German Jewish, or perhaps just Jewish, anywhere, any time. I will write. Anne, I will write, just like Kitty has always been waiting. Anne? Are you still
there? Yes, I am. I am here. And I will continue. Now, to the kitchen, or rather, to the blog post. Perhaps it is time to share another slice of memory, another little slice of life.
They didn't know who I was. I hope to find another delightful place to eat.