Yesterday's New York Times ran a rather long piece called "How Do You Prove You're a Jew?", and while it may seem an unconventional topic for a manners column, I'd like to expound a bit upon it. Have no fear: even if you don't have the time or the inclination to read the original Gershom Gorenberg essay, I'm only using it as a jumping-off point for this column, and I promise not to allude to anything that would only be understood if you did read it.

The facts, as I know them, are these:

1. My mother's family on both her maternal and paternal sides arrived in the United States from points in Eastern Europe including Poland, Romania, and Russia in the years immediately after the turn of the last century.
2. All of the aforementioned family was Jewish, and probably, at the time of their immigration, Orthodox. My maternal grandmother's father, who my family believes was born in the United States, but whose parents were not, would eventually become the secretary of first a Reform synagogue in El Paso, Texas, and then a Conservative one. During World War II, when there was an American rabbinic shortage as young men left seminaries to fight overseas, my great grandfather taught Hebrew to young boys preparing for their Bar Mitzvahs. He also opened up his home to Jewish American soldiers stationed at Fort Bliss Army Base, creating what my family has jokingly referred to as the Jew S.O.
3. In 1978, my mother married a nice Irish Catholic boy in a civil ceremony. Although neither was particularly religious, it was agreed that the resulting children would be raised as Reform Jews, who just happened to have a Christmas Tree in their home every December.
4. On Labor Day Weekend of 1996, I was Bat Mitzvahed. In May of 2000, I was confirmed as a Jew in a joint ceremony for both Reform and Conservative teens from El Paso. I went through both of these ceremonies willingly, because they mattered to me, and not, as many of my peers did, because I was forced by my family to do so.
5. To my knowledge, all of my family had left Europe well before a young politician named Adolf Hitler, probably provoked by lingering anger directed toward his deadbeat, half-Jewish father, sent millions of people—homosexuals, Gypsies, and the handicapped, as well as the constantly-invoked six million Jews—to their untimely and hate-fueled deaths. That being said, despite my mixed heritage and my decidedly secular belief system, had I been in Europe in the 1930s and 40s, I would not have been immune to the racist persecution so many others had to endure. Nor am I immune from a more passive form of it now: after an apology posted on Phillyist in which I decried the ways of the Vanguard News Network, I found myself the subject of a thread on their forum which suggested that the European Jews of last century (and indeed those who had been persecuted throughout the centuries) deserved everything that came to them. It also called me a "Jewess," a word that, although originally little more than an identifier, has become nothing less than hateful.
6. In spite of all of this, the official Rabbinate of the State of Israel—a nation founded in 1948 in part by those Jews who had survived the Holocaust, so that Jews might have a safe haven in which they could practice their religion free from persecution—would likely not recognize my Judaism, and most definitely would not allow me, if I wished to, to be married there.

Nine times out of ten, when I mention to someone that I'm Jewish, the response I get is a mixture of surprise and doubt, ranging from: "Oh, you mean you converted," to "But you don't look Jewish!" My blonde hair and blue eyes, combined with my Irish last name and my Texan heritage, deceive those around me. But every time someone calls what I consider to be an integral part of my personal identity into question, it feels, if only for a moment, as if I've had all the wind knocked out of me. It's no better or less hurtful coming from people of your individual minority group than it is coming from people outside it: it's the same kind of accidental, passive bigotry that causes us to say "But your English is so good!" to the Japanese-born sushi chef, or "But you seem straight!" to a male acquaintance who's just mentioned his boyfriend, or "But you sounded white on the phone!" to the business connection you're meeting for lunch, whom you didn't notice waiting for you because she was black.

We are all guilty of these things. Just like the song from Avenue Q goes, "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" [or chauvinistic or bigoted or ageist or weightist]. But for the love of God, people: keep it on the inside. Don't, as a certain older relative of mine has done in the past, say, "For an Oriental girl, she sure was heavy," while you're eating in a Chinese restaurant. The fact that you're saying it in a language she might not understand is utterly irrelevant, because someone else probably heard you. Somebody who may have the power to add a little something extra to your Egg Drop Soup. When you're in your car (with the windows up) or at home, there's nothing to stop you from expressing your observations, no matter how archaic and offensive the vocabulary you choose. Nobody can stop you from thinking or feeling a certain way. And I'm not trying to.

But expressing your preconceived notions in public, especially directly to the people who those notions are about, is incredibly rude. It can also be embarrassing – to you, not to them. And for that reason, I leave you with this story. A few dozen websites exist disproving its validity, but the lesson still bears repeating:

Having just scored a Jackpot in the slot parlor at a popular Atlantic City casino, a woman decided to deposit her bucket full of quarters in her hotel room upstairs before meeting her husband for dinner. As the elevator doors slid open, she noticed that its other two occupants were black men, one of whom was very large. She nervously approached, first worried that they were going to mug her on the elevator, but eventually trying to talk herself out of being a bigot. The doors closed, but the car didn't move. "Oh god," she thought. "This is it. I'm being mugged."

From behind her, she heard one of the men say: "Hit the floor." Her bucket of quarters flew out of her hands as she quickly laid face-first on the elevator's floor. There was a moment of silence, after which the man who'd spoken earlier said: "Ma'am, if you'll just tell my friend what floor you're going to, he'll hit the button for you."

Embarrassed and shaken, the woman got up and began to collect her quarters with the help of the two men. When they reached her floor, she still seemed a bit unsteady, and the men insisted on helping her to her suite. As she closed the door, she heard them laughing hysterically on their way back to the elevator. She calmed herself and returned downstairs for dinner.

Returning to her room that night, she found two dozen roses in a vase by the door. Attached to them was a note that read: "Thanks for the best laugh we've had in years. Best wishes, Eddie Murphy and Michael Jordan."

The fictional versions of the comedian and the basketball star may not have been offended, but that didn't make the situation any less embarrassing for the Atlantic City gambler. So don't be an asshole, and next time, just push the damn button and keep your thoughts to yourself until you're in private.

Photograph of "typical Jewish external features" via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.