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Wiener And Weinergate

I

n my liberal, uber-secular extended
blance to mine and Grandpa Harold's
family, only one figure would care
— a congressman with a penchant for
if my sisters and I went to Hillel
posing in clothing my grandfather might
or dated/married Jews: Harold "Hans"
have sold — have been crowding the
Wiener, my father's father.
blogosphere with commentary.
Born to a large, secular German family
I was trying to get an essay on the topic
whose members mostly emigrated well
into "an English paper" That didn't work
before the Holocaust, Grandpa Harold,
because Eric Weiner beat me to it. Plus,
a wholesaler of men's undergarments,
last week was filled with various other
never lost his German accent.
distractions, like Shavuot and
He nonetheless settled com-
a trip to Ann Arbor to visit
fortably into the mainstream
my best friend, her (gasp!)
American Jewish life of his
non-Jewish hubby and their
generation: membership in a
adorable 10-week-old son.
Conservative synagogue and
Here's my take on
a B'nai B'rith chapter, dona-
Weinergate:
tions to Israel Bonds and UJA,
It's hard enough being a
loyalty to the Democratic Party
Wiener.
and, eventually, retirement in a
The inevitable childhood
predominantly Jewish commu-
teasing, ranging from the
Julie Wiener
nity in West Palm Beach, Fla.
annoying "I wish I was an
New York
When, just months after
Oscar Mayer Weiner" to the
Jewish Week
announcing my engagement
more, shall we say, penetrat-
to lapsed Catholic Joe, I got
ing, jabs.
my first job in Jewish journalism at the
The routine first-day-of-school titters
Detroit Jewish News, I thought Grandpa
when the teacher neared the end of roll
Harold would be excited.
call, and the endless misspelling and
Alas, in the glass-half-empty way
mispronunciation. My family pronounces
not untypical of my then-92-year-
it WEE-ner and spells it "i-e" not "e-i."
old, depression-prone grandfather, he
Now a Twittering congressman comes
reportedly told my dad, "What, she
along and completely besmirches our
couldn't get a job at an English paper?"
good name.
Sigh.
Granted he's a Weiner, not a Wiener.
All of this is to explain why I have been But we share a pronunciation, and no
so quiet this past week, while all around
doubt plenty of people think he spells it
me bloggers with far less reason to dis-
the right (er, our) way.
cuss a certain intermarried Queens con-
Like everyone else, I'm disappointed
gressman whose name bears a resem-
to see yet another politician allow his

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SERVING YOU.

testosterone-fueled stupidity to get the
better of him. And in such a pathetic
manner. Sexting and over-sharing on
social media? Anthony, you are 46, not 16.
Not to mention married.
My biggest grievance with Weinergate
is the way it's forcing our good name to
be dragged through the mud. Wiener/
Weiner puns I haven't heard in decades
flashing across headlines and Twitter
feeds. Stirring up memories of slow-
witted peers who earnestly asked if my
family owned the hot-dog establishment
Weiner World.
Of course, I could easily escape all of
this by taking my husband's last name,
Moreau.
In fact, when I married 13 years ago
even my mother, an ardent feminist (and
bearer of the name Zisowitz), implored
me to change names, saying, "Julie
Moreau sounds like a French movie star."
I've been tempted by the jump to
the middle of the alphabet, to a name
that, while still misspelled and mispro-
nounced, doesn't raise eyebrows. And
sharing a name with my two daughters
would also make life easier.
But as a writer, I've preferred to keep
the old byline, and as a Jew married to a
Catholic, I've retained loyalty to my rec-
ognizably Semitic surname.
Then Anthony had to start taking pic-
tures of himself.
Now, the Wiener name is going to the
(hot) dogs.

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