An exciting and unexpected thing happened to me at the Farmer’s Market yesterday.

I met another Jew, right here in my small town, right at the Farmer’s Market.

“Are you Jewish?” the very nice young man selling bread at an organic farm table asked me,  noticing my Star of David/Crossbones tattoo.

It was a surprise. No one up here has ever asked me that before.

I didn’t give him the whole story of my religious experience; I just said yes, and we shook hands, glad to meet one another.

Some Jews live up here, but I don’t know many and rarely see any. I have no Jewish friends, best or otherwise. Mostly, I hang out with Catholics who help refugees.

I have had a problematic relationship with Judaism; I don’t care for rituals and a God who can be vengeful and unforgiving. I became a Quaker when I was 14, which has suited me well. I still go to meetings when I can.

But I have learned as I’ve matured that you can switch religions, but you can never really stop being Jewish. I’m okay with that. There is much to be proud of in Judaism, even if I can’t handle the religious part.

 

But I didn’t need to go into that with one of the first Jewish person who had ever introduced himself to me in way upstate New York.

There aren’t many Jewish people up here, and the nearest synagogue is 40 minutes away and has a part-time rabbi.

The only time my original faith has ever been mentioned was by a farmer who came by to say goodbye when I moved out of the first Bedlam Farm.

“Hey,” he said, “I didn’t know you are a Jew!” a sentence that often makes Jews nervous. “My wife told me. Nothing wrong with that!”

But I’ve never experienced the slightest recognizable anti-semitism up here (except when I first volunteered to work at a refugee organization in Albany. They did not like Jews). Up here, there is a tolerance I’ve never found anywhere.

Whatever you do or how you live is your business as long as you mind your business.

I’ve never gotten used to the social media idea that everything you do is everybody’s business.

This tolerance was partly explained by a neighbor who said many people don’t know what a Jew is or often see one or knows what they look like.

Jews tend to cluster in cities, and not too many migrate to the deep country, where there are mice, rats, ticks, coyotes, lousy food,  few movie theaters, and many grumpy Republicans.

Most of the time, Jews recognize one another, but not always.

The young man introduced himself to me as Jakov; he lives in Brooklyn and spends summers working on an organic farm in Manchester, Vt. He said he is a consultant to organic farms and wants to move to Vermont one day soon.

I liked him; there was gentleness and kindness about him that I could almost touch.

Something about him said he came from a wealthy family and had been to an excellent private school. Maybe it was the lovely red beard.

I meet very few organic farm consultants, especially those selling bread and Baba Genoush at Farmer’s Markets.

I wouldn’t mind knowing more about him.

From the name I took him to be an Orthodox Jew, I wasn’t sure we would have much in common, but we were both happy to find one another.

Jakov noticed my tattoo, which many people see but few want to ask about.

It was inspired by the headstone of the only known Jewish Pirate, whose name was Moses Hernandez, who, legend has it, was the first and only Pirate to capture a Spanish Galleon full of gold. He boarded the ship and got the captain to surrender without firing a shot or injuring anyone on board.

After Hernandez took the gold, he retired to a Caribbean Island and became a consultant to pirates, living his life out peacefully and comfortably. This, I always thought, was how one should be a pirate. (Online, I discovered one more, a Spanish Jew who was burned alive during the Inquisition for refusing to convert to Christianity.)

My grandmother, who insisted no Jew had ever committed a crime, would have been horrified to see my tattoo.

 

Maria found a book on Moses Hernandez and got it for me, and I decided to have a tattoo of Moses’s gravestone drawn on my right arm. He was an instant hero to me.

Recently, a nurse told me I could never be buried in a Jewish cemetery because I had a tattoo. This is false for most Jewish cemeteries, but I’m planning to be cremated in any case—more fake news.

Jakov and I talked for a while and traded e-mails and phone numbers. I have to admit; it was nice running into a Jew up here and talking to him for a time. Jakov was intelligent and kind. We seemed to connect.

Jews have often argued about whether Judaism is a race or a religion.

I think both.

I’ve pretty much left my original faith behind up here. No one asked me what I wanted to be, and I never agreed to be anything but a Quaker.

But still,  it was good to run into another Jew at the Farmer’s Market. I guess I miss Jews sometimes.

And I rarely get to tell the story of Moses Hernandez.

When people see the crossbones, they don’t dare to ask. And the idea of  Jewish Pirate would leave jaws dropping, as it did mine.

If I’d known there were Jewish pirates, I would have tried to be one.

“I think you are a Jewish Pirate,” Maria said to me after she read this piece.

Checkmate.