on brona
Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 6:16PM Somehow I can't quite believe that we received this in the mail yesterday.
I think my favourite thing about it is the image of the fork and knife delicately nestled in a napkin. Don't worry, the image says. They'll use cutlery.
I couldn't wait to tear it open. Awesome, I thought. I bet I can adopt an elderly Jew. They'll send me photos, letters filled with gratitude, the works. Dearest Palinode, my name is Lydia Edelstein and I'm downright peckish.
But the laughter dried (not died) in my throat when I opened the letter and met Brona.
Brona is holding a photo of what is presumably herself from bygone days. Why she's doing that, we don't know. Is she wanting to show that she was young once, and therefore deserves food now? Does she think that this will provide legitimacy to her twin claims of being Jewish and starving? I could hold up a photo of myself from 1975 but it would not make me any hungrier or more Jewish. It would only make me weirder.
Brona appended a brief note to the top of the letter.
So now we know a few things about Brona: 1) She gets off on spying on the elderly; 2) she imagines a benevolent force of "overseas strangers" helping her out in some way, perhaps by forcing the grandmas and grandpas to eat from garbage bins; 3) Despite living in Achinsk, Russia, where (according to the letter) she watches TV and sings the Yiddish songs of her childhood to pass the time, she is fluent in a particular idiom of English that talks about garbage bins and grandmas; and 4) her penmanship is inhumanly precise and regular.
So: starving Russian Jewish woman? Or paranoid gerontophilic photo-holding graphomaniacal polyglot? I leave it for you to decide.
Reader Comments (36)
Aw, is there anything cuter than an elderly Jew? She makes me want to say "Bubbe, here's 57 cents, go buy yourself somethin' pretty." I just want to hug her. And feed her! And only 57 cents a day. How much does it cost to feed the elderly orthodox, I wonder? No matter, I'll bet they aren't nearly as cute!
those handwritten fonts they use in those letters are really creepy - it's like staring into eyes that have glaucoma.
and how does she know they are grandmas and grandpas? that suggests a familiarity which leads me to wonder why she isn't selling her tv to buy meals for them, let alone performing in a yiddish folk song concert to raise cash for such. if anything, that 57¢ is going towards enabling her sense of wellbeing - she's clearly not a mensch.
That is AWESOME. Is there a way I can get on that mailing list? I always get the ones to feed an infant Catholic, but I would much rather give my money to elderly Jews.
Schmutzie's grandmother bought us a subscription to some ultra-Christian rag called Guideposts. It's full of articles on renewing your faith in life through Christ spliced in between advertisements for pharmaceuticals. The latest issue features the satyr-like head of Joel Osteen grinning vacantly at the camera.
Where was I? Right. I believe that's how we ended on a Feed The Jews mailing list.
My feeling is, if the eldery Jews want food aid, they should receive it the way everyone else: via proceeds from a charity single. "Do They Know It's Hannukah?" "It's Gonna Take a Mitzvah" etc.
for 57 cents, can it be kosher?
Well, it's cheaper than feeding those starving African children for a whole dollar a day.
I don't know...she looks pretty jolly, apple-cheeked and well-fed. Couldn't they get a better poster girl or at least have her shivering in front of a dead fire with those fingerless gloves or something. I'm writing to Spielburg today. Not five miles from my house is the Motion Picture Retirement Home and the main street is...yep...Steven Spielburg Drive. He's all about helping old Jews.
Paranoid gerontophilic photo-holding graphomaniacal polyglot. Definitely paranoid gerontophilic photo-holding graphomaniacal polyglot?
Well, as long as she doesn't take a tissue from her sleeve, spit on it, and clean that-little-bit-of-mess-by-my-mouth-from-dinner like my own grandmother did, I suppose I could get with this program.
Dooce quoted and linked you. Man, you are IN FOR IT now. LOL
What is that pile of photos next to Brona on a chair? Does she hold a different photo for each letter? What kind of operation is this?
I think Brona's running a scam. She has a portfolio of identikits. "Dear Palinode, I am a Peruvian refugee fleeing from Sendero Luminoso guerillas. I now live in Russia, where I sing the Yiddish songs of my childhood". "Dear Palinode, as a young Sudanese girl I was kidnapped and drafted into the Lord's Resistance Army". Stuff like that.
ha ha ha ha ha! This is the funniest ever!
I need someone to tell me how they feed Bubbe on $0.57/day. We have a family of five; I just spent $6.09 at Subway. According this math, I could have fed my family for two days with that 6 bucks. I mean, like, my grocery bill would be, maybe, $24 a week! We're such fat, lazy Americans, ha ha ha. I'll go throw my left over filet mignon to the dog now, ha ha ha!
I'm not Jewish. In fact I'm not very religious at all, but I am getting old really fast. Do you think if I converted I could get a charity, too? If somebody would pay to feed me, I could retire much sooner, and I have lots of old pictures I could hold up. Would Jewish be the way to go, do you think, or are there better charities out there? Hmmmmm. I may be onto something here.
Maybe if you changed your name to Velvet Sachs.
One wonders whether elderly gentiles are cheaper to feed because they don't have to keep kosher. You could probably get that figure down to less than $0.40 by buying twinkies and bologna at Costco.
Wow, you wrapped that up wit quite a flurry.
Well, elderly Jews are certainly more cuddly than an African children, but I still think Brona needs to stop bitching and get her a job.
Amblus - you so right. She should hire legions of grandmas and grandpas to find junk in garbage bins and then sell it on ebay.
What a savvy, sharp bunch you are.
So the direct mail strategy and execution could have been tighter.
Maybe there is no Brona after all. Big deal. There are hungry people who would benefit from the money raised here.
As for the charity being very targeted (Jewish elderly in Russia) - is that the problem? Why is that wrong? Or funny?
You all think this is FUNNY? You actually believe that all Jews are wealthy and don't have to beg for food? You think that laughing about a poor Russian bubbe rooting in garbage cans is something to LAUGH AT? You anti-semetic assholes. I'm sorry, I think this is the most disgusting display of ugliness I've seen in a long time, and I don't care if Dooce thinks it's funny. It is NOT.
As a POOR disabled Jewish mother of two that feeds her children from a Jewish charitable organization, I think you should all think hard about what your lives would be like if you were suddenly penniless and unable to feed yourselves. You laugh at CHARITY? You think it's FUNNY? You are all sick fucks. Heather, that includes you too, for pointing people here.
Rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard, margalit. This is still fucking funny. And now that you've tried to make me feel guilty for laughing, it's even funnier.
I think that the direct mail choices are funny, sure. Lots of your comments are general and funny. And smart.
But read through your comments, and I have to say, they make me sad.
To Velvet Sacks: You want to know if you need to convert to benefit from a Jewish Charity? The answer is no. Call the UJA to start, they donate to many causes and all people - as do many other "Jewish" organizations.
And to Ozma: I guess making fun of Jews is only funny if they are Orthodox.
The saddest thing to me isnt about the stereotypes though. Its just so clear how jaded we are - its all about the laugh sometimes.
Give to the organization - or a different one if you prefer - and then laugh. They'll still take your money and you may feel a little better.
What's scary is how many hungry kids there are in the U.S., a "wealthy" nation.
I have students come in every Monday excited about a school breakfast because they haven't eaten since the school lunch on Friday. And they aren't lying. I've done the home visits.
The School Feeding Program - one of the few programs our tax dollars fund that I wholeheartedly endorse!
Haaa. That's kinda cool. Of course, I'm biased, since that could be, like, my grandma. I like your comments. XD