The semitic fleshiness that once adorned my Bubby and now belongs to me is on display in this land of moissanite masquerading as diamond and the pseudo-luxury for luxury’s sake makes me blush. I imagine my grandmother’s family on the beach below me, all fitting on a few towels in the sand, eating grapes and cold chicken, not minding or even acknowledging the lack of hygiene or amenity or luxury - the freedom of the beach, of the ocean, of America as a Jew in the 1930s being luxury enough. Actively acknowledging that for me, for us, freedom is a luxury,  is my kind of Judaism. 

My Bubby never suggests that I should cover up any part of my Jewish identity and has a close personal relationship with the men that slice her smoked fish. Both sides of my family get to America before the war. That’s a thing that Jews say - before the war.