Jewish Man

I am a Jewish man

My skin and bones

My chromosomes

Although I don’t choose to be

One of those Jews you see

Every Saturday morning dressed

In therir Shabbos best

There’s a mezuzah on my door

But no capel on my head

And I’ll win no prizes for 

The high religious life I’ve led

That’s not the kind of Jew I am

I am a Jewish man

I got as far

as my bar mitzvah

But all that ritual

Seemed just habitual

And it didn’t do the job

I didn’t feel that God

Was honestly that fussed

How I did or didn’t pray

If I followed every rule

And played teffilin night and day

I am a Jewish man

My angst my guilt

It’s the way I’m built

Though I was born British

I was also born Yiddish

They told me I was special and unique

But I’m a hybrid Hebrew freak

And I’m not sure if my place is with the Jews or with the Gents

So I wander in the wilderness trying to make some sense

Of the kind of Jew I am

I am a Jewish man

My smell, my vision

My circumcision

But should the Nazis come

Or their be a new pogrom

I’d still be rounded up and shot

With the other lot

despite my humour and my charm

And my people pleasing way

I couldn’t twist their arm

No matter how many times I say

that’s not the kind of Jew I am

I’m kind of Jewish

I just kind of am

A kind of Jewish

Jewish man

It’s kind of true

And there’s nothing I can do

I am a Jew

A Jewish man.