Along the route I have to take between Orange County Superior Court and my hotel is a little shop called Makom Shalom. Since I need to pick up mezuzahs for the house, I figured this would be a great place to stop in.
Odd thing #1 is that this is in a run-down neighborhood in Orange County, and not a heavily Jewish neighborhood, either. Who the heck is shopping at this place? Maybe, I think, it does mostly mail-order and web order.
Odd thing #2, when I get inside, is that the counter clerk and the only other customer are conversing in Spanish. Okay, not that unusual in this heavily Hispanic neighborhood that there would be Hispanic employees.
Then I notice odd thing #3, which is that all of the books, tapes and other parapheralia with a written component are written in Spanish. Is there a Spanish-speaking Jewish community in Orange County? Maybe these are like the famous crypto-Jews of the American Southwest?
Odd thing #3(A) is that on closer inspection, the books all seem to be about “Yashua”.
There are mezuzah cases in the display part of the counter, and I wave the two women on to go ahead and keep talking, I’m just looking. Still in Spanish, the counter clerk is explaining something to the other customer about how you can “question, ask, and learn”. She repeats this a couple of times, as if it’s some kind of catch phrase.
“This is Yashua?” the customer asks, then, skeptically: “But it’s not Christ.”
“No. No,” say the counter clerk.
Increasingly creeped-out, I ask if there are any scrolls for the mezuzahs. The clerk looks at me blankly. “Paper, to go inside,” I repeat. She understands, and explains that they don’t sell the paper, just the case. This is odd thing #4, as the scroll is the important part. Technically, the scroll is the mezuzah; the pretty outside case is just that, a case.
The other customer points to the mezuzahs and asks (still in Spanish) what those are for. “For protection,” the clerk tells her.
I made polite noises and left. Jews for Jesus is weird enough, but this was a whole new level.
mythago
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This would be in Santa Ana? Weird. I’ll have to look for it.