Being ‘Bageled’ in PT

One can receive Bageling or deliver it.

“Bageling” refers to Jew A using a Jewish word or phrase in a conversation with possible Jew B in order to ascertain whether Jew B is Jewish, too. Reveal-Bageling may be used to inform another Jew that you are also a Member of the Tribe. An effective Bageler never relies on words like kvetch or schlep because they’re used by everybody nowadays, so more esoteric words or phrases must be employed.

An acquaintance, Lana, taught me about Bageling and told me this anecdote. She had chatted with a cute guy named Josh in her building’s lobby and elevator a few times. She learned that Josh had gone to Rutgers, was an actuary, and he lived in a studio apartment; she figured that he was a Jew, wasn’t a pauper, and he lived alone. She decided she had nothing to lose, so she Bageled him, just to be sure he merited further attention.

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“You must know this neighborhood pretty well,” she noted the next time they met.

“Where can I buy a mezuzah around here?” “I’ll ask my mother,” Josh answered. “There’s a mezuzah on our door at home.”

The next time they met, Lana was surprised that, instead of answering the mezuzah purchase question himself, Josh gave her his mother’s cellphone number. Although Lana’s Bageling had confirmed her expectations that Josh knew what a mezuzah was, he clearly wasn’t interested in her. He was passing her off to his mother. Alas, Lana and Josh did not fall in love and get married; however, Bageling with “mezuzah” then adding a further Bagel (do you know where to buy one?) was a deft ploy. Her hopes of romance were dashed, but her Bageling chops were right on.

Aside from its obvious use in dating screening, Bageling can appear unexpectedly, like what happened to me at PT. I’ve been undergoing physical therapy for a while, and I knew a bit about some of the regulars. Not so the therapists, about whom I knew very little. Then, I got Reveal-Bageled by one of them.

I was exercising on a stationary bike, while one of the therapists, Mitchel, tried to rehang a clock above us, but it kept falling off. “You’ll have to use a stepstool,” I stated, never wanting to miss a chance to offer unsolicited advice. But instead of responding, “Who asked you?” he said, “The same thing happened last night when I tried to rehang our ketuba.”

“Ketuba?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I had heard him clearly because my audible panting may have muted his words.

“Yes, ketuba,” Mitchel affirmed.

I had been Reveal-Bageled.

“You’re Jewish?” I asked, stupidly.

“That’s why we have a ketuba,” Mitchel stated.

“How did you know I’d recognize the word ketuba?” I asked.

“I just knew.”

Was it my name? My hair? My thighs? “You just Reverse-Bageled me. Do you know what Bageling means?” I asked.

“I can figure it out,” he laughed. Actually, we both laughed, which wasn’t easy for me, pedaling away on that bicycle.

Mitchel walked across the room to arrange an obstacle course of cones for me to navigate. I expected no further Semitic interchange, but I soon learned that the large area has excellent acoustics. Mitchel’s ketuba revelation and my response had been overheard by another PT regular, whom I’d often considered to be a candidate for Bageling, because he and I once talked about living in Flatbush, Brooklyn, a heavily Jewish neighborhood. I didn’t know if he was Jewish or simply knew a lot about Jews. I decided to bypass starter Bagels and launch a select Bagel cluster his way. I mentioned that we used to buy our lulav and etrog before Sukkot in Borough Park, a neighborhood next to Flatbush which is an even more densely Jewish enclave. Were these Bagel words—lulav, etrog, Borough Park, Sukkot—enough to identify him as a co-religionist?

“I used to go with my Zaydie to the etrog markets in Borough Park,” he recalled.

So, my hunch was right: Mr. Flatbush was a Yid! He would have told me more, but his therapist beckoned him to the weights across the room. Mitchel, my therapist, was tired of our chatter, too. “Stay focused,” he chided, but it wasn’t my fault. He’s the one who started the whole thing when he Bageled me!