Shiksa pearls, explained

Eek! has inherited a mink coat (ok, "blonde mink strolling coat") which so outranks the already-dead old furs owned by all of her friends. What to do? I thought we should have a "ladies lunch" to celebrate. Nobody without an old fur coat allowed.

"Wear the shiksa pearls," she says, so now I've got to explain about those.



It was Yom Kippur and babycakes and I went to Temple. Well, I'm NOT Jewish but we had free tickets (yes, tickets were required for the event) and I was thrilled to be able to add this Jewish high holy day to my this-might-make-a-good-screenplay list.

"Dress up," she told me. "People get decked out for the holidays."

I selected a silk dress and a tasteful strand of pearls. There must have been over 400 women there and I slowly noticed that NOT A SINGLE JEWISH WOMAN was wearing pearls. They were wearing jewelry all right. Along with their perfect hair and nails they wore fabulous artist-made gold and silver necklaces and pins, but not a single pearl was in sight.

This, however, was not my only faux pas for the evening. While the authentic jews were greeting each other by saying "good yontiv" I was merrily wishing everyone a "good yentl" which is NOT the same at all.