Somewhat warily, and aware that this could go one of two ways, I acquiesced.

“Are you a Jewish person?” he asked. Quick as a flash I replied: “it depends why you want to know.”

“I love Jews!” he responded, waving his arms expansively to illustrate the point.

“In that case,” I replied, “yes I am.”

Such interactions are a welcome relief these days when it feels the whole world is against us, but made me think that we really need a new lexicon to describe when we are outed by non-Jews.

We already have the great phrase ‘to be bageled’, which describes what happens when a fellow Jew tries to subtly determine that we are part of the tribe too.

But we really need a word for similar attempts by non-Jews when they try to establish our Jewish status.

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