I’m an Orthodox Jew, my brother-in-law is a Fundamentalist Christian – Shawarma brought us together

So back when I lived in an ultra-Orthodox suburb of New York City, my brother-in-law, a devout Fundamentalist Christian from upstate New York came to live with us. As you could imagine, these are two very different backgrounds. Even so, they aren’t as different as you might think. No group is so closely politically aligned as Fundamentalists, and they have a love of Israel as the Orthodox as well.

My brother-in-law was just finishing college at the time when I started chatting with him about working for my technology team as a designer. We started chatting about it on a Tuesday – by Thursday his bags were packed and he was at my front door!

As he was more used to the pace that upstate New York allows, he found a whole world of difference at this fast paced startup. We were both pretty well stressed out, and needed to unwind from time to time, playing ping pong or whatever time would allow. Good times…

So, what really brought us together the most? Shawarma.

(Yes, I’m still ranting about Shawarma, touted the Middle East’s version of the taco a whole day after the last post.) There was an outstanding place near our house that served the best shawarma in town, with very generous portions. In fact, there was actually a point that he said that he was going to convert just that he could eat it every day! I told him that he could eat it anyway and that probably wouldn’t go very far with his parents

Alas, he’s moved on. But I’ll save him some shawarma for his next visit.