My story, which is by no means a fiction, nor a case of seductive exaggeration, could best be described as a Baltimore snafu (situation normal: all fucked up). It also takes place in a quintessential battle zone—that of my semiretired parents’ condo in a classically mixed neighborhood.
In recent years, this formerly sort-of-Black, sort-of-Jewish middle-class neighborhood has been almost entirely repopulated by a rapidly multiplying clan of middle-aged ultra-Orthodox Jews who speak with Hebraic accents. It’s hard to tell whether some of them are actually from Israel.
