Single Man Bewildered By Lack Of Yom Kippur Lunch Invitations

“I hope this isn’t personal.”

Jerusalem, October 6 – A local resident who customarily accepts the hospitality of various families in the neighborhood for Sabbath and festival meals voiced confusion today over the disappearance of such willing hosts for the Day of Atonement this Wednesday.

Asher Korn, 48, has availed himself of numerous invitations for the evening and midday meals of the Sabbath and Jewish holidays ever since arriving in the area last November. Korn lives alone in a studio apartment, the only residence he can afford, and lacks the kitchen facilities to prepare the elaborate meals customary on those occasions. The nutritional supplement salesman often contributes a dish to those meals or to pot-luck affairs organized by groups of neighbors and friends, but has found no such events scheduled to take place Tuesday evening or Wednesday during the day, when such meals normally occur.

“It’s possible it’s just too early for some people, especially after two days of Rosh Hashanah,” mused Korn, “but that’s not usually an issue. If I go online to Shabbat.com, for example, I sometimes get answers to requests for meals weeks in advance. I hope this isn’t personal. I try to be a good guest. No one has ever said anything before, or refused to have me multiple times.” He cited his quinoa salad, which he prepares for most of the meals he attends, as further evidence of his quality as a participant.

“I’ve been dropping hints for days at this point,” he continued. “At once point I even said, within earshot of at least two regular hosts, ‘Boy, I’m not looking forward to the hunger pangs of early Yom Kippur afternoon,’ just to let them know I had no meals set up, but they didn’t take the bait. I know they heard me, because they nodded and said, ‘Man, I know what you mean,’ and left it at that. What gives?” One even invited him to eat with his family on Tuesday afternoon, before the onset of Yom Kippur, but Korn declined, banking on the possibility that someone would invite him for a nighttime meal after synagogue services.

Korn has even taken the unprecedented step of considering the preparation of an entire Yom Kippur meal at home, if perhaps in a scaled-down fashion. “I’ve even asked my acquaintances for recipes, but no one seems to take my cooking ability seriously, because they all think I’m joking. I really do intend to cook, people. I’m no idiot in the kitchen – I just don’t have much of a kitchen.”

“Maybe it’s all those quinoa salads coming back to haunt me,” he surmised.