…I got the urge to shave my head one day.  When my flatmates got home, they burst out laughing.  You look like a skinhead, they tell me.  Then suddenly Leon snaps his fingers.  I’ve got an idea he says…

Asi is a chef. He is passionate about cooking and a great story teller.  He chats with me in the ConFest kitchen as we chop vegetables together.

Being a Jew is great, Asi says.  We’re the only ones who can make really good jokes about Jews.
(Don’t chop onions like that.  Slice them.  Like this. That’s so much quicker.)
When I was travelling in Germany, I became very close to two guys I shared a flat with in Berlin.  Leon and Kon. Two young german intellectuals, studying engineering.  They had a twisted sense of humour and they made me laugh all the time.
I got the urge to shave my head one day.  When my flatmates got home, they burst out laughing.  You look like a skinhead, they tell me.  Then suddenly Leon snaps his fingers.  I’ve got an idea he says.
Leon and Kon met a pair of girls the previous week. They are in town for the weekend.  They’re coming over for lunch.  Lets play a little joke on them, Leon says.
Leon and Kon get a black sharpie marker, and with infinite care, they draw a perfect swastika on the back of my shaved head.
The girls arrive.  Two pretty, intelligent young girls, who are students in Munich. Everyone sits down in the lounge room.  After a few minutes I say, who wants coffee?  I get up, turn around to go to the kitchen and the conversation stops dead, when the girls see the swastika tattoo on the back of my skull.
After a long, tense silence I turn back to the room, smile, and say,
it’s OK.  I’m Jewish.

 
>> More stories and photos from Confest.
>> Want to stop wasting money on backpacker hostels?
>> Like Raw Safari on Facebook.