“I write my own Torah. It’s called the Gnorah, an allusion to my nickname Gary Gnu, the name of an obscure television antelope which I have never seen. The Gnorah is a very libertine version of the Old Testament, with lots of musical numbers, singing prophets, and horny eleven-year-old takes on biblical themes. Exodus becomes Sexodus, for instance. Henry Miller would have been proud.”

Shteyngart writes that his refu-Jew status made him a pariah, but The Revealer knows for a fact that the Gnorah did him more good than he cops to here. Our friend Irina Reyn writes in“Dancing Queen” of pinning her own refu-Jew hopes on the young Gary — known not as “Gary Gnu,” but as no less than the “Holy Gnu.”

“The Holy Gnu,” writes Reyn, “was a freckled, rosy-cheeked Russian immigrant who came to school each day in a different plaid shirt, buttoned up to the bottom of his Adam’s apple. He could always be counted on to scream out the most ill-timed and obscure answers in Bible classes, usually referencing the kings’ sexual exploits.”

Yep. Sounds like the same guy. A real “Jew Type,” as our friend “Filefolder” would say. Of course, we prefer Steve Martin‘s coinage: “Jew-space-boy.”