Are you embarrassed about being Jewish?

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I used to wish I was Jewish so that I'd have an explanation for my kvetching.

But isn't "kvetch" a yiddish word? I guess you are half way there!

lol Adam Goldberg is so underrated and smooth.

I'd like to know more about how Ashkenazi Jews regard Sephardic ones. Do Seffies get ostracized in undergrad? I don't remember if I actually caught a comment once in undergrad but I find it FASCINATING. My nosiness is being tickled by this. I just saw The Last Jews of Libya on cable.

There were certain feelings of distrust when they first encountered each other, due mostly to cultural differences. Now, however, those problems have been resolved. In North America, Europe, and Israel, they get along fine.

I know all about the Jewish problem. I had four Jewish Grandparents.

A story.
I married a non-Jewish girl about 20 years ago. Yes, we're still together. We made an agreement very early when we got serious. That we would allow our children to choose for themselves. When our son, Michael was born, the agreement was that I would take him to shule one week, and she would take him to church the next week. I took him on Friday nights. My wife decided she didn't want to go to church badly enough to take him. So one afternoon, he told me, "I am a Jew." And I said, you're letting yourself in for a lot. To which he replied, "You have been a jew all your life." And I said, yes, but no one asked me to make a choice." And still, he said, "I am a Jew."

So we went to our rabbi, and she said, what, are you crazy? Do you the know the history of our people, do you know what you're letting yourself in for?

And he said, "I know about the Pharo, and I know about the Concentration camps, and I know that we have been driven from place to place for years, and yes, Rabbi, I am a Jew. I have chosen."

And so, JW, I'm going to assume your not a troll. I'm going to assume that you're looking for trouble in your own soul. If you don't want to be a Jew, stop thinking of yourself as one. I assure you, that when they come knocking on the door saying we're killing Jews today, are you a Jew, it won't do you a bit of good to say no. They'll know. So why be ashamed? Jesus, himself was a Jew.

And I am a Jew, and I have been lo these 65 years, and I am not ashamed. Nor do I care who knows. There will always be people who hate Jews. There will always be people who hate Christians, and Muslims, and every other religion for some reason or another. And there will always be people who hate people on the spectrum. Does that make any sense? It doesn't.

Remember this. He who troubleth in his own house, shall inherit the wind.

Shalom, or Salam, or may God be with you.

Ruvane Yale
btdt

I am done with this thread.

Last edited by JWRed on 05 Dec 2007, 6:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

JW:

I was also more stern with my son that I told you. However, our Rabbi is a strong woman, one who knows her history (though I am older). I have never questioned my religion, or my people. If you were a Christian, things would of course be different. They believe in a different reality, but they also believe in the same God we do, and our "old testement" is there old testament. I went, once to the funeral of a friend of mine, who was mad at his family. So he had it done by a Catholic Priest. And the priest gave as traditional a jewish funeral as I have ever been to (not as personal, but he didn't know my friend), and afterwards, I walked up to him, stuck out my hand, and said "Nice service, Rabbi....er....Father." And he laughed, and it was then that I learned that Priests learn to read Hebrew as well as Latin, because it is the language of the old testament. I am not ashamed, the other Jews on this board are not ashamed, and I am at piece in the company of all of the other religions who are on this board, whether they practice or not.

As to your question about the camps, I'm sorry to tell you that Hitler needed a scapegoat, an impure race (in his eyes) so that he had an enemy. It is the same thing that is happening to the Muslims in this country, and to my way of thinking, we, who know where this persecution can lead, should stand with them. Islam is not a violent religion, there are just some violent people who are professing to believe in it. Read their bible. The old testement is far less forgiving than the Quaran. Leveticus is one of the cruelest books I have ever read. But the camps also held Catholics, gypsies, and anyone who didn't agree with the Nazis (including many Germans) and had the courage to speak out, including several thousand Lutherans. I know all this, not so much because I'm religious, but because I'm a student of history, and I have seen what man (and woman for that matter) is capable of doing to our fellow beings. I was in Vietnam.

If you are rebelling against your parents, then rebel with my blessings, you're wrong, but you won't learn that until you're much older. If you're ashamed of being a Jew, don't be. Yes, life would be different if you were a Christian, but that (as I'm sure any one of our Christian friends reading this will tell you) comes with its own problems.

Feel good about your religion. Or deny it if you want. You will not believe in God until you, yourself, have a child. That will make a believer out of you. Don't ask me to explain. I can't That was my experience. In the mean time, do what you like.

You want ritual, read the Cabala. And don't blame your parents too much for not wanting other people to know they're Jewish. If they grew up in a certain period of history, I don't blame them.

Ruvane Yale

Btdt

Oh, yeah, and something I left out.
Analyzing yourself like that, questioning, rejecting....it's a very traditional Jewish thing to do.

Sorry.

Big Smile.


RY

Btdt

Thanks for the responses. I am done analyzing this part of my life.

I found Chaim Potok even more overwrought than I am which was calming. I would like Talmudic tutoring but I think it is because I am nosy more than any remnant of Jewiness in my dna. I might find it soothing. So the Sephardics don't have yiddish in their culture? Do they have some equivalent? Viva la Tucus sur la table! So when we see someone who is very Israeli looking, then he is from Sephardic side? Do Sephardic's shrug ostensibly self deprecatingly? Do they pinch their fingers when discussing?

Maybe Chaim Potok is what we aspies are like for NTs although I don't recall anyone ever paying enough attention to me or my bothering to share but Chaim reads like a fist clenching my heart and YANKING for a prolonged period of time. Maybe that's what our aspie obsessions are like to the outsider. From the inside, it feels like there is no choice.

JWred,

The thing about shame is that it is multi-generational, handed down from mother to son, from father to daughter. The particular group of people known as *The Jews* have been at the brunt and but of every joke, every mocking, every end of political propoganda and the impetus for every blood libel since JC. Stones thrown at them, fires torching their homes, their skin ripped from them, their babies dunked in forced baptisms, their sidelocks and beards sliced off by grinning nazis.




You have every right to be ashamed and embarrassed. You've been taught very well. You're just doing what has been passed down to you by those shamed and embarrassed to be called a Jew.

The traditional language of Sephardic Jewry is Ladino. It is basically a combination of Hebrew and Spanish written in Hebrew letters.

How did you know that everyone with as is jewish? just kidding.

My daughter, who is forty-five years old and a white middle class American, was baptized Christian as an infant in the Catholic church. A few years ago she joined a Quaker congregation and adopted their beliefs and religious practices. Several months ago she started to study Judaism and is now in the process of conversion to that religion. She is completely absorbed in and thoroughly enjoying the practice of Judaism. She calls to tell us in great detail about the rituals she is learning about and performing with each Jewish holy day or celebration as they appear in the calendar year. She is studying Hebrew and observing the household and dietary customs as well.

The odd and wonderful thing is this : she is married to a practicing Nigerian Muslim. This, in my mind is a magnificent accomplishment. That a Jew (albeit a converted one) and a Muslim can live together in a marriage relationship, raise a child, honor one another's religious beliefs, respect the religious and cultural heritage of each other - is an amazing piece of evidence that peace in this world is entirely possible. If acceptance, tolerance and support of vastly different belief systems can exist and flourish under a single roof, it can exist under many roofs in many lands, That is to say, it is possible at least, that holy wars and genocide may someday be non-existent.

Traditional Sepahrdic songs (which I like a lot) are in something very close to Spanish, the lyrics (when reading them at least) are intelligible to a modern Spanish speaker. I wonder about the etymology of 'Ladino' - in Central America it means someone of mixed Spanish and indigenous ancestry (the equivalent of 'mestizo' in Mexico).