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The Israeli Asshole
By mrkoyen / November 15, 2006
In Nyaung Shwe, a tiny town in the middle of Myanmar, my native guide Chris is dropping jokes over pitchers of Mandalay beer. “Why does Israelis”—he’s already laughing—“Why do they have such big noses?” I beat him to the punch line: “Because air is free.” Amazement, then a laugh from my new friend. “So you hate them too?”
After backpacking around Southeast Asia, I know it’s not just Chris who has a problem with Israelis. In Thailand, at the Bella Bella Guesthouse, just one block from Bangkok’s tourist-thick Khao San Road, the management apologizes for not serving Israeli patrons. According to the sign taped to the front desk, “We have many problem with them.” Israelis’ reputation in North America isn’t much better. Ask anyone who’s spent time among Israelis—be it traveling, doing business, or, say, buying a digital camera at a Manhattan electronics shop—and they’ll tell you it’s common knowledge that Israelis are, well, shmucks.
Many American Jews will drop snarky asides about Israeli bad behavior, but tell them about the Southeast Asian hostels that prohibit Israelis and the mockery gives way to solidarity. Like me—a Catholic-raised Jersey boy—American Jews see “no Israelis” and think “no Jews.” But while for many people this anti-Israelism evokes the “restricted” hotels and country clubs of pre-WWII America, most Israelis couldn’t care less about it. In fact, many even seem to take a bit of good-spirited pride in their infamy.
The question, then, is this: Why are Israelis such dicks? And why doesn’t their bad reputation bother them?
I interviewed the Israelis I met in Southeast Asia. And when I got home, I spoke to anthropologists, sociologists, and shrinks. Five explanations stood out from all the others:
Explanation #1: Israeli tourists are colonial oppressors
Daria Maoz, a Ben Gurion University anthropologist who has studied Israelis traveling in India, argues that a hierarchical relationship between Israeli tourists and Asian hosts creates a neocolonial dynamic that angers the locals. Dayan says that the anti-Israeli sentiment on display in the hostels of the region is really just an expression of class resentment.
That dog won’t hunt. Israelis know they’re being singled out from among tourists of all other nationalities. Most of them also say that they’ve brought it on themselves with their greediness and rudeness.
Explanation #2: Israelis look Western but act like Arabs
According to Jonathan, a 33-year-old Jerusalem native I met in Cambodia, his compatriots suffer from a kind of cultural cognitive dissonance: “You must remember,” he explained, “we are not Europeans. We are Arabs.”
Asians, Jonathan posited, have come to expect a certain kind of behavior from Western tourists, behavior based on European customs. To them, Israelis look like Westerners but act like Arabs, and are therefore judged unjustly.
Yes, Israeli culture owes much to the Arabs. Think of how both groups incessantly cry “Jalla!” or the way they press their thumbs to their middle and index fingers to tell you to hold on a damn second. Still, Westerners from T.E. Lawrence to Bernard Lewis have agreed that Arab culture, with its effusive greetings and ritualistic hospitality, elevates graciousness to an art form.
There's no passing the buck to Arabs on this one.
Explanation #3: In Israel, etiquette is for the weak.
Today’s Israelis are socially clueless because the nation’s early settlers saw “little value in the codes of social etiquette.” According to Tami Lancut Leibovitz, the founder and president of the Israeli Institute for Etiquette and Manners, to understand Israeli rudeness one must understand doogri, which translates from Hebrew as “to tell you the truth.” Leibovitz claims that for early Zionists, “a certain ‘roughness’ and practicality of spirit came to be viewed as ideal personal traits.”
In Bangkok one night, I asked Martin, a 37-year-old manager of the travel agency in the Greenhouse, an Israeli-owned Bangkok hotel, if Leibovitz was onto something. He thought she was. “In Israel, talking softly means that you’re not feeling well, or that you’re weak.”
Explanation #4: No one wants to be a frayer.
The Hebrew word frayer is translated as “sucker” or “patsy.” For many Israelis, Jewish history is one long episode of collective frayer-hood—one trauma after the next in which the Jew plays history’s patsy.
That long episode of losing didn't end until the creation of the modern state of Israel—the ultimate embodiment of the guile to which many Israelis now aspire. “Israelis never want to come out of a situation being the loser, the sucker, regardless of the amount that is being haggled over,” says Martin. “As a result, sometimes they come across as being stingy.”
Explanation #5: Boot camp encourages bad manners.
For the Israeli military, as we all know, every encounter is an existential threat—or so goes the institutional logic, anyway. Lose once, and the gig is up. Because failure is simply not an option, doogri is a must. And since the military is the great solvent of Israeli society, the one place where Israelis of every background interact with one another, it makes sense that the ethos and culture of the IDF would influence Israeli society in general.
Putting it all together
Take the early Zionist environment Leibovitz described, the Middle Eastern milieu Jonathan mentioned, the frayer phenomenon Martin told me about, then season it all with the cultural influence of the Israeli military, and perhaps now we’ve stumbled upon the recipe that has produced the infamous Israeli jerk.
Suddenly, the rudeness and the frenetic need to “win” even the most mundane social encounter begin to make sense. But this still doesn’t explain why Israelis are so complacent about how they are perceived, at moments when American Jews acutely feel the historical sting of this new anti-Israeli-ism.
The answer may come from a New York University psychologist named David Aronson, who argues that minority groups such as Jews experience what Aronson calls “the stereotype threat.” Members of these groups regularly modify their behavior out of fear of confirming negative stereotypes. Aronson has published studies showing that black math students waste time repeatedly rechecking answers to simple questions for fear that a mistake will confirm a white teacher’s assumption that black people aren’t smart.
Aronson describes his own experience of the Jewish stereotype threat. A non-Jewish acquaintance once asked Aronson why Jews were so rich. An offended Aronson pointed out that he and his wife, both Jewish, were not rich. This conversation happened over lunch, and when the check came, Aronson found himself in a quandary. Should he pick up the tab? If he did, would he be playing into the stereotype of Jewish richness? But if he didn’t, wouldn’t it prove that he—“they”—were stingy?
Minorities, including American Jews, make small adjustments on a day-to-day basis in their interactions with members of the majority. So why don’t Israelis feel the pressure of the “stereotype threat”? Why aren’t they mortified by the increasingly popular stereotype of the pushy, money-grubbing Israeli? Why aren’t they enraged by the signs excluding them from tourist establishments?
The answer, ultimately, may lie in something Martin said to me. In an ostensibly minor choice of words, almost a slip of the tongue, as he spoke of Jewish history Martin distinguished Israelis from “the Jews.” Not other Jews. The Jews. That one-word distinction, which came so naturally to Martin, resonates with 60 years of Israeli history and 120 years of Zionist history.
In the 1911 article “Instead of Excessive Apology,” Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of the revisionist Zionist movement, wrote: “We do not have to apologize for anything. We are a people as all other peoples; we do not have any intentions to be better than the rest. We do not have to account to anybody. We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change, nor do we want to.” Jabotinsky’s tough talk was less a reflection of the realities of his own day than a dream of how the Jew of the future might think and live. Only then would Jews escape the horrible circularity of their history, with its endless passage from settlement to pogrom to dispersion and around again. Only then would they be relieved of the pathologies of exile, the spiritual and psychological malaise that many Zionists saw as the greatest violence of Jewish history, more destructive than any pogrom.
Raised in their own land, speaking their own language, Israelis have freed themselves from the anxious self-monitoring still experienced by the Jews of the Diaspora. The Jews of Israel have learned to stop apologizing. Early Zionists would have taken great pleasure in knowing this day would arrive. Perhaps we should take some pleasure in it, too.
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I have dated men from all different kinds of ethnic backgrounds and nationalities – I can say, hand on heart, that my encounter (which unfortuanately lasted 2 years) with an Israeli has to be the worst I have ever had.
I agree with so many of your comments – especially about them looking like Europeans and behaving like Arabs.
In our society and culture which is biased against muslims, us women are often warned off them. There is no such warning against Israelis but they are the real menace.
My guard was always up dating muslims, but I actually found them to be some of the politest and respecting guys around.
When I met the Israeli in question, he was blonde haired and blue eyed, almost Germanic looking. He told me that he had only had 2 women in his life and got hurt extremely easy – the way that people should treat HIM was of paramount importance and by stupidity, I figured that this meant he also cared about how he treated others.
It took me a lot of time and stupidity to see that he actually took DELIGHT in abusing women. His attitude of having a "harem" of women was 100% NOT European. He told me that jealous women DELIGHTED him. He prided himself on his "directness" yet was actually lying the whole time. Despite the fact that I ditched him, he came back to me many times – at first promising marriage and exotic vacations… when my refusals became more adament, he began shoving these other women he was seeing in my face, trying to make me jealous (he believed all women were jealous and insecure) before finally setting one of them on me.
I am NOT saying all Israelis are like this… but whenever I countered him on his behaviour at any stage, he laughed and found it hilarious, despite his utter seriousness and anger that anybody should ever do him any wrong – and this article reminded me of that.
He was a huge, strong, burly looking guy, 6’2 to my 5’2, and his lack of ANY kind of respect for women was shocking. We complain that American guys aren’t chivalrous – I thank God now for American dudes.
The problem with him was that his English was perfect, he looked like a German, and held a high class university degree – his machoism and attitudes towards women were totally at odds with this, and so it was easy for me to be decieved.
Foreign women: don’t be decieved – and whilst I’m sure there are some perfectly great Israeli dudes out there – BE INCREDIBLY CAREFUL.
Does anyone know where I can get a Ham sandwich around here?
653 I gonna wager ur name is not Ali and u r not black. What utter bs. The most racism i ever encountered was in the great US of A
Generalizing is racism. We have to judge each case individually. And that so happens because we have the time/opportunity/desire.
Yes in utopia we would. Meanwhile cops still stop mainly black guys on the freeway and ur experiences at O’hare int. airport will be slightly different if ur name is Ali Al Falasi instead of Mark Smith.
Tusk tusk what a racist world we live in.
Since when is reality not a factor in our opinions anymore??? And in the free world, in a capitalist market ppl are pretty much free to sell their services/goods to whomever they please (or not). Now we are gonna cry foul???
What if many israelis abroad are di**s? Does that even matter? The actual behavior of the ppl in question???
Bottomline: If a saudi comes into my establishment and acts like an ass it’s an isolated incidence I brush off. If it happens very frequently, I will change my policy. Same goes for ANY and EVERY nationality.
And once again, I remind ppl that israelis are HARDLY the ONLY nationality that get banned from certain establishments in certain places. Again plenty of brits, russians and arabs encounter the same situation. Guess they all better star shaping up a bit then. Maybe that also helps… just maybe.
I don’t think they are victims or easily accept victim status. And trust me I know plenty of israelis. I am married to one.
“As a jewish lady I find it completly normal to refuse service to certain groups of ppl if they were a pain in the butt in my experience.”
You can ban individuals, but generalizing all people in a group is racism and in my book thats f*cked up.
well ‘attack’ is kind extreme.
as an Israeli I can confirm there are a fair amount of assholes amougst us
we are good looking though
Sorry but this a site pertaining to all jewish topics and as such is being discussed. I don’t understand what’s wrong with that. The author is not punishing, singeling out or otherwise being racist. He is writing about an existing phenomena that even other israelis admit to!!!
For the love of all that’s good and holy – unwanted behavior is just as obnoxious whether israeli, european or arab. Drunken brits annoy me as much as arrogant israelis. Sex hungry arabs too. Does that make me racist? No, I am juding their BEHAVIOR mainly. And yes many steroetypes exist about all kinds of people. Face it we all are racist in some way. Israelis are not exempt from this.
People cry racism so easily. Well maybe people are in part responsible for their behavior. I don’t want to be obliged to pussy foot around every minority group for fear of being called a racist. A lot of blacks are gang bangers, a lot of brits are drunks and a lot of israelis are arrogant assholes. So what? As long as that doesn’t become a reason to annihilate them – things are going well.
Like jews don’t judge others, including other jews……….. pass me a vomit bag. Hypocrisy
You wrote:
it’s just dangerous when they are used as a basis on which to collectively judge/single out/punish large groups.
Thats exactly what this racist writer is doing.
As an Israeli guy who traveled in south America i sure got to see the less positive side of the Israeli’s , taking the chutzpa and not being a “friyer” to the limit, especially when traveling in packs like we often do. this is a normal behaviour for us Israelis , but this is just because we keep our eyes open, and don’t take things as is, knowing that tourists are often an easy target for a good bargain. there are a lot of honest places in the world, hostels and restaurants who have earned the good reputation among us Israelis as a great place to come. and on these places you wouldn’t find anyone say bad things about Israelis. we are a spicy combination of the Mediterranean temper and the Jewish Witt. i must say, the other side of the scale is no better. we Israelis often comment about the Americans, how they never just say what they mean. they will be polite, take their ability to form a fake smile into an art form, and the small talk into way of living. and i know this doesn’t go for all living Americans, but i have the feeling you know what i mean. and you will excuse me for saying that, right? after all , what can you expect out if an Israeli guy.
As an israeli jew, born and raised as such, i can tell you
that the writer is absolutely right, accurate and thorough.
ALL ISRAELIES act this way, because we are israelis and that is the way
we are more loving and open then europeans, we are more affectionate
and talkative, and accepting. we are REAL with everyone.
and we are jerks, only compared to others.
Alex then what are you arguing about? I never made the statement that everyones feelings in Israel are true! Then again, I think saying that Israeli’s are overreacting with regards to survival issues would be ridiculous and certainly not my place (or yours).
I am sure that the stressful conditions of living in a country constantly in conflict, perceived to be fighting for survival, contributes and is even the cause for anti-social behaviour – including loud, cheap backpackers. It doesn’t make it OK or right, but I am not offering apologies only potential explanations.
Hadar –
I do not deny the existence of the feeling at all. Nazis also felt victimized and threatened and that was the premise for all-out war to "save" and enlarge the Faterland. People feel billions of things that are not real and sometimes create non-existant threats to justify their own atrocities.
That does not make 'em TRUE.
Alex you remind me of my grandmother, the irrepressible Esther Rosenfarb. The woman could keep an arguement alive for generations. Her very adept technique was to completely ignore the logic of the opposition and just throw out more argueable points into the mix….
Once again my point was that many Israeli’s do feel a threat, be it real or perceived for their survival.
Now maybe Israeli’s also have ‘naive ideas’ about what survival is and as a result they unnecessarily feel their survival is threatened. But even that is immaterial because the result is still that feeling does exist and nothing you have written so far refutes this or could. Although it is very clear you are no fan of some of Israel’s practices.
Joey: I thought I was the very example of gentlemanly grace. Pity you didn't notice.
Your Majesty:
1. Pavlov: Nope. Only conditional reflexes. Huge difference, Your Majesty. BTW, my grandmother Helena Heimann (Geiman) was one of the very first (if not THE first Pavlov's female students!) Not that it should make me an authority on the subject…
2. Suffering/complaning has nothing to do with survival.
3. Gas masks. Nope. Deep inside, instinctively, you knew it was only 10% danger and 90% propaganda. Otherwise you would not accept that laughable imitation of mask for your baby.
4. Your Majesty, think what you want, but you are very lucky to have such naive ideas about what survival is. I wish it will stay that way for you till your number comes up, and may it be far, far away from now. As for me, I prefer quick death to survival. I have been there twice and its not pretty. No third time for me, thanks.
Bless you Joey (there are a few people that didn’t get notice of my title change)
Alex the cat bit was an analogy used to express a point, communicate a thought, but never a comparison – so silly it is not. (And if I am not mistaken much of the knowledge we have of human physiology, behavior and response has been garnered by studying animals. Remember Pavlov?)
And I am sure that medieval medicine was no fun. But by your logic does only the one suffering the absolute most get to call it suffering while everyone else is just complaining?
I stand by my contention that Israel lives with a real or perceived threat of survival. (Is it the reason they are assholes? I have no idea but I am sure it doesn’t help their assholeness factor) And your shpiel about the gas masks only strengthens this/my point, thank you. Can you imagine how people must have felt when learning that not only did they feel absolutely ridiculous and helpless in these makeshift ‘sealed’ rooms, but the masks were just hinderances to breathing and really not very attractive!
I admit it: I'm going to cop out on addressing the comments in this thread. But I do have a question: has anyone considered the gender aspect hinted at in the Jerusalem Post article (linked at the top of the page)? Can we address how it is we–both Israelis and Americans, for that matter–raise males?
Alex, when it comes to "patrolling" our comment threads, Jewcy approaches the job like a languid hippy saying "it's-all-good" through an open mouth-full of delicious microwaved burrito. In other words, dialogue is unconstrained, as Voltaire would want it, and as our lethargy demands. But you must be respectful of Hadar. Hadar is queen. Think of each encounter with Hadar as a chance to practice being as charming as possible, extra solicitous and engaging. That's what I do.
Hadar:
1. Please, do not compare people to cats. Its just plain silly.
2. Overriding this mechanism is easy – start thinking for yourself. Do not accept anything as given. Study math – it helps to find holes in logic.
3 Nothing is absolute, even suffering. That is the biggest truth about men. Even on physical pain level. Visit a museum with some items of medieval medicine. Dentistry, especially. What you will see – was an everyday dentistry tools and procedures, that endured as NORMAL by everyday folks and even royals. The mere though that a contemporary men could be subjected to this will make you lose your sleep for a week. So, your suffering can only be taken into account as compared to the suffering of your neighbors. Especially if your country's miliraty and political powers are responsible for than IN YOUR AND MY NAME.
4. As for gas masks, I can tell you something. The masks that you have in Israel civilian defence are a joke. I have been through Russian military training in mid-70-ies when they forced us as soldiers to stay for couple of minutes in a special tent with very mild, non-toxic chemical vapors. Only after many training sessions were we able to take tiny sips of air through our own vomit that floods the mask as soon as the fist puffs of a chemical is released. And never for more than several minutes. Also, your head must be fresh shaved and a thick layer of grease must be applied to it. And even then it will only work if your mask has a full skull rubber head that covers your head entirely up to your neck and you have chosen one that fits you perfect after you try tens of them. The ones with straps are just given to civilians as a panic-mender. You will die in such a mask within seconds. And those who gave you these masks knew it.
If you ever think seriously about surviving and saving your child, do everything yourself. Have a plan. Buy good, current masks from the military (bribe someone), try them many times inside a small room with chlorine disinfectant vapors and train your child. The child training will be brutal. Prepare for that. Everything else is just pretending.
5. Now about my empathy and sympathy. I have a lot of sympathy for Jewish boys and girls, their parents and their future kids. I wish they grow up engineers, scientists, musicians, and yes, those ubiquitous Jewish doctors, anything but what they are becoming today – a young nation of prison guards and checkpoint dogs. There is no alternative to active pursue of peace with full restitutions for the Palestinian suffering. The strategy of fooling the whole world and bribing US Congress is running out. Study Jewish political history. We are making an old mistake again and again – taking peoples for idiots while bribing their kings. The whole Jewish history is the history of these failed attempts to cajole the powers that be, do their dirty work for them, never knowing when and where to stop and finally see the kings turn away and hordes of simple folk who we robbed for their kings pleasures coming at us with knives and stones. To prevent this from happening yet again, to stop this vicious cycle of arrogant, STIFFNECKED stupidity – this is how I understand empathy.
And sympathy.
Nuh-uh. Yours.
Oh and by the way, Mr. Kurtzman, that stinky bilge is emanating from your keyboard.
an Israeli:
Son,
When you will travel a little bit more you will realise that your countrymen's rudeness has nothing to do with survival. You have no idea what survival is. A tip – if you do not put your kids to bed hungry, you are not surviving. Rural Northern China, Most of Africa, Bangladesh, huge parts of India and finally – your Palestinian neighbors – these are the areas where daily survival is a reality for so many. And you would not believe how polite and noble these people are, despite their almost hopeless misery. I do not KNOW why Israelis are so disgustingly rude, but I SUSPECT that it is because of total lack of simple respect for another human being. Not rich, not famous, not influential, not a friend or a relative, not someone who you know personally – but just a simple guy who walks the street.
And yes, you are right, comparing to Middle Eastern stock, Americans (Anglos) are colder. They mostly admit it themselves. Empty-headed and self-absorbed they are not. There are no empty-headed people on this planet, to say this about a nation is… vintage Israeli snobbish rudeness. And when it comes to self-absorption, it's really funny to hear that from an Israeli!
don’t the Irish have the highest literacy rate? something like 99%. they are teching their kids to read, they deserve to drink a little.
I have lived in Israel in the past and visit often frequently. One of the things that I really really miss when not there is the ability to express myself, anger and all, when I need and want to. It feels so good to be able to get out some of that fake niceness out that has accumulated. (I recomend a visit to misrad ha-pnim for in-depth cleansing)
Not true! Last time I checked, both Germany and England had higher per capita consumption of beer than the Irish. But the Irish had the highest per capita consumption of tea in the world! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you dirty Prod!
I feel the same way about those damn shanty Irishmen. Everywhere they go those drunken Irish stink up the damn place. Is it no wonder they are not welcome anywhere?
I agree that Israelis are rude but that is because life in Israel is a struggle for survival. But rudeness is not the worst character trait in the scheme of things.
Israelis can also be very warm, generous, genuine and caring. It is a shame more people don’t see these things. As someone who lives in Israel, I sometimes visit America and can’t help feeling that Americans are cold, empty-headedselfish and self-absorbed. But then I try not to stereotype.
The anti-Israeli sentiment you describe matches my experience in Latin America, where Israelis may be the most numerous nationality on the backpacking circuit.
But I've found that the locals generally don't care much either way about Israelis' personality except for one character trait: their insistence on haggling over every dime spent. In general any local annoyance (and it's more often than not annoyance, rather than overt hostility or racism) with Israelis is purely a business matter: it's just not profitable for a hotel owner/tour operator/cab driver to spend 15 unpleasant minutes negotiating with a scraggly tourist looking to shave 5 pesos off the listed price.
I'd also add that in Brazil, which has a substantial Jewish population, a local tour operator went out of his way to say he had plenty of Jewish Brazilian friends and was not an anti-semite, but just couldn't stand to do business with Israelis. This tour operator had no idea that I was Jewish.
In some cultures (i.e.: the Middle East) haggling is standard practice, but in other places it's considered rude. The problem with some (not all) Israeli backpackers is that they don't learn (or actively ignore) the local mores, and the bad apples spoil the reputations of all Israelis (and by extension, of non-Israeli Jews). Of course, this is a stereotype, and the world would be a better place if people judged everyone by their character rather than by their nationality. But that's just not how the world works.
I remember every time my elementary school went on a field trip, the teacher made a point of how our behavior on the "outside" would influence people's opinion of our school. The same can be said of countries. Not all French travelers are snotty bad tippers, but their reputation precedes them nonetheless. And of course, every globe-trotting American must answer for both dubya and for every loud, obnoxious American frat boy who's every thrown up in the common room of a youth hostel.
–Z
Jeff (the author) –
Excellent article. Many Israelis behave toward those who they consider "lower class" in a despicable, condescending, rudest way. Once in China I shared a breakfast table with three Israelis who were so loud and rude to a young waiter that I had to ask them to try to be less aggressive. The remark I got back I still hear in my ears "You, Americans, spoil them. They need to know who is the white man here!". And the rest cheered. They were feeling that they do their duty – "white man's burden" – to keep all these "colored" in check. Same stories about Israelis I always heard from my colleagues from South Africa with which, a the times of Apartheid, Israel was great friends.
To be fair, I have to say that my former countrymen (Russians) are no better at being despicable racist jerks. The only reason they are not banned in the hotels worldwide is that they are quite generous with the money. Israelis, on the other hand…
All nations have jerks and rude assholes. Some more, some less. But percentage wise, Israelis are champs, no doubt in my mind. And to their credit – they never try to conceal it. It's like they enjoy it. "Its our turn to be assholes!" Well, Godspeed.
So, I do not buy your conclusion at all, but I understand that you had to be sowhat politically correct at the end.
Joey –
I do not agree with every word you said, but excellent analysis.
Jeff Koyan,
Your article was interesting, articulate and supported by other credible sources which you took the time to seek out.
I was surprised to see that the first comment was an attack upon you — saying you’d be jailed if this were Canada. Yes, seemed pretty angry to me.
I have no idea why that person was so angry or, at the very least, disapproving of your article. Too bad he/she did not explain themselves.
This type of article is the eptiome of what I had hoped to find on a website with the title “Jewcy” — a smart, contemportary analysis of issues facing Jews.
I’m only in my 20′s and this is a new generation — I need more to understand Jewry and its attendant issues (Israel, etc.) than what is provided by the old guard.
Thanks and shaloM!
Doing a search on “frayer” and what it means to whom, I found Koyen’s article. I read it. I read the comments.
See Ra’anon Alexandrowisc’s film, James’ Journey to Jerusalem.
We, and you know who you are, my brothers and sisters, must make choices. Which of the ten thousand threads of our heritage will we sew into the garments we wear today?
Honor is due to all our parents, from the Avot and Imahot through the generations to even the ones who passed life to us. But it’s not like they never disagreed, right? There’s room in our memories for Bar Kochba and Spinoza, for saints, sinners, for Jackie Mason, for Bontshe the Silent, for Rabbi Akiva and for Tevye and for everyone else from whom we might learn something about life.
There are some Israelis who believe we should be just like every other nation. They don’t mind our unique history but don’t want any special responsibility. But they’re not the only Israelis, right?
There are some of us in exile who believe they already are like everyone else, so why not blend in and eventually pass. But they’re not the only Jews.
We mustn’t measure ourselves by anyone else’s definitions – Am Yisrael is not a nation, or a religion, or a race – it is the choice that binds us together, the choice to become more than what we are, the choice to hope, the choice to grow despite the world’s uncertainties.
“Arbeit macht frei”, read the iron gates to the camps, and woe to the “frei-er” who believes every gate he walks through. But “Don’t be a frayer” is merely one of the lessons of exile, albeit one of the more twisted kind, the legacy of letting our guard down with those who hate us. There are other lessons, other wisdoms we can claim from being Jewish in the world. How sad and small and empty it would be if “Don’t be a frayer” became the only one we lived by.
Send your money!
For the record, I loathe political correctness. My comments had nothing to do with being politically correct. To start off a piece with the words “Why Israelis are Pricks” sounds like hatemongering to me. It presupposes that all Israelis are pricks which I know to be untrue. Living in Canada, I am forced to listen to America bashing all the time. The Ugly Amreican syndrome. “Why Americans are Pricks”. Do you have any idea how many people believe that shit? My point is the article is just ignorant stereotyping. Most people are aware of the cultural differences between Israelis and Diaspora Jews. And yes, we are generally more polite. These differences could have been pointed out in a more appropriate article. If I’m a tad more sensitive to this type of BS, it might have something to do with the Iranian government’s plans to kill all the pricks!
Wow, it didn't take long for the politically correct thought police to start ranting jibberish and slinging accusations of racism attempting to stifle any constructive commentary and dialog.
I think this piece gives a great deal of insight into a major cultural difference between Israelis and Diaspora Jews. That is that Israelis are rarely in the position where they think that their actions will be judged in the context of Jewish stereotypes and this leads to very different behavior and attitude. I often joke that Israelis don't really know what it's like to be Jewish. It certainly seems to me that the ideas in this article can lead to more constructive and interesting dialog than the whining of politically correct thugs.
What a completely ignorant article. I hope Jewcy will not sink to that level of “writing” again. Where do you get off slagging an entire nation. As if the Israelis don’t have to put up with enough crap from the Jew-hating masses.
Worse stereotypes are made about Americans as if you are all alike. It is simply shocking to read shit like this. I thought maybe it was going to be a joke or satirical. No such luck. It’s borderline hate material. Good thing you’re not in Canada. You could get criminally charged.
Have a nice day.
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