There are many of you out there, readers of my blog, for whom I am the only Jew you know.
You might think that all Jews are like me!
You might be...I'm sorry to say...wrong.
We are a very diverse bunch, we Jewish people.
Much like any other group, we are not all the same.
I love to know that there are Jews of all stripes out in the world.
Like this young man and his family.
The expression we use in Hebrew is "klal Yisrael," the community of Israel.
We are a community under a very large tent, encompassing so many different people around the world.
It happens, very often, that we discount each other's contributions. But trust me, it's best if we all stick together. We might not always see eye to eye. But I believe, in the long run, we do best when we support and care and love each other. Please?
That's my torah for this week. What's yours? Leave a comment below.
11 comments:
So true! My husband was born in Israel and often tells me about how group A does this to group B and I'm always reminded of the saying, "If I am not for me then who will be?"
It is like a marriage. You have to be united as a couple in order to face the conflicts that arise. When we fight with each other we achieve nothing but division, anger, hurt and fear.
Lovely. Visiting your blog is such a contrast to some other Jewish blogs, where there is a strong need to prove MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY. Or something like that.
Half of our mitzvot are between man and man (or person to person), because God knows we need to get along with each other.
I fall into that description, Phyllis, of not knowing too many Jews in real life (My maiden name is Fitzgerald and I spent 12 years in Catholic school. And do not attend a Catholic church today.)
But this is what I LOVE about our blog world, I just eat up our different backgrounds, and delight in learning new traditions and beliefs, be they in parenting, religion, food, politics, etc.
I was thinking of you recently, I just finished Jennifer Weiner's new book, Certain Girls, and LOVED it, but the character explains the word bima as she is preparing for her bat mitzvah and I thought to my self, of course! Great book, if you haven't read it. It is going on my list of books to share this week on the blog.
I unfortunately AM the only Jew most of the people I work with know and I have been told the following:
I will never be a REAL Jew (I converted 5 years ago) because I do not have Jewish HAIR.
There are no redhead Jews (I am)
My nose is too small to be a Jew
There are no BLACK Jews (surprise surprise when I took a picture of a black Jewish yeled at Yom Ha'atzmaut!)
You can never REALLY convert to Judaism...
Jews don't believe in heaven or G'd
And my absolute favorite...
even though I attend services WEEKLY with my family, we are not considered RELIGIOUS like a Catholic who does the same BECAUSE we don't go on SUNDAYS - the HOLY day!!!!!
There are no redhead Jews
Boy, members of my family will be quite disappointed to hear that.
Thanks for the reminder not to stereotype . . .
It's amazing how easy it is to do here close to South Africa - by race, etc. There are such divergent cultures here.
"appens, very often, that we discount each other's contributions. But trust me, it's best if we all stick together. We might not always see eye to eye. But I believe, in the long run, we do best when we support and care and love each other."
AMEN!
Well, you're not the only Jewish woman I know, but you're certainly the most wise! Great advice--works for all of us. Thanks!
My children are half Sephardic and half Ashkenazi, and they have asked me many times "What ARE we?". I always say the same thing-"You're Jewish. Period." Putting labels on people just pits them against each other. As you said, "we do best when we support and care and love each other." That's a lot easier to do without categorizing everyone as "this kind" or "that kind" of Jew.
Great post. Thank you for the link to the article. Interesting comments too.
"There are no redhead Jews"
I knew there was something suspicious about my little brother!
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