Kesher Talk

Disagree x2: I have to disagree with Howard's comments below about Jews celebrating Christmas in Israel. The reason why Jews "celebrate" Christmas in America, be it with Chinese food, movies, dances, whatever, is because of the "Lonely Jew on Christmas" factor. Everyone around them is celebrating, you get the day off from work, why not have some fun, right? Problem is, that as is the case in Israel, if everyone is a lonely Jew, then no one is, in fact, lonely. The people actually celebrating the holiday are in the extreme minority and Israelis don't even get off from work. It is simply an excuse to party, and a bad excuse at that. How quickly we forget that Christmas (and nearly every other Christian holiday) was a time of great travail for Jews throughout the years. Christian mobs would descend on Jewish villages and "avenge" the death of their savior. I see no reason why Jews shouldn't be able to put up lights, dance, drink, and have a good time. Thankfully, we have our own holidays on which to do it.

And as long as I'm disagreeing here, I also take issue with Alisa's post below about Tommy Lapid. The comparison is pretty obvious, to me at least: Shinui are the Dixiecrats and Lapid is Strom Thurmond, circa 1948. The Dixiecrats were anti-civil rights, Shinui is anti-Hareidi. It's a simplistic single issue party that has no place in such a compex political reality such as the one that currently exists in Israel. No matter what your opinion about the politicization of the Hareidim may be (and my opinion might surprise you), I have to question the motives of a person that would vote based on that issue alone, at the expense of all others. I'm sure Lapid has plenty of other ideas about how the government should be run, but I can bet no one ever said "Hot damn! Those Dixiecrats have some fantastic foreign policy. I'll vote for them" and I'm sure few people say the same about Shinui.

And now I will make a generalization because it's so easy. Shinui supporters do not hate the subsidies that Hareidim receive, they simply hate Hareidim. Or more precisely, they hate what Hareidim represent: The religion they have chosen to leave behind. They resent Hareidim and pine for the days when the religious would stay the hell out of politics and remain in the Meah She'arim ghetto where they belong. It hasn't helped that the religious parties act like a bunch of babies and threaten blackmail when they don't get more money, but this issue could be taken care of through intra-party politics on a larger scale (i.e. within Labor or Likud). The fact that an entirely separate party had to be created to deal with this one particular point, to me, indicates something else.

To Alisa: I am NOT calling you a bigot, a racist, a communist, or a porn star. A generalization, by definition, excludes some specifics. No ad hominem attacks at Kesher Talk (also in the charter, *wink*). Welcome aboard.

posted by Rami @ 12/27/2002 01:35:36 PM