Magnum opus

  Here is a part of a conversation I had with Max. (Only a part, because the rest is personal and won't interest you very much.)

:Max says

i saw a ridiculous movie yesterday that was partially set in Israel

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Oh is that so? Which movie?

Max says:

Don't Mess With the Zohan

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Oh, that...

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Yeah, it is ridiculous :P

Max says:

lol

Max says:

Israelis don't really eat humous with everything do they?

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

XD

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Certainly not.

Max says:

Or brush their teeth with it.

Max says:

Hehe.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

:P

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Most Israelis like humus, that's true, and it is an important part of the common Israeli cuisine, but what he did was like... saying the English make toothpaste out of chips and use fishbones as toothpicks XD

Max says:

Ok

Max says:

Lol

Max says:

I have done the latter though...

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

He also overestimated the influence of Yiddish culture on the modern Israeli.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Oh XD

Max says:

But that's the stereotype of Israel in the West.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Lots of Yiddish?

Max says:

Yes.

Max says:

It's all imagined as one kind of homogenous Jewish culture.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Only really old people and the European-origin Haredic Jews speak Yiddish. And a few people with too much spare time who actually bothered to learn it :P

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Israeli Jews have a serious problem of internal racism.

Max says:

the movie seemed to illustrate that

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

I don't recall a scene of a European Jew calling a Jew of Arab-country origins a 'Schwarze Khaye' (Yiddish for 'black beast'), or anyone mocking the Ethiopian Jews.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Ethiopian Jews aren't allowed in clubs.

Max says:

really?

Max says:

why?

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Russian women are thought of as prostitutes.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Because of the huge internal racism problem.

Max says:

Yes but where does this hatred come from?

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Oh, that's because Jews are racist dickheads.

Max says:

I see. And that doesn't sound racist at all.

Max says:

lol

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

You don't want to hear what they think of non-Jews...

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

And it might be a racist thing to say, but it's justified.

Max says:

What do they think of us?

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

You know Arkadi Gaidamak?

Max says:

no

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

He's this big Jewish Russian tycoon who tried to get into politics over here. He also tried his financial luck here.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

He has quite a doubted history; people claim he's done illegal arms trade during the Ruanda massacre, things like that.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

He denies it all.

Max says:

Hmm

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Anyway, I don't judge him for what they claim he's done, because I don't know much about it.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

What I do criticise him for is his opinions.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

There was a documentary once shown on the telly in which he cried when he talked about how he had to miss his grandon's Bris because he was investigated by the police.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

That was enough for me to want to throw a brick at his head >>

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

But he kept on talking about the importance of the 'Jewish Tradition' (condemning his interviewer for eating pancakes on Passover; 'Khave you no respect for Jooish Tradition?!'), which was how he wanted to get into politics.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

The interviewer asked him how he'll respond if his daughter will come to him with a non-Jew and say, 'Dad, this is the man I love, I'm going to marry him.' Guess how he responded.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

He said, 'Don't talk to me about it, it's like saying to me that a truck will run over me!'

Max says:

Jesus

Max says:

that's terrible

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

And he had lots of support from the commoners in Sderot (the city by Gaza that keeps on constantly getting bombed by missiles from Gaza), the religious Jews, other groups...

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Had he not got into severe financial problems over here, he might've become the PM.

Max says:

That's fwightening.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

The higher society Jews (basically the European Jews) aren't as extreme as him or the commoners, but they do share some of his opinions.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

Most Israelis don't recognise atheism, agnosticism, &c. as religious identities. For them, if you don't do a proper conversion, you belong to the religion of your ancestors.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

And even then, if you're considered Jewish according to the Halakha, quite a few of them won't recognise you as a Christian, for instance, even if you convert.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

That's based on a distinction centuries old.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

You see, what keeps the Jews together is their tradition, their heritage, basically like any other people.

Max says:

Hmm

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

The difference is that the Jews' tradition basically overlaps with their religion.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

There's no such thing as purely secular mediaeval literature, for instance. The mediaeval Hebrew poetry always uses some sort of biblical refernce.

An Cat Dubh - Better, but still depressed. says:

*reference

Max says:

hmm

An Cat Dubh says:

Even nowadays, all the proverbs and phrases often quoted are almost all from the Jewish religious texts.

An Cat Dubh says:

Fro Ecclesiastes, from the religious mediaeval poetry...

An Cat Dubh says:

You have Shakespeare to quote, but the Jews? Find me one Jew who quotes Altermann.

An Cat Dubh says:

(Excpet me, I don't really count.)

An Cat Dubh says:

And the religion itself is terrible, for many, many, many reasons.

An Cat Dubh says:

I'm often told, 'But Judaism has beautiful sides too!'

An Cat Dubh says:

To which I reply, 'Really? Like what? Give me a concrete example.'

An Cat Dubh says:

Usually they say things like, 'The prohibition of murder, theft, &c. / The Jewish religion has lots of progressive thinking for its time / Taking care of the convert and the widow, for instance.'

An Cat Dubh says:

To which I reply, 'So do everyone else, this doesn't count / Most of these were taken from Codex Hammurabi / Why do they bring the convert and the widow to such a state in the first place? Besides, the commands of leaving them the leftovers of the field are pointless, because agriculture outside of Israel is prohibited.'

An Cat Dubh says:

This is why I don't want to have a Jewish boyfriend. I'm sick and tired of Israel and the Jews.

Max says:

Are you going to move abroad ASAP?

An Cat Dubh says:

Oh yes!

An Cat Dubh says:

The problem is that ASAP will take a while >>

Max says:

lol

An Cat Dubh says:

I first have to graduate from high school, then go volunteer in the army (my parents say it'll help me, because I'm such a scatterbrain)...

An Cat Dubh says:

Then I'll finally go to Tokyo. But y'know, now that I think of it, England could be good too.

Max says:

I don't want you to die in the army...

An Cat Dubh says:

XD

An Cat Dubh says:

I'm not going to fight in the front!

An Cat Dubh says:

I'm just going to do some translating work for the intelligence :P

An Cat Dubh says:

Which is another issue I should've addressed: the Army.

An Cat Dubh says:

Everyone is requested to go to the army in Israel.

An Cat Dubh says:

But quite a few people evade service in various ways.

An Cat Dubh says:

But the problem is that it comes with a terrible social stigma is one doesn't go.

Max says:

that's ridiculous

An Cat Dubh says:

The ones who don't go are called 'mishtamtim', shirkers.

An Cat Dubh says:

Artists who didn't go to the army have problems performing...

An Cat Dubh says:

People look at them as leeches who don't do their part...

An Cat Dubh says:

It's harder to get a job, they have less opportunities in the universities...

An Cat Dubh says:

It's kinda like what happens in South Korea.

Max says:

It would be my world's worst nightmare to serve in the army.

An Cat Dubh says:

Well, you're lucky :P

An Cat Dubh says:

I've heard being in the IDF bears a terrible stigma in England.

Max says:

what's the IDF?

An Cat Dubh says:

(Israeli Defence Army.) I've heard of some very, very talented mathematics student who found the professor of his dreams in England.

An Cat Dubh says:

They started talking, to get to know one another, and then the professor heard the student was in the IDF.

An Cat Dubh says:

So he said, 'I'm sorry, I won't tutor anyone who was in the IDF. It's against my principles.'

An Cat Dubh says:

There was a big commotion, and the professor said, 'I'm sorry, I'm not going to help him. It's like asking me to support the Burmese regime.'

An Cat Dubh says:

Now, as much as I abhor Israel, I'm sick and tired of people condemning the IDF like that and looking at the Palestinians as martyrs.

An Cat Dubh says:

Quite frankly, the Palestinians brought their situation upon themselves.

Max says:

You're talking too much.

An Cat Dubh says:

(Most of this conversation's going to my blog :P)

An Cat Dubh says:

But I'm sorry if I rambled too much...