Jews are Jews are Jews

May 31st, 2008

(My last day of relaxation in Tel Aviv with Erica before we headed to Jerusalem to start our trip to Palestine/the West Bank. I wrote this sitting on a bench, waiting for Erica to exchange money and for the 4 o'clock show of Sex & the City-- which was fabulous and ridiculous. I wrote this with the situation of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, who, in my opinion, are living under a segregated state.)

Jews are Jews are Jews. But the lighter your skin, the more we trust you. Jews are Jews are Jews. But this segregation is natural. Born from a tendancy of like to find like, characterized by a unity and cohesiveness of chosen community rather than forced separation, melanin-based discrimination and economic degradation. This is the homeland. All Jews are welcome, all Jews are blessed, all Jews are protected. But some are welcome only in certain circles, blessed only out of sympathy from afar, protected not by national solidarity but by the tin-roofed projects of Rameleh. Jews are Jews are Jews and I am received, even pulled in by Hebrew-flavored grins. It is not important that I rarely ever go to Shul or that Mexican-Methodist blood pumps its course through my veins. I am American and I am white, and I am wanted. Because Jews are Jews are Jews. It makes me sick because I know Jews are Jews are Jews is a conditional institutionalized mentality, a vehicle of selection for the purity and preservation of a people, but most of all I am sick with shame for the smiles I return, for the arguments I do not catalyze, for the truth I do not address. What does it mean that I feel at peace in a place at war? Israelis are rude and hard on the outside because of the torturous and unpredictable daily reality they live. My rainbows-and-sunshine self could never spend a mandatory year or two in the army. But couldn't I? If I believed in it strong enough. These people believe so wholeheartedly that it both awes and frightens me. They believe to the point of blind acceptance of a racist state because it's all in the name of Israel, of protecting and forwarding the country. Jews are Jews are Jews. Jewish curiosity if famous and traditional, but in this country: Jews are Jews are Jews. And don't ask.