May 27th, 2008
I wasn't excited at all about doing this tsedakah (the Hebrew word for a Jewish obligation to perform community service/to give back to the community) project-- you know how I feel about Community Service. But this project was amazing. We were chillin' with Israeli Ethiopian kids who are in a special program to help them learn English. This ia very poor city, mixed Ethiopian Jewish and Arab. Even the way Koren, who's hella knowledgable and open-minded, talks about poor areas bothers me. There's pity and condescension in his voice (although I don't know if he's aware of it).
Last night Erica and I almost got into it with a few other people because we were all talking about the Arab kids on the rafting excursion down the Jordan River who kept splashing us with water. I said I could understand why they did it, and I wasn't too offended. One little kid (well, not so little. Probably eleven or twelve years old) looked at the man who was with them who told them to stop splashing us. The boy spoke in Arabic to the chaperone, saying something that included the word "taglit" (the Hebrew word for Gift/Enlightenment that is used interchangably with the English word "birthright"). From the expression on his face, I'm almost positive he said, "But they're Taglit." I really have no qualms with those kids. If I were them, I'd splash me too. One boy was hella mugging us, so I just said hi and he looked really surprised and said, "Hi? What's your name?" But for the most part we were met with a lot of hostility and I understand it. Most people didn't at all.
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