a++ would smuggle into space again

coffeeandink made an amazing post the other day that I want to shamelessly rehash. The post is titled Religion!=Christianity, which is a reasonable summation of half of her points, but it leaves out her fucking spot-on discussion of the ramifications of the very real hierarchy of religion in ~the West~. (I hate that word too, I'm sorry, but I can't think of another word that's not tautological.)

This is kyriarchy, right here. Christianity is supreme because of colonialism; Jews are given a pass because we're perceived as wealthy and white. (In my own case, because I am. But that's another privilege on top of the ones I already get from being Jewish instead of any other minority religion.) Needless to say, Ashkenazi Jews are more likely to be wealthy and white and so have more acceptability in mainstream culture, and of that subset German Jews -- half my family heritage and the ones I know the family stories of -- were the most acceptable for ages because of a relentless campaign of assimilation on our parts, though within America the point is muddied and I'm sure there are complications elsewhere and elsewhen that I don't know about. A lot of the reason polytheistic religions are treated as just silly, I would guess, is because they were the target of missionary movements, because they were the colonized and not the colonizer. A lot of the reason Islam is racialized in countries that don't have the deep-seated Crusader fear of the Turk, I would guess, is that we have issues with admitting that there's another major world religion that isn't colonized; if they're not the misguided heathen, they must be the implacable Other.

Someone in a post about good_ficday suggested -- for real -- that Western countries are not Christian. I am not going to speak to the experience of those in other countries, but ha ha, I kind of went off the handle thinking about this one. The reason that my religion is even a little bit respected is because this is a Christian country, and it's in the best interest of the Christian majority to tolerate Judaism, for now, because it fits very neatly into the majority categories.

I don't need to get into how deep-seated my paranoia of toleration in the grand tradition of Western Europe is? Like, I think the reasons are pretty obvious? A week ago we had our Holocaust unit in my history major seminar and the Jewish professor decided that we should also watch a documentary that was coming to campus at around the same time. It was about Jews living in Germany, specifically survivors who'd returned after the camps. It was kind of harrowing and I cried a lot, but that's actually not my point, because, you know, the Holocaust, it's bad I guess, old news. What was new news for me was the speaker who I immediately found untrustworthy -- I felt so vindicated when he started to talk and I disagreed with him -- and then I realized why I found him untrustworthy. It's because he "looked Jewish." He had curly hair and features that centered around his nose and small eyes, i. e., he looked like ME AND ALL MY RELATIVES.

And I genuinely want to hear it if people from Western Europe or Australia feel that way about being a practicing Christian in a predominantly atheist country, that they're so devalued that even to themselves they are a bogeyman. But I can fucking tell you right now that that is not how it works in the United States of America in my experience or the experience of anyone I know, particularly for those who belong to the acceptable Protestant sects. And I will flip my lid if one more person tries to tell me that it is.

newredshoes wrote an amazing post about being a Jew corrected: being a diasporic Jew, particularly in America. I listen when y'all talk, Roga & Marina, I promise! Occasionally! corrected again: her experience of being a Jew, which I relate to a lot and what this does, and doesn't, entail, and you should definitely read it.

~

So, I have a cold or the flu, or something. And I was supposed to drive home yesterday, but I couldn't, because, see aforementioned cold, so I thought blessing in disguise, maybe I'll actually get some work done instead, but instead I've just kind of miserably pottered around the house for two days, and now my tongue is numb and I can't concentrate, and instead of being at home where my mother could make me warm foods, I am shuttling between the library and my filthy apartment wishing for death.

This is a personal essay I have been trying to write for a very, very long time. It isn't sparked by one thing in particular, but it comes in response to, and accord with, things I've read by chopchica and miriam_heddy and roga and dafnap and abyssinia4077 and xiphias and kita0610 and ... yeah.

I'm not speaking for all Jews here, and I'm not speaking for those listed above, but I am also not just speaking for myself.

“The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief-call it what you will-than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.”

-- A. A. Milne

( it's not called the old testament )

very small eta: Some comments have been screened or frozen. all such comments were done so at the request of the individual commenters, and not because of any abuse of my journal's policies or something!

There are now six pages of comments and I'm teary just thinking about that; I'm trying to work through them and give you guys the responses you deserve. If it takes a while, I'm really sorry.

SALERIO: And even there, [Antonio's] eye being big with tears,
Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
And with affection wondrous sensible
He wrung Bassanio’s hand; and so they parted.

SALANIO: I think he only loves the world for him.

Or to quote my high school Shakespeare teacher, "Oh yeah, the boy I have a crush on is discovering the love of a woman, and I'm going to be left alone and poor. I don't know why I'm so sad!"

SHYLOCK: Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,
Thou but offend’st thy lungs to speak so loud:
Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall
To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.

It's hard to tell how sweet the portrayal of Shylock is until you've read Marlowe's Jew of Malta, which is one of the most vicious caricatures of a Jew I've encountered in fiction. It's very startling (and to be honest, mostly funny; the Jews had been expelled from England like the snakes from Ireland in the 1200s and neither Marlowe nor Shakespeare had likely ever met a Jew. It has the same relationship to actual Jews as Dinosaur Comics does to actual dinosaurs.) I don't know. There's very little question in my mind that, put in Shylock's situation, I would probably do just what he did. Does that make him a hero? No. Does that make him significantly more sympathetic than, say, Iago or Lady Macbeth? To me, yes.

I'm home from Montana, and it's ibarw. I have a couple of posts lined up, but, tomorrow, tomorrow.

So, I read Farthing, by Jo Walton. Then I wrote a novel about it?

1. This book is awesome. Oh, sure, I could give you a sophisticated critique of it, and I -- uh -- kind of did vomit all over the update box with words, not all of which are necessary. This point is the most important! Everyone should read it. I'm not going to tell you that Walton's the next Faulkner, but she's immensely lucid and the book is neither Turtledove-ish lame-ass "oh but in this alternate future everything is similar except for the two things I have changed, which I will continue to hammer you with repeatedly," nor science fiction in any real sense. It's just literary.

( blah blah blah READ THIS BOOK blah blah )

2. ( the caveats, which are themselves triggery )

3. This novel is for everyone who has ever studied
any monstrosity of history, with the serene satisfaction of
being horrified while knowing exactly what was going to happen,
rather like studying a dragon anatomized upon a table,
and then turning around to find the dragon’s present-day
relations standing close by, alive and ready to bite.

If you don't have that serene satisfaction -- as a Jewish reader I've always been clear not only that it could happen again, but that it could happen again, in my lifetime, to me -- you may find parts of this book bizarre in their insistence that "It Could Happen Here," and unnecessary, and undirected at you, the reader, since you've been eyeing the present-day relations your whole life and wondering why, exactly, you'd slant-quote Eliot the notorious antiSemite in the dedication of a book about the Jewish Question, hmm? At least she didn't say etherized measuring their teeth, just in case.

PS: My little brother's started a blog. God save us all.

THIS IS THE BEST POST EVER. Now I want a "Judaism is my other fandom" icon.

In closely related news, there is a man sitting next to me with a beard previously seen only on the homeless and the 1800s. We're talking well beyond Captain Ahab, here. We're talking he's trying to eat his yogurt and it's this whole elaborate dance so that he misses the six inches of hair. And he's clearly my age. I want to go over to him and tell him just how much he is my hero, but I am afraid that the beard will eat me.

Last night I dreamt that I was in a trial during which there were various ... um ... genre-swapping vignettes, but my favorite was the bit with the pair of nineteenth-century detectives who were banging. It was like Holmes and Watson meets Wooster and Jeeves. There was even an intense discussion over how best to make a perfect eggy.

An observation:

Here are some typical gospel lyrics.

--The Jordan River is chilly and wide...
--Deep river, my home is over Jordan...
--Jordan river is chilly and cold...

This? Is a terrible metaphor for the human condition, because the Jordan River is neither chilly nor wide. It really tells you things about the Israelis that they consider it a 'river.' In fact this is my movement to call it, henceforth, the Jordan Trickle. I have seen bigger 'rivers' running through Golden Gate Park after a heavy rain. It is also about four feet deep in some spots, as I learned when the raft went aground in the middle of the river.

As for the chilly part, stop whining, you live in a desert. By the time you get to the Jordan you're practically begging for something, anything, to cool you down. Hypothermia begins to sound like barrels of happy fun. I am sure those Israelites were going, "OH, THANK GOD, IT'S A TINY CREEK WITH WARM WATER IN IT, ANYTHING BUT THE DESERT AGAIN."

False advertising, man.

On the other hand, the Red Sea is absurdly huge, so I guess it evens out.

(eta: yes, yes, this is all in facetiousness, i am aware of the true origin of the songs, etc. *grins and flees back into her hermitage*)

There's a contest announced for my age group and my local area about the Holocaust--"essays, stories, poems" on what the lessons of the Holocaust teach us about today. All seven or so prizes are iPods, of various levels of coolness. I am SO entering.

I've done a poem already, but I'm thinking of writing an essay as well, and deciding which I like better. It's very, very easy at this point. I drew up a list, once, of all the topics that have been touched on every year since seventh grade or earlier for each of my classes. For English and History, it's World War Two--especially the Holocaust. (For math, it's goddamned bloody damned stupid exponents. WE GET THE EXPONENT LAWS BY NOW. IT'S OK. And for science, it's the contents of a cell. I know how to spell mitochondria in my sleep, and deoxyribonucleic acid is a BREEZE.)

This time this April, I may have an IPOD. *brags, counts chickens well before they are hatched*

Not...actually a post about today, mostly. Today my school was out, actually. Very fun.

But, um, Wednesday was much more interesting. We're reading, as has been previously referred to, MAUS in English class right now. Many stupid people in English class, and many...interesting ones.

Some episodes:

( In Which Nextian's English Class Is Of Itself Overanalyzed. )

I went to get a cup of hot chocolate before I even realized what I was doing. God, it's so hard to kick this habit. Sometimes I feel like if I just took one cup, it would all be made better, but I know I couldn't stop myself--that next would come the candy bars, and the ice cream, and then even the raw cocoa powder. I mixed some dirt with hot water, but it wasn't the same. *sigh* Nothing is the same.

There were only two supervillians in the first two periods, so today hasn't been that tough yet. But I'm feeling another schizophrenic episode coming on, so I'm a little apprehensive. Will it be Mad Maude, or George P. Quillbury, or possible even Angelica? Not Angelica, I hope--last time she redecorated my room entirely in pink, and it took me several months to expunge the last traces of paint from the ceiling.

LJ Rabbit Hole Day

[On another, unrelated note, which I feel like should be in a separate post, but won't, because if I can't mix my Jewish heritage with my silliness, then the Nazis have won--

Today is the 60th anniversary of Auschwitz' liberation.

I'm going to wait on the reflective posts until Yom Hashoah, in March/April. But today, I'm kind of fiercely glad and desperately afraid of and for my people.

So. That bulletin.]