Thank you for posting your crunchy thoughts on this.
I'm sort of swimming inside my own head right now, after reading your words and the words of those to whom you linked; there they were, a lot of my own thoughts, written by others with a reluctant hand, and I keep thinking "YES, yes, that's it exactly."
Marrying a Christian (by both upbringing and surname) and working for the nuns has pushed me back into my "passing" behavior far further than I'd even realized. I used to have to do it growing up -- I was routinely beaten on the school yard every Easter, and charmingly renamed "Christ Killer" throughout -- being part of such a small minority there made "passing" a necessary evil whenever possible.
When I moved to the Chicago area, it was like coming to a home I never knew I had. I was of course terribly lonely, having no history here, but the sheer number of Jews and the prevalence of Jewish culture in certain parts of the metro area, and the ability to actually earn money by singing in a synagogue -- these were all awakening experiences for me, and I pulled myself out of that old behavior and felt comfortable for the first time in my life just being myself.
My husband isn't a religious person, and my in-laws are nothing but sweet, and the nuns don't mind that I'm a heathen, but I've found myself burying my Jewishness in an effort to both fit in and move ahead. Because when I was a little "too" Jewish, the boss would constantly make a point of mentioning it in groups, as if to indicate how very welcome and included I was.
I spent seven months looking for a content guy for our website, and when I finally found just the right person, he turned out to be Jewish. Like, New York, worked for the national synagogue organization Jewish. And let me tell you, I was PARANOID. Paranoid that all my colleagues would mutter behind my back about how we only hire our own kind, and how I was trying to subvert the Catholic mission or whatever, despite the fact that my boss had met with at least a dozen prior candidates and agreed that they weren't suitable. I'm still paranoid about it. And when this guy is openly, unabashedly, proudly Jewish, it shames the living hell out of me.
Truly, I don't know how to behave anymore. I stay quiet, and I swallow my annoyance at MONTHS of enforced Christmas and Easter everywhere I go, and I am forced to listen ad nauseam to right-wing lunatics who manage to get on the public airwaves and complain that my mere trickle of a minority is attempting to DESTROY CHRISTIANITY through our powerful media empire and by trying to outlaw Christmas, and I get dizzy and lost in all of it.
I don't like Secret Santa, but I do it if everybody else is, and I don't complain about it. I don't want to listen to Christmas carols, thanks. Sang a ton of them in school, and I'm good, really. But they play and I deal with it. When Bush was inaugurated in 2001, he was sworn in after a blessing "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," and BOOM, I was completely and utterly disenfranchised from my own government. Christian Dominionism is growing, and it scares the living shit out of me.
Gah. I have no idea how to think about this. But thank you for bringing it up. I too felt like I had nothing useful to contribute to IBARW, but felt concern about anti-semitism (particularly online, which is both common and horrifyingly blunt) poking at the inside of my brain.
I've been pondering a new fic series featuring an openly Jewish protagonist, but I've been resisting; partly because I was afraid of the cries of "Mary Sue!", but also because i know how crazy fandom can get about religion. I still want to write it, but I think I have to immunize myself against the lunacy before I try. I suppose it helps that I'm utterly obscure and nobody will read it anyway. ;-)
This is definitely a kick in the tuches that I needed. Thank you for bringing up the subject, and thank you for the very thought-provoking links.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-09-09 10:30 pm (UTC)I'm sort of swimming inside my own head right now, after reading your words and the words of those to whom you linked; there they were, a lot of my own thoughts, written by others with a reluctant hand, and I keep thinking "YES, yes, that's it exactly."
Marrying a Christian (by both upbringing and surname) and working for the nuns has pushed me back into my "passing" behavior far further than I'd even realized. I used to have to do it growing up -- I was routinely beaten on the school yard every Easter, and charmingly renamed "Christ Killer" throughout -- being part of such a small minority there made "passing" a necessary evil whenever possible.
When I moved to the Chicago area, it was like coming to a home I never knew I had. I was of course terribly lonely, having no history here, but the sheer number of Jews and the prevalence of Jewish culture in certain parts of the metro area, and the ability to actually earn money by singing in a synagogue -- these were all awakening experiences for me, and I pulled myself out of that old behavior and felt comfortable for the first time in my life just being myself.
My husband isn't a religious person, and my in-laws are nothing but sweet, and the nuns don't mind that I'm a heathen, but I've found myself burying my Jewishness in an effort to both fit in and move ahead. Because when I was a little "too" Jewish, the boss would constantly make a point of mentioning it in groups, as if to indicate how very welcome and included I was.
I spent seven months looking for a content guy for our website, and when I finally found just the right person, he turned out to be Jewish. Like, New York, worked for the national synagogue organization Jewish. And let me tell you, I was PARANOID. Paranoid that all my colleagues would mutter behind my back about how we only hire our own kind, and how I was trying to subvert the Catholic mission or whatever, despite the fact that my boss had met with at least a dozen prior candidates and agreed that they weren't suitable. I'm still paranoid about it. And when this guy is openly, unabashedly, proudly Jewish, it shames the living hell out of me.
Truly, I don't know how to behave anymore. I stay quiet, and I swallow my annoyance at MONTHS of enforced Christmas and Easter everywhere I go, and I am forced to listen ad nauseam to right-wing lunatics who manage to get on the public airwaves and complain that my mere trickle of a minority is attempting to DESTROY CHRISTIANITY through our powerful media empire and by trying to outlaw Christmas, and I get dizzy and lost in all of it.
I don't like Secret Santa, but I do it if everybody else is, and I don't complain about it. I don't want to listen to Christmas carols, thanks. Sang a ton of them in school, and I'm good, really. But they play and I deal with it. When Bush was inaugurated in 2001, he was sworn in after a blessing "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," and BOOM, I was completely and utterly disenfranchised from my own government. Christian Dominionism is growing, and it scares the living shit out of me.
Gah. I have no idea how to think about this. But thank you for bringing it up. I too felt like I had nothing useful to contribute to IBARW, but felt concern about anti-semitism (particularly online, which is both common and horrifyingly blunt) poking at the inside of my brain.
I've been pondering a new fic series featuring an openly Jewish protagonist, but I've been resisting; partly because I was afraid of the cries of "Mary Sue!", but also because i know how crazy fandom can get about religion. I still want to write it, but I think I have to immunize myself against the lunacy before I try. I suppose it helps that I'm utterly obscure and nobody will read it anyway. ;-)
This is definitely a kick in the tuches that I needed. Thank you for bringing up the subject, and thank you for the very thought-provoking links.