Public Transit in America

You might not know it, but if you are Jewish and you are riding the same bus or L car that I am, I know it. Maybe it's your nose, you're northface, or even the color of your hair... I know you're Jewish. And, I suppose that you know that I am Jewish too. I do not come up short in the nose department. But, am I just extra perceptive? Can the non-Jews among us tell? Does this matter at all?

Yes,I use stereotypes about Jews, you use stereotypes about Jews, and everybody else does too.

I've never been shy to admit that certain popular stereotypes of Jews in the movies and television drive me crazy. Not the Ari Gold character, the shark, that doesn't really bother me. He's a success, he runs things. Its the dude from Beerfest that bothers me. The weak Jew. The nerdy Jew. The one that cannot defend himself. Makes me want to learn martial arts, throw weights around, and watch Inglorious Basterds. I refuse to let that stereotype represent me.

I use that stereotype every time I am on public transit. People see me as that stereotype too. What does this mean about the state of the American Jew? Are we supposed to fight this stereotype? Praise Eric Bana for his role in Munich? Pretend we are really "Israeli's born in the wrong place" so that we can pretend that we would have fought in the Israeli army, pretend that we are warriors, and pretend that we were protecting the Jewish people? You're from the suburbs... get over it. The Israeli's I know cannot fathom why an American Jew would want to run off and join the Israeli army. Why kill yourself when you don't have to? Many of them wouldn't have fought if they didnt have to.

The weak-Jew stereotype used to bother me more. But, I've come to terms with it just being a consequence of being a minority in America, and I understand that now. Perhaps I am losing my chip. But, we cannot rid ourselves of the stereotypes placed on us. It is something that we as American Jews will always have to live with. All minorities have to deal with. But hell, if that stereotype ends up with me playing golf in Boca Raton in 50 years... Ill take it.

Things that Jewish Americans love

Whether it is relevant to this generation or not, American Jews love peaceful resistance. Like 1960's peaceful resistance. A disproportionate amount of Jews accompanied and worked for the civil rights movement, and this is obviously not a coincidence. We can hypothesize that this comes from Jewish liberalism (probably), Jewish values (maybe), or even the relevance of the Holocaust to the 1960's. Whatever the individual's reasons, these were Jewish Americans taking non-violent action to fight for civil rights and against American injustice.
But what does the Jewish American feel about non-violent resistence for the sake of human rights in 2011? We have all seen what happened in Egypt. Protesting for democracy, who's against that? Of course, this revolution of sorts comes back to Israel for the Jewish American. Will Egypt's new, potentially "youthful" regime withhold the most important treaty of Israel's short history? Will the anti-Israel Muslim Brotherhood take over power in egypt? Now it gets tricky. What if they want to fight for their Palestinian neighbors, or what if they would support the Palestinians in peaceful protests of their own?

This feels like a vast generalization. What if Palestinians were able to gain the popular media attention that Egypt has for a peaceful protest? Jewish Americans love non-violent resistance! Would the Jewish American support a Palestinian non-violent cause for human rights? I would think so, but this is exactly where it gets complicated.

(reader can skip to last sentence for the meaning of this paragraph)
The Palestinians would certainly have to give Gilad Shalit back. They would need to have not shot rockets into Israeli territories for a few years. Everything complicates the matter. I would support peaceful resistance by Palestinians if there was a deal for Gilad Shalit and they hadn't shot rockets into Israeli territories for a few years. There would need to have been peace for a few years. But, that hasn't happened, that may never happen.... and it is at times like these that I just want to think about something else.

Open ended questions

It takes a lot for something to bother me enough that I have to look away. You can tell me about human mistreatment at guatanamo and show me the gruesome pictures. I can brush that off. I'll look at the pictures, and I might say: "that's not so good." Wikileaks that state Hillary Clinton was using the CIA to spy on foreign diplomats: "that's not so good." But the Israeli president rapes a woman, and I feel like my integrity has been threatened: "that is terrible". I have to look away, close the article. It's an internal struggle. I cannot take the blame for all human misconduct. A person would go crazy. But I can take the blame for Jewish misconduct?

Certain news about Israel forces me to look away, not out of disgust for the human condition, but out of the "what-in-the-goddamn-hell-am-i-supposed-to-think-about-this" kind of way. Gaza 2010, Flotilla, occupation, and building settlements... things that my moral code may dissaprove of... I have to look away. Maybe Israel was right in its actions. Maybe the media is biased. Maybe. Maybe not. Whatever the case, it leaves the Jewish American with a helpless feeling. I just don't feel like dealing with this right now.

I have known too many Israelis, I have been to Israel too many times, and it means too much to my father. It is a hot button issue (the issue I care about most) that I actively choose not to discuss. I avoid a message thread about Israel on any social media message board like the plague. Would it be too painful to read? Is the internet too ignorant for my high moral standard? Or am I intrinsically too divided in my feelings and opinions?

Does what happens there actually effect me? Is it even worth caring? I have a lot of open ended questions, and this will be the place to discuss them.