Addictions

[axebahia]

I had the same thought!

[trilingual]

Of course we all would prefer to choose our own interests. Sometimes the world has a way of intruding, though, as 6,000,000 people discovered in the 1940s.

 

I don't mean to involve you in the Auntie S wars if you don't want to be (and there's no reason you have to be) but you shouldn't be so naïve as to believe you can control how other people identify you. Unfortunately, people label other people all the time, without their permission! An awful lot of people who considered themselves secular and German discovered that the Nazis considered them something quite different when the Nuremberg Laws were proclaimed. Iraqis and Egyptians and Iranians and Libyans whose families had lived in those countries since the days of the Babylonian exile and the Roman Empire and considered themselves nothing else suddenly found themselves labelled "Jews" and forced to flee their native lands in 1948 by the folks Auntie S shills for. If you had been living in Germany in the '30s, or the Arab world in the late '40s, you'd realize the power of other people's labeling. We're fortunate not to have had to deal much with that in the U.S. since WWII, but even the U.S. doesn't have a completely clean record in this regard. Until at least the '50s there were residential areas and hotels from which Jews were excluded.

 

The point of this isn't to make you paranoid (I'm certainly not) but being born Jewish is one of the cards you get handed in life, like being born American and Caucasian and gay, and it's a good idea to figure out what that means and how it fits with the rest of who you are. Especially because a lot of freight is connected with being Jewish.

 

It took me years to integrate all of my own different facets and identities, but I'm glad I made the effort, because it helped resolve a lot of conflicts in my own life. At this point I'm a pretty happy American/Jewish/Gay/Hispanic person, because I've learned how to make all of those pieces of my who I am fit together. Try it yourself. You'll probably like the result!

[Rick Munroe]

>being born Jewish is one of the cards you get handed

>in life, like being born American and Caucasian and gay, and

>it's a good idea to figure out what that means and how it fits

>with the rest of who you are.

 

Oh, OK. I'll start on that right away. Thanks.

 

>It took me years to integrate all of my own different facets

>and identities, but I'm glad I made the effort, because it

>helped resolve a lot of conflicts in my own life. At this

>point I'm a pretty happy American/Jewish/Gay/Hispanic person,

>because I've learned how to make all of those pieces of my who

>I am fit together. Try it yourself. You'll probably like the

>result!

 

That's very nice for you. I don't have any conflicts in my life that need to be resolved. But thanks for sharing.

[btmstudnyc]

Donnie's addiction

 

Donnie...just once....Play along...I would love to truly know what your addiction might be...and what you would replace it with.

 

DO TELL.

 

Maybe, you'd actually become human to some of us.

Unless of course...you ARE WONDER WOMAN?

 

If it dont fit, force it

[email protected]

[trilingual]

>That's very nice for you. I don't have any conflicts in my

>life that need to be resolved. But thanks for sharing.

 

Glad to hear you don't have any conflicts. Who needs them? Of course, I keep forgetting you're from NY, where being Jewish is about as natural as breathing, so maybe it doesn't seem like a big deal. I grew up in places where Jews are a rather exotic species, so there were issues. Along the way, I realized I needed to figure out where being Jewish fit among the other facets of my own identity. Especially because there seemed to be an inherent contradiction between being Jewish and being gay. (It probably makes a difference that I was trying to deal with those issues thirty years ago, or more, when answers weren't so obvious.) Once I was able to reconcile those seeming contradictions, I became a lot happier person. If they've never been an issue for you, more power to you!

[chrismac]

Tri - I can understand you have deep-rooted emotions on the subject of anti-semitism, as is your right. But for your own sake I'd like to offer gently that you could let it go here. If a real threat shows up, we can deal with it then. Until that should arise, no hatred displayed against any individual or group has any power here, unless we give it power. No decent person here would give anyone truly filled with hate and malice towards a whole race/religion/ethnicity/nationality any real thought. They'll be dismissed. If I've learned anything on this board, I've learned that. ;-)

 

ANYWAY - my real addiction would be Winchell's donuts. I could eat them until I pass out. And start over again once I regained consciousness. In this regard, Homer Simpson and I are soulmates.

[Rick Munroe]

>Of course, I keep forgetting you're from NY, where being

>Jewish is about as natural as breathing, so maybe it doesn't

>seem like a big deal.

 

>there seemed to be an inherent contradiction between being Jewish

>and being gay.... If they've never been an issue for you, more >power to you!

 

Well, again, like I said, it doesn't seem like a big deal and it's never been an issue for me because I have never considered myself Jewish (regardless of what you or others might want to believe). I've never celebrated Jewish holidays and I've never gone to a temple and I've never worn a beanie (OK, I think maybe once when I was a kid at someone's funeral). My ancestors were Jewish but that is not how I was raised. My father's parents renounced God and Judaism before I was born, and my maternal grandmother always insisted that she must have been adopted ("I can't be Jewish; I'm too pretty"). Anyway, I don't follow or agree with any organized religion. So that's that.