An Israeli in America

One of Mrs. Stroock's cousins married an Israeli guy. He's young, he's Millennial, he's hip, he's tattooed; a no-no in Judaism.  

Last night he tried to give us that hand-clasp shoulder bump goodbye the kids like. We nearly dislocated a shoulder reaching up and wrenching his arm down for an actual handshake.  

He's a great guy, actually. The girls love him and enjoyed showing him off to the congregants at the synagogue; their little Israeli....

Anyway he's very interested in American Jewish life. He's not very religious and equates Reform Judaism with Israeli secular life. We pointed out to him that in Israel you don't have to do anything to be Jewish. One is simply Jewish by the act of being Jewish in Israel. In America, as a Jewish professor told us in college, being Jewish requires effort or you'll lose it - and no, watching Seinfeld and going to Kosher deli's doesn't count.

Hence the tremendous effort to see that the Stroocklettes are raised Jewish, Hebrew school, and yesterday's Bot Mitzvah.

On Jewish Privilege

The estimable Steve Sailer writes about the notion of 'Jewish Privilege':

Of course, “white privilege” is a Thing. In contrast, there is no such Thing as “Jewish privilege.” It’s just not a concept that Americans can begin to process in their brains, even when discussing the history of The New Republic under Peretz and Wieseltier.

He writes ironically, of course.

Jewish privilege exits. We know, we see it all the time. We even use it.

Jewish privilege means the rest of the country isn't supposed to notice that an awful lot of Jews seem to be in finance, law and media.

Jewish privilege means there's a Holocaust Museum in Washington, for some reason.

Jewish privilege means being able to posture about said Holocaust, 'It could happen here!' No it Can't, Schlomo.

Jewish privilege means one gets to be ethnically cute, 'Oyyyyy look at how Jewish I am while I get a bagel and schmeeeeerr!'

On a daily basis Jewish privilege means getting to joke about 'the goys'. It means one can crack Christmas jokes. It means gentiles are afraid to wish one a 'Merry Christmas' and even wonder if saying 'Happy Holidays' is OK. It means one can mock the New Testament.

Jewish privilege means being immune from criticism.

Try getting away with that, you goy

Just a reminder...