Kwanza for Israel
July 3, 2008 Israel, Liberal Judaism
So the Ethiopian holiday of Sigd has been adopted by Israel as a national holiday, which is the right thing to do. However, call me insensitive, but while I respect Israel giving the Ethiopian community its propers, I am less impressed with liberal American-Ashkenazi Jews tripping over themselves to personally embrace this holiday.
It kind of reminds me of a UWS friend of mine. She was getting married, and the king of the West Side Jew hippies asked her, “Why don’t you have a Moroccan wedding?” She stared at him blankly and answered, “Because we are European Ashkenazi Jews.”
She is a true Leftist, but even Leftists sometimes get tired of the pandering liberal hippy bullshit.
I’ll wish an Ethiopian Jew “Happy Sigd.” But to an Ashkenazi Jew, I will probably be more like, “Get that fucking hippy bullshit out of my face.”
33 comments
I have absolutely no qualms about anything you said in this post. Remarkable.
Urgh, get off my couscous.
When are the next elections for king of the West Side Jew hippies?
BZ,
This position isn’t elected….it’s determined by consensus! And WADR, you are too erudite to seriously qualify. The UWS Jew-hippy king is going to be smart, but not that smart.
Sorry, man.
The Litvak distaste for anything hippy is a psychological neurosis arising from their inability to maintain sufficient stamina to engage in tantric sex. This is not a problem for Polish Maskilim (although it does effect the grammer and speeling of some of mine comments).
i made an independence day post on my blog.
Hey Kvetcher,
I’m not embracing it because I’m a liberal do-gooder (I am, and proud of it), but because I’m 1. always up for a fun holiday, and this one sounds fun (dancing and food, where do I sign up – are you just a boring old coot or what? Don’t you like to dance?) 2. because there’s no real reason why the Ashkenazim should get to order the world for everyone else all the time, and 3. it’s a real holy day, observed for real reasons, and because it fits neatly into the cycle of the year (unlike, purely for example purposes…Yom Hashoah, which was levered in at an inappropriate time, and not for the best of reasons. Not to get off topic) as was pointed out in several of the articles, it mirrors the spring holiday of the omer ending in Shavuot and in fact its timing has basis in the possible original intentions of the calendar cycle.
P.S. I’m afraid I’m not much of a hippie myself….
KRG,
Everything you said holds water, except for this:
“because there’s no real reason why the Ashkenazim should get to order the world for everyone else all the time”
Though that is true, DK said that he has no problem with it being an official holiday in Israel- he just doesn’t think it necessary for Ashkenazim to appropriate it.
It’s all a matter of how you define culture, isn’t it? While I’m cerrtainly not into all this hippie pseudo-whatever, fifty years ago people considered it way off the beaten path to eat Italian, Greek, Turkish or Spanish food. By now they’ve become nutritional staples in most German households.
Particularly Ashkenazi Judaism cannot claim to represent cultural purity; a lot of its customs – which also include holidays – where either copied or heavily influenced by its surounding environments. The difference between the case of that holiday adopted by American Jews and Jews adopting customs of their respective surroundings is that in the first case we’re safe to assume that UWS hipsters are not surrounded by Ethiopian Jews 24/7. And that is comparable to how Central Europeans adopted Mediterranean cuisine – through peripheral contact either during holidays or ethnic minorities in their neighbourhoods and in many cases just through “recommdendation”.
“Culture” is derived from Latin “colere” which means “to inhabit / to build / to groom”. If UWS, Willi & Park Slope hipsters manage to “groom” that holiday in order to maintain it, they might incorporate it into their culture and at one point assume it to be original part of their culture. Seeing how many of them tend to run after the latest fad though, IMHO, we won’t hear much about that holiday anymore in a couple of years.
Maybe in the meantime people will finally start reading exegesis commentaries to realize there’s no “lost tribe” – neither in Africa, nor India, nor Ireland or wherever people claim to be part of it. Genetic and cultural ties were formed through trade and slavery.
Sarah,
Exactly. I’m proud that Ethiopians are part of our people in exactly the same way that Jews from Germany or Poland are. Thus, there’s no reason to reject their holiday. I’m in favor of adopting Sigd because it’s like other holidays that we have developed through the years … and its defining pieces are syntonic with those of our other holiday cycle – in fact, in a way that many other holidays aren’t. There’s nothing wrong with Jews celebrating Maimuna (in or out of Israel) because it’s a great way to mark the end of Pesach which currently doesn’t have a home-based ritual marker – and why not? It’s great to have these things. And why not celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut in the US or Israel with a barbeque? If the Ethiopians have a holiday that is defensible from a religious point of view, then we should adopt it.
If it doesn’t fit, it will get dropped eventually, as did the fast day for the genocide at York.
I agree that we don’t want to appropriate hoidays (I grind my teeth when Christians celebrate Passover as a Christian holiday, for example) but I don’t believe this meets the criteria: for one thing, Ethiopian Jews and non-Ethiopian Jews are the same people. As long as we don’t go around telling them either that they need to do it they way we want them to, or that it’s a bad holiday because the Ashkenazim didn’t invent it, then there isn’t a problem
Let’s just skip to the practical matters: will I have to rearrange/ re-kasher my kitchen, shop for new food/ clothes/ utensils, buy gifts in sets of 8, sell my pets to a non-Jew, buy Lact-aid in bulk, eat my meals in a flimsy shack in full view of curious neighbors, apply for an open bonfire permit, plant trees in the cold, get drunk and eat prune cookies (but only if I’m verrrry drunk…), sit on the floor in the dark with a candle while singing sad songs about missing a Temple that I’m ambivalent (on a good day) about rebuilding, learn new songs well enough to be able to sing them while (again) drunk and dancing? If the answer is no, I see this new holiday as a vast improvement over the old ones.
Judi,
Wow. Is that really how you see all of the chagim? I’ve been told recently that I’m cynical, but I think you’d have to be a pro at it to come up with all of that. What about all the joy, and if not joy than meaningful existential fodder? Were you just being tongue-in-cheek, or do you actually feel this way?
Actually, I like the chagim. It’s the mishegaas I could do without. As for cynicism, I prefer to call it “facetiousness”; it causes less trouble in certain circles. And the answer to your last question is yes, and, um… yeah.
iAnd why not celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut in the US or Israel with a barbeque?
Though I wish Israel well, I don’t celebrate specifically Israeli holidays.
I’m proud that Ethiopians are part of our people in exactly the same way that Jews from Germany or Poland are.
That’s nice, but it is hardly “exactly the same” relationship. For instance, my family was a part of Ashkenazi history, and 40% of Ashkenazim descend from one of four women. You can tell me you don’t care about that, but it does still refute this statement.
There’s nothing wrong with Jews celebrating Maimuna (in or out of Israel) because it’s a great way to mark the end of Pesach which currently doesn’t have a home-based ritual marker – and why not?
No — that’s the wrong question — or rather, an incomplete question — for requesting ritual observance. The question is also “why?” But in terms of why not, Pesach is already too long as is. Enough already. Too much holiday. And because….I’m not Moroccan. That holiday is not my heritage, not part of my minhag within the paradigm of “I’m not looking for new holidays.”
Ethiopian Jews and non-Ethiopian Jews are the same people.
Even if I grant that (and it’s a more complicated issue than you are allowing for) it doesn’t mean we can’t have diversity in terms of custom and holidays.
DK, I’d wager a guess that you’re not big on St. Patrick’s Day, either.
“Actually, I like the chagim. It’s the mishegaas I could do without.”
What do you mean by the mishegaas? Do you mean the ritual aspects of observing these holidays? Take away those, and there isn’t much left but an excused day off.
This is getting kind of silly, having to justify kvetching on a site called “The Kvetcher”…
HS
slightly off topic, last time someone asked me how were the holidays, my answer was I OD’d on family.
Wtf is meaningful existential fodder?
Judi, I liked your response actually. I come from a huge family, and holidays, religious as well as secular ones, often come with an extraordinary workload and expectations that are just plain kitsch. There’s nothing meaningful to that kitsch; it’s customary sentimentality, not rite. That kitsch puts myths over beliefs. Now, everybody’s free to enjoy that kitsch, but as far as I’m concerned, I don’t feel it to be meaningful in any way. From an academic point of view, I find the variants of, influences on, and impacts by that kitsch interesting though.
Judi,
Point well taken.
“Wtf is meaningful existential fodder?”
Eh. It was my bullshit recent college grad throw-back to Sartre’s premise that even bad, uncomfortable, horrible moments are worth living through for the sake of living life with intensity. Or something. I’m sure they didn’t teach you the existentialist philosophers in cheder, and in Sartre’s case, they may well be justified.
Too bad the asshole is dead, there are all sorts of things I would wish him to experience, intensely.
I suppose it takes a frenchman to say something as stupid as that.
Woops! Oh no Mo, I’ve misled you terribly! I was thinking of Albert Camus who wrote about the crap I mentioned above. Sartre was an entirely different crappy existentialist.
And, to Sartre’s credit, he did fight those bastard Germans (nothing directed at you, Froylein) and was a P.O.W. for a few years. Sorry for misleading you!
Biography
Name: Albert Camus
Birth Date: November 7, 1913
Death Date: January 4, 1960
Place of Birth: Mondovi, Algeria
Place of Death: Paris, France
Nationality: French
still a frenchman
If we nuked the place would they be french fries?
“Jewish Kwanzaa”?!?!! Wow… no racism there, folks. Setting aside the fact that Kwanzaa is a constructed celebration in the 1960s that not even most Black Americans celebrate, and that Sigd is an age-old practice of the Beta Israel… Is this not a totally apt and SOO NOT racist comparison?
Look, NO ONE is “looking out for holidays to celebrate”. If they did, they might as well have picked Christmas. The move by the Israeli government is simply recognizing Sigd as part of the rich Jewish tapestry.
“of my heritage”? You tell me that there have been NO cultural exchanges during the Ashkenazim’s time in the Old Country? Fish before meat? Nusach Sefard? The resemblance of Klezmer to Slavic and Romanian music? Yekker chazzanus? How come cultural exchange is kosher in Europe of the 1800s, but not in Israel and America of today?
As for me, I’m not too keen on fasting for a half-day and climbing hilltops, but if this means a day off, Idan Raichel*, and injera and (talmudically kosher) doro wat, I’m all for it.
*Yeah, I realize he’s not Ethiopian, but he does Ethio music better than most Ethiopians can!
B.BarNavi,
You wrote,
“If they did, they might as well have picked Christmas.”
Well…anything but Chanukah.
You tell me that there have been NO cultural exchanges during the Ashkenazim’s time in the Old Country?
Where did I say that?
As for me, I’m not too keen on fasting for a half-day and climbing hilltops, but if this means a day off, Idan Raichel*, and injera and (talmudically kosher) doro wat, I’m all for it.
So in other words, you support this holiday because you lack a proper work ethic.
Mohammed – You missed including Camus’ religion in you bio. (Was he born a Sikh?).
In your comment you stated – ‘if we nuked the place’- . Who is this ‘we’? – Your friends in Iran? .
“Who is this ‘we’? – Your friends in Iran? .”
HAHAHAHAHA
“I know that the great tragedies of history often fascinate men with approaching horror. Paralyzed, they cannot make up their minds to do anything but wait. So they wait, and one day the Gorgon devours them. But I should like to convince you that the spell can be broken, that there is only an illusion of impotence, that strength of heart, intelligence, and courage are enough to stop fate and sometimes reverse it. One has merely to will this, not blindly, but with a firm and reasoned will.
People are too readily resigned to fatality. They are too ready to believe that, after all, nothing but bloodshed makes history progress and that the stronger always progresses at the expense of the weaker. Such fatality exists perhaps. But man’s task is not to accept it or to bow to its laws. If he had accepted it in the earliest ages, we should still be living in prehistoric times. The task of men of culture and faith, in any case, is not to desert historical struggles nor to serve the cruel and inhuman elements in those struggles. It is rather to remain what they are, to help man against what is oppressing him, to favor freedom against the fatalities that close in upon it.
That is the condition under which history really progresses, innovates—in a word, creates. In everything else it repeats itself, like a bleeding mouth that merely vomits forth a wild stammering. Today we are at the stage of stammering, and yet the broadest perspectives are opening up for our century. We are at the stage of a duel with daggers, or almost, while the world is progressing at the speed of supersonic planes. The same day that our newspapers print the dreadful story of our provincial squabbles, they announce the[foundation of the European Atomic Energy Community (which together with the European Economic Community – was a political pillar on which the European Union would later be built). Tomorrow, if only Europe can come to an internal agreement, floods of riches will cover the continent and, overflowing even to us, will make our problems out of date and our hatreds null and void.
For that still unimaginable but not so distant future we must organize and stand together. The absurd and heart-breaking aspect of the tragedy we are living through comes out in the fact that, in order someday to reach those world-wide perspectives, we must now gather together in paltry fashion to beg merely, without making any other claims yet, that on a single spot of the globe a handful of innocent victims be spared. But since that is our task, however obscure and ungrateful it may be, we must tackle it decisively in order to deserve living someday as free men—in other words, as men who refuse either to practice or to suffer terror.”
Albert Camus – Algiers, February 1956)
HalfSours, no offence taken. I’m well-aware that a large part of Germany’s society supported – either actively or passively – a system that intentionally brought endless grief on tens of millions of people. And since my family is mixed, I’m also well-aware that there must have been some active or passive supporter of NS-ideology and the NS-state. Actually, the hubby of my step-grandmother’s sister was member of the SS. Oh, and I called that sister something which would loosely translate as “Nazi-whore” at my step-grandmother’s last b’day party after she’d started tirades directed against Jews and Turkish people. And I left the party; half of my family followed suit. I hardly ever get angry or even furious, but that time I did.
We- Americans.
Leave a Comment