Ideology Ruining a Night

I knew that while I was here I was going to meet someone who had different beliefs than me. So far, I've met a few, but they've been respectful, and that's all that can be asked. I also am fairly close with some of them. But last night someone crossed the line and ruined both a night out and her chances of having friends at Haifa.

To give you a little background info on this girl, she's not a US citizen, a member of the Conservative party in her country, is Orthodox, and very far to the right on the Zionist political scale. Our chances for friendship from the outset were not good.

The first day I was here, I was sitting in the lobby of my building reading Ha'Aretz, which is the liberal paper here in Israel. She asked me why I was reading such liberal propaganda. My response to her was when did optimism become liberal propaganda. After that she went on this huge rant about the "liberal media" and how it was anti-Israel and how it was pro-Arab and pro-Iran and all this other stuff that I really didn't want to pay much attention to. During her rant she hinted at something quite profound; she wouldn't care who or how many people died in a U.S. led war against Iran, as long as Israel was safe.

First off, it really offends me that as a non-citizen she was not only calling for the use of our armed forces, but was also completely apathetic towards the human toll that would undoubtedly be faced if such an event were to happen. Second of all, with the military stretched as thin as it is, where is the United States going to get more troops? From the wonderful Selective Service System that me and the rest of America's young men are registered for. So essentially, through extrapolation, she doesn't care about my life or anyone else's life, so long as her end goal, which she herself cannot achieve because she is neither a male nor an American citizen, is reached. That's a very insensitive of looking at things. The way the news is going, I hope she plans to volunteer.

Anyways, on to last night. Last night my friends and I were ready to go out to a pub and we decided to be nice and invite her along with us, thinking that we could turn over a new leaf with her after her rant last week about how PBS was anti-Israel and ruining the United States. Again, how could she know this? She's not a citizen and does not live in the United States. Second of all, how is Sesame Street anti-Israel? It's probably the best attempt at creating tolerance in Israel if not the world. How is the News Hour anti-Israel? If anything, it's the most objective coverage on TV.

Anyways back to last night. As we were waiting for the bus (yes, I do ride the bus in Israel. It is safe, especially in Haifa), she started, unprovoked, to criticize the fact that a Jew from our group was dating a non-Jew from Asia. Everybody around her just stopped talking. At that point we didn't know if she was being provocative or bigoted. We soon learned the latter. Somebody called her out and said something to the effect of "who are you to judge someone else" and she just went off on this big rant rallying off a very narrow interpretation of Jewish family laws and then questioned everyone's commitment to Israel and Zionism because we did not see things her way. She started yelling a bit more and I just left. I didn't want to listen to her. She ruined my night. She ruined everyone's night. The rest of the group followed me and we all went back and watched a movie.

I don't know if people like her realize how offensive their rhetoric is and how hypocritical they are when they spew it. First off, she was naming names, which means that she was committing an act of Lashon Hara, gossiping, which is absolutely forbidden in Judaism. You would figure that someone with as much of a background in Judaism such as herself would know that what she was saying was technically against Jewish law, but apparently not. Second, I don't know if she realized that three people out of the group there were products of interfaith marriages. The way that we all heard her rant was that our lives are illegitimate because the marriages that produced us were abhorrent to God, or something like that. Basically, what she and others like her were saying is that we have no right to exist, the same thing that anti-Zionists say about Israel, which considering that all of us there last night were Jewish and a part of the K'lkal Yisrael (tribe of Israel) she was essentially no worse than an anti-Zionist or an anti-Semite because we are all a part of Israel, whether we are citizens of the state or Jewish.

I knew people like this existed, but I never realized that at 11pm on a Saturday night, on the way to a pub in Haifa, someone would rally off such hate speech without thinking of its implications. I honestly would have expected to hear something like this from someone with a beard and black hat. But instead, I heard it from some immodestly clad girl who was sitting at a bus stop on the way to a pub. Again, another instance of hypocrisy.

Needless to say, nobody wants to talk to her, let alone be around her. Her roommate is planning to move out and we're hoping that she just packs up and leaves Haifa and goes to another university in Israel.

I'll close by saying that I love my parents and that I feel blessed that they are not divorced, which was actually advocated to me by somebody back in Pittsburgh. I'm also very proud of my father because of how he helped raise me to be an upstanding and respectful man and I'm very impressed with the way that his participation in Judaism has grown throughout my lifetime. I know that it was not easy for him to make the sacrifices that he did and so he deserves a tremendous amount of respect for being more than just a good sport. It is up to him what he decides to do as a member of a Jewish family, and we as Jews, are explicitly forbidden from imposing anything on him because our tradition teaches us that everyone is great the way they are.

Unfortunately, those like the girl from last night are not willing to tolerate families such as mine.Their anti-interfaith marriage views are so bigoted its sickening. Their rhetoric reeks of Jim Crow laws and flat out racism. Yes, the Torah does not look highly upon interfaith marriages. But at the same time, the Torah views love, strong family values, and openness in the highest regard.

Judaism is not black and white. It's colorful. Rabbis ancient and modern have said this over and over again, but there seems to be a few people that don't listen. All that can be hoped for in the Jewish commubity is respect. But apparently, some just aren't willing to give it, and in the end, that will cause a greater detriment to the Jewish people than anything else.