Jewish Appropriation Tumblr

[Arete]

This second random-ass Ashkanazi agrees. Go forth and schmooze.

Thank you, ladies. :D As a 4 decade, non-Jewish user of the word "schmuck", it was going to be a tall order for me to find an equally satisfying, non culturally appropriative replacement when speaking in English. :lol:

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Within the group Im talking about, ethnic and cultural identity was fundamental to their understanding of who they were - and rightly so; many had awful experiences because of racial discrimination and assumptions. But this experience of race and culture was a minority experience is entirely different to a central ethnic and cultural identity as a member of a majority group. I think, for some, the barrage of negative experiences and assumptions primes people to defend "their culture", or at least, the culture that they identify as theirs.

I get the impression that many of the cultural appropriation blogs are written by people like those in this group. Not all, by any means, but many.

It's not possible for me to "like" this post enough - it's just so extremely right on. On tumblr, in particular (well, the English-language part of tumblr! That's an important distinction here) there are just so many of those people who feel this way and still live in the US (they didn't make any great journey "back" yet if they ever will) and so they tend to push a certain kind of US-based racial "hierarchy" as truth as if it applies to the entire globe, and it's very weird. Particularly where it runs to the idea of "people of color" and any sort of "Asian" as pan-Asian. It's just alien.

The whole "oh we can't wear our ethnic costume without getting hated for it" - maybe as minorities in the US you can't, but meanwhile back in the other country of course you can wear it, and not only that, immigrant kids (maybe even white kids!) are wearing it too, for various school events and whatever else.

And I should maybe mention too, there's a word in Japanese 帰国子女 (kikokushijo = "returnee kids") that applies to the kids of people who grew up abroad as expats with their parents just temporarily living in some foreign country. It really applies to those who go to local schools rather than the "Japanese school of [wherever]" because yeah, just as in the Vietnamese situation as you describe it, going through the normal national school system is a big part of having normal identity in Japan. Either you went, or you get the knowledge elsewhere, but there's certain stuff you're just expected to know.

The US I think doesn't have any sort of official words for that sort of thing but I do think it exists - if you find some foreign origin person and start talking to them and maybe they have an accent even, okay, but if they know certain slang words from school? You feel "ah, they know" right? They feel more "okay probably this person is normal American." at least it seems to me.

[Arete]

But this experience of race and culture was a minority experience is entirely different to a central ethnic and cultural identity as a member of a majority group.

This, 1000x this. It makes me ragey when certain members of the Greek-American community police and define what "being Greek" is, as if that is one uniform thing. They don't realize or don't want to accept that they are actually a subculture with American culture. It is totally different from being born and exclusively raised in Greece. I refuse to even search for any Tumblrs where Americans of Greek heritage are defining Greek culture to all and sundry on the Internet. They need to work on conversational Greek before spouting off bullshit like "I hate it when we are called "Greeks", I would rather be called a dog. Our proper distinction is Hellenes." :roll: Yes, I have heard members of our cultural police in the US actually us that line.

So, I don't find other American subculture identity purists any easier to take. I will gladly give a righteous smackdown to culturally appropriative practices, but it can be done without turning into an identity warden.

[crazyforkate]

Aaaand now they've noticed us. Oh boy, we're in for it now, guys!

[Arete]

Oh good LORD. Now they are trying to backpedal and say what that "shiksa" is needed to denote gentile privilege. When others point out that it has been used as a way to say "whore" they put out that it is not the original meaning of the word. That they are using it because they (Jews) are a marginalized group, and this word is necessary for a marginalized group to have, dammit.

FFS, when my people use the word "putana" to denote a woman, especially a non-Greek woman, they are not doing it because they are coming from a marginalized place, trying to hold back Protestant privilege. They are doing it because they are being twats.

Not all our cultural practices are worth saving.

[Soldevi]

Another people with a similarly private language are the Rromani- if you think all languages, even ones which began as ‘safe’ or culturized dialects of Diaspora people in a strange land are yours to use, ask one of them how they feel about non-Rromani appropriating their language. The Rromani bloggers on tumblr tend to represent their language the same way I feel about Yiddish.

Ahem. As a child I lived next to Roma people. And as children usually do, I learned and used the Finnish Romani language. I don't care what some insignificant tumblr bloggers say about it. They - my neighbour Romanis and their extented family - didn't mind when we "peasants" - as they called us mainstream Finns - used the language. Their opinion was and is more important than some anonymous blogger's.

And go f yourself. Finns were also banned for using their own native language for quite sometime, Finnish and its closely related dialects Meänkieli and Karelian language. For example, as late as in 1958 children were finally allowed to speak Finnish in their breaks in school in the western border. The language of administration was Swedish and religious language was Latin for centuries and Finnish was despised of. Even today in Finland there are parts where Finnish speakers are hated. In Åland Finns are hated. If someone has a Finnish surname in a letterbox, it is usually destroyed.

No. I am not trying to compare my welfare state with religious oppression and holocaust. Not at all, my lack of English fails me on this, I cannot find appropriate expression for this. But I am not going to tolerate total bs when it comes to languages. While I have no intentions to use Hebrew nor Yiddish (minus those words I have learned as German/English without knowing their origin and which clearly are in general use), I am not going to give the holy status to any language. Culture and society affect to language and vice versa. I have earlied expressed my opinion about religious cherry-picking and it stays on.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Personally I think if you manage to learn a language naturally as one of your own just through life, that means that you've been "in" enough to acquire it and no "appropriation" is involved. If they want to talk about academics studying some niche language as adults, I suppose it's potentially different.

However.

Hebrew is not only a minority language of a minority people. It's the national language of a country that has IMMIGRANTS to it. It is going to become the daily, majority, dare I say it "privileged" language for those people. They go to school in it and consume all of their recreational media in it. Just because it's a somewhat niche or private language in the diaspora doesn't change that.

This is precisely where so many of those "anti appropriation" blogs go right off the rails. As already posted by several upthread, the "diaspora" or minority experience is very much NOT the same thing as growing up as a full member of the majority, in power, in whatever country we're talking about. Not remotely the same thing, and so not surprisingly the views on what is acceptable cultural change or "twisting" of the culture (think: fashion shoots melding really avant garde weird fashion with traditional outfits in advertising, selling plastic bindis as pure fashion in teen magazines, that sort of thing) or who is "allowed" to use the language (any immigrant kid of any ethnicity going to local schools is going to use the language, probably as their dominant language even!) are different.

Plenty of those blogs make a lot of good posts, but sometimes they just seem to forget that not everywhere is the US and those other countries don't really consider themselves culturally marginalized.

[Arete]

It's not just that they do not understand that their subculture experience is qualitatively different from those who grew up with the "subculture" being the dominant, majority culture in a different place. It's also that they don't realize that certain things, for example, misogyny, do not stink any less when practiced by a subculture and given a "we need it because we are marginalized here" excuse.

Good grief. Misogyny in a "private" language is still misogyny.

[Carla Bruni]

I wonder how "Jewish" someone has to be according to the authors of this tumblr to be "allowed" to use these words. E.g. My father is 100% Polish Jewish ethnically and we have 43 relatives under our last name in the Yad Vashem database. However, neither my father nor his parents have ever practiced the religion... but my eldest half-brother still took advantage of his repatriation rights and even served in the IDF. As an atheist. Sooo... what say you, O Keepers of Hebrew/Yiddish? Can I schmooze & nosh or not? :cry:

Re: the points made above about members of a diaspora policing what it means to "truly" be (insert ethnicity/nationality), I actually had a great online experience with this. When those "Shit _____ Say" videos went viral, I made one as an inside joke about my ethnic/national background for a friend and posted it on YouTube. It was meant to highlight how preposterous these people within the diaspora in the US typically are, how ridiculously they act, how judgmental they are towards everyone, and how fundamentally conflicted they are when they're legitimately faced with the need to define themselves. The comments went NUTS in like, two hours - a small minority found it funny and e-high-fived me, but about 90% were either comments about the appeal of my lips for blowjobs (BINGO! Thanks for demonstrating exactly what I wanted to show!) OR statements like "omg you're such a dumb whore you're not even _______". When one of the first commenters tried to call me out on my knowledge of my native language (which was the language of instruction for both my HS & college diplomas, so, uh, yeah) and I responded sarcastically with this paragraph written in super-complex "olden days" grammar, I was, of course, told by these people that this just further proves I don't speak the language (huh?) because "those aren't even real words". I lawled :mrgreen: Then people started fighting each other in the comments after I stopped responding, and none of them seemed to understand the ridiculousness of fighting about what it means to be _______ in the comments below a video meant to make fun of people who fight about what it means to be ________. So there's that :)

[DistantStar]

Yiddish slang is far too useful to be confined to any one ethnicity. So saith this half-Ashkenazi (on her father's side) chick.

Borrowing words is a natural thing for people to do. It's how languages grow and change. It's not like stealing and deliberately misinterpreting somebody's fucking religion. Oy.

[jaelh]

They are doing it because they are being twats.

Not all our cultural practices are worth saving.

Yup. The are assholes and problematic practices in EVERY CULTURE ON EARTH. Every one of them. It's not the place of outsiders to "police" cultures. Dog no. Culturally imperialistic practices are appalling.

But that doesn't make the cultural practice right or good. Defending the wrong (calling a woman a "whore" or "punta" for example) BECAUSE IT"S OK WHEN WE DO IT is just idiotic and diminishes necessary good policing that needs to be supported. You tend to lose sight of the forrest (stoping cultural appropriation and imperialism) for the trees (trying to explain why something you could just deal with by saying - yeah; it's pretty shitty, but it's still ours fuck off - very easily).

This idea of a cultural eden is very strange. it's not, though, apparently an unusual belief.

*****

Also - having spent last night reading some of these cultural appropriation tubmlrs something about them deeply bothered me.

the policing isn't of expansive understandings of identity. There is no extension of the "belonging".

I saw -

ashkenazi Jews identifyng Ashkenazi Jewish practices as "Jewish"

Han Chinese persons defending Han Chinese practices as "Chinese"

Personally, I've seen:

Kinh as Vietnamese;

ethnic Thai practices as "thai"

and so on...

All of these cultural communities are part of their groups. Han are Chinese. Ashkenazi Jews are Jewish. Kinh are Vietnamese.

But they are not "The Chinese"; "The Jews"; "The Vietnamese".

They are privileged subgroups within groups.

We run into huge difficulties when 'culture' is policed, because we're not saying something is "Han Chinese", we're saying something is "Chinese". When it's said "We do this..." the claim isn't of the sub-group, it's of the dominant cultural group claiming the right to represent what it means to be "X".

Nationality/culture are not the same. But - particularly in nations where particular cultural groups and practices and ethnicities are dominant - claiming "you" know the culture is aggressively hostile to other members of your nation.

For example: any white person in Australia claiming "we're a Christian nation", and we derive our heritage from Britain. PoC, migrants, non-Christians and Indigenous people, and their contributions are entirely marginalised from this statement. The privileged entrench their privilege.

I doubt any of these bloggers wouldn't take umbrage at such a statement. It's appallingly exclusionary.

Yet their (effectively) doing the same thing, but their lived experience as a minority has entirely blinded them to it.

The Hmong and other hilltribe communities in VN, for example, are already excluded from much social power, wealth and privilege in Vietnam, because even though they are Vietnamese within any meaning of the word that actually has legal capital - they travel on Viet passports; live on Vietnamese land; learning Vietnamese schools and so on. Yet when it's said - oh, when less women wear an ao dai or seeing the ao dai worn on fatty westerners somehow diminishes that which is "Vietnamese", an already excluded minority are further excluded from ever belonging. And when it's done by OS born children who've never lived in VN? Who understand "vietnamese" as an excluded minority?

I understand that this is a conundrum: there is good work that needs to be done stopping culturally appropriation. But how can the OS children, who are prob the best situated to begin the dialogue, do so, without actually engaging in incredibly problematic practices? Ones that buy into the dominant paradigm model of "what it means to be X", as understood by "the west" and as is usually promoted by culturally dominant groups in countries of origin who - as majorities - are loathe to think they should give up 'ownership' of an identity by expanding it to include others.

I understand the critique that will say: we're not claiming to represent "all"jews/chinese etc.. Yet: blogs are called: this is not chinese etc.. the actual effect (intended or not) perpetuates understandings that best benefit the dominant cultural communities from the nations from whence they come.

If a social justice movement addresses problematic behaviour in one area, but supports a hierarchy of dominance in another.... how do we asses it?

I don't know how this can be best done- the force of the message is diminished by saying "Han Chinese"; "Kinh"; "Ashkenazi Jewish" yet, without doing so; the whole process of policing is constructing meaning that's... well, arbitrary and exclusionary. Maybe it's necessary?

Arete, this entirely tied into your point that there is no one way to be "Greek". Prob. just an incredibly long winded way of saying much the same thing, but I hope, taking it beyond culture (which can belong to a minority group) and then asking - what does the label that people are putting on 'culture' actually mean? Is it just culture, or do we use it to refer to a group of people who really, have nothing at all to do with the cultural practices and culture referred to.

(and for what it's worth: that wasn't a critique of a cultural practice that I'm saying you should change. it's an observation of a phenomena.:) )

[Jinger Jar]

So according to this Tumblr Catholics are not allowed to use the words messiah, hallelujah, and hosanna. :think:

Well, somebody better call the Vatican because they're gonna to have to re-word the GIRM!

[France Nolan]

Ah shit, I guess this means most of the other high churches are going to have to reword things too. I'm ELCA Lutheran and our liturgy contains those words, and good grief so do our hymns.

Then again, we lock up "hallelujah" for Lent so maybe we could just lock it up and throw away the key...

[DistantStar]

I think the BCP and the hymnal would be cut by half in length apiece if those words weren't in there!

ETA: Book of Common Prayer. Episcopalian.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

It's not just that they do not understand that their subculture experience is qualitatively different from those who grew up with the "subculture" being the dominant, majority culture in a different place. It's also that they don't realize that certain things, for example, misogyny, do not stink any less when practiced by a subculture and given a "we need it because we are marginalized here" excuse.

Good grief. Misogyny in a "private" language is still misogyny.

Heck yes agreed.

[Rachel333]

Wow... http://goynif.tumblr.com/post/502208579 ... is-is-cute

Ah, goyim. I’d forgotten how much I (didn’t) miss them. This is why I spend as little time as possible with them IRL- they’re not used to being told that not everything is theirs to put their grubby hands all over. I haven’t seen this many butthurt whiners since that time some dumbass goy tried to compare being called a Goy to the frigging Holocaust.

So we're the butthurt ones? :lol:

Also, does this person realize that Jewish people aren't the only oppressed minority? Or are they using "goyim" to mean white Christians instead of just "non-Jew"?

Look, I'm not Jewish and as such I generally stay out of stuff like this. I do think cultural appropriation can be a bad thing and I want to be sensitive to these issues. This is just... I don't even know. I need to just avoid these blogs, I think.

[Arete]

Apparently the fact that my family were literally murdered for the traditions others are now latching on to is irrelevant and I should just accept that any exchange of culture is ‘natural’, instead of, y’know, distinguishing between natural integration vs persecution and theft.

I think the point some people have made on this thread is this Tumblr does a shit job of distinguishing between natural intergration vs. persecution and theft. In fact, it does not appear the wardens of this Tumblr believe there is such a thing as natural intergration.

Let me illustrate the concepts:

Theft- Messianic "Jews"

Persecution- Ukrainian Pogroms

Natural Intergration- Middle age non-Jew who grows up in a mixed neighborhood and winds up with "Oy vey" and "schmuck" in her vocabulary

For extra consideration:

Misogyny-Calling a non-Jewish woman a shiksa

We aren't whining dear, no one cares what you put in your Tumblr. Just observing that you take a good cause, stopping cultural appropriation, and wrap it in a lot of mud.

[Beammeup]

Can I call a Godwin here? Or is that inappropriate? Because this guy is Godwinning all over the place. Seems any thing that a non Jew does that they disagree with is WRONG because of the Holocaust.

[pimpom]

The crux of the matter seems to be very much in the aim of this tumblr.

If you look at it very theoretically, you could say that there are only two reasons to talk/write. Expression or Effect.

("I hate you!" or "Pass me the salt please").

If the aim of this tumblr is just for these girls to express their anger about cultural appropriation, then they have succeeded. It is clear to all that they are pissed off about what they feel is people stealing their safe place & culture.

However, if their aim is to get people to become aware of cultural appropriation, and eventually stop doing it, this might not be the way to go.

And I don't feel that's tone-policing, that's just pointing out what works when (and what doesn't).

It seems like this tumblr has become a legitimate social justice issue being handled by very angry, shouty people. And again, they have a right to their anger, but they shouldn't be surprised that people might not react as they hoped. That they might engender anger & irritation back, instead of confessions of guilt and declarations of cease & desist.

[Mrs Ms]

The language "issue" isn't always quiet so straight forward. On a good day, I'm fluent in english and german and there are a number of words that are used in both languages. In some cases I've come to realize that they might be yiddish. "meschugge" is one example. It wasn't until I heard it in english that I realized it might not be a german slang word!

If I (unknowingly) use a yiddish word in the proper context, I'm not sure I'm deserving of the wrath of these culture-keepers/defenders/definers/enforcers....

There really are a lot of problems with cultural misappropriation, but I don't think correctly used language is one of them.

[formergothardite]

Do they realize that not only are we not all Christian here, but there are Jewish members here? Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but they seem to act like we are all a bunch of white Christians wanting to steal their culture and make it ours. And that is hardly true.

[Soldevi]

Do they realize that not only are we not all Christian here, but there are Jewish members here? Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but they seem to act like we are all a bunch of white Christians wanting to steal their culture and make it ours. And that is hardly true.

I have pondered the very same thing. Their worldview seem to be that everyone else is goyim and therefore christian and even those jews who don't agree with them are overgeneralized into same group.

I, for one, am not a christian and I am not going to feel collective guilt.

[thoughtful]

It is not always clear who posted there -- I assume due to how Tumblr works. They do seem to have some calmer folks and some who are always in a rage (or one of each -- can't tell how many people there are).

But whoever posted the "cute" entry clearly didn't hang around here long enough to see what FJ is (or even read my post there that explained it). Nor did they seem to notice that we are not all non-Jews, and that most here would be just as likely to be critical of cultural appropriation as they would.

So, just as it would get under my skin to have people generalize about FJ, or Jews, or women, I hesitate to generalize about them -- they do seem to have some people who actually read and pay attention.

But, for that one person, if he/she is reading here, and is willing to read a post as long as his/hers, the rest of my post is addressed to you:

- there are quite a few Jews here, including some who have experienced anti-Semitism -- myself included.

- FJ is a site to discuss many issues, but we generally end up with an emphasis on decrying fundamentalists and danger to the rights of women -- due to that, most of our criticism is of offshoots of Protestant denominations, especially in the US. With a little reading, you would probably find lots with which you agree.

- that said, we are individuals -- thousands of individuals, although not all post regularly -- there is no single mind or agenda here. You are as likely to be addressed directly and nicely as you are to be dismissed with a single snarky sentence. Like yours, this site makes no apologies about opinions.

- the title here, and the threads on the Duggars, stem from the fact that this group started due to strict moderation at a site called Television Without Pity. In discussing (and criticizing) the Duggars, some posters began conversations about Quiverfull and Christian fundies in general. When not permitted to do that, they formed their own group (I say "they" because I came later). FJ is not all about the Duggars, and it sure as hell isn't a fan site for them! :lol: I'm pretty active here, and I rarely read any of the Duggar stuff these days.

- some of our members only post when someone else brings an issue here, but we do have folks who seek out blogs and news items that seem relevant to what we discuss here. We often end up in lively discussions, with lots of disagreement - having your blog found and posted here doesn't mean you were targeted for mockery, just that it seemed like it might have been of interest to FJers. In fact, though I can't speak for her, I suspect the OP posted it here because we generally detest cultural appropriation.

- many of us tend to be thorough readers (I read your blog as far back as it goes before I dared comment) and detail-oriented. We also have some folks who are well-educated in Judaism, other religions, linguistics, law, etc. Dismissing FJ as a bunch of whiny "goyim" is just inaccurate. Not agreeing with every tiny detail of what you say is not the same as being a block of privileged antisemitic Holocaust-denying Christians who disagree with everything you say.

- our registration rule relates back to a mess we had with a site owner who was not being honest, and is still in the process of being sorted out (if you really want to read the details, it's all here somewhere) -- it has nothing to do with cowardice about what people might say about FJ. This site is not going to shut down because it is quoted, mocked or misunderstood.

- see AreteJo's post, above. I think a non-Jew who gets a tattoo of the tetragrammaton is a far cry from someone who grew up in the US and uses "kosher" to mean OK. I'm not policing you -- you don't have to think that.

- I'm also allowed to think that you might be taking away some focus on the mind-bogglingly offensive things that some non-Jews do now, by acting equally enraged about language blending that happened naturally, or something from thousands of years ago, like the church adopting Hallelujah. I happen to think that hurts a cause that I care about, maybe just as much as you do, by making us look like butthurt people who are as worked up about that as we are about fundamentalist Christian Zionism (those "we support your country because we want you all to die or convert -- dontcha love us?" people :? ) that is going on right now, or self-rightous faux Jews who want to tell Jews they're doing it all wrong, or that they have to include Jesus in their Judaism, or Tetragrammaton tatoos. Some stuff offends me more than other stuff. YMMV.

BTW, the two most recent posts on your site are great examples of the kinds of things that make many of our heads explode, too:

experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2011/04/christians-celebrating-passover.html

goynif.tumblr.com/image/50258466923

Thanks for calling my attention to them.

[Carla Bruni]

OMGAAAAHHH.

Ah, goyim. I’d forgotten how much I (didn’t) miss them. This is why I spend as little time as possible with them IRL- they’re not used to being told that not everything is theirs to put their grubby hands all over.

This just sounds stupid. Why would you cut yourself off from everyone but your own kind? Grow the hell up. Your life would be enriched by the presence of goyim, Muslim, Buddhist, Arab, Afro-Caribbean, etc, etc friends and acquaintances. Maybe this is my third-culture-kid mentality talking again, but I don't even understand why this still has to be explained: hanging out with different people is awesome. Because it is. It makes you a smarter, worldlier person. You get exposed to things you probably never would have learned about otherwise (e.g. my friend's family is from Lahore and I had no idea what a beautiful place it is until I saw her Facebook pictures from a recent visit). You become a more interesting person and have more to talk about at cocktail parties. People like you more. Your mind expands. Your grasp of sociocultural references on social media/etc gets way better, and you start *getting* other people. Jfc, I thought this was common knowledge.

This is why I do not trust 90% of christians- scratch the surface of their lip service, and they’re only interested in Jews when they can profit from us, rob us, or scapegoat us.

Oh my god. You cannot actually be serious right now. Show of hands - who here, when looking to profit from, rob, or scapegoat someone, specifically seeks out Jews?

Also, when Jews who have not experienced anti-semitism put down other Jews doing things to defend themselves from the nasty shit they’ve experienced- uggghhhhhh. Grow up where I did and we’ll see how you feel about having your language taken.

I'm actually curious to hear WHERE this person grew up and what makes their experience so focused on the appropriation of *language* specifically, as opposed to anti-Semitism writ large, and what makes language appropriation specifically "nasty shit".

ETA: I'm probably going to get some flak for this, but it's something I've been wanting to say for a really long time. In my humble opinion, the "MY FAMILY WAS MURDERED!!!!111oneone" statements in 2013 are a little old if they're not followed up with concrete actions, and they don't just give you a free pass to be a dick. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum, which is an amazing place I visit frequently, proudly proclaims "Never Again" on its entryway, and yet... Kurdistan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Burundi, Kosovo, Sudan, South Sudan, this little place Israel may have heard of called Syria (60,000+ and counting)... and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The best way to honor the memory of your murdered relatives (which, again, I have 47 of those, too, so yeah) is to do something with the privilege you have of being an educated person capable of making a difference as a citizen of a democratic state in the 21st century. Speak out against injustice. Live the "Never Again" motto. How many of you have written to your Congressman/MP/MEP to decry the apathy of the international community towards Syria? The end of the Indonesian slaughter of East Timor began with two British women who chained themselves to a BAE facility in the UK, because they didn't want their country to sell warplanes to Indonesia. You CAN affect change. DO IT.

Educate your peers and your children's peers on what happened in the Holocaust (and before, and after). Keep the memory alive, by all means. Cover the entire history of anti-Semitism. Volunteer with NGOs and associations that work with Holocaust survivors and educational foundations. DO SOMETHING. Because it's mighty easy to sit around with your thumb up your ass getting upset on Tumblr that some Brooklyn hipster wants to "nosh" on lox bagels for brunch.

[France Nolan]

I want to know what these bloggers make of Jews who want to share their culture with the wider community. I grew up in an area with a large Jewish population, and I attended public school. Most of my teachers were Jewish and so were the other students. Teachers, students, and their families shared their traditions with us. I still have the dreidel my Jewish kindergarten teacher gave me. She also taught us how to make homemade butter to spread over matzoh at Passover. I remember telling her that I shouldn't help make the butter because I wasn't Jewish, but she told me everyone in the class could participate, Jewish or not.

Every year at Hanukkah my Jewish friends would bring latkes and applesauce for the class to share. I remember moms coming into class and reading us stories about Hanukkah and why it was important to the Jewish people. Should I have not eaten the latkes? Should I have clapped my hands over my ears during the stories? Should I have insisted that I couldn't make butter at Passover?

This cultural exchange didn't just apply to the Jewish teachers and students. All students were encouraged to share their culture. We celebrated Chinese New Year and my friend's mom, who immigrated from China, came in to tell us the story and show us how to make traditional Chinese food. My dad is an Irish immigrant and he would come to school on St. Patrick's Day and talk about why that's an important day in Ireland. My Italian friends brought in food and wore read for St. Joseph's Day, and the list goes on.