Anna T. to Israel - You're Doing It Wrong

[bea]

Go read Anna T's screed today about what it's like to live in Israel.

It seems Anna T. is convinced that the people who founded Israel weren't religious enough. And also COMMUNISM! And DAYCARE, which everyone knows is evil!

Is it just me, or does Anna T. (who moved to Israel from Russia, I think?) have a hell of a lot of nerve?

[deelaem]

Sheesh! I wonder how hard real Jews laugh at people like her. As if she has the slightest inkling of what the Jewish experience really is.

[fundiefan]

Her life has to really and truly suck to be such a purely, perfect, true Jew in a land of fakers.

[Dinorah]

She has an obvious scorn of secular Israelis, in another post I remember she said they were "empty cells" and basically accused them of not being Jewish enough.

But I find it interesting that in her latest post she finally addresses the question of women being the breadwinners in ultra-Orthodox families. I agree with her (albeit for different reasons) that the lifestyle of ultra-Orthodox Israelis is warped in many ways and that it's unfair to demand of women to have one billion kids and support the family while men spend their time pondering on eggs lain on holy days, but is she aware how deeply is it ingrained into the Orthodox culture? And therefore that women working can't be this absolute evil? And, for the matter, many Orthodox men are very resistant to the notion of working?

[longskirts]

What Anna T. writes is not that surprising because there are different kinds of Orthodox Jews. The two main categories in Israel are chareidi (ultra-Orthodox) and dati leumi (national religious). Anna has stated before that she affiliates dati leumi. Her community is generally very opposed to the kollel lifestyle, which is mostly a chareidi practice. So she is going along with her community's views and criticizing the other kind of Orthodoxy. She is not criticizing her own community when she talks about disliking kollel.

You can read very similar statements on other dati leumi blogs.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

You can find all sorts of commentary about how any day the religious (dati leumi OR charedi, depending on the sentiment of the blog but in this they're cheering for similar goals) are going to take over the state demographically, which will be a wonderful thing because the secular people who started the state were too secular and anyway now the government is anti-religious and actively oppressing religious people.

Just as a random foreign lurker I can say the sentiment that "the founders of the state were too secular, but we're fixing that now" and "the government is anti-religious, not just secular but actively persecuting us, but we will win in the end as those old fogies die off and don't have (Jewish) kids and we're having loads of kids each" isn't terribly uncommon on the internet, at least.

[Guest Anonymous]

Ugh, I hate to defend Anna, because she can be quite the beeyotch (especially when posting on Marky Mark's site when she thinks her regular readers aren't looking). But, in response to Daeleem, I would say that Anna is a real Jew. She is of Jewish ancestry and her family probably suffered all the typical Anti-Semitism prevalent in Communist Russia (which still was rife with those kinds of prejudices despite its pretense of egalitarianism). Although raised secularly, she appears to have embraced a genuine Orthodox lifestyle and practice through her husband. The Jewish experience is pretty diverse, and I would say that if what Anna tells us is true, she is as real a Jew as any other Jewish person. I think we can distinguish her from Christian fundies who adopt aspects of Jewish practice without actually converting to Judaism or joining a real Jewish community or understanding the basis of the practices they adopt.

[Guest Anonymous]

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I find it a little creepy that Anna seems to credit the Holocaust with "reminding" secular Jews of their Jewishness.

[longskirts]

I agree Doomed Harlot. I can't believe what she writes on Marky Mark. Has anyone ever pointed it out in her comments?

[Guest Anonymous]

Ha ha. We should point out some of her biggest doozies in the comments on her blog! She is definitely all, "Yeah, most women totally suck except me because I'm super special!!!" But I haven't actually read Marky Mark in a long time, so I wonder if she is still commenting there?

[masagoroll]

Ugh, I hate to defend Anna, because she can be quite the beeyotch (especially when posting on Marky Mark's site when she thinks her regular readers aren't looking). But, in response to Daeleem, I would say that Anna is a real Jew. She is of Jewish ancestry and her family probably suffered all the typical Anti-Semitism prevalent in Communist Russia (which still was rife with those kinds of prejudices despite its pretense of egalitarianism). Although raised secularly, she appears to have embraced a genuine Orthodox lifestyle and practice through her husband. The Jewish experience is pretty diverse, and I would say that if what Anna tells us is true, she is as real a Jew as any other Jewish person. I think we can distinguish her from Christian fundies who adopt aspects of Jewish practice without actually converting to Judaism or joining a real Jewish community or understanding the basis of the practices they adopt.

Yes, this.

What is Marky Mark? Makes me think of this guy:

[longskirts]

A misogynist blogger: markymarksthoughts.blogspot.com

[Guest Anonymous]

Bwahahahaha! Thanks for the pic of the REAL Marky Mark!

[Dinorah]

Ugh, I hate to defend Anna, because she can be quite the beeyotch (especially when posting on Marky Mark's site when she thinks her regular readers aren't looking). But, in response to Daeleem, I would say that Anna is a real Jew. She is of Jewish ancestry and her family probably suffered all the typical Anti-Semitism prevalent in Communist Russia (which still was rife with those kinds of prejudices despite its pretense of egalitarianism). Although raised secularly, she appears to have embraced a genuine Orthodox lifestyle and practice through her husband. The Jewish experience is pretty diverse, and I would say that if what Anna tells us is true, she is as real a Jew as any other Jewish person. I think we can distinguish her from Christian fundies who adopt aspects of Jewish practice without actually converting to Judaism or joining a real Jewish community or understanding the basis of the practices they adopt.

She is indeed a real Jew from all points of view, but a lot of her ideas come across as rather un-Jewish, such as her emphasis on female "submission" , absolute horror of women working and desire to homeschool in a culture where it's not common at all. It's obvious that for some reason she's enamored with a lot of the ideas of Christian fundamentalism. Didn't she actually more or less pretend she was Christian for her first year of blogging or so?

[Guest Anonymous]

That's true, Dinorah. Which is why I think there may be some question of whether she really is what she says she is. I suspect she is genuine and is just kind of a weirdo. My best bet: She is really introverted and spends a lot of time on the internet rather than with her real-life community. Because of her interest in homemaking, she wound up reading a lot of Christian fundie bloggers and adopting a lot of their ideas.

I read her before she "came out" as Jewish. She didn't exactly say she was Christian, but she totally omitted the fact that she's Jewish. And that's pretty odd, when being Jewish is so central to her life and identity. I think she explained it as wanting people to judge her ideas on their own merits rather than pre-judging her based on her Jewishness.

[bea]

Oh, I think Anna is a "real Jew," but I ALSO think she's got a hell of a lot of nerve defining what an ENTIRE NATION should be doing in regards to their religion.

It's yet another case of "this isn't just what I think, or how I've decided to live my life, but it must be what God ordains and wants for everybody and if you don't do it the exact same way as me, you're a great bit Sinner!"

Not surprising that the Christian Fundies like Anna T. so much.

[emmiedahl]

I think she is a Jew by the strictest definition, but her disdain of Jewish culture is very distasteful to me. I have a hard time reading her blog, more so than the other haredi blogs I read. I am one of the secular Jews that she seems to hate so much, and I don't appreciate being told that I am doing it wrong.

Someone brought up that ultra-Orthodox Israeli men are resistant to working if their wife can support the family. What does Anna think the women should do, let their children starve so the dad can pray and the mom can bedazzle her throw pillows?

[FaustianSlip]

You can find all sorts of commentary about how any day the religious (dati leumi OR charedi, depending on the sentiment of the blog but in this they're cheering for similar goals) are going to take over the state demographically, which will be a wonderful thing because the secular people who started the state were too secular and anyway now the government is anti-religious and actively oppressing religious people.

And good luck to them, because the day that happens is the day a hell of a lot of "secular" (and by that I mean their definition, so Reform and Conservative, as well) Jews out in the Diaspora are going to turn off the financial tap and quit making donations to or giving other emotional support of Israel. That's actually part of the reason that I don't think the Israeli government, despite all of their flirting with the Haredim, are ever going to allow a complete takeover, not because of their love affair with non-Orthodox Jews, but because they're too pragmatic. There was a taste of this back when a bill was introduced that would ban recognition of people who converted under non-Orthodox auspices under the Law of Return. Non-Orthodox rabbis and congregations flipped out and basically said, "Just you try it, and see how much money you get from us and how likely we are to lobby our governments to support your asses in the future." The Israeli government backed off fairly quickly (much to the consternation of the Orthodox crowd).

And I agree with emmiedahl. It's very bizarre to me, this weird melange of Orthodoxy and attitudes that I would consider very stereotypically Christian fundamentalist (minus the Jesus). It's like Lina in reverse, kind of.

[aggythenostic]

[Waves at emmiedahl] Secular jew here, too. And Anna T. can bite me. She has the remarkable ability to take an ancient, joyous culture and reduce it to ashcloth. She's nothing but a Jewish Kelly Crawford, if you ask me, an obnoxious know it all who hates when anyone confronts her with anything resembling critical thinking.

The whole idea behind Israel is a place where ALL Jews could feel welcomed. As far as I'm concerned, SHE is doing it wrong.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

And good luck to them, because the day that happens is the day a hell of a lot of "secular" (and by that I mean their definition, so Reform and Conservative, as well) Jews out in the Diaspora are going to turn off the financial tap and quit making donations to or giving other emotional support of Israel. That's actually part of the reason that I don't think the Israeli government, despite all of their flirting with the Haredim, are ever going to allow a complete takeover, not because of their love affair with non-Orthodox Jews, but because they're too pragmatic. There was a taste of this back when a bill was introduced that would ban recognition of people who converted under non-Orthodox auspices under the Law of Return. Non-Orthodox rabbis and congregations flipped out and basically said, "Just you try it, and see how much money you get from us and how likely we are to lobby our governments to support your asses in the future." The Israeli government backed off fairly quickly (much to the consternation of the Orthodox crowd).

And I agree with emmiedahl. It's very bizarre to me, this weird melange of Orthodoxy and attitudes that I would consider very stereotypically Christian fundamentalist (minus the Jesus). It's like Lina in reverse, kind of.

I definitely hear ya, I roll my own eyes at all that "just you wait, the religious will be the only people who matter in a few years..." rhetoric too.

There's one guy I occasionally see posting places who is very anxious for a fully religious state (100% religious state, because according to him, coercion to be religious in the one true way to be religious is okay) and I can't help but wonder exactly how such a state would run, purely in the pragmatic sense. "Saving a life" can't cover ALL the activities a modern state needs to do on the holy days, and so it's another one of those "well, that's nice, it's handy you have secular people to cover for you on those days" things (similar to my feelings on the Amish, I guess) - but in a fully officially religious-law run state, there would be... challenges. But the discussion is always interesting, particularly when it gets a mix of people in it and everyone is being civil.

Something else I see every so often as far as the "stereotypically Christian fundamentalist" attitudes goes is, there will be someone spouting certain ideas and get called on them being fundie-Christian rather than traditionally Jewish, and it turns out that the person in question is a BT who got the original thing most likely from US Christian-influenced secular culture or via right-wing (in the US political sense) blogs. I have no idea if that applies to Anna T. When I first read the thread I'd misread it as being about Lina, actually...

[defrauding]

She has an obvious scorn of secular Israelis, in another post I remember she said they were "empty cells" and basically accused them of not being Jewish enough.

You know, this seems like common behavior for people who embrace Orthodox Judaism later in life, either as a convert or a baal teshuva. The charitable explanation is that they're enthusiastic about the new lifestyle they adopted and can't imagine why others lack their enthusiasm. The less charitable explanation is that they've always been judgmental, and orthopraxy simply gives them more opportunities to judge others.

You can guess which explanation I think applies to Anna.

[prairiemuffin]

You know, this seems like common behavior for people who embrace Orthodox Judaism later in life, either as a convert or a baal teshuva. The charitable explanation is that they're enthusiastic about the new lifestyle they adopted and can't imagine why others lack their enthusiasm. The less charitable explanation is that they've always been judgmental, and orthopraxy simply gives them more opportunities to judge others.

You can guess which explanation I think applies to Anna

THIS.

In following Anna's blog (or C Costello, or whatever the hell her name is), I actually took the time to read all of her archives. IMHO, it seemed that because of her lack of stability in her earlier life, she jumped on the Orthodox bandwagon 250%, and clearly does it better than anyone else ;)

[YPestis]

I"ve been reading Anna T for years now. She is most definitely a Jew, but with strange christian fundie tendencies. Even she has admitted that her attitude towards homeschooling is odd in Israel.

I've noticed that she grew up in a secular household but always held more traditional belief. She said she felt compelled to go to college because her mom expected her to. She just wants to get married and stay home. After her marriage, she became increasingly intolerant and militant in her belief. I guess part of it is her husband. The rest is probably her own rightward movement that started in high school. Others have hinted that something bad happened in her teen years which may have started her on this path.

I've also noted her posts are sometimes a backlash to what is going on in her own life. When her hubby was unemployed and she was forced to get a job TWO DAYS a week, she made several posts about the danger of working mothers, how horrible women were who worked, how horrible it was that husbands would let this happen etc. Then, one day, she said she had to confess that's what she's been doing---but only until her DH gets a job again! I bed her post about her "fear" of OB visits coincide with her fear of getting pregnant again. Three kids under 5 would certainly exhaust a women who can't do two days a week outside work with an infant and unemployed husband. Anyways, I think it's interesting to read Anna T's blogs because it offers a glimpse into the psych of a sometimes interesting woman.