grendel

I just heard a report on NPR about the state of the Jewish community in Israel. Apparently there have been huge numbers of Russian immigrants coming to one particular coastal Israeli city. They are either secular jews or Russian Christians. This isn't boding well with the orthodox Jewish community, especially since these Christian Russians are opening shops that sell pork sausages from the homeland among other things.

There was a lot of talk of a potential civil war (!) and the dillution of the "true" orthodox Jewish value system. You aren't allowed to marry in Israel unless you're mother was Jewish and you can trace your Jewish heritage back for at least one generation. There's just a lot of craziness going on.

This whole thing led me to start thinking about the continuing trend towards self-containment, for lack of a better word. Religious, racial, and cultural groups get very protective sometimes about the introduction of outside forces and influences into their closely guarded arenas. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand with the "world getting smaller by the day" what with information availability and dispersion throughout the global community it seems like most of these borders and blocks should be disappearing. Instead it seems like a lot of groups are digging in even further and becoming more stubborn about new additions to their population bodies.

Are we really THAT afraid of losing our identities? Maybe I'm being naive, but I feel that there are so many people who believe so strongly in their own cultures that we could never truly lose those cultures, even if Wal-mart opens up a store in every city in the world.

Speaking of identities, who the hell am I? Who are you? Where am I? I woke up this morning in women's underwear and a pool of sweat an inch deep.

Betty? Betty, is that you?

Hooka-chaka-hooka-chaka I I I I'm hooked on a feeling! I'm high on believing!

end transmission.