French Prejudice

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My roommate, Ami, is a pretty serious racist. He's not a jerk, but.... He lives in New York, but like many Yeshiva kids, he lives a very enclosed life, and therefore makes anti everything jokes, mostly black, and it bothered me. "Ami, how many black kids do you know?"

"Look, I live three bocks from the projects!"

"OK, but how many of their names do you know? How many have you ever talked to?" A negative answer follows, but he doesn't stop the jokes. I tell Jewish jokes at him, to show how painful these things are, he says they're fine, and that people know these are just jokes. Personally, I think they're tasteless. I'll give you two, you've heard them before, probably, but it still is disgusting.

What's the most confusing day in Harlem...and Why are there so many trees in Harlem?

I can't bring myself to write in the punchlines. OK, I thought those were really out of line. I mention them not for humor, but for reference. But, I really thought that was the limit.

Then however, our group on the Kibbutz met the Southern Hemisphere's version of our program. Both the Australians, and the South Africans were incredibly nice, but the South Africans were, well a little more understandably, horribly anti-black. Por ejemplo...

A black, an Arab, and a Jew check into a rustic hotel. "I'm sorry gentleman, I only have two beds. The third one, however, may sleep in the barn."

"OK, I'll sleep in the barn," says the Jew. He goes out there and sees a group of pigs sleeping. He rushes back inside. "Why didn't you mention there were pigs in the barn?" he asks the receptionist, "I can't sleep with pigs, or dirty animals!" He then goes to the rooms, apologizes, but says he can't sleep outside.

Reluctantly, the Arab decides to go. He goes to the barn, sees the pigs, and has the same problem as the Jew. So, the black goes outside to the barn. He goes and lies down, and the pigs run in to the receptionist to complain.

Commercial break:

We now return...

Now, I realize that by repeating to you that joke, it may appear that I am in fact am, well, telling the joke. Not true...very much not true. I consider that comic relief only in so much as I would consider a caricature, humorous, when mixed with other forms of propaganda . Merely helping to illustrate my point.

Israelis, too, it seems often prejudicize, or make fun of, or even alienate certain parts of their people. Actually, if you've been to Israel, you know that most parts of Judaism seem to hate each other. Collectively, in an upwardly mobile list, the Haredim, modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform, and Cheelonim all hate each other. Labor and Likud hate each other. The Ashkenazim don't like the Sfardim, and to nobody's surprise, the Sfardim don't like the Ashkenazim.

But that's all just politics. There are three groups of people in Israel who are the butts of jokes. First is the American. This really isn't all that bad. It's generally that we're most reluctant to speak Hebrew, and we just maintain a position of the snobby tourist. (What's the difference between an American and a canoe? A canoe tips.) Plus, we tend to think that American civilization is better...

Next, of course, are the Arabs. Arabs are considered to be The Badguys. This has gotten to an incredible extant. I used to hear that the Jews and the Arabs fight over Israel, each one is right, and each has God supporting them. When I got older, hearing the line that X was an Arab, but a nice Arab, was something like the wild animals that would help the lost little kids, like the bear that mothered the tyke who fell in its cage, Now, "a nice Arab," gets the same reaction as "honest politician." First dubiousness, then thinking that it'll only be a matter of time. It gets bad everywhere. There was this skirmish the other day. Two soldiers were injured, three Palestinians killed. The headline was "Two injured in Skirmish."

The last group who suffers from racism-and pretty badly, I may add, are the Russians. Since Glasntnost, over one million Russians have moved to Israel. Lately, a number have proved to not be Jewish. They are considered alien, dirty, obnoxious, mean, thieves, and incredibly lazy.

Four girls from the program and I are eating lunch together in the city, when a middle aged man comes over and starts hitting on them. I have no idea if this guy is good looking or not, so I decide to stand back, and if they signal, I intervene. I'm watching him use horrible pick up lines on them, and he then turns to one of them, Zemirah, from Switzerland, and says, "You're Russian [so am I, let's leave these idiots alone]?"

So, all the girls start laughing at this man, and Zemirah still has to put up with the joke that she looks Russian.

I'm just setting up surroundings here. My point is merely that I consider myself more open minded than them, and would always try to avoid a racist state of mind whenever possible. But, of course, this has failed.

The French in this program are highly obnoxious people. Not even only the normal stereotypes. Others too. Sure they're rude, have an air of superiority, and smell, but they have this annoying tendency to sing and shout. Certain keywords should never be said around them, as they will start screaming songs with these words. Unfortunately, this list includes words like "Shalom" and others that are normal conversation words.

We've gotten to hate the (yes it's gotten so bad, I'll use the word...) Frogs. I mean, it's just deteriorated. They're rude, mean, childish, and, and, well...OK, maybe it has something to do with the fact that one punched me in the face.
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Michael Kadish

"OK, I think we're all agreed here, I have no life, right?" -- City Slickers
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