I have seen soldiers pissing on the feet of Palestinians waiting at checkpoints. I have seen the soldier step back and almost cut a young man in two with bullets when the Palestinian objected to the pissing.

I have watched the IDF set up roadblocks every 100 yards so that as soon as Palestinians got through one they encountered another – all in an effort to make life miserable.

Holly – spend some time in the West Bank and then come back and tell me what you hear is the same religion we grew up in.

Do you know how women of a certain age – we may not even be sure that the word “feminism” represents anything anymore – that the concept it started out denoting has morphed and the word now is used in a different way – and so if I go and try to use the word now, it won’t mean what I thought it meant?

That’s kind of how I feel about Zionist.

mostly though – I probably need to do a lot more studying!

But, although some of that has come to pass, I just don’t feel that those eventualities should lead to – as you point out – the exclusion of all topics except Israel. That’s kind of a generalization, but it does feel that way sometimes.

And it’s odd – because Christians I know actually think I should be more obsessed with Israel than I am. If I’m obsessed with any part of being Jewish, it’s just teachign my kids what I love about being a Jew and keeping up the traditions, such as they are. Though we are going on a trip to Israel next August – it will be family’s first time, and my first since 1985!

Anyway – thanks again for reading and commenting. See – I knew there was a reason I like this blog so much. Look at who I get to meet!

Now the only talk is Israel. Even at my sister’s memorial service (cancer) last November, my sister was memorialized not for who she was – her devotion to family and synogogue – but for her commitment to Samaria and producing IDF sons and new settlers for Eretz Israel.

I know what goes on in the West Bank and it makes me fear for the soul of our people.

I grew up in an Orange, CT synagogue (I think I’ve been through this with Joe before) and it was Reform and I was very Reform, and I went to Georgetown – very Catholic – and loved it, went to Israel – loved it. Never saw myself as a Zionist the way others used it but I didn’t see why I would get sneers from other Jews.

Now – I live in Ohio and am represented in my statehouse by a Republican Conservative Jew who is a Marine and volunteered, a few months after being elected to the statehouse for the first time (and only working toward trying to force Ohio pensions to divest from Iran – it didn’t go through), to go back to Iraq. I am very much in the minority at my synagogue here even though I’m on the board. I feel very outcast when it comes to speaking up about Israel being far from perfect.

HOWEVER – I am often saying that I want moderates to speak up – on either side of the aisle, rather than just hearing the extremes. And so, in that sense, I feel I need to stick to my guns in my conservative shul. I don’t really want to go back to a Reform shul anyway – but the political divide on Israel? Yes – very very difficult to manuever.

Thanks for reading and sharing.

The only time I feel like a minority is with fellow Jews. I have spent most of my Life as Conservative but my views on a just peace of the Palestinian conflict drove me out of the congregation. Being described as a self-hating Jew and questioning my attachment to my religion led me to a quiet Reform Temple.

I have 35 relatives living in various settlements on the West Bank and I have been an annual visitor to Israel for the last 41 years. My peace views make me unwelcome in settlement synogogues. Too many Jews make me feel like I am not Jewish enough since I am the only one in my extended family not making aliyah.

I’ll take Christian America everyday of the week. We may not speak the same way to G-d, but at least they don’t hate me.

I definitely get a sinking feeling when those kinds of pat phrases with God in it get used – to me, it demeans the real value that, to people who do believe in God, have for the word. And for those for whom it lacks that meaning, the sinking feeling must be even worse – or anger – I won’t speak for you and others. But again, I empathize.

I never really knew any atheists and still don’t, exactly, but there’s a woman in Columbus who kept an excellent blog called The Atheist Mama. We exchanged emails and comments often. i really liked her writing and her anecdotes and questions and opinions.

Her being atheist had zero to do with the fact that we both are mothers and often talked about education – sometimes from the separation of church and state perspective, but also just as being parents who want their kids to be happy and learn – period. Why can’t universal hopes like that be pursued without becoming about religion in the public discource? Among individuals – great – I love to examine religion and all the corollaries (like atheism, would that be fair to say?). But why must such discussions have to be, for some people, determinative of public policy in a country with 300 million people?

Thanks again for reading and commenting.

1. “All Americans are praying for….” Apparently it is inconcievable that an American might not pray.

2. “We are open to people of all faiths” People of no faith need not apply.

3. “God bless you” “God given rights” “In God we trust” “One nation, under God” etc. etc.

Now, like the author of the post, I’ve never actually felt persecuted at all for being atheist (though I know of people in less liberal areas who have), and feel no indignation whatsoever when someone wishes me a Merry Christmas (which I do myself) or says “God bless” (which I don’t do), but the saturation of religion and the elevation of faith as the greatest of virtues really does bring to the fore that you are a minority, one of the last ones it appears to be OK to mistrust and stereotype.

In general I don’t really mind, but it seems kind of amusing when amongst the Christmas mania (which to be fair has rather little to do with Christianity) some news caster takes about thirty seconds to remember “our Jewish friends” (how big of them, eh?) who are about 3% of the population, while atheists (about 10%) are never mentioned at all.

Of course then you hear that some Christians feel “persecuted” and that’s simply hillarious. To be fair though, I think that probably only a small proportion of Christians would say this. Most probably never have to think about their religious status at all, which is normal, when you’re in the majority.

Thanks for reading and commenting.

I note that feelings can also be used like weapons to keep or gain control: you cna’t say/do that, because it will make me cry. (I have a friend who is a master at using this tactic.)
I think the ‘war on religion’ campaign is like that, to a large extent, when anything that curtails religious activiry in any context whatsoever is portrayed as an attack on religion itself. It’s assuming a victim’s role in order to dominate.
It’s insulting to real victims of persecution, even though the insult may not be intentional.

That’s something for religious (or any other) minorities to keep in mind, IMO. There’s a long distance between not being represented in the majority culture and being prevented from expressing a minority religion or culture in private life or anywhete at all.

That’s the reality check for both minorities and majorities of any kind: as long as there is a safe space to express one’s religion or culture, the rest is just inconvenience or cause for annoyance and not a major tragedy.

The fears of the Chirstian majority, I think are related to fears of change, as was pointed out in the post, How rich one feels has less to do with the actual amount of money in one’s pocket than with how that relates to the wealth of yesterday or expected wealth for tomorrow. The same is true when assessing the degree to which one can dominate, I think.

It would be interesting to read how a Budhist or a Native Amrican copes with his minorty religion status, BTW. Religious minorties could learn from one another. The majority Christians could learn something from all minotities.

Minor quibble. In fact real median wage growth *has* been pretty flat for some years now, and job security has gone down. Thus if your net wealth is the expected present value of future pay, it would be entirely possible to feel like you’ve been at best treading water and that you are likely to lose ground in the future, even though there have 23 (?) consecutive quarters of pretty robust GDP growth.

Otherwise great article.