Thanksgiving has become a secular religious festival. Last night, we went round the table saying what we were thankful for. Few of the thanks were explicitly religious. Though one nephew said he was thankful that his father is a Christian. Everyone laughed. He is so young that no one was quite sure what to make of the statement. Someone asked him to explain and he said that a lot of people are Jewish but his father is a Christian. My interpretation is that he's at an age in his identity formation when he hears about tribal differences and is not yet aware of what they mean, but he wants to keep both tribes pleased.
I often think I have a similar role. Today with my gentile in-laws, who gathered across town last night for their thanksgiving, we went for a walk in the fields. There was a lot of talk about Obama's team (approval), about the tremendous chores he faces, and about the financial meltdown. My wife's aunt, who is very smart, said it was important for someone to go to jail for what happened. Maybe Greenspan. When he said that no one had ever seen anything like this before, she said, His job is not to be a historian, it's to manage these matters. Or maybe Barney Frank should go to jail, she said. He was the one who pushed for changes to the federal housing law so that banks would take on subprime mortgages to put poor people in houses. Now he's in charge of fixing the mess he made. Or Henry Paulson, for claiming to know what was going on as he demanded all our money. I don't think it occurred to my aunt-in-law that she had mentioned two Jews. If my own family heard the list, though, they would have been sensitive to this issue. That's where I am now, at my family's house. It's an academic Jewish house. A ton of books, a lot of food, a lot of activity in the kitchen. NPR going 24/7. No long walks in the fields.
The space between these two cultures used to be dangerous. People got shunned for entering it. Now it's a conventional space. Witness, my nephew. Hardly the only religious mutt. I suppose we need new religious rituals to sanctify it. Last night when it was my wife's turn to offer thanks, she was thankful for the fortunate times we live in that we can gather and have a sumptuous feast–because who knows about next year. Our leadership is going to need esprit de corps to weather this storm…
I'm thankful for all the readers of this blog, for my friends who contribute to it, for Richard Witty for hanging in there as an antagonist, and for my many mentors.
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"NPR going 24/7" LOL!!!!!
Thank you for all the hard work on this blog.
I too had an assimilationist Thanksgiving. A number of kids said they
were thankful they were Jews in a free America. We all hoped for the best for Obama, Various names were mentioned as the perps of current problems, including those mentioned by Phil. All knew they were Jews, or rather Jewish Americans.
We all said a prayer for our kids, those over in Iraq.
We prayed they would not be sent into a war on Iran.
PHIL POSTED: " It's an academic Jewish house. A ton of books, a lot of food, a lot of activity in the kitchen. NPR going 24/7."
ME: SOUNDS LIKE A WOODY ALLEN FILM!!!!!!
NPR=Neocon Public Radio
Can anyone recall the last time NPR did a story which did not have some multicultural, multiracial, anti-White, or anti-Christian angle?
I didn't know I was exactly an "antagonist". I thought I was rational.
In our world, Phil, yours and mine, assimilation was the norm. Conspicuously religious was the odd one.
Ethnic yes, religious no.
Barney Frank was progressive when he suggested that the features of red-lining be abolished. There might be an "old-money" vs "neauvoux-riche" at play with your wife's aunt.
(And that historically was conspicuously white protestant vs Jewish and Italian, where I grew up).
The Bush tax cuts were that, favoring old money conspicuously (very low tax on dividends and other income from equities and speculation). An irony. Not neo-conservative or hedge fund new money (both greedy new and greedy old).
Thankful that my son is in peaceful Jerusalem rather than Mumbai.
It did not occur to me until now that I had an 'assimilist' thanksgiving dinner. Of the three senior couples each was a hybrid, including mine. The host's half Jewish daughter brought her half Jewish boyfriend (Swedish mother and father of mostly Galiciana descent). There was one young Jewish woman who was a guest of the hosts who openly asked the group if they knew of an elgible Jewish man. No response, just embarrassed silence.
The discussion was interesting. It turned out 5 of us were descended from immigrants that had migrated to this country between 1897 and 1910 which was true for both the Jews and us goyim. We exchanged our grand and great grand parents stories of their pasts and migrations to this country.
It was a fun dinner.
"There was one young Jewish woman who was a guest of the hosts who openly asked the group if they knew of an elgible Jewish man. No response, just embarrassed silence."
Let me guess, she then asked why no one was talking about the poor jews who were the single target in the Mumbai attacks? I know of one jewish girl who would have acted in such sensible way. That must be Riccarda Wittone for sure! That strange sibling of hers, Riccardo the mafiosi, must be in a rage of jealousy, I can imagine him trying to convince Metalepsis to give him a hand, you know, to put some pressure on the girl, or more precisely on any pretender. It worked last time when she gave a wink to PAZ. The poor guy ended up in China seeking asylum.
This 2nd generation Irish-American Catholic has had nothing but assimilationist Thanksgivings since early on.
Only difference between now and then is that the one room big enough in grandma's small Chicago bungalow to hold all 23 of us in the 1950's for thanksgiving was the basement.
Nowadays, everyone has huge houses with large dining rooms. Only problem is . . . . .everyone's scattered, atomized, unattached. So as the rooms and houses got larger, the guest list of friends and relatives got smaller and smaller.
We've become assimilated!
Metalepsis, my dear, is carrying Dr. Slomo Sands through the desert of his mind. I think he leased him for transumption from the a priori to the a posteriori world. But can one be sure?
In our mixed Christian Muslim family we gave thanks our our loved ones survived another year of Israel's siege in Gaza.
Religion never came up.
Well,
I also had an assimilation Thanksgiving (not an assimilation IST one).
We had enfrijoladas, pie and icecream.
Redlining is the practice of denying people (usually minorities) loans based on where they lived. That hasn't gone on in practice for quite a while. The mortgage failure rare for equally qualified blacks and whites is about the same. Qualified blacks already had mortgages and at the same rates as everyone else. What Barney Frank wanted lenders to do was issue mortgages to people who clearly weren't qualified, who had a history of not paying their bills even when they made enough money to do so, which many of them didn't.
"That hasn't gone on in practice for quite a while."
Bullshit.
Consider the origins of anti-redlining laws, their escalation imposing
de facto quotas on banks, the assumption by all involved of a win-win scenario based on the concept of "fair housing" secured by
taxpayers ultimately for all parties in the chain of slice and dice bundles–As Usual Witty has no sense of proportion.
Why is it that Witty is all for affirmative action of every sort, except when it comes to the Palestinians, where he claims one must be rigorous in bringing out all the facts advocated by either side?
Why is this the only issue Witty has ever commented on where
he demands full context clarification?
Check back through all his posts.
You don't know shit about what I think or do, Anon.
Do you approve of the targeting of Habad?
Anyone who wants to know why Mister Reason, Witty is using the s___word, just check out his past posts on this blog, as I suggested, and solely from which I derived my last comment.
Do you approve of the continued expansion of Israeli settlements?
Do you approve of the lack of information given to the American
people about such expansion on prime time TV?
Do you approve of the Orthodox view of the world's non-Jews?
If not, precisely how not?
Loaded questions.
You know my answers already, if you bother to read.
Only very passive people rely solely on primetime for their information about the world. I know that is a pet issue of yours, if you are the same anon?, but its a dumb one.
There are MANY ways to get informed, for those that desire to.
I don't approve of expansion of settlements. I disapprove, and have publicly for decades.
The orthodox hold multiple views of non-Jews. There are bigots and great humanists. Generalization would be an example of bigotry (say presuming what "orthodox" believe).
If Phil were an assimilationist, wouldn't he be a Christian by now? Is assimilation really happening when all of the traditional religious holidays are becoming secular holidays, and multiculturalism is replacing the traditional culture? I'm still not sure why Palestine is an American burden.
We know exactly what you are, Witty. You post here more than anybody so it's not hard to realize that you are an apologist for jewish fascism and a hypocrite of the highest order.
Grateful your son is in 'peaceful', occupied Jerusalem where Palestinians continue to be evicted from their homes and Orthodox jews burn down Christian places of worship.
Wake up dipshit…
Witty, as any moron can see my loaded questions were prompted by yours, your patented way of dialogue: " Do you approve of the targeting of Habad?"
The question is, WHY was Habad targeted?
Wake up, dipshit…
Metalepsis is now part of the mondoweissian bestiary. If he wants to make the transumption of the doctor's inner desert a magnificent archeological expedition, the correct mondoweissian number of sanding Slomos to be carried is, of course, five. Otherwise there will be neither sand enough, nor dancing in the oasis.
"The question is, WHY was Habad targeted?"
Because terrorists, by definition, regard collective punishment as a valid approach, same as the worst of any police state.
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