Jew

We're doing a section on Judaism in World Religions and just had a tutorial that made me think a lot. Mostly because I didn't speak in it--which was part of what I thought about. To explain:

There was one guy in the tutorial, an American, of course, who early on made an answer with reference to having a lot of Jewish friends. He immediately became the tutorial's authority on all things Jew, which was interesting, as a few people in the tutorial specifically mentioned not knowing any jews. The tutorial was ostensibly about the film Everything is Illuminated, which I hadn't seen, but is about an American jew tracing his history back past the Holocaust. I say "ostensibly" because Divinity tutorials like to be warm and fuzzy and get people talking about how things like "heritage" and "the past" are important to them. This tutorial meets only once every other week so I there wasn't a kind of rapport where I could jump in with links to Judaism and the Holocaust, especially because I have conflicted feelings about both. This naturally segued into me trying to figure out in my head what my feelings were.

Most of my religious/family education comes from my Dad, I think because they play a larger part in his identity (being something to grow from, not something to grow away from, as I think they are for Mom), and because the holocaust makes a good story (what does this say about us?) it features prominently in what I think of as my origins. Jewishness also features, although a lot less prominently--I always feel like an outer fringe of that community. A fair bit of the family that I know are jewish to various degrees and I have been to quite a few Jewish holidays/events (bar mitzvahs, weddings, funerals), but as a son-of-a-son-of-a-son of of secular non-practicing Jews in a tradition that is supposed to go through mothers anyways, my relationship is oddly tenuous, though probably stronger than any other religious identification that I have.

I'm also shit-terrified of Zionism, which adds another layer. I'm not entirely sure why, but I suppose it has to do with disliking nationalism of any type, Jewish nationalism feeling artificial and harmful, all nationalism feeling artificial (being about 200 years old, and maybe its better than rival empires or maybe just a mask for it) and harmful, and not liking friends holding beliefs that I struggle to rationally understand. I think it also has to do with my 'fringe' Jewish cultural identity and a strong Holocaust identification--it's a state created in response to the Holocaust, which I consider important, but one that I don't think my diluted Jewishness has any claim to. People going on their "birthright" scares me because of this, and because of the ideology that they come back with, particularly given that being friends with Muslims and traveling in the Middle East has made me much more sympathetic to Palestine than Israel, though I think I've learned to separate my feelings about states from my feelings about the people in them.

So, I'm glad I've given this a bit of thought.

Talked to Cheolseung rather than going to lectures today, and am still in a very strange and confused mood that is mostly unpleasant. Have some deadlines coming up, so need to get cracking on those. Mostly seeing if giving lethargy a long leash will make it go away. Results pending.