Monday, November 7, 2011

A woman next to me is praying; I am blogging - oy gevalt!

As I nurse major caffeine withdrawal, I will try to ponder discrimination against religious-ness in mainstream (ie secular) Israeli society:
1. Most of my secular friends deny its existence 2. Most of my religious friends do not

I don't think its official - its not like you're less likely to get a job because you're religious, etc. I also don't think its personal - most secular Israelis have positive personal relationships with religious Israelis, so it's not like individual religious people are being discriminated against by individual secular people, as a general rule.

It's more that being religious is considered a negative quality. You can be cool despite being religious - but it is a "despite", not "because of".

I notice even in terms of things like dating, in the US, my dating a non-Jew would be considered normal secular society, whereas in Israeli society for me as a religious Jew to date a non-religious Jew would be considered weird, and non-religious relatives have told me point-blank that as a religious Jew I'll never be part of the same society that they are "our social lives are completely different", I was told, which I feel like is code for "You don't sleep around or party on Friday nights".

That's all I have the energy for right now -1 down, 2 to go.

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