Being Ethiopian in Israel.

I was just reading an article for a paper I'm writing about the identity of foreign workers' children in Israel. While this article is about Ethiopians and not foreign workers, it's related because identity is both elusive and strictly guarded in the Jewish state of Israel where the Orthodox Rabbinate has a monopoly on deciding "Who is a Jew" and therefore who is a "real Israeli."

This article is about the identity of the Ethiopians who came to Israel in the last 20 years. It argues that a new kind of racism developed in Israeli society. But that Ethiopians have been able to create an unique identity. "In fact, they have developed a hybrid identity that meshes Israeliness, Jewishness, and blackness. Have they succeeded in escaping their marginalised status and in establishing their hybrid conception within Israeli
society?"

A paragraph I read in the article recalls the post I wrote a while back about the term "kushi." Before I speculated. Now, the author spoke to some Ethiopian youth: "Some Ethiopian youngsters aged 16 to 18 seemed to suggest that they were rebelling against the image that had been foisted onto them. Asked how they reacted to being called kushi (black), a term that connotes a slave in their traditional culture, they replied unequivocally that whereas in the past they had been offended and backed off, now they would lash out at anyone who used the term and ‘let him have it’, in the words of one interviewee."

Ben-eliezer, Uri (2004) 'Becoming a black Jew: cultural racism and anti-racism in contemporary Israel', Social Identities, 10:2, 245 - 266

שוקו בשקית--Chocolate in a Bag

I was just craving Shoko B'sakit (שוקו בשקית)! And then it occured to me that it's a worthwhile topic for a post.


This concept at first seemed really gross to me--sucking chocolate milk out of a plastic bag after ripping off the corner with your mouth--but then I realized how great of a satisfying snack it is!

Here's an excellent short "How to" video:

Post Modernity

As the semester comes to an end, all my classes seem to be converging on an interesting and important subject: Modernity and Post Modernity. While it seems that these are terms we throw around all the time, I don't often have a chance to really think about them...Here are some thoughts (albeit just a few) that have been discussed, interspersed with some photos I took from the net.

Modernity can be traced to the 17th century: the scientific revolution, new technology, and transportation (railroad and steamship) which all provided for totally new possibilities. The origins of modernity are located in Europe. Progress is big! There is a whole change in the way people understand their world, in every way.


Of course, besides there being this new forward-moving direction that history was thought to be moving in, there is a dark side: Colonialism (an ideology while acceptable at the time was about racism and imposing ideas on people), WWI and its unfathomable amount of death and suffering, WWII and the Holocaust, the invention of the atomic bomb.

In contrast to modernity and post-modernity, modernism and post-modernism are aesthetic styles, referring to literature, art, architecture, music. This style is clean and simple. One example is Bauhaus architecture.


The post modern era started in the 1970s, among French intellectuals. Existentialism and questioning of what really is truth. This new outlook can be termed a"paradigm shift," where there are no more certainties in life, and the concept of progress is dead. The post modern turn can be seen in subaltern studies, cultural studies, and social history. In the post modern era, there is also a resurgence of religion (since there is nothing else to believe in!). Nietzsche is confused.


Anthony Giddens writes in The Consequences of Modernity: "living in the modern world is more like being aboard a careering juggernaut rather than being in a carefully controlled and well-driven motor car."


In my class, "Muslim Mediterranean Cities," the professor challenged us with these questions: "Is post modernity just another stage of modernity? Is it an imploding of modernism?" I don't know the answers.

In a different class ("Production of Resistance in Arab Countries"), the professor posited that there are different concepts of modernity in the West and East. Western modernity can be seen as a total break from the past. In the East, modernity has some connection to tradition as well. They are not mutually exclusive. For example, Eastern music cannot be understood without looking at traditional music styles to understand the contemporary.

New Year's.

Here's an interesting (read: crappy camera phone) series of a few photos from Oded and my fun and low-key New Year's in Tel Aviv.

(Card from the bar we were at: "One who doesn't drink doesn't pee.")