must be some other redbird....

[redbird]

A friend of mine was writing about her reactions to Yom Kippur. It's a locked post, so I won't point you there or quote her by name, but it invokes me, by LJ username, as someone who is probably upset that she doesn't fast or otherwise observe the holiday.

My reaction was, basically, "Who, me? Me, who has a nice chicken tikka coming from the Indian takeout place?" I posted that; she hasn't responded.

It really feels as though she's remembering a conversation with someone else, and putting my name on it. I'm a pinko New York humanist; around here "Jewish" is part of an ethnicity.

Comments

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

I thought it was odd, too, but assumed that she'd tracked on you just enough to remember that you were Jewish by ancestry, but not enough to know that you're not religious. It struck me as an offhanded comment, bordering on a put-down, but mostly functioning on insufficient data. You're not as vocal an atheist/non-religious as, say, Avram, is, so it's probably easier for someone to assume you are observant in some ways.

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

I didn't assume Vicki was an observer. I wouldn't really expect anyone in fandom to be a religious observer without definite knowledge, tho I suppose Moshe F is now I think about it (and Lise?) *I*'m not an observer. But I am culturally involved in being Jewish because well, I was born that way, and it's not so common over here. (It is appropriate I am replying to you here maybe. I usually say, "It's like being born black. You don't have a choice. If I'd been around when the Nazis came for the Jews, they's#d have taken me whether I say I don't observe or not." ) That, as I say, was the whole point. I'm stuck with being Jewish as a racial thing, I eouldn't dream of picking some new creed arbitrarily yet I think as a spiritual religion Judaism-as-it-is-practiced sucks. I am now begining to feel irritated myself that people read me writing something about Yom Kippur and unless I outright say, I hate this whole faggot religion! assume it means I subscribe to it. I don't want people to "tolerate" me being religious when I'm not, like filkerdave does below!! Do people's eyes entirely bounce off anything with word "religion" in it??

(I honourably exempt maryread here whose comment I found helpful and insightful.)

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Then why would you suggest that she might assume something negative about you because you are of Jewish heritage but not fasting?

I don't understand why you made the original assumption about her, or why you are assuming that I think you're in any way observant, when you've clearly written that you're not. My reaction was focused on your stated assumption about redbird's potential response, and that alone, which is why I responded here, and not to your initial post.

I understand why redbird was bemused and faintly irritated; I would be, too, if I were being told that I'd probably think something that antithetical to my thought patterns. I'm obviously missing something in the reasoning behind your anger expressed here.

[redbird]

OK. I'm the only other Jewish person on your friends list. Why does that make me the generic "person who will get upset when you write this"?

That's what I'm objecting to. Not whatever you choose to practice or not--keep a kosher home, dance naked on Beltane, or think of churches purely as a place to duck in out of the rain, it's your life.

What I object to is that you were imputing a judgment to me, based on no knowledge except the shared ethnicity you thought I would judge you because of, and putting my name on it in your posts.

Oh, and filkerdave isn't "tolerating" you being religious--if anything, the reverse, since he's religious and you aren't.