Keeping Kosher?

In Rosenthal’s book “The Israelis” part three is dedicated to the different ways a person can be Jewish.  She begins with the description of the Haredim, who are extremely religious. They follow Jewish laws in detail Rosenthal, P.175). Rosenthal then moves on to describe the Orthodox Jews, who are do not follow Jewish laws as detailed as the Haredim yet they still hold true to a lot of what is in the Torah. Rosenthal goes into detail of how the many cities in Israel hold religious value to the Jewish people. She points out scriptures from the Torah that shows how Abraham first got the land and how it was a promise from god (Rosenthal, P. 207-9). Rosenthal provides the stories of the Non-Orthodox Jews and how there lives are affected by their religious practices. This chapter shows how Non-Orthodox Jews often feel marginalized by other Jews because they do not follow such strict Jewish laws. This also exhibits the harassment that Non-Orthodox Jews often experience because they do not follow religious laws as others due (Rosenthal, P.225).

            One of the distinctions made throughout this section of the book was how there are distinctions in what is “Kosher.”  Rosenthal points out how there is only one kosher sanctioned label that the Haredim will buy. Haredim only buy She’erit Yisrael, which follows the laws to keep Kosher by the Lithuanians. The Haredim follow the laws so strictly that a woman who attended a wedding of the daughter of a friend. At the wedding the Haredim woman did not eat the meat that was being served because she believed they were not kosher enough. She only ate the salad and claimed to have the stomach flu (Rosenthal, P. 182). In the Orthodox section of the book, there is the story of the young Mizrahi girl who is at the Mount Meron celebrating Rabbi Shimon. The young girl offers food to a Haredi woman as a form of sharing. The young girl says that the kosher laws are suppose to unite all Jews, yet it seems to separate them (Rosenthal, P.212)

            On jewfaq.org, there is an article that explains what it means to be Kosher. It explains that being kosher is a Jewish law that deals with what is acceptable to eat, and in what way the food should be prepared. The article explains that eating Kosher is a law that is found in the Torah yet there is not much explanation for it. Some of the laws are: not mixing dairy with meat, some animals and certain part cannot be eaten, the animal must be completely drained of it blood.  The article also mentions how many times people are under the impression that a Rabbi must bless the food, in order to be kosher; I used to think this as well. I did not know that it does not have to be done by a Rabbit. Although it is a ritual called “Schechitah” performed by a “Shocher,” the ritual is considered human from the many other grotesque forms.  Another interesting fact I was not aware of is that the utensils must also be separated when one cooks meant or diary.

The article also focuses on the kosher certificates. The certificate is a way for people who keep kosher to know its okay to eat the food. Rosenthal mentions how restaurants and hotels all have to have a kosher certification in order to serve food (Rosenthal, P.229). One of the really interesting things she also mentions is the opening of the McDonalds in Israel, how so many people were outraged and they wanted to change it to McKosher. Finally, after much protest they agreed to serve Kosher approved food at the McDonalds. 

            These three sections of the book really show the differences among the different degrees of being Jewish, what I found interesting was how a detail like food can really matter. Another interesting fact about being kosher is how healthy it is for a person. It really rids food that harms the body. What especially mind boggling is that this is a tradition that has been going on for many years and its quite advanced it what healthy for people, specifically because now we live in a world were most people are conscious about what they eat. I believe because being kosher involves traditional rules, the article I used is extremely reliable. Although, it does give a very basic explanation, and I am not interested to see in what it is that the Haredim believe to be kosher. 

Hebrew...It's Alive?!?!

Throughout “The Israelis” reading by Rosenthal, I found a consistent subject that cut across every group discussed in the “One nation many tribes” section of the book. What really got my attention were the many different languages that can be found in Israel, which continued to resurface in the reading.  As I continued to read the chapters it become clear that Israel is a country full of linguistic diversity. In the first section, Rosenthal discusses the birth of Hebrew as a spoken language (Rosenthal, P. 101). Ben-Yahuda wanted to make Hebrew the language of the Jews to unite them through a language. He only spoke Hebrew to his son, and his son was the first Jew to speak Hebrew in thousands of years (Rosenthal, P. 102).  Ben-Yahuda, revive Hebrew and now it is one of the official languages of Israel.

            It is especially interesting to read about the different pronunciations of Hebrew. Rosenthal says that Ben-Yahuda wanted to keep the Sephardi dialect. Ben-Yahuda believed that this dialect would bring the Sephardi, Ashkenazi, and Mizrahi Jews closer together and would created less linguistic differences. What is interesting is that even though there was an attempt to create a Hebrew dialect that everyone spoke, there were still certain distinctions in accents. Another major reason Israel is so linguistically diverse is the fact that it is a nation of immigrants. In the reading, Mizrahi Jews could still notice a difference in the Ashkenazi accent, and did not consider it “ ‘real’ Hebrew” (Rosenthal, P. 115). Rosenthal also describes the Mizrahi Jews often using their own way of pronouncing words. She describes Meir a soccer coach as using “Mizrahi Arabic Slang” this is a great example of how many extremely diverse Israel is, and what better way to see it but through the languages spoken there. Rosenthal describes Meir entering his home and his wife is cooking and they greet each other in Hebrew and Judeo- Moroccan (Rosenthal, P. 127). Another example of this great diversity in the book was that of the Mizrahi Parents being spoken to about their children by educators in Hebrew and North African Arabic. 

            As I mentioned before there was a major change in language when the Russians arrived in Israel as well as the Ethiopian Jews. In the introduction of the Russian population in Israel, Rosenthal first and foremost mentions the few Hebrew words a Boris Katz knew upon arriving in Israel. The Russian population as we have discussed in class and in read in many of the readings for class discuss the fact that Russian immigrants had received superlative educations and came to Israel as doctors, engineers and scientists. The influx of Russian immigrants changed the Israeli language demographics, according to Rosenthal one out of five Israelis speaks Russian. Stores have signs in Cyrillic (Rosenthal, P.131).  There are even cities (Ashkelon is one) in Israel where Russian is the dominant language (Rosenthal, P. 132).  In this cities the people do not keep kosher and do not hold many Jewish practices.

            Gregory was a Russian immigrant who recalled wanting to study Judaism but his grandfather would not teach him because he feared they would be persecuted. Gregory describes his experience with Hebrew as “…I feel in love with Hebrew; it awakened a strong Jewish feeling inside me” (Rosenthal, P.135). It is really interesting how a language really does unite people, but can also separate and make us different from one another.

            In looking at Israel and the many languages it has, I must mention the story of the Ethiopian man on the bus. An older Ethiopia Jew was riding the bus when there was a bomb threat the bus driver instructed everyone to get out, the Ethiopian man did not speak any Hebrew and lost his life (Rosenthal, P. 159).

In a haaretz.com article written about a year ago, Making Hebrew the only national language of Israel was up for debate. In the reading the article I could not understand how a small, yet colossally diverse country could make legal changes to the national language. Israel’s national languages are Hebrew and Arabic, yet the state is full of so many more different languages. It really shows how diverse a country it has become over the years.

Overall, I think Rosenthal is a reliable, to begin with these chapters do not have anything to do with the language these different groups speak, this is not the focus of the chapters, yet the chapters are sprinkled with these language differences, and how they often stigmatize groups in Israel. I attempted to find map that would show the Israeli states different language demographics but had a very difficult time finding it. There is not a lot on the web about Israel in a linguistic sense, and most of the material was academic journals that were impossible to access and link to. 

Here is a fun video I found that teaches you some Hebrew words! 

Israeli Nightlife!

In the book “The Israelis” the author Rosenthal dedicates an entire chapter to dating, marriage and sex in Israel. When talking about a culture sex and love are very important social elements. It was interesting to read about Israel culture concerning dating, and this lead to explore what exactly is nightlife in Israel like. As mentioned in Rosenthal the youth of Israel enjoy the nightlife until the early morning (Rosenthal, P. 23). Rosenthal gives examples of Israeli youths dancing and enjoying the night at clubs, and even soldiers partake in the nightlife scene (Rosenthal, P.25). Another, interesting fact that Rosenthal brings up in her book is the consumption of alcohol. It appears alcohol is not consumed as much in Israel compared to Europe and America. I found this very interesting, although they do drink and have fun their use for alcohol is much lower, seeing as how it is a very crucial part of the nightlife in America. Rosenthal, also points out that there is not a lot of liquor stores in Israel (Rosenthal, P.26), it seems strange because in America you can find a liquor store in every other corner. These few pages lead me to look up the nightlife in Israel. In the Tel Aviv Insider website one can read about the beer in Israel. There are two different beers brewed in Israel one is Goldstar and the other is Maccabi. According to this website most Israeli’s drink beet because it is much more refreshing than mixed drinks and Israel had a very warm climate so bee seems life the logical thing to drink. One can find many other beers of the world but it appears that these two are a staple in Israeli culture. There is a feud between the two and apparently most people are either Goldstar drinkers or Maccabi drinkers rarely both.

In Israel21c.org, the video above shows what the nightlife was like, specifically in Tel-Aviv. People in the video describe Tel-Aviv as a place where people never want to sleep. There are bars and dance clubs. The nightlife does not begin until after eleven o’clock at night, and it does not end until the early morning. This video also mentions the diversity one can find in the Tel Aviv nightlife. A website called the Tel Aviv insider explains that Tel Aviv is much better than other city’s in the world known for their night life such as New York, and London. This article mentions that sometimes nightlife starts really kicking off around one or two a.m. This was really surprising to me because living in Los Angeles, clubs open at ten o’clock at night and close at two a.m. its amazing that in other parts of the world timing for nightlife is so different. The Tel Aviv insider website says “On a good weekend you can keep dancing from Thursday evening to Saturday afternoon, if you’re up to it!” In reading about Tel Aviv nightlife, I feel the closest reference I have to it would be Las Vegas. This website dedicates itself to giving tips on how to get around the city. It serves as a guide into the city. It gives tips for example on the kind of people to expect, how people act or how long the lines are to get into a club. One familiar tip I read was that for a group of men it is much harder to get into a club than it is for women, it is the same thing here in L.A.

Overall, these websites seem like extremely helpful guides to the Israeli the validity of the websites overall is not so important because they are opinion pieces. Although it can be argued that perhaps they are trying to advertise and get more people to visit the city. The videos and articles fail to mention the bad things about the Tel Aviv nightlife and therefore one can assume that they are trying to sell the city to get more people to visit it.