Anglo -
You will visit relatives and acquaintances and be expected to socialize politely, eat with your napkin in your lap, sit up straight at the table, chew with your mouth closed, and be a "conversationalist".
Jewish -
You spend most of your time with people you already know.
As Mr Rogers said, there is only so much that children can process and cope with.
Sexualizing children is being protested in response to the obviously offensive books found in school libraries today.
But there are subtler ways to disturb children.
A single mother with a boyfriend, a single father with a girlfriend, with poor boundaries between them and the children, can make kids feel disturbed without anyone taking notice or asking why.
Modesty in Islam and in Judaism hold by the concept of keeping boys and girls from a young age separate, and never in seclusion with each other.
The religious Christian family will likely not have a boyfriend or girlfriend hovering around.
But the secular person scoffs at mores of modesty, even subtle ones, like the dating single parent in which the significant other is socializing with the children, like coming over for supper, going out to a movie together, these are actually subtly erode a child's boundaries.
The child feels disturbed, and he has no voice to explain why, because of the modern scoffing at modesty.
If you are a dating single parent, there is no reason to involve your children and all socialize together. It subtlety disturbs them
"The personal is the political"
That concept meant originally that your basic needs like education, housing, can only be met via political action.
It has devolved to mean that if you make an off handed comment about your feelings to a liberal, she will evaluate your comment in light of its political application.
Brookline Massachusetts, 1970’s and 80’s, public schools, we were being groomed to be activists, and we did not even know it.
It is the fact that we did not even know that we were being groomed, and the way this assumption affected relationships, that bothers me.
It was indoctrination, of introducing basic assumptions without letting on what was happening.
What is good about the Abrahamic religions is that they fess up what they are about in the conversion process. A convert or a newcomer to Judaism, Christianity or Islam must state the basic tenets of the religion they are converting to.
Secular liberal humanism gains traction through indoctrination, not admitting what it is all about.
No one said, in Runkle school or in Brookline High, that the education we were getting is in order for you to think in an activist bent, become future activists, and interact with others according to their politics.
State a stray thought to a liberal, they bring it to its political application. It ruins relationships, and they do not even see it.
Here is one, “I think sexuality is flexible, and that people can be influenced to be gay or straight.”
This is just something I noticed among my acquaintance in high school and college.
Your stray thought will be pounced upon in order to warn how this thought will be applied politically, a modern liberal’s answer will be, “but you have to support gay marriage!” “or “you have to support gay adoption!”
You were just observing the world, but if you are next to a modern liberal, that stray thought will be pounced upon regarding its political application.
You cannot share thoughts, you can hardly breathe, near the modern liberal. And it ruins relationships.
You can only be the one who pounces, the activist, convinced that you will always be the victor, the activist on the right side of the fence.
But if you start thinking differently from the modern trends, and make a stray comment, you will find yourself suddenly marginalized.
If you want to be an activist, to even use your interpersonal interactions as a platform, you better assume that you will be on the right side of the political fence, or bend and sway with every trend that blows, switch horses. An example of this is allowing "trans-women" to compete against biological women in sports. That is an obvious blow to womankind, but leading feminists are not condemning it, because they just conveniently switched horses, got onto the right side of the social trends.
You trusted them, and then you discovered that Gloria Steinam and the like - were just trendy, that is all.
You may wonder what an extended family gathering is like.
I did not know, only found out in my adult years, as I spent more of my childhood with my New England Anglo family than my Jewish family. The New England family declined, and I want to tell you about it.
In my own story, my Anglo relatives in New England were not an extended supporting
network. They were also not religious Christians, they very rarely
mentioned religion: being a Protestant was a back drop, but not a topic
of conversation. This was a good thing a century ago, when moral values permeated society anyway, as it was a code
of tolerance for other Protestant sects, but it turned into - no passing down religious values, and this meant a vaccum that was filled with post world war two secularism as preached in public schools.
Of course my extended Anglo family was small, but even a small extended family could have gotten together for happy times, and we did not - gatherings such as Thanksgiving day were tense and intrapersonally competitive, even before our exposure to liberal-left culture, beginning in the 1960's. The noble New England family imploded because of its lack of family unity, which was based on an assumption that family members compete with each other, and do not complete each other.
The
New England family had the concept of reciprocation, if someone invites
you, you need to invite in return. This is actually not fair for less
financially well off relatives and aquaintances.
There are Anglo second cousins I never met, a great uncle I only met at one of the rare weddings in the family.
Anglo alienation was partly due to its former wealth. A few centuries ago, the question was - who was going to inherit, say the parcel of land in an English estate? As they came to the New World, and rebuilt their wealth, the question became, who was going to inherit the family silver? The fine china? The choice antiques? Old English families are intrapersonally competitive. They brought that assumption down to the present day. It is a mark of honor, that you can make it on your own, that you must not be beholden to anyone - you can see this theme in the Little House on the Prairie series - never be beholden, cut your coat to fit the cloth, someone else's troubles are not my lookout. There was no charity for other people, there was say for the church or external worthy causes, but not for individuals.
We had no pride in being
of English and Irish ancestry, or in being Protestant, or in being
American. I am a Daughter of the American Revolution yet never heard
about that organization, nor was any effort made to join. We did nothing
special on Memorial day. That lack of pride wears away at your family
unity, your sense of self, and confidence that one should have as a
birthright. You cannot blame the Left, this began in the 1950's.
So the liberal left individualism had something to graft itself onto:
1 - do
not be beholden, this is related to: charity is given to institutions but not to individuals
2 - intrapersonal competition,
3 - reciprocity - meaning you had to exactly match what you were invited to, which is sometimes not possible.
It was just individualism in a different form - first, formal Protestant New England, then, liberal individualism.
If you grew up in an individualist relativist culture, most of your time was probably spent cultivating your academic abilities and not so much time on family.
So what is it like in a family-oriented society? Well, gatherings are not marked by intra-personal competition, but by the basic assumption that family members need to get along with each other in order for the extended family to be strong.
The traditional Jewish world actually contains much variety. Some hold that their rabbi is a bridge, one group holds that their rabbi is the messiah and will soon be revealed, some that he is just very learned and anyone can achieve a high level of learning. Some hold that the state of Israel is premature and should not be recognized, some hold that the state is the harbinger of messianic times.
An extended family gathering in the orthodox Jewish world means that people with very diverse philosophies come together. But what do they do at family gatherings or at weddings/bar mitzvas and the like?
Here is a snapshot, and ideas to help Americans, at least, what is left of them:
1 - no mentioning your religious philosophy or politics, that is, those who revere a certain rabbi do not mention it to those who do not hold by him.
2 - Serve tons of food. Anglos tend to count portions and chairs - DON'T. Instead, just throw a bunch of chairs around a few tables and serve platters of food.
You should bring food storage boxes to take some home: that is expected (remember the scene in Fiddler on the Roof in which Yenta visits Tevya's home to propose a marriage match, is offered cookies, and takes some home with her? Yup, that is to be expected.) You take turns socializing and sometimes sit on the side for a while until it is your turn: first, the close family members interact, then, people move around from table to table to interact with those who are more distantly related and those who are friends and acquaintances. Do not sit yourself down at the beginning with the sisters and sisters in law - wait about an hour, then you can move to that table after one of them vacates their space to speak to a second cousin.
Just showing up to a wedding or bar mitzva is in itself a good deed. You do not need to sparkle. You may be on the side line at first but as the evening progresses someone will converse with you.
3 - There is no concept of reciprocation. You are invited to celebrations or Sabbath or holidays at someone's home with no concept that you have to invite in return someday.
I grew up liberal-left, Brookline Mass, in the 70's and 80's. In a relativist world, everyone is poised to impose, as people are recreating reality all the time, creating new truths, and now, the new "truth" is that gender is fluid. This is actually a horror. The modern secular world cannot even define what a woman is. I am witness that feminism in the 70's and 80's meant pride for women, a generation later, you cannot even define that word.
In the liberal relativist world, interactions are a stage, a platform for imposing and spreading the new reality, whatever that is.
4 - Privacy - In the orthodox Jewish world, there are teachings against gossip, and gossip is broadly defined, plus there is a huge value on privacy. You do not point out say who is divorced, who is adopted, who converted to Judaism. It is also forbidden to remind people of their former failings. This stems from a story in the Talmud in which Resh Lakish, a repentant former bandit, is learning with rabbi Yohanan. They are debating whether a certain item is a sword or a knife. Rabbi Yohanan acquiesced, saying, "a bandit knows the tools of banditry". This embarrassed Resh Lakish, he left the path of Torah, and reverted to his old ways.
With that context, that is, the teachings against divulging personal information and gossip, orthodox Jewish family gatherings are not platforms for imposing, like we were groomed for in the secular relativist liberal world.
When you assume that Truth is not something you invent, but that Truth flows through you, your whole attitude to interpersonal interactions is completely altered. You do not impose.
You relax and eat. It really works.
I am happy in my orthodox Jewish world, but sad for the implosion of the noble New England family, its negative effects on the individual and on America itself.
When I attend Jewish gatherings, I think of my WASP cousins, who are fading from the map of history, and am reminded of what could have been.
Home school your children. This is probably best nowadays.
If you cannot homeschool, then when you return from work, have your kids lay out their school books and notes and go over what they learned that day with them. Be vigilant. Ask what they learned that day, both regarding book knowledge as well as interpersonal interactions.
Be aware of the content and context of what your kids are learning in school, in the facts they are learning and what the atmosphere of the school is like. Give them a buffer between themselves and the school, so that they can identify when they are hearing propaganda versus tools to learn truths. Do not trust the school, do not leave the responsibility for your child's education in the school's hands.
Here is the underlying morbid philosophy, just one branch of the modern project of desensitization:
Liberals today assume that traditional moral values are superstition, binding people to an irrelevant, outmoded way of thinking.
By breaking through these entrenched thought processes, even to the point of chaos, they are liberating people from man-made, irrelevant value systems.
When they see that people are offended, they believe they have reached the edge of the next level of human development and will keep pushing those limits.
This system assumes that values are man-made; because mankind has progressed, modern thinking must be better and the old thinking must be worthy of replacement.
They see themselves as Abraham knocking down his father Terach's idols. Did our forefather Abraham care that Terach's feelings were hurt when his idols were smashed? Of course not!
If you shock someone, turn their world upside down, they will re-evaluate the situation, then agree with you.
But why sexualize children? The idea is because everyone is smart enough to choose for themselves and no one should dictate limits to them, they can decide. No one should deny them a legitimate pleasure. The only reason anyone thinks there should be limits on sexual behavior is due to old fashioned hang ups which should be uprooted. These were mechanisms of the patriarchy to keep others oppressed.
If you are bothered by it, then that is like being bothered by sitting next to a black person, or bothered by the fact that women have the vote.
And so what if one girl spoke about how hurtful it was to her, as a sex abuse survivor, to have to hear about sexual issues in the classroom. She stated that she need to heal from being sexually abused, not hear about sex all the time.
Answer - get ear plugs. Toughen up.The claim is that all these are superstitions that kept people oppressed, and need to be done away with. If you are disturbed by it, then that is your problem, the rights of the many are more important than the needs of a few hypersensitive kids and fanatical parents.
Being desensitized to sexuality is, they claim, part of the project of human advancement.
They provoked the parents at Dearborn Michigan into emotional displays, well, they are proud that they reached the limits of your tolerance, and they will continue to push.
Their goal is that every person should be free to choose their own destiny, and nothing should inhibit them, no person, parent, spouse, teacher, or ideology.
That is the underlying morbid philosophy, just one branch of the modern project of desensitization.
One societal divide is between those who define and those who wish to leave things fuzzy and up in the air.
Those who claim that there are no definitions are actually poised to take control, and then they will be the definers.
Be wary of them.
Another divide is between those who hold by sexual purity and those who do not.
A relativist society assumes that off-handed comments, facial expressions, and body language shape one's basic assumptions. Relativism must create an atmosphere in which facts have no place.
This affects people's interactions. Relativists must push away the conservative and the traditional, because they interfere with an atmosphere. They must inter-personally provoke the conservative or traditional.
This does not apply simply to who the relativist senses you vote for, but to the mentality that you have. I knew a woman who was basically a relativist but voted republican. No one provoked her, as it was a given that she just had a different idea regarding governance. Her friends were other liberal relativists and she was the odd one out regarding voting, but not regarding lifestyle.
In that group was a couple who were former Catholics. It was okay if they attended Catholic church on holidays, but they never could have been in that clique if they were still strong Catholics, and why not? Because relativists feel a subconscious need, or maybe a conscious one, to push back at the following concepts, which they sense you are holding by, so that these concepts do not creep into their fragile atmosphere:
Sexual purity: waiting until marriage, loyalty in marriage. You can have loyalty in marriage if you are lucky but it should not be some absolute value, I mean, what a pity that Jackie Onassis's boyfriend's wife would not grant him a divorce, Jackie is so great, she should be able to steal a man from whomever she wants.
You know, it really is the sexual purity that is the major divide. Relativists do not want that in their atmosphere, they push back on it, and do not want anyone around who may make an off-handed comment that reflects a value on waiting and loyalty.
They do not want to hear:
"My daughter will be living at home and attending college so she does not have to share mixed-gender bathrooms or dorms."
"My son is attending an all men's college so as to keep his mind focused on his studies, there really is no reason to date until he is ready to get married."
"My son will not date until he is ready to marry, I told him that, I think that after college graduation he can date, but he wants to wait until he completes his master's"
"I was thinking of taking an evening course but evenings are the time to spend with my teens, a strong family is so important."
I never heard liberals say the above comments, I never met liberals who hold by chastity and loyalty.
When you are in liberal society, they always have to bring up some story of a horrible religious person, even if they never met one. They cannot live and let live, because they cannot let in concepts of definition and sexual purity.
Victimhood
Relativists like the concept of victimhood, yet somehow they worked hard in college and at their well-paying jobs to attain the lifestyle that have. They like the idea that minorities are victims, and will not acknowledge in a real way the accomplishments of minorities and consider thus jettisoning the victim mentality.
They may like the victim mentality because it gets them off the hook for personal responsibility, which is an ingredient in sexual purity and the concept that you can wait and you can remain loyal.
You are not just an interchangeable android.
Gender roles actually bequeath happiness and purpose.
Uncle Peter was the last remaining man of the family.
But he reneged on what could have been a fulfilling role.
His wife had taken offense when, early in their marriage, say, in 1967, her mother in law, Peter's mother, offered to sweep their floor and imposed a gift of family heirloom chairs upon them.
So, from then on, Kaitlin cold-shouldered Peter's extended family.
A few years later, Peter's brother in law died, and two years after that, his own father died.
With a widowed mother and sister, Peter could have declared, "I am the last remaining man of these families. I need to offer my mother, sister, niece and nephew some family time and male influence."
And Kaitlin may have become a nicer person for it.
I cannot really blame feminism, as Peter came of age in the1950's.
The roots of his hands-off attitude to his mother, sister, and niece and nephew who now were bereaved of son, brother, and a father, and with Peter following his wife's lead, lay in the lackadaisical attitude towards religion in his New England Protestant forebears.
They lived only one town next to us, a fifteen minute drive, and when we would go on Thanksgiving, neither uncle Peter nor aunt Kaitlin nor cousins would even make eye contact with us. I later dubbed this, "the yearly rejection."
There had been no call to scripture and tradition in his formative years. You cannot suddenly call people to duty when times get rough, that call needs to be groomed from a young age.
But the extended family, shrinking, but still there, had not emphasized religion or duty, as times had been good and people's lives were stable in their nice suburb, supper with mom and dad at six o'clock sharp, fun on the weekends.
Uncle Peter never achieved in business what his father had, he had graduated college, was charming and smart but somehow things did not go well for him, and he even had to declare bankruptcy. Kaitlin developed health problems which stayed with her until her death at age 75.
I do not believe he had lots of happiness in life, and looking back, from the perspective of the religiously traditional community I live in, I believe that if he had seen himself as having a God-given role of being the "man of the family", he would have at least had that source of happiness, and may have even been blessed in other ways, as those who do the Lord's Will reap blessings in this life and the next.
When one is attached to scripture and tradition, one has a source from which to draw, but when one is an interchangeable android among equals, and must assert one's individuality and draw only from oneself, they that person may have nothing much to offer.
Believing you have a unique role just because of your gender actually bequeaths a sense of purpose and confidence.
After my interview at Middlebury college, in 1985, I was on my way to tour the campus when, lo and behold, there was aunt Kaitlin and my first cousin! A year younger than I, he was apparently also looking into the college! I was amazed at the coincidence! I approached them with a warmth and enthusiasm and this was her response: she stared with a half smile, half quizzical expression and did not say one word. Her son looked back and forth from me to his mother, as if seeking what to do next. Neither greeted me. I saw the scene and quickly made excuse that my tour guide was waiting - snubbed on Thanksgiving, snubbed in public, with no consideration that her weak stare could hurt or embarrass me, and how odd that her son likewise would not greet me.
Years and years later:
I visited the states in the summer of 2022 and reached out to Peter by email, his younger sister knew I was coming as she had responded to me - lives out west now - but from him there was no answer: it is sad for me, but I think even sadder for him, so I wrote about it:
---
Reclining on the beach, mighty ocean waves are rolling towards you, surely the turquoise arch and white foam tipped wave will continue journeying to embrace the bleached, sun baked sands, parched, waiting for a splash of ocean coolness, and as you anticipate what should come naturally, you see the waves suddenly fall limp, sink down into themselves, churning slowly, thick, whirlpool like, then flattening out to nothing but still and murky water. I thought this was an ocean? A bog after all, an unmoving marsh. You rub your eyes and wonder if something is wrong with you.
Later, you buy tickets to a symphony orchestra, and when the music is reaching its crescendo, suddenly the violinists stop the bow in mid air, place their cherished violins in their boxes, snap them shut and make way to leave, the pianists close the piano’s lids, alight from the podium, fold up the music sheets, the floutists place their flutes under their arms and make their way out of the hall, the conductor does not even take a bow, just wipes the remaining perspiration off his brow and exits left. You are sitting in the theater feeling stunned. Some of the other attendees also make their way to an exit like nothing strange had happened, others look around and say, this is a bit odd, but feeling outnumbered, they shrug, pretend this is normal living, and head out. You are left alone in the darkening theater, somehow refusing to believe that this can be real, expecting a comedian to announce that this was all a joke while the orchestra and audience return for a good laugh.
Well you can keep sitting there but eventually you fell hunger pangs and need a meal and you will feel sleepiness and need a place to take a nap. You grudgingly leave the theater, part of you wonders, like that day at the beach, if something is wrong with you, but a certain anger starts to rise inside of you.
No, it is not me - something is wrong in my surroundings.
I was right to expect the crest of the wave to reach for the parched sands, a natural ebb and flow, to be expected. The beach does not earn the embrace of the wave.
The agreement was a concert, not suddenly coming to a halt mid-stroke, leaving the audience either to pretend this is normal, or feel pressured to go along with what everyone else is doing, or maybe allow a real feeling to emerge and guide you elsewhere.
Family is the one place you should feel welcomed, that people should take some interest in you, as they have a stake in your success. It is not normal to visit family and be chronically snubbed.
My recent trip to the USA meant visiting my brother in his beautiful home, receiving nonchalantly some family heirlooms, and inheriting some old pictures.
I had written to uncle Peter, who lives a half hour drive from my brother, saying I was coming stateside to visit my mom, his sister. He did not write back, I nonchalantly wrote him again, still no answer. Then again after I returned to Israel, I was chit chatty and upbeat in all three emails - still no answer.
Upon my return to Israel, I was going through the pictures, there was an old snapshot of Pete, who, while I was growing up, had lived a fifteen minute drive from our home in Brookline Mass, and who we saw no more than once a year. I could not tell you the color of his eyes, he never looked at me. Nor did his wife, Kaitlin, and she was a teacher in the local public school system, I mean, she probably knew something about child psychology, but you see, the story was that my grandmother once offered to sweep the floor when she visited the newly married couple, and for that she could never be forgiven, and by extension, Pete’s relatives were in a sort of Herem (Hebrew for excommunication). They had kids our age, and they had no other family nearby. You’d think, hey let’s get together for a day at the Museum of Science, or on the Freedom Trail - nope, just a begrudging annual Thanksgiving in front of the television.
They would have been kinder to not let us come at all than grant me a thankless day, once a year, though I can thank them in part for getting me out of that secular relativist individualist society.
I will never understand what they gained from snubbing us, I am in a strong position now, I am not exactly going to barge in on them and offer to sweep the floor or demand family support.
But the snubbing must go on.
Yet, during that summer trip, my elderly orthodox Jewish cousin Toby limps up the stairs from a wedding hall with her cane several years after knee operations to give a warm hello to myself and my sons.
Her son, whom I had never met, comes racing across town at his mother’s behest (honor your mother should be universal, the Bible is famous outside of Brooklyn, but hey, offer to sweep the floor and that sin will be visited upon your niece, yeah?), to welcome us.
Cousin Bessie, in the middle of the hardest move of her life, age 84, leaving her home of fifty years to move to a place near her daughter, welcomes us and procures watermelon and kosher orange juice which I almost finished to the last drop after a hot day at the Statue of Liberty. Her daughter took a break from the packing to sit down with us, and gave me the phone number of her daughter, who welcomes me a few days later at her home in Boston Massachusetts, just half an hour away from Uncle Pete, who fears I may offer to sweep, or something.
Not that I have never rubbed my brother or orthodox Jewish cousins the wrong way, I am sure that I have, but in those circles, family overrides friction.
I had cried on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. The ferry’s motor was loud so I was not ashamed, but some tourists nearby looked at me a bit quizzically. This is where my great great grandfather Thomas Keegan sojourned alone, 1880’s, escaping Ireland and criminal charges for stealing a fish from a lake during the Irish potato famine. I cried that for such a “crime” that a nineteen year old had to flee for his life, I cried for all those that had to escape tyrannies that only worsened on European soil, and I cried that only one of his descendants, from that side of the family, and there are not many, even cares or remembers his story.
I cried for my Jewish ancestors, who fled the pogroms and found safe haven in the USA, and thrived and built more strength of family than my Irish-English side did.
I cried also, tears of joy, because I too, had escaped.
