worth it? really?

hey there kids.

so this past week, colleague and friend aliza hausman was interviewed by the jewish press about her choice about conversion, her blog, her experiences and such. it was a nice quaint interview. i myself read it whilst sipping a cup of hot cocoa by the fireplace. however, whether she’s on her own blog, guest starring on someone else’s, or just a quick cameo, it seems our favorite jewminicana is just an eternal hate-magnet. a couple of lovely comments included accusations that she “lambast[es] the frum community”, “[doesnt cover] her hair to make a statement”, “constantly criticizes, mercilessly at times, our [jewish] community”, “makes us [converts] look bad”, and that ms hausman is generally a “misguided vengeful individual.”

[shakes head]

im sorry, maybe you dont realize it, but a lot of jews? especially frum ones? SUCK.

as ppl.

generally speaking, you dont know how to treat YOUR OWN, let alone jews of COLOR, let alone CONVERTS, let alone CONVERTS of COLOR. clearly ur iffy on the dynamics of “cause and effect” so let me just inform you that that tends to make for rightfully angry ppl, whether ffb, baal teshuva, or convert. what else do you think is one of the reasons for judaism losing adherents more than any other religion yearly?

and as for “misguided and vengeful” im sorry that ur so offended that there is someone out there who doesnt allow you to hide behind the puss-covered blanket of “lashon hara” that allows the bedsores of sexual abuse, housing scams, organ harvesting, herpes spreading mohels,and sexually propositioning conversion rabbis to fester. maybe if there were more ppl “constantly” “mercilessly” “criticizing” and “lambasting” the frum community, it wouldnt be in the shambling hypocritical state its in.

to aliza’s fellow convert [also dominican, as i recall] who lamented that aliza made all converts “look bad”: congrats. you really ARE part of the jewish ppl. here’s your ticket. just wait right there and an usher will guide you to your seat in the “you should have left us in egypt” section of the theater. stones are complimentary. also, yes, aliza is making a statement by not covering her hair. in short, it goes something like “i have fibromyalgia you fucking moron and if you’d BLINKED in the direction of my blog just ONCE you’d have noticed the NUMEROUS times i’ve mentioned the pain im constantly in, how excrutiating it is to cover my head, and ALSO that i have a HETER from my rabbi.”

also, my personal favorite, someone pulled out that famous go-to chesnut from yevamot 47b: “proselytes are as hard for israel [to endure] as scabs”. wow, you guys LOVE that one, dont you? so its time for a lil bio lesson here, since you seem to be a lil bit fuzzy on the purpose of a scab:

scab

(skāb) n.   A crust discharged from and covering a healing wound.

see where im going with this? scabs are there b/c you’re wounded and they’re there to heal you, idiot. their purpose is to fix you. inconvenient? yes. but its not THEIR fault that you’re wounded. that ur careless. that you dont know how to take care of ur body. [ill trust everyone to be savvy enough to make the correlation/metaphor about the state of the jewish "body" and "soul" and converts being "scabs". after all, we're still in exile, right? so clearly things aren't all peachy with the jewish 'body"].

at any rate, i hope all you “scab” types arent the same ppl wishing “next year in yerushalayim” at the seder. b/c according to you guys, “scabs” like, say, ruth, wouldnt be welcome. though i hear she has some bigshot offspring or something–this “mashiach” guy ppl keep going on about. of course i guess if it were up to you he’d never get to exist.

right?

–MaNishtana

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would you like fries with that?

hey guys, im back. sorry its been awhile but more on that later.

anyhoo.

this past weekend i was helping a fellow joc of mine move. as always, we were met with the eternal moving conundrums of one: “wait, how the fack did you get this IN here??” and two: “and ur SURE we cant just throw this out the window?”  at any rate, we were wrestling with his mammoth couch down two flights of stairs when on the bottom landing, my friend’s [white, frum, jewish] landlady sees us hefting this couch around.

now, i suppose i should be grateful that–seeing three black jocs trying to remove a couch from an apartment building–she didnt call the cops on principle. [perhaps it had something to do with the non-joc jew with us. after all, groups of three or more jocs cant congregate w/o the man present, you know].  or perhaps my friend [her joc tenant] had acclimated her to the darker side of sears.  there’s some not-forced, fairly pleasant/benign conversation btw them.

then she says it.

she jerks her head in the direction of our epic couch battle and asks: “do you want me to get a couple of mexicans to move that for you?”

true story.

as nonchalantly as if she were gonna head down to the corner store and pick some up, or if she was asking me if i wanted to supersize my happy meal or something.

“oh how PRECIOUS of you to ask!”

i do believe my sarcasm was lost on her.

now, cmon my jews. there’s antisemitism, and then there’s rightly felt “i should facking slap the taste out of ur mouth you uppity white bitch who thinks she’s better than me b/c ur jewish.”

this reminds me of a similar story involving a civilian [i.e., non-jewish] ethnic friend of mine:

he pulls into a gas station with his very nice car. he’s getting gas. a couple of guido-jews [YOU know the kind im talking about...yarmulkes and gelled frosted tips...] pull in in front of him to get their gas for their MORE expensive car.  the two guidishses start having a convo and one of them sits on the hood of my friend’s car. and my friend LOVES his car.

friend: um, can you get up off my car.

guidish 1 gives confused “is that ant talking to me?” look.

guidish 1: what THIS? [scoff] this piece of shit?

friend: no i mean my car. can you have your conversation off my car?

guidish 2 [to guidish 1]: yo bro, i think he’s tryna play you.

friend now gives confused “is this ant talking to me?” look.

friend: did ur boyfriend just say im tryna play you? look you two need need to get up off my car with ur conversation.

guidish 2 [to guidish 1]: yo, you gonna take that, bro?

some yiddish is tossed back and forth

guidish 1 [to friend]: y’know what, i would? but i dont even consider this piece of shit to be car.

guidish 1 smudges friend’s car’s bumper with his shoe.

friend: wow. y’know i think maybe hitler had the right idea.

guidish 1 upon hearing “hitler” now gains self-righteous anger and kicks friend’s car. friend proceeds to beat shite out of guidish 1.

now sure, maybe the “hitler” deal was a little out there, but really, you can see where that kind of retort might possibly come from, no? from that arrogance? that sense of smug privilege, entitlement, and condescension where you think you can mock ppl’s possessions or refer to an entire ethnic group as a sale item at shop rite? [and im not even gonna address the fact that somehow whenever "holocaust" is mentioned the previous assholic behavior of the offender is somehow retroactively justified or excusable or something. never mind that, were the offender NOT jewish, they wouldve already been beat six ways till shabbos.]

but more importantly has EVERYONE just, i dunno, FORGOTTEN what a chillul Hashem is? b/c im pretty sure its still on the books.

–MaNishtana

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