Food for Thought

I had an interesting experience in class today. My professor was lecturing about the concept of competing identities (e.g. national identity, ethnic identity, religious identity, class identity, etc.). To illustrate his point -- and to wake us up, as it was a very theoretical lecture -- he put the following statement on the board:

We're Jews, as opposed to they, who are...

The students were supposed to finish the sentence. The range of responses was fascinating! Some people said non-Jews, while others said Christians, Muslims, Arabs, goyim (not sure if the slightly pejorative connotation was intended), "Reformim," "potential Jews" and -- my personal favorite, from a fellow immigrant -- Israelis.

Then we did a similar exercise. This time, the statement on the board was:

We're Israelis, as opposed to they, who are...

This time, we got Arabs, Palestinians, Americans, new immigrants, Ethiopians (immigrants to Israel, that is), Russians (ditto), foreign workers, Diaspora Jews, "חוצניקים" (which I don't really know how to translate, but it means people from outside of Israel) and even Haredim.

Then we talked about the fundamental assumptions underlying each response. Are the Jews primarily a national or religious group? Is being Israeli a matter of citizenship, culture or adherence to a particular political ideology?

I wonder, if the statement has been, "We're Jewish, as opposed to they, who are..." the answers might have been different. Is it an adjective-noun thing?