25 April, 2007

I don't know any Jews...

It's strange, I picked up a book in the book sale at work the other day, should have twigged as the "nom de plume" of the author was "Shalom Auslander" (which roughly translates as "Peace be with you" in Hebrew, "Foreigner" in German), it turned out to be a darkly satirical poke at a certain authority figure that those of the Christian and Jewish faith share (it was called "Beware of God")...

However, I tasted a few pages and felt a bit lost, not really having much of an understanding of the Jewish thing...it then dawned on me that I don't even actually know (nor have ever known) anyone who has openly told me that they are a Jew (either in meatspace or here)...This seems a bit odd...is this the legacy of genocide, or is it just that religion isn't really a topic of general conversation? It just seems absolutely stupid that all my contemporary experience of Jewishness comes from either South Park or Monty Python...

So I asked my local American (desk next door, just past Monkey), and she said she knew loads of Jewish people...even confessing to some (possibly indecent levels of) intimate knowledge thereof, so either I am blinkered, my bits of Surrey/London are Jew-shy, or (heaven forbid) there really aren't any around...

Ren - don't give that book away, I'm going to read it and try harder to understand it...

5 comments:

Unknown said...

You'd probably be surprised to find that you have met some but because you, like me, are not biased, you don't even notice. I dare say there were a few at FP but because they don't stand out we never new.

Unknown said...

P.S. If you want to meet some, a couple that Eve works for are Jewish. They have a guest house in Chart Lanezt. he was in the Doctor Who Christmas special as the father of the bride.

Unknown said...

P.P.S. Don't try and find Chart Lanezt in the Surrey streeet map.

Anonymous said...

Tommmo - Can you send me your email address? We are trying to get organised and need to talk!

renemy said...

What what what? What kind of girl do you think I am? Oh yeah...