Saturday, March 22, 2008

Re: Stuff White People Like

On my way home from shul this evening I got to thinking, (Ortho) Jews are White, does the list of SWPL correspond to us? Surprisingly, I don't think so. There are certainly some things that correspond, e.g. coffee, but most items do not. Thinking about my cousins in Monsey or the general community in Washington Heights (as I have experienced it) Jews do not particularly like awareness, diversity, recycling, NPR, David Sedaris, Indie Music, Organic Foods or a whole host of other things on the list. There are are certainly Jews that do, but it is not representative of the community at all, really.

After 12 years of day school, three of yeshiva high school, ten years of Religious-Zionist summer camp and a year plus of Gush, why am I more White than O-Jew?

5 comments:

Yehuda said...

By "Jews do not like . . ., " I presume you mean "American Jews do not like . . ." Israeli Jews do like many of those things (the only one I can't vouch for is David Sedaris, because I never heard of him).

Zev said...

Well, yes. Ortho or Orthodox is generally a term referring to American Jews, whereas in Israel the terms are more mesorati or da'ati le'umi.

I'll have to think about it. Israelis can be rather 'crunchy', so many things on the list can also apply to them. The cultural markers (eg Devid Sedaris, Ira Glass, the Sunday NYT) do not. So while many of the values overlap, the language is distinct. Which I guess is kind of obvious.

ginsbu said...

As someone who likes most of the things on that list I'm happy to vouch for David Sedaris, Yehuda. My advice: skip reading his books, and listen to him read them as audiobooks -- much better that way. Or catch his segments on This American Life, which as far as I'm concerned everyone should really be listening to anyway...

Zev said...

His stuff in the New Yorker is pretty good too, but you do have to read it in that dead-pan sort of way that Sedaris trademarked.

TAL is basically the Best Thing Ever.

Anonymous said...

I guess I'm 1 for 91 on account of my polisci degree. I suppose I should have realized I wasn't white when I was by far the best athlete in my high school class.

Shmuli