Friday, October 06, 2006

Jewishness

Ideas by Jewish organizations for building a positive Jewish identity among 20-somethings generally range from the assinine to the moronic. Ocassionally they are thinly veiled ways to make you join some religious group or other. Today I was reading about one that prima facie does not seem to suck. It is this. Of course those that are neither too wannabe, to kitchy, to poserlike, too religious, generally tend to be part of these hippy do-godder organizations that think that four out of five books of the bible involve saving whales, the the fifth one was where Hilary Clinton got the idea for universal healthcare. One day I ought to look at all of these more carefully. There has got to be one somewhere that normal people could live with.

3 comments:

Lucy said...

Hmmmm... getting paid $3000 a month to hang out with your friends, play poker and have a shabbat dinner every so often - sounds a lot like kollel to me (although I dont know the "wages" the freeloaders in kollel are pulling in these days!). It seems to me that there are plenty of people out there on planet Earth, who are able to have a "regular" job and still find time to hang out with friends, play poker, host a movie night and even a shabbat dinner every so often. Give me a break - these kids are getting paid to cook ABC cuisines from a cookbook - and they call themselves activists??? I am sure if these lazy ass socialists got off their lazy asses and got a job and they can put the $$$ used to play poker and movie night to REAL causes. Well, I might have to recant on that one, since their "causes" might be "Save the Whales." I guess, after all it's money well spent!

Treifalicious said...

Lucy - DAY-UM, GIRL!!!

But really, people with jobs hang out with friends and host Shabbat dinners all the time. I hosted Shabbat dinners every Friday for a year or two, parties every 2 - 4 months and even hosted a Rosh HaShana meal back in the day.

The real key is to motivate young Jews to do this. Part of the problem is that too many Jews didn't grow up doing this and/or were taught that it was backwards and barbaric to live an openly Jewish lifestyle.

I personally don't understand why the opportunity to perhaps procure a kosher piece of ass isn't enough motivation to create Jewish fellowship in one's own home. Not like I ever got any kosher piece of ass from this (though I did at other people's parties) but I definitely know of others who came to my parties who did (one of which ended with a marriage).

bec said...

i think that points to the greater problem--unaffiliated jewish 20-somethings have little or no opportunity to meet, hang out and/or date fellow jews other than going through dating services and fate. while i find the idea a bit forced, i'd gladly welcome a whole house of shabbos guests if it meant that younger jews might meet, possibly become interested in judaism and/or each other.
then again, i go to a chabad shul, and their outreach is similar. first you have to get people interested and then take it from there.