but you don't LOOK Jewish...........

[lorin]

You know, all my life people have said to me "you don't look Jewish" or "you don't act like a Jew" etc, etc. I guess a lot of it has to do with the community I work and live in. People always feel comfortable saying things like "Jew them down" and other things of equal quality. I think many times I am overly generous with people when it comes to money because I am secretly compensating for stereotypes.

Today someone sent me a video that really hit home.
www.youtube.com/embed/yAeWyGGTdEE?rel=0

[Cambo]

People are retarded. Not the Hebrew Mamita though. She's great.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Good for you lorin. It's sad that antisemitism has continued to the present day. You should be very proud of your heritage. There are so many positive stereotypes about being Jewish -- Jewish people are smart, creative, successful... so many leading people are Jewish -- professors, artists, inventors, industrialists. Many of the negative stereotypes are probably just based on envy. Why do you think this is, both the good and the bad?

[Avatar]

Hahaha, you're Jewish? Seriously, for some reason I thought you were a Christian.

Anyway, how can people tell somebodies religion by looking at them?

I mean sure, people talk about physiological characteristics, but it can scarcely have any hope of accuracy...

--A

[sgt.null]

anti-Semitic crack pipe - wow, amazing. the entire monologue, poem is amazing.

[lorin]

Hahaha, you're Jewish? Seriously, for some reason I thought you were a Christian. --A

I thought I'd whined enough to sound Jewish. (just thought I't throw in another yummy stereotype.)

Actually, my mother was Irish Catholic and converted just after I was born. I was raised Jewish, though probably some religious law somewhere doesn't consider me a real Jew. I consider myself an eclectic.

I'm glad you liked the video. I thought it was amazing. I was also amazed at the enthusiastic reaction of the mostly black audience.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

The question of stereotypes and their psychogenesis is something I have been turning over in my mind lately, which is why I was interested in discussing the issue further. However I think it may be better to do it on another thread, since I want to consider the issue generally and that would change the subject here.

[wayfriend]

I wouldn't worry about "you don't look Jewish" comments, unless it is coming from the person sitting next to you in the synagogue. Otherwise, it is a reflection of the ignorance of the speaker, and that's about it.

Unless you secretly long to look more Jewish. In which case, I think plastic surgeons actually can give you a Jewish nose job.

[Menolly]

I wouldn't worry about "you don't look Jewish" comments, unless it is coming from the person sitting next to you in the synagogue.

Before I hit puberty, my eyes used to change between green and blue, and my hair started as corn silk blonde, slowly darkening through ash blonde to the mousy brown it is now.



As a teen, I got the "you look like a shicksa" comment in shul all the time...

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

From wikipedia:

Shiksa (Yiddish: שיקסע, Polish: siksa) or shikse, is a Yiddish and Polish word that has moved into English usage, mostly in North American Jewish culture, as a term for a non-Jewish woman, initially and sometimes still pejorative but now often used satirically. Shiksa usually refers to an attractive (stereotypically blonde) gentile woman or girl who might be a temptation to Jewish men or boys, e.g., for dating, intermarriage, etc.

Professor Frederic Cople Jaher writes:

The shiksa obsesses many Jews: Rabbis see her as an intermarital threat to the survival of Judaism; parents fear that she will lure their sons away from family and faith; and Jewish men fantasize about her sexual and social desirability. She figures prominently—even compulsively—in popular movies and bestsellers by Jewish directors and writers.[1]
Among Orthodox Jews, the term may be used to describe a Jewish girl or woman who fails to follow Orthodox religious precepts.[2]

The equivalent term for a non-Jewish male, used less frequently, is shegetz.

[edit]Derivation

The word shiksa is etymologically partly derived from the Hebrew term שקץ, sheketz, which means "abomination", "impure," or "object of loathing", depending on the translator.[3]

Several dictionaries define "shiksa" as a disparaging and offensive term applied to a non-Jewish girl or woman.[4]

In Polish "siksa" (pronounced "s'eeksa") is a popular pejorative word for an immature young girl or teenage girl (or, in its masculine form, "sikus", boy), as it is a conflation between the Yiddish term and usage of the Polish verb "sikać" ("to piss", "to urinate"). It means "pisspants" and is roughly equivalent to the English terms "snot-nosed brat", "little squirt", or "kid".[5]

[Menolly]

ayeup...

[Savor Dam]

Life is strange.

Having seen many photos of the younger Menolly and knowing something of her, I understand how comments like "you look like a shicksa" might have been made and how parts of the definition Ron quoted might be applicable...but yet she is one of the more observant Jews I have known in decades. Not shomer shabbes certainly, but nevertheless...

[Avatar]

*shrug* Doesn't matter what other people think.

--A

[Vraith]

*shrug* Doesn't matter what other people think.

--A

We'd all like to think that...or perhaps we like to think we think that...but I'm not sure anyone is totally free of it mattering [and in a fair number of cases it DOES matter, in concrete/pragmatic ways].
But it does bring up some issues...I'm just gonna put them here, without commenting really on what they "mean."
From the opposite [kinda] direction of the OP: when I was young and single, lots of peeps [male] thought "getting" a Jewish girl was a worthy goal...they were supposedly easy and good. There are at least three different kinds of wrong in that...where's it come from?
[and I hesitate to, but do, bring up the Zappa tune related to this. Normally I'm a fan...but the lyrics to that thing, they don't seem satirical to me...they seem just plain vicious [and I'm not particularly delicate/easily offended when satire is in play]...and it got a fair amount of laughs and airplay back in the day]]

A professor of mine, Indian, poet, was meeting and hosting a group from France for a race/poetry/lit thing. One of the group actually said that he "didn't look Indian." He replied that none of them looked French OR poetic without goatees and berets...and they got offended...apparently none of these experts on issues of race/identity/art/culture relations even noticed the irony.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Hahaha, you're Jewish? Seriously, for some reason I thought you were a Christian.

Anyway, how can people tell somebodies religion by looking at them?

Well, others here have explained it way more thoroughly, but, to my understanding...
..."being Jewish" can describe being a follower of a religion... but can also describe an... ethnic identity (?) (seems an insufficient description)
I think that is a difference from just about any other major religion I know of.
(Please someone offer corrections if my clumsy attempted explanation fails.)

Menolly- ouch... so being cute and tow-headed was associated not just with the usual disparaging comments, but also with... some rather darker implications. Ouch.

We'd all like to think that...or perhaps we like to think we think that...but I'm not sure anyone is totally free of it mattering [and in a fair number of cases it DOES matter, in concrete/pragmatic ways].

vraith- Seconded...
I figure all humans have SOME limit to how much / what kinds of adversarial treatment they can put up with.
(at least without some kind of compensating support / remediating factors.)

[Savor Dam]

Well, others here have explained it way more thoroughly, but, to my understanding...
..."being Jewish" can describe being a follower of a religion... but can also describe an... ethnic identity (?) (seems an insufficient description)
I think that is a difference from just about any other major religion I know of.
(Please someone offer corrections if my clumsy attempted explanation fails.)

That is essentially correct, Linna. The only adjustment I would make in the wording is to characterize it as a cultural identity rather than an ethnic one. At least, that is my view.

[Cambo]

Well, others here have explained it way more thoroughly, but, to my understanding...
..."being Jewish" can describe being a follower of a religion... but can also describe an... ethnic identity (?) (seems an insufficient description)
I think that is a difference from just about any other major religion I know of.
(Please someone offer corrections if my clumsy attempted explanation fails.)

That is essentially correct, Linna. The only adjustment I would make in the wording is to characterize it as a cultural identity rather than an ethnic one. At least, that is my view.

There are actual physical traits associated with Jewishness, though. Are these pure stereotype, or founded in some truth? If somewhat true, that's gotta be an ethnic thing, right?

[Vraith]

There are actual physical traits associated with Jewishness, though. Are these pure stereotype, or founded in some truth? If somewhat true, that's gotta be an ethnic thing, right?

Mostly stereotype...most of those "traits" also belong to other mid-easterners.
although jewish peoples that moved outside the middle east have kept themselves relatively unmixed with the new locals, they're still related to other middle-eastern peoples. They were the same people far back, and in more recent heritage you can't find a mid-east descended jewish person who isn't part lebanese and syrian and palestinian...and vice versa. SD is correct, it's more cultural not biological. "Ethnicity" is blurry...cuz it clusters things biological with things cultural as if they weren't different things.

[Savor Dam]

While there may be traits *associated* with Jews, these are not definitive. Clearly from this thread, not all Jews possess these traits. Conversely, I expect that not everyone possessing them will turn out to be a Jew.

This is why I consider it a cultural, rather than ethnic, matter...but others may have different views.

[Menolly]

Well, others here have explained it way more thoroughly, but, to my understanding...
..."being Jewish" can describe being a follower of a religion... but can also describe an... ethnic identity (?) (seems an insufficient description)
I think that is a difference from just about any other major religion I know of.
(Please someone offer corrections if my clumsy attempted explanation fails.)

That is essentially correct, Linna. The only adjustment I would make in the wording is to characterize it as a cultural identity rather than an ethnic one. At least, that is my view.

There are actual physical traits associated with Jewishness, though. Are these pure stereotype, or founded in some truth? If somewhat true, that's gotta be an ethnic thing, right?

*nod*

Of course, this pretty much applies to the ashkenazim/Eastern European line of Jews. As lorin's Hebrew Mamita video demonstrates, the sephardi/African-ish line has a very different look.

But if I may use SD and Dam-et as an example regarding what Cambo is saying...

According to halaha, although descended from a Jewish father, in none of the movements of Judaism would Dam-et be considered Jewish. Dam-sel is not Jewish by heritage, nor has she converted. There is no designation of a "half Jew." Even reform Judaism requires no other religion be practiced in the home, or other religious holidays observed, if a child born of patrilineal descent wishes to be considered Jewish. The others all follow strict matrilineal descent to determine if one is Jewish or not. Tribal affiliation goes through the father, if one is born to a Jewish mother. In Beorn's case, since I am a born Jew, he is fully Jewish but of the more generic tribe Yisroayl, since his father is not Jewish.

My own father was born of a Jewish mother, but his father converted from a Scott (he was an immigrant from Scotland; I am a proud member of Clan Sinclair) Anglican to Judaism prior to marrying my grandmother (supposedly where my, and Beorn's, "fairer" coloring comes from, although my sister can look Latino when tan). So although my mother was a bas Kohain (her father was descended from Moses' brother Aaron, and hence was considered a member of the "priestly" tribe) her children, my sister and I, are also Yisroayl.

That said, again, if I may say so without offending, if one were to look at portraits of both SD and Dam-et, I am pretty certain a majority of people would not be surprised at all to find there is Jewish heritage there...
(I do hope I said that gently enough...)

Mostly stereotype...most of those "traits" also belong to other mid-easterners.
although jewish peoples that moved outside the middle east have kept themselves relatively unmixed with the new locals, they're still related to other middle-eastern peoples. They were the same people far back, and in more recent heritage you can't find a mid-east descended jewish person who isn't part lebanese and syrian and palestinian...and vice versa. SD is correct, it's more cultural not biological. "Ethnicity" is blurry...cuz it clusters things biological with things cultural as if they weren't different things.[/color]

And yet, it is the ashkenazim who have the more stereotypical physical traits. Most sephardim I have met may have darker coloring like middle-eastern peoples. But other traits associated with "Jewishness" seem to be absent.