Nora_Leonard wrote:Agrippina wrote:As far as the Muslims go, we had friends who were business acquaintances of my dad's. Also there was no animosity between them about the religion. They invited us to weddings, which the government wouldn't allow (we had to ask for permission to attend and they always said no).
Fascinating post, Aggie. I was really astounded by the above: does this mean that apartheid extended to religious groups?
The government was a theocracy. The Dutch Reformed Church was the state religion, all others had to keep a low profile. Although they were tolerated, kids were encouraged to adopt their version of Christianity at school and in the 1980s they began a programme of "veld" schools that were not strictly compulsory but they made it hard for kids who didn't attend. At the schools they had a week of bigotry and patriotism pumped into them, along with intensive praying and religious orientation. This happened twice in grade 7 (age 12) and grade 10 (age 16). Then when they left school, boys (white only) if they didn't go on to tertiary education were taken into the army for two years' compulsory conscription. After that they had to do a camp for three weeks every year for 10 years. By this time, i.e. by the time they were 40, they were well-brain washed bigoted right-wingers and if they were Afrikaans-speaking, which was about 90% of them by the time they'd done the army training, they were also very good Christians who sought to keep the country white and Christian. The English-speaking young men would go to Presbyterian or Methodist churches, the Anglicans and Catholics and atheists were more inclined to send their kids to college or university, or overseas to avoid the army thing. If they were still here after their education was completed, they still had to go into the army, but as officers, so the indoctrination wasn't as powerful. Luckily the conscription thing ended the year my second son left school, so none of mine went to the army. I only allowed one of mine to attend veld school, in grade 7. He told us all about the flag waving and religion, and funnily enough is the only one who has religion in his family.
It seems that these ultra-orthodox Jews date back to the 18th century, which is really quite recent in terms of the long history of Judaism. And they are a European phenomenon, rather than an Israeli one (by that, I mean that the movement started in Europe). The Jews that are probably most similar in culture to Arab Muslims are the Sephardi Jews.
Yes, there are more or less, three groups in general society with variations in each of them:
1) the Ultra-Orthodox or Hassidic Jews who stick strictly to the "law." These are the side lock and black fur hat types. We have some of them here but not with the sidelocks and furry hats, they do wear the black outfits and their wives to keep their heads covered and they don't intermarry with gentiles. In Israel, they speak Yiddish in their general speech and resisted having Hebrew as the national language, believing it was a holy language not for everyday use. They're the types who are now being made to go into the army there. These are what that article calls "Haredi." We've always referred to them as Hassidic. They would be the equivalent of fundamentalist Christians except they don't participate in the army - until now.
2) The Zionists. They are more liberal in their outlook and about the religion, their only extremism being about Jerusalem for the Jews. They speak the language of their native country and will do pilgrimages to Israel, perhaps settle there but aren't as super-religious as the Hassidim. My dad was one of these. They attend Temple, observe the holidays but aren't fundamentalist about the law, except most of the dietary ones. Which is why I never tasted pork until I went to live in the nurses home at the hospital during my training, or sea food or even cauliflower and cheese. In fact we hardly had cheese in our home, except the cream cheese variety from the kosher store. I ate shellfish for the first time in my 20s. I never like pork very much except for bacon, even though I cooked it for my family.
3) The reformed types who are only culturally Jewish and who attend schul mostly only for the high holidays and then maybe only to appease their more conservative parents. They don't learn Hebrew or Yiddish, and are sometimes even atheists, except for their compassion for the Holocaust victims. To a degree this is where I see myself. I don't identify with any religion at all but from the point of view of the Holocaust and especially because my ancestry is German, I see that if I'd been in Germany in the 1930s, with my kids, and their father being Jewish as well, even though we never practiced the religion, we would have been victims. Otherwise from the point of view of my ancestry, I see myself as Jewish.
A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation. - Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BCE - 43 BCE)
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