Discovering that You Have Had it Wrong All the Time

Hahaha! Those are great!

When I was a teenager, my mother had me convinced that I would be flat chested if I kept sleeping on my stomach.

In College, I had a very nerdish roommate once. One weekend, a bunch of us were going out to the movies and he wouldn't come along. "Nope, I'm staying here. There's gonna be an X-rated movie on TV tonight," he explained.

I told him that they didn't show X-rated movies on TV (this was before cable). But he insisted he was right.

So, the rest of us went out to the movies. When I came home, my roommate had a very puzzled expression. It turns out that he stayed home to watch Frankie and Annette in "Beach Blanket Bingo."

Apparently he had been to a porno theater recently, where they had shown a preview of a coming attraction called "Beach Blanket Bang-O". He had never heard of Beach Blanket Bingo and assumed it was the same movie.

The most astonishing discovery I made in the first week after having come to Israel: I realized that Jews might have black skin (I mean the Ethiopians, no one calls them Afro-Israelis for sake of political correctness). I do not have any prejudices against Blacks, but I did not know before that some of them could be Jews.

steissd, yes, they are considered to be one of the lost tribes. Strangely enough, as I am sure you now know, Israel was initially hesitant to let them into the country as refugees...that, I would consider prejudice, and also discovering they had it wrong.

Cavfancier, hesitance referred to dispute of rabbis on the religious rites of the Ethiopian Jews; some of the rabbinical experts considered these being non-Jewish and did not recognize them as Jews. The secular government left definition of who is a Jew to rabbis, and prior to settling this dispute it was unclear whether these people were eligible to immigrate under the Returning Law. This was a mere legal, bureaucratic and theological dispute that had nothing to do with their color of skin, rather their version of Judaism was questioned.

By the way, regarding lost tribes ?- tribes are considered being descendants of three people: Jacob, Rebecca and Leah, their sons were the founders of the tribes. None of them was Black, they rather resembled Iraqi Arabs in their appearance (since Jacob's grandparents, Abraham and Sarah, came to Canaan from the territory of the modern Iraq). How can the Ethiopians' color of skin be explained from these positions? Maybe, it is better to consider them being righteous converts that are recognized by Judaism as Jews?

Thanks for the info steissd! My own memories of such things are a little rusty. I thought of a funny way of describing the bickering that goes on between the various Jewish sects (and my family is Jewish, btw): "Are you a Jew, or just Jew-ish." Seems silly to me, really.

Well, righteous converts would reflect what everyone saw in 'The Ten Commandments'....perhaps it is true that some of the Ethiopian royalty allied with Egypt remained faithful to Moses after his banishment, and converted to Judiasm (perhaps even interbred), and got lost in the desert, according to the story. We really should save this discussion for another forum, maybe religion, or philosophy and debate. :wink:

So you refer to them as Ethiopians -- and you refer to yourself as an Israeli.

Hummm.

Seems like a bit of political correctness might be a good thing there.

Erm, focus here people, please....Frank, they are Ethiopian, and Jewish. This was a huge news story when I was growing up....steissd is merely being accurate, not politically incorrect. Also, he lives in Israel, presumeably has citizenship, so ergo, he is an Israeli. Can we move on now?

The difference between concrete and cement

Many things in life we learn from experience by making mistakes. Some people never learn that lesson. c.i.

Jeez, Cav, you are testy today.

Steissd made a comment about "political correctness" and use of African-American (or Afro-American). He then said that in Israel they do not refer to the black Jews as Ethiopian-Israelis -- but as Ethiopians.

When using English, too bad israelis don't refer to them as Israelis. They seem to refer to all white Jews who reside there as Israelis.

Just thought I'd comment on it since Steissd raised the issue. Didn't mean to cause a commotion.

Heh heh, np Frank, no hard feelings? I just think this topic would be better served in another forum, that is all. Cheers!

I want to make it clear: in Israel everyone that has citizenship is an Israeli. Including the Arabs, Armenians, Circassians and Druzes. But no one gives up his/her ethnic roots. There is no need in doing this. People come from different places in the world, and they are aware where they have come from. I have all the requisites of citizenship: enfranchisement, etc., but on the everyday level I am being referred to as Russian (in spite of my ethnic origin has nothing to do with Russians: my father was an ethnic German, and my mother is a Jewess). But this does not lead to any discrimination ?- well, majority of the Israeli PMs, both left- and right-wing ( David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Sharet, Golda Meir, Levi Eshkol, Isaac Rabin, Simon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon) share the same roots with me, their parents were subjects of the Russian Empire/Soviet citizens (or they were born there themselves).
Ethiopians are referred to as Israelis as well, but no one invents new terms to describe them, and they are not consider the very term "an Ethiopian" as insulting or racist. Israeli history somewhat differs from this of the USA ?- the Black people came here by free choice, they have never been slaves of the local Whites, and it is uneasy to find an adequate translation for such derogatory words as "nigger" or "Jim Crow" into Hebrew: vocabulary of this language lacks equivalents of these insults. Therefore, there is no need for calling them Afro-Israelis (well, Israelis of Moroccan or Egyptian origin also came from Africa, but they are White...).

now that is funny.

welcome back, tritone...

I was surprised to hear that a major sports star had a less than manly nickname. Randy Johnson--the big eunuch. I found out after a while that he's the Big Unit. Quite a difference. I wish sportscasters would speak more distinctly.

As a still very young child, I was shocked to come to the realization that women have all the bodily functions of males, that they are in fact no angels.

Edgar, funny I was delighted to find out they were in fact no angels. This wasn't until my teens, though.