In which I discovered that there are good people in the world

Of course, the title is slightly exaggerated. I'm not stupid, but I'm also not one of those intellectual, "humanity is doomed; the earth is in danger because humans are by nature greedy and selfish and evil" kind of people, because I know that there are good people, who will do things I could not even imagine doing. Do I necessarily count myself as one of those people? Eh, I try to, I think we all do, but in reality, I sometimes struggle with the whole "good person" tag. However, I'd like to reach back to an entry I wrote a little while back in response to an anti-Semitic article in the local magazine. It was an article that filled me, as someone considered to be a part of a minority - and even simply as a human being - with anger at the complete lack of consideration and awareness of other cultures in this modern "multicultural Australia".

I'd like to mention that I am not an avid reader of the Beast (the magazine in which the original article was found); it can be trashy, but on occasion I do find articles of interest or entertainment when I have nothing else to read. When the original article was published, I was sick, and I was going through a period of being extremely reactive to anything that offended me in the slightest. This article succeeded in ruining my day, and for a while, my faith that we were making progress in the terms of acceptance of religion and different cultures. The author, Duncan Horscroft, is probably a lovely guy, but when an author, do you really want an article that has such thinly veiled (possibly unintentional) racism in it? For a while, I actually toyed with editing my response and sending it into the magazine, but by then we had thrown it away and I didn't have the address and the by and by is that regrettably, I wasn't able to have a word in an issue very close to my heart. I thought that was the end of this issue being discussed, however luckily, it was not.

I don't know who Brett Chester is, but I'd like to personally thank him for the letter he wrote into the Beast, which was selected as the Letter of the Month for the October 2010 issue. He didn't have the same open-ended forum as I opted to vent on, but his response actually went and did something (an area in which I have often had trouble) - I sincerely hope that everyone who read the original article and used that as the only means to form their opinion on the issue reads his response and takes on the points he has made, which I would argue are more valid and even far more neutral than the original article. What the article initially failed at was keeping both sides of the story in equal consideration - religious necessities were pushed aside to make way for the views from some expensive house - and while I am not saying the points raised in Horscroft's article are wrong, or even necessarily unimportant,  I would have liked to have seen an article that entertained both points of view and perhaps did not have such a blatant bias in a way which I feel expressed nothing but a level of ignorance and intolerance.

Chester made a lot of good points, which I won't go into (several points were ones that I tried to make, but failed, because I got quite caught up in the anti-Semitic bias of the subject matter alone, rather than simply the way the author handled it inappropriately). He caught the caption to the picture, which I had not even noticed, and cleverly commented on the soundness of the points raised towards the end of the article. None of this is what really matters, though - I think the most important thing is that the original article was not left as the be all and end all of the issue. I am actually relieved that someone else got to fight back, to voice their opinions on the issue, and did it so eloquently and efficiently (in a way that I wish I could do, but I'm too much of a rambler).

So good on him, and I'd like to see more active responses next time something offensive to you comes up - as a Jewish girl, I'm going to fight forever to have racism gone, as well as from the media (along with other things), but I don't hold any power by myself. My issues lie solely in the fact that surely everyone deserves the right to lead their life the way they have decided to, and to do this without critical judgement from people with no authority on the subject, and I think this is a statement that can be widely agreed with. I want to see more stands taken because everyone has a right to an opinion, and these opinions should be voiced alongside others. There are people who will take action, and that's a great thing. I might be lazy, I might never actually get around to do anything, but I'm not going to stop voicing my thoughts when I see something suss going on, and as long as there are other people doing that as well, then I'm reasonably proud to be part of this society instead of ashamed that articles like the original one are what is accepted as fact.

(Sidenote: a lot of good people do things through other means. If you're a good person, go on doing that, however you choose to)
(Sidenote two: I actually think we are all inherently good and bad. I'm not going to go on and on about my "are we good people?" opinion because, trust me, I've had that conversation before and it takes hours)
(Sidenote three: Apologies for my rambling, several sidenotes and occasionally fading away from the topic - sometimes I just write and don't actually realise what I'm doing.)

(Sidenote four: sorry about the infrequent posting, I've been busy and I've gone through a lapse in ever actually having anything to say. Which is out of character.)

A rant about Judaism, racism, and magazine article that drove me insane

Okay, look. I'm quite an open-minded person, but I'm also very opinionated - in my opinion, you don't have to be one or the other, and it is very possible to be both. I have certain values that I hold particularly high, and personally am very rights orientated. To me, it's of utmost importance that people have the right to free speech, the right to life, the right to feel loved, etc. Cheesy, but I'm like that. So I was reading an article in the free magazine for the Eastern Beaches of Australia, and I've got to say: Offence? Taken. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that the author is a great journalist, or a kind-hearted, tolerant person, but the fashion in which this article is written just strikes a chord with me.

Next thing: I'm Jewish. It's not a big deal, don't get racist on me, but it's the way I've been brought up, the belief system I've come to accept. I'm not exactly what you'd call observant, but I go to Synagogue on major festivals and have Friday night dinners with the entire family. If you want to post nasty comments, go ahead, but haters should stop hating - I know that people practice all different religions, are perfectly entitled to, and I know plenty of wonderful people from all across the spectrum. So, again, this.

On first glance, the article's not to bad. There are moments that are genuinely interesting, and border on nice - "Australia is a multi-cultural nation that accepts all races and religions and the majority of people hold no grudge against anyone for practising their own beliefs" - and I appreciate that, because it's true. Even now, anti-semitism isn't something I experience on a regular basis, and people in general are more curious than rude. However, I feel these moments of "acceptance" are purely there in order to cover up the rest of the racist undertones of the article.

The main point of the article centres around the positioning of the Jewish eruv (an eruv, just to clarify, is a way of "closing in" an area so Jews are able to carry - things like strollers, keys, handbags - on Shabbat, Saturday, our day of rest), and our disregard of the laws when we took it upon ourselves to reconstruct a pole to hold the eruv together. I don't personally observe Shabbat (I should, I know, don't shoot), but it's an essential of Jewish, observant life. If an observant Jew wishes to attend synagogue on Saturday, who are you to deny them the right to push their baby's stroller, or to carry their keys in their pocket? You preach religious acceptance, and then you attempt to shine a negative light on something that actually helps Jews integrate into modern society? Excuse me, but that just doesn't seem right. We start off with a nice little tale of a Muslim cab driver who pulled over to do his afternoon prayer on the street. We get the obligatory "Now, I'm not one to bag anyone's religious beliefs..." statement, but the very nature of the rest of the article only serves to contradict that statement.

I know that from reading what an eruv is, you might possibly nod your head along and go "Oh, yes, well I can see how that could be confining for people of other cultures within the area, just because some minority are Jewish, doesn't mean everyone has to be..." etc. But an eruv? The eruv on the Eastern Suburbs is a wire, more common than not hidden amongst the mess of electrical wires atop our telegraph poles. Along beach fronts, it runs through railings, and if you weren't aware it was there, you would have no idea it even existed. No eruv had ever troubled you before, why should it now?

Well, apparently when the wealthy people living with their beautiful views of the coast found all of the telegraph poles along the coastal walk an eyesore, and had them placed underground (the author notably stresses that "the residents went through the proper channels , received permission from the council and the job was done without any problems"), in the process causing the eruv to be incomplete. And then, shock horror, the Jews had to ruin everything and go - without permission - put up an ugly pole to complete their eruv again. I know, how dare they! Jews from across the area able to make the trek to their synagogue with their babies in strollers and their water bottles in hand so that when heading uphill they can save themselves from dehydration? Despicable. Ah, but the author argues that his point is not this, but "when the rules are blatantly flaunted and proper processes are not respected, all for the benefit of one particular group, it does become a bit hard to accept". Why? Why is that any harder to accept than anything that other people do? I oppose to your problem with Muslims publically participating in their daily prayers. You appear to have issues with this, contradicting laws that allow us the freedom to our own religion, for the benefit of only one group - ignorant people who don't accept the cultures of others. So maybe think a bit more before making such bold statements.

Another issue that is clearly a contributing factor to all of this nonsense is ignorance. "Maybe when the new pole is in place we can get our Muslim taxi-driver mate to come down at 4:30 one afternoon to bless it!" I'm not even going to go into the many ways that phrase offends me, or fails to make sense at all. We're all just scum, anyway.

So even though this rant has poor grammar and even poorer structure, I urge you to next time take crap you read about other religions and their customs with a grain of salt. We're not doing everything possible to ruin your life, we're just trying to live ours the best we can. Racism is a hateful, baseless thing that I wouldn't be able to justify in any circumstance. And while I accept that this author is writing to cover an issue, whether or not controversial, maybe next time both sides of a story should be explored. I get that you don't want your beautiful Bronte views obstructed by some pesky telegraph poles, but I don't want my beautiful religion obstructed by someone who doesn't want to take everyone's perspectives into account.

I apologise if that was terrible, I was angry. I get like that sometimes. End rant.