The group of 20-something-year-old guys that were back packing were extremely not-Jewish for being from Israel. I guess that's just a generalization I'll have to deal with.
So we're all sitting in the hostel in Bariloche one afternoon, and this chap from New York comes in (New York drawl and everything... probably 65 years old) and is pretty darn Jewish. He starts talking with these Israelis about Judaism and how they should be religious again and how he can't really believe that they don't believe in the faith that surrounds them much less the fact that they don't believe in God, or see it in the nature that lay before us all. The guys would say, "no I don't see God in nature, I just see nature." To each his own opinion, but they were adamant that they didn't want to be "awakened" like New Yorker said they needed to be.
What this made me think of more than anything, other than my grassroots and all my Jewish friends, was what will this say for the conflict between Israel and Palestine in the coming years when the newer generation - more radical perhaps - take over the posts of government. If this conflict is supercharged by religious differences, and there are Israelis that don't even practice Judaism or believe in God, what will fuel the argument.
This is of course, a supposition with the condition that many Israelis feel the same and they do not just sit and watch politics happen on the television. After all, they did make a point to say Israel was a copycat. And in their own words "we don't have a culture yet - we're just 60 years old."
Something stimulating to consider, especially if you are interested in that history.
Angela
No comments:
Post a Comment