It's all relative

First of all, thanks to the anonymous person who tipped me off about the bug on my blog. It was unreadable and it seems the problem stemmed from Photobucket. So I erased all my photobucket images and have a new, but plain blog without the bells and whistles or beads and camels. For now anyways.

Getting back to what I wanted to say --- my sister and neice and nephew came in from Canada this past week and we got together at my brother's house. They are all uber ultra-orthodox and so I donned my only dress - but no headcovering - and headed over to my big brother. My niece was having the freakies. Seems she is nervous about taking buses still, even though there haven't been any bus attacks for years now (thank you good God). But much to her horror:

"I took this taxi and then I looked at the seat next to the driver and saw an Arabic newspaper. I was so scared!!!"

I looked at her and laughed. Cab drivers? They're just scraping by to make a living. They may not all love Jews, because not all Jews love them either - but they're quite safe. I can assure you.

My sister in law put her mind at ease with:

"Oh, don't worry about that. If you have any problems with Arabs, just call her" she said tossing her head towards me. "She's friends with ALL of them."

"What??"

I explained to them (for the 100th time) my interfaith work and my sister was like:

"You know you can't trust them. They're all terrorists." She used the dreaded "all" word. I was calm. I was cool. I was collected. I looked at her and asked -

"Did you EVER in your life sit down and speak with any Arab? Ever?"

Sis lowers her head down slightly.

"no"

"So you can't tell me they're "all" like that."

Certainly we don't want to hear that ALL Jews are Madoffs or shysters or rich as shit. Why do I have to hear the "all" word?

Next day I was at the family wedding. This time I had to act the Ultra Orthodox part. If I didn't come dressed appropriately - meaning head covering too - it would have been an embarrassment for my sister and niece. And it's a grave sin to embarrass people in public. I actually felt more mature donning the elegant headscarf to cover my hair, and noted that when I nearly slipped in my shoes, it wasn't becoming of me to shout out "FUCK" when I looked the way I did.

The relatives were pleased to see my hair tucked in wearing a long-sleeved dress. They even introduced me to their friends. But I sat at their table and found I had nothing much to say to them. The conversation was strained if there even was a conversation. But when it was time to leave, I hugged them and told them I loved them and I felt they loved me back, even though we don't speak much to each other.

I come home to the person I'm related to by marriage - Hubby. He's in a foul mood today and tells me:

"All I want is for people to go on buses and cough and sneeze on each other. And get sick. That's all I want. That's the person you married."

Whatever.

Then this morning I see a bill he got from income tax for 43,000 shekels. After all, why shouldn't they run after our money? Aren't we all brothers?