tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post2848662473686622115..comments2024-03-12T22:31:46.500-04:00Comments on What Would Phoebe Do?: New York vs. Paris, the Jew EditionPhoebe Maltz Bovyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-6829899466860327202010-07-15T06:43:57.653-04:002010-07-15T06:43:57.653-04:00Jesse A.,
I think I got what you meant the first ...Jesse A.,<br /><br />I think I got what you meant the first time around. What I'm thinking is that, because different Jewish communities end up different places, it's not merely that Russian and Moroccan Jews are different, but that these differences come to define the differences between, in this case, the French and American Jewish communities.<br /><br />Anonymous,<br /><br />I've never heard of that area, but you may be right. There are secular Jewish pockets of NY, but they're filled with Jews who, if background comes up in conversation, describe themselves as of Polish or German heritage, and often seem as though they're not so much denying that these "Poles" and "Germans" were (also) Jews as either unaware of this or under the assumption that this would be somehow odd or racist or irrelevant to add - like saying you're not of German ancestry but of German ancestry with a left-handed great-grandmother.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-601063847328577552010-07-14T19:01:13.991-04:002010-07-14T19:01:13.991-04:00Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh (where I grew up) is a...Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh (where I grew up) is a largely secular Jewish neighborhood near the city center. But I think it's pretty much unique in that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-19015116415176867142010-07-14T14:05:10.017-04:002010-07-14T14:05:10.017-04:00My (granted, entirely anecdotal) experience with M...My (granted, entirely anecdotal) experience with Moroccan Jews in the US and Canada is that they are far more like the Moroccan Jews you've described in France than Russian Jews in the US. They often form their own communities, they don't marry out very much (even other Jews, though they aren't as extreme about this as the Syrians), and, even when they don't do these things, most emphatically identify as Moroccan Jews, not undifferentiated Moroccans. You see the same thing in alot of other Jewish communities that come from Muslim countries. My entirely uninformed guess is that national identity in these places is tied very strongly with Islamic identity, to the point where you can't be, say, Moroccan unless you're Muslim.<br /><br />Most of the people I know, however, are first and second generation immigrants. I have no clue if this continues in later generations.Jesse A.https://www.blogger.com/profile/02915374000225534617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-57830055192095626072010-07-14T13:27:44.204-04:002010-07-14T13:27:44.204-04:00Interesting. That probably is where the difference...Interesting. That probably is where the differences originated, but once the immigration waves take place, they in turn end up defining the differences between the diaspora communities they contribute to.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-46543495304509930652010-07-14T13:20:13.562-04:002010-07-14T13:20:13.562-04:00I suspect the difference between Russian Jews in t...I suspect the difference between Russian Jews in the US and Moroccan Jews in France has more to do with differences between Morocco and Russia than the US and France.Jesse A.https://www.blogger.com/profile/02915374000225534617noreply@blogger.com