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Re: what's a nice jewish boy doing at the u fla gainesville
David Heller (daveh@PANIX.COM)
Fri, 21 Jan 1994 12:02:59 -0500
Wow Daniel
First you should know that there is a large jewish population at UF. A
very large population, and UF is the best school by far in its state, full
of great academic credentials. I'll say that for that.
What bugged me most of all in your response (which on many levels I think
I agree w/, but don't understand at all) was your use of the word *goy*.
For all the non yiddishists out there it means simply and literally
gentile, or non-jew. But his use follows w/ the common one in the Jewish
community which I hate and denounce. That is using it to denegrate. It is
a pejorative simply put.
"That goyisha school" translation, "That school not good enough for even
the lowest Jew." I won't do the word replacement, but in your minds, fit
inthe identity of your choice. Imagine George Jeffereson saying, "That
honkey school" or something like that.
But Mr. Foss's reply was necessary if infact someone does feel it is
necessary for him or herself to hide any part of their identity out of a
feeling of reverse anti-semitism, which does run rampant in the Jewish
intellectual world.
Jews should be proud of their accomplishments in the academic world, but
now have the responsibility to bring others to the fore w/ them. This
isn't going on. We scream and bicker about how now we are being
discriminated against etc. instead of realizing what needs to be done,
which is a positive action.
It always hurts me to see people turn away from any of their identities,
be it gay (and closeted), a person of color, woman, etc. All these things
and being jewish are important to be open w/.
I hope this isn't irrelevant, it was really hard to understand Daniel's
posting. English is my first language, so it would be helpful if someone
could translate what he said. (I know incredibly ethnocentric of me)
dave
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