For Now

Dear Loyal Blog Followers,

I must wish you farewell. I now live in Oz and have nothing significant to write about most of the time.

Perhaps if there is somthing particularly pertinent I shall post again but for now it is the end of littlemissbogan.

But never fear.

I have begun work on a new blog.

We'll see how long can last with this one...

If you'd like to check it out click here.

Grown-ups

Since returning to Melbourne I've been a little bit bummed. I've discussed a lot of this already on this blog. About how much I really enjoy living in Israel and how I simply prefer my life there.

But it's not just the Israel thing that has got me.

I live with my parents.

That's right. I'm 22 years old - almost 23 - and I'm still at home. Now I know that's pretty standard for Australian Uni students, be they Jew or Gentile. Indeed among Jews you can probably last a good few years of post-uni employment before you need to leave the womb and find your own place.

But not me.

Which is surprising since I didn't consider myself a particularly independent person. I didn't get my first job till the end of year 12 and I was never really into public transport as a kid. I was always happy to grab lifts from my folks.

But then I lived for a year overseas when I was 18 and now again for the past year. For the past year I came and went as I pleased. I was messy. I ate only food that I wanted and only when I was hungry. I paid my own electricity bills, water bills, internet bills, phone bills. I paid rent (mostly late) each month. I worked. I went to university. I looked after myself. I replaced light-bulbs and killed spiders.

I had/have a sense of pride in this. When you look after yourself you are a more competent, capable person. Indeed you are more of a person because you are living up the the standard of what a person should be: self-reliant.

It's not that at home I'm really that looked after. I still do the grocery shopping, the cooking, I do laundry and I mainly keep my own hours. Furthermore my folks keep their distance. They've never had house rules or told me what to do or prevented me from having guests. But ultimately I'm still living with my parents. I live in the house of my childhood and when I return here I feel like I slip back into being a child. But unlike your average movie character I do not want to return to childhood. I enjoy being responsible for myself and I feel like it's a real blow to my independence to be living in my parents house again.

So what do I do? Well, I have less than 1.5 years left of my degree (all going well) - and the moment I start earning moolah I will move out.

No, but seriously. Get. Me. Out.

London Bridge Is Falling Down

Good-evening ladies and gentlemen.

I would like to begin this post by sending out my condolences to those affected by the riots in London and the UK in general at present. I hope the situation improves speedily.

As for the riots themselves I actually am not surprised that they are occurring. In fact these riots confirm my suspicions about the human condition.

For a number of years now I have been convinced that human beings have no inherent morality. I do not think we know right from wrong. Indeed what we do know is how to look out for ourselves. I also know that we love power. I think that without ethical direction people will descend to mild anarchy.

In the past ideologues and politicians have taken advantage of this weakness in people for their own exploits. They have argued that people should engage in war for their nation or in local acts of violence for race and ethnic reasons. But ultimately for the people participating in these acts the ideology was just an excuse for something that they simply wanted to do. Or at the very least, didn't mind doing. I think that when we view people from this perspective human history makes more sense. All the abhorrent ideologies and genocides and massacres or even daily crime and discrimination that exists in all societies and cultures for all time comes into focus when you accept that human beings are at best inherently amoral and at worst naturally immoral.

You could have thought that my generation in the West would be immune from this. We don't have any real political ideologies pushing us to defend out country against the fascists or the communists anymore. Even the dubious threat of Islamic terrorism is met with skepticism and apathy by my generation. We simply don't buy into ideology anymore. Unless you consider nihilism an ideology.

But our apathy didn't inoculate us against stealing or vandalism or violence. In London we have managed to have totally ideology-free riots. We have managed to break out into anarchy for no definable reason. You can blame it on class divides and the education system and while I do recognize these factors I think they are only relevant in the following context:

1) People don't know what's right and what's wrong.

2) Even if you teach them they will probably ignore it if it's in their interests.

3) Making something illegal isn't the same as teaching somebody that it's wrong.

Therefore the way to prevent violence and discrimination and hatred and rioting is through ethical education. People need to be taught morality. By this I don't mean the 10 commandments or even the legal code. Rather people need to be taught to think about ethics. How do we decide what's right and what's wrong? What makes these things so? How do we define them? If we get people to engage in these questions and perhaps ingrain an appreciation for the good, right, just and moral then perhaps that education will be enough to protect against wanton acts of wrong.

Maybe London is the wake-up call the West needed but doesn't really want.

Jew-Spotting

Look, I'm aware that this is going to be a particularly racist post. But you are all just going to have to deal. Or dob me in to the ADC. I dare you.

Since returning to the diaspora I have also returned to Monash Jewniversity. In my three years at the Clayton campus I am yet to have even one tutorial without a fellow member of the covenant in there with me. The thing is, that after a year of playing spot-the-goy, my Jew-spotting skills need some work. So in an effort to help myself and help you fellow bird(nosed) watchers I've compiled a list of clues to figure out if the kid at the end of the row is also a member of the tribe.

1) Appearance - I know it's a stereotype but yids are not known for their height. Or good looks. Or reasonable sized noses. So if the suspect is below average height with below average looks with a perfect nose. You know they are a member of the tribe with a great plastic surgeon.

2) Jew-fro - on boys expect a full blown fuzz of brown frizz around their head - sometimes it even makes it onto their faces in the form of a mono-brow. On girls, curly brown hair is a give-away. But do not be fooled by straight hair. Ironing out your hair-inheritance is another classic trick of the Jewess. Look for 'too-straight' hair or tell-tale kinks at the roots. While we are on the topic of hair - let us not forget premature male-pattern balding. I'm not saying that all Jewish boys have it - I'm just saying that I haven't seen it on the goyim.

3) If you're in first year - expect to see Bialik and Scopus sports fleece jumpers. These are worn in amongst the Scotch, MLC and Xavier jumpers too. We loves the spoilt rich kids. But by second year Lacross/Rugby/Rowing school team jumpers are out, replaced with anything that is not a school uniform being worn voluntarily in a non-school environment.

4) Glasses. I'm sure that these kids haven't been spending too much time in front of a talmud with tiny Aramaic script in a dark yeshiva in Poland. But nevertheless the house of Jacob have a fraught history with myopia. Therefore lenses in frames or of the contact variety are big give-aways. However, be warned. Big thick nerd glasses have recently been adopted by the hipster gentiles as a fashion statement. So be careful, just because Sarah the leggy blonde in Eco 101 has glasses, this doesn't mean that she's safe to bring home to your mother.

5) Breaking into a sweat when Students for Palestine makes announcements. Nobody else is paying any attention. They are on their iPhones and Macbooks making witty comments on facebook. The Jews, however, are hanging on every word. They are looking out for the hints of antisemitism. They are waiting for these announcements to rile up the entire class of administration law into an Israel-bashing frenzy from which they will have to flee and live in the forests by the hockey pitch. People reading the BDS posters are also likely to be circumcised. Though that may be because they are Muslim.

6) Packed lunch. This relates in particular to those with Y-chromosomes. Jewish mothers (like many ethnic minority mothers) like to mother. This includes worrying and inflicting guilt as well as feeding. So if you are sitting next to a 3rd year Law/Commerce student with a packed lunch of a cream cheese bagel and a juice box, drop him a shalom aleichem. Then invite him over for friday night dinner.

And so there begins my decent into full blown racial profiling. Good times.

If you have any other tips feel free to leave a comment.

Secret Women's Business

So this blog post isn't a chabad/kiruv 'the beauty of family purity' manifesto but it is going to be a discussion of a friend of mine's experiences at the mikvah. It just so happens that her experiences were largely positive.

For those who are unfamiliar with the subject you can check this out.

Anyway, so my friend lives in Jerusalem and being an orthodox woman she keeps the laws of family purity. The mikvah she attends is in the eclectic neighbourhood of Nachlaot. The mix of demographics in the suburb is reflected in the mikvah attendees. There are hassidic women with their heads shaved. There are hippies with dreadlocks and no shoes. There are old sephardi women. There are even women you wouldn't expect, ones with tattoos and piercings.

The mikvah itself is beautiful. It's clean and modern. Very much like a spa. It's managed to maintain some of the old Jerusalem architecture along with the renovation to allow for lots of frosted glass and good heating. Not to mention fluffy towels. There's even a hair/make-up spot with blow driers and cosmetics for prettifying post-mikvah.

The balaniot (the mikvah attendants) are really polite and considerate. There is no checking your nails or looking for bits of unbuffed skin on your feet. They simply ask if you've prepared according to your minhagim (traditions) and then get you to step into the mikvah. Obviously they hold the towel up so they don't really look at you during this.

The balanit could tell that my friend was still new at this and a bit nervous, so she told her to take a few deep breaths and to calm herself before saying the bracha and taking the dips. After each dip the balanit declared in a very calm and soothing voice "kasher." As my friend walked up the stairs the balanit congratulated her on doing a great and important mitzvah and then shook her hand. Kinda hilarious given that she was naked at the time.

Anyways what she claims is that the most positive experience out of the mikvah outings is the sense of camaraderie between the women there. In the waiting room you have women of all types chatting about the towels or about kids or about the chaggim or about the cottage cheese protests or the katzav verdict. In a world where there aren't always options for women of different creeds to meet, the mikvah is a safe place.

Obviously this is just one person's opinion and experience. But I think it's one that people should know about. Because even if you think that family purity is misogynistic there's always two sides to every coin and the cultural narrative is one that we create. So why not create a positive one?

With that - have a great week folks.

The Southern Hemisphere

Hello all,

I understand that you may be feeling more than a bit resentful/abandoned by my disappearance. My apologies but life got kinda hectic. I had to pack up my life, finish exams and get on a plane to Australia all in one day. Since then I've returned to Oz and found myself without the interwebz and with a million logistical things to deal with.

My days have largely inolved the following activities:

- booking and attending appointments for the doctor, optometrist

- Bank shit

- Phone shit

- University (both of them)

- Attempting to acquire employment

And while I do these banal activities I've also been in the process of remembering who I was when I used to live here. For example - where did I go to shule? Who did I learn with? Who do I hang out with? Where were the good places for coffee/drinks? Do I eat out? What will I eat out? What's kosher? What do I wear? and WHY IS IT FREEZING???

But basically I'm back. Here I am. And here I will be for the next 1.5 years minimum. So I guess that I'd better get used to it.

As to this old blog here - what shall become of it?

Well I have a couple more issues/items to discuss with you all, so I'll get those written and online. Once those are done, who knows? I'm not sure if my life in galus is significant enough to document.

But for now let's just take it a blog at a time.

Emigration

So I'm not sure if I've blogged about this before but since I have less than one week left in the country it seems like a fitting time to discuss why I'm a Zionist.

Ultimately it boils down two 2 reasons. The ideological and the practical. Lets start with the latter.

Practical reasons to make aliya.

Being an orthodox Jewess, a lot of the time it's simply more convenient for me to live in a Jewish state. Being able to eat in kosher restaurants really improves my quality of life. Being able to go to the super market without a kosher list is delightful. Having chaggim and erev chag off as public holidays is really necessary. Having many opportunities for left-wing learning and prayer and communal experiences is vital. Not having to constantly explain myself is lovely. I'm really grateful for the experience I had as an ethnic minority in Australia. It's given me a sensitivity to the needs of minorities everywhere. But do I actually enjoy being 'different'? Not very much at all. More than that the type of work I would like to do with my life is really only doable in Israel. I'd like to be a family lawyer in the rabbinic courts. That career is not an option for me anywhere else in the world. So yeah, practically, Israel is suited to my lifestyle and what I want to do with my life.

Furthermore ideologically I feel compelled to move to Israel. Not because of God or religion or national destiny. Far from it. Rather I see how many problems there are in the country. The poverty, the discrimination, the hatred and the unfairness. Coming from a western country with the sensitivity of having been an ethnic minority and part of the periphery of a society (being orthodox and female) I can see how much better things can work. How multiculturalism really adds to a country and how migrants and refugees, when given the right opportunities, can contribute to their adopted home. I can see how an education system should run. How social security could be improved. True, I won't be working on all these areas. I'm pretty sure that women's rights will be my chosen field. But simply being here, voting here, volunteering here should help a little. Or hopefully a lot.

So that's what I'm going to try and do. Help myself and help the middle east.

We'll see how that goes...