Shopping in the local Thursday food market today with my Jewish mother, my half-Jewish son and his new, non-Jewish nanny, I began talking to a Charedi Jewish woman with a child in a push chair. She was from New York but had lived here with her Rabbi husband for 18 years. It was as usual only a matter of moments before the unkosher reality of my life here was uncovered. The real downer was when we checked if the fish we had just bought, as a pre-cut fillet, was kosher - we thought it was. She replied that indeed it was but we would know that since it had fins and scales. We said well actually we didn't see it in all it's fishy glory. She expressed horror: you are not allowed to buy pre-cut fish from the goyim ! There were a few more harangues about the untrustworthy goyim and within seconds our apparently innocent encounter with a fellow Jew was in terminal meltdown. A case of goodbye and good riddance.
Living these past seven months in Bom Retiro I've been struck by the insularity of the two main groups here, the Koreans and the Charedi (very old-fashioned type of so-called religious Jews who make the Amish look modern). Some of the Jews are just older folk from a traditional background, whose descendants have moved to leafier suburbs. But others, like this unpleasant woman, are hardcore ghetto dwellers, to be found in global ghetto centres such as Stamford Hill, Crown Heights and Bnei Brak. The Koreans, meanwhile, seem also to live in a hermetically sealed bubble, in contrast to the more integrated Japanese-Brazilians. There are several Korean-only kindergartens and restaurants with Korean-only menus.
Live and let live, each to his own, and other truisms, I suppose. But for me it's depressing, not how I wish to live. It's like watching schools of fish swimming past each other, superficially attractive in their respective uniforms but, because they never seem to interact, nothing dynamic or creative emerging from the cultural clash. Just an endless parade of us and them.
You're wrong about the Japanese Brazilians. I taught both Koreans and Japanese when I was a teacher in SP many moons ago, and they are both alike in their inability to speak Portuguese (or English) and their preference for mixing only amongst their kind. But you find this type of insularity the world over, from the Muslim communities of Britain, to the Gypsy communities of Romania. At least in Bom Retiro they are peacefully sharing the same space.
ReplyDeleteJon
Jon, Multicultural / multiple-ethnic mixing has been going on, both socially and DNA-wise, for many decades in cities like London and New York. Maybe Japanese-Brazilians are still not amazingly mixed but from what I've seen they are much more so than the Koreans. They seem more comfortably Brazilian than the Koreans, who look like they still haven't quite unpacked their bags.
ReplyDelete"Peacefully sharing he same space", I grant you. Grateful for small mercies.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast to Oldham!
ReplyDeleteJon