Sexy Lady Song

A week or so ago, while driving with my parents, we went through a Jewish-orthodox neighbourhood. On the radio was an interview with the organizer of a classical music festival, plugging a Leonard Bernstein evening. Then, they played America, from West Side Story.

This sing has aged, and not incredibly well. I’m sure it was considered racially sensitive for the late fifties, but when it started on the radio, I felt slightly uncomfortable. That feeling basically stopped by the end of the song, when the music becomes amazing, and they could be in blackface for all I cared. The rhythm is amazing, the vocal work is great, and it’s completely sweeping. The thing that really struck me by the end of the song was, though, that all the men who walked in the streets we were driving in were not allowed to listen.

Some Jewish orthodox men, and especially those who are ultra-orthodox, will not listen to women singing. There are various levels of scrutiny this prohibition can come at, but in its basis, it relies on the fact that the voice of a woman is inherently erotic. I should point out that, depending on how strict a religious Jew is, they might not even listen to non-Hebrew, and non-religious music, but my concern is with women, as it usually is. Just like with segregated buses, which have only grown strong since this article, ultra-orthodox extremists seem to put plenty of blame on women being immodest and too seductive to be seen.

The reason for women sitting at the back is so men will not have to see them, but women are allowed to see men. Similarly, women are allowed to hear men sing, and just like in secular society, men are the rule, and women are the exception. In religious CD stores, it’s assumed that the singer is male, there there’s usually a sticker or an annotation that notes a woman sing on this album, or that there’s an additional album for women. This assumes that women either have no sex drive, or are less likely to become aroused.

As a fan of opera, a fandom which brought us a blog like Barihunks, dear god, do I beg to differ. I liked opera as a child, but I had only returned to it when I realized just how handsome and beautiful some of those performers are. Combined with their lovely voices, and the surprising amounts of sex that you’ll find in opera (when a fandom complains a production of Billy Budd isn’t homoerotic enough, you’ve really found a good one to be in), someone like me has more than enough reason to find a song sexy.

So if women have sex drives, too, should all singing just be banned? How about no. I think that, by 2011, maybe it’s time to realize that everyone but asexuals have a sex drive, and that’s basically fine. We’ve also advanced enough in psychology to understand that even rape isn’t really derived from sexual arousal and lack of control. Sexual assault is the result of power, and wanting to show it in terrible ways. The nearly constant assault women face (check the Hollaback of your choice), isn’t really because someone heard a very sexy lady-song. It’s fine to be aroused by things, but it’s less fine to put someone down via sexual means, because you feel like proving your superiority.

I leave you now with what is probably one of the sexiest duets out there, with Simon Keenlyside and Miah Presson, in a surprisingly non-rapey production of Don Giovanni, from the Royal Opera House, who never fail to deliver.

“Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory.”

– Albus Dumbledore

 

I’ve recently considered changing this blog’s title, yet again. While most of my free time is spent in escapism, whenever I feel that I should write, it’s almost never about books, or TV, or music. It’s about racism, sexism, and other -isms in those media. Sometimes, like in the case of Harry Potter, it’s a book that triggers me to write about these topics.

I know very well that good art will not let you escape from the real world, and the things that you should be thinking and worrying about. When I had to choose between what’s right and what was easy, at the time, I went along and joined the IDF. You might say that draft-dodging is easier than going through over a year of service, but even in the most clerical position, I knew that it was not the right thing to do.

It showed very much in the reading material I chose back then, and the music I listened to. My last year in high school was when I rediscovered Bertolt Brecht, and managed to get my hands on nearly every single Hebrew recording of his songs. Near the end of my service, I had also bought Hanoch Levine’s Bathtub Queen, a satirical series of songs and sketches performed in 1968, when everyone was in the euphoria of 1967, the last war Israel had won, really, and the beginning of the occupation. When it came to books, all I could really read was Russian moralistic tales, Catch 22, and, granted, Oscar Wilde. I had also reread the Harry Potter series for the first time in a while, and its themes about bullying and racism and governmental abuse were obviously clearer than ever.

This choise between right and easy has stayed with me throughout my entire service, cut short by depression. I think this is the place to do a bit of exposition about the place I live, which is a little town, not very far from Jerusalem. It’s about a mile away from the 1967 border, on the right side of it. Another mile away, outside the border, is an ultra-orthodox settlement, and a huge one, at that. Between us, and outside the border, is a Palestinian village. There aren’t a lot of jobs in the West Bank, as far as I know, and the unemployment rate there is very high. It’s common for builders and others to go into Israel to find work, and if the wave a permit to do so, they can go to a checkpoint miles away, wait for ages, and get into Israel to work some, or get medical treatment, or something like that about living a normal life. Whatever.

Since the Separation Wall hasn’t yet arrived in our town, some people from said village just come here, and hop on a bus to Jerusalem, or one of the towns around us. They may or may not have a permit to be in Israel, and those can usually be taken away at a bureaucratic whim. Personally, and I could be naive, but I don’t see that much risk in letting people who just want to work go on a bus. Yes, buses have exploded, but usually in big cities, in crowded places, and never in a dinky town with only slightly over 6,000 people in it, most of whom own a car.

We don’t like them going on our buses, though, and some bus drivers don’t like it, either. One day, as a soldier, I had started my 6:00 ride to the base, and some clearly Palestinian people went on the bus. The town’s security took them off, even though I’m not sure they have a right to demand IDs from people. Another day, a year later, the bus driver had started demanding to see a woman’s ID, who tried to go to Jerusalem. He would not let her on the bus, and went on a rant, when she gave up. This has been happening increasingly on my morning buses. I never say anything.

What would happen, if I interfered in someone’s favor? In a subject that clearly matters to me, because bus drivers have no right to demand your papers? I might not know every person in this town, but the bus-riding population is small, and so is the pool of drivers. If the debate got heated enough, and if I could afford it, could I leave the bus? Will the same driver let me on it again, at another day? Or will people just start arguing with me on-sight, as I go to work, or school? These are my worries, and for now, they’ve done a very good job in keeping me quiet about this topic. So whenever I remember that quote from Dumbledore, and look back, I still know it’s not a standard I can hold myself to, as much as I’d like to, and this is as depressing as a book can get.

To Be Israeli

This Wednesday will be the eve of the Jewish new year, and our newspapers and TV are very likely to go even slightly more insane than they usually are. There will be end-of-year lists, which will repeat themselves exactly in December, but I expect to be bothered most by that semi-religious, nationalistic feeling that seems to come down on our media during the fall’s holiday season. The bane of this time (and any other time, in my opinion, as there’s always an excuse), is articles like these.

They crop up, several every year, and tell us what’s so special about being Israeli. Most of them read exactly like articles explaining why what’s so special about being American, why the writer loves New York (City), or what sets Italy, Sweden, or the UK apart from those other EU countries who are stuffy and boring. It’s the sort of article that’s supposed to make you feel nice about living in a country that would probably rather elect a new and better public, if this one is dissatisfied. These articles come to our aid, and tell us that even if things are bad, there’s no place like home. I usually need a good shower after reading one.

To me, being Israeli doesn’t hold any kind of great national pride. Maybe I’m slightly incapable of it, or just had bad personal experiences with Israeli authority, but from my earliest memories, this status of being a Jewish, Israeli citizen, is one of violence and privilege. There are so many boxes you have to tick, in order to be Israeli, that I wonder if I really am one, and if so, do I want to be, after all this scrutiny?

Early in school, there was one Ethiopian girl in my grade. There was a fairly large Jewish-Ethiopian and Jewish-Russian immigration into Israel in the nineties. Some people probably made fun of this girl, because a teacher spoke about this with us, one day. Charlie Brooker mentions an incident like this in the seventies, but ours didn’t go very much like that: The teacher had told us that we mustn’t make fun of black people, because they’re very hard workers. During one of the first Bible in middle school, in which we were rereading Genesis, we reached Sodom and Gomorrah. Our teacher had flat-out told us that the cities were destroyed for homosexuality. That teacher went on to claim that one of his former students, who was transgender, was punished by god for not paying attention in Bible class, and that Muslims are barbarians. Another teacher assured us that a certain kabbalistic ritual was a ‘scientifically tested and proven method’. It involved randomly opening a Bible book.

My high-school was semi-private, and while I’ve had the opportunity to learn from several great teacher, it was when I felt the media starting to change around me. This campaign, ending with the words “A true Israeli doesn’t dodge draft”, came out when I was seventeen, and on the verge of my own draft. While it created a lot of backlash, it was the first time being Israeli started feeling, to me, more like a burden than anything else. I won’t discuss the issues with serving in the IDF, but conscription exists in Israel, and the options to avoid draft are to sit in army prison for a few months, or be discharged for some reason. In either case, the army is the one that releases you.

I was drafted at 18, and being Israeli became being able to discuss the merits of genocide over lunch with a nice officer, learning that sexism and racism is a casual thing, and there’s really very little you can say about them, if you don’t want to be grounded to base. Why aren’t you smiling?

And so, to me, being Israeli has always been about finding someone less Israeli than you, and kicking them. It’s about being taught from the earliest age that everyone is out to kill you, and that this justifies absolutely anything that you might be able to do to prevent this, because Never Again. Being Israeli is about being extremely violent to the society around you, to take advantage of anything that you can, but still be home for the new year, with your family, and read and article about the true meaning of being Israeli: A white middle-class Jew, who served in the army, and is preferably not a woman or gay, thank you very much.