Anecdote: The Day I Became a "Real" Israeli in the Shuq (Market)

I wrote the following to a woman who grew up in England. She contends that she is dismayed at the prejudice she sees in England "of late". I explained to her that prejudice has always been rife in England and that if she did not see it it is probably because she grew up in a demographically heterogeneous area.

Her riposte was that once when her family were on vacation her brothers spent the day playing with a little Pakistani boy.

I answered:

In order to make my point clear; I'll offer an anecdote.

Here in Israel we have open market days once a week called the shuq. Typically, food is a good deal cheaper in the shuq than in stores. The produce is also farm-fresh. One of the reasons that some of the foodstuffs are cheaper is because they come in bulk and are weighed out to the customer, rather than being pre-packaged. The fact that the foods are in bulk, and in large, open containers, sacks or boxes makes it easy for people to just reach in and taste the wares: dried fruits, cookies, sweets, etc. For many years I found the idea of taking from food that countless people reached into and ate from (sometimes more than one taste) extremely off-putting. Gradually, I got over the queasiness as I realized that no one around me seemed to be suffering any ill effects from the practice. One day when I was in the market I reached into a bag and took one of the types of cookie I intended to buy and ate it. Delighted with my new level of integration into Israeli society; when I got I said to my son: "Today I became a real Israeli. I ate from one of the open boxes of cookies in the shuk (market)!" He looked at me levelly and said: "You're still not a real Israeli, Mom. You'll be a real Israeli when you do it and never give it a thought." And so I say to you: You will be a really unprejudiced person when you do not preface the children that your brothers played with as "Pakistani" or whatever other than English preface you put to them, just as you do not say: "My brothers played with English children".

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com