. . . more "italian" than you realize . . .

This bit of duologue must've occurred, while we were into our fourth six-pack of COORS. Elsewhere in this blog, one finds bits and pieces about Avram Beilitzsyn. Anyway, he fixed me with a strange stare, and then said something like,

"You're Italian . . . sure, you're Italian."

After the third six-pack, I suppose, one should expect political correctitude to have departed the scene. Even so, I was taken aback. He meant Italian, but he used instead an ethnic slur.

Emphasizing the proper term, I responded, like so,

"Yes, I'm of Italian descent."

Both of my parents immigrated to the states from Italy. My father became a naturalized citizen, while he was serving in the army near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. And my mother received her citizenship by virtue of her marriage to my father. What's more, I was born in the states. And I served in the Naval Reserves, leaving with an honorable discharge.

And then, I was taken aback even more, when Avram declared there was a profoundly mystical bond between Italians and Jews. He meant Jews, but he used instead an ethnic slur that could've landed Mel Gibson into an ocean of hot water. I mean the ensuing kerfaffle would've been intense enough to necessitate wearing sack cloth and ashes for all of this year and the next.

Being fairly well educated, I was aware of a certain event that had taken place in Judea, while Tiberius was Roman emperor. Given a deeply spiritual orientation, one might imagine the possibility of a profoundly mystical bond between Italians and Jews.

I once chuckled over a passage in the novel CALL IT SLEEP. Wherein, a group of Jewish urchins urge several anti-semitic urchins to bother the Italians, because they're the ones who actually crucified Christ.

For a second there, mouth agape, all I could do was stare at Avram, as he took a swig from his can of COORS. Concluding a burp with a sigh of satisfaction, he returned my stare with a jagged grin. This time, he eschewed ethic slurs.

"As an American, you're more Italian than you realize . . . a hell'uva lot more Italian than you realize."

To divert him from what might be a perturbing turn in conversation, I asked him who was playing center field for the Detroit Tigers, the last time they had a decent chance for a pennant.

. . . yeah, memory does play funny tricks . . . that duologue sprang into my waking awareness, when I visited the blogsite that rejoices under the logo HEAR, O ISRAEL. If you thought that logo text was a hyperlink, sorry about your disappointment.

Eventually, dear Reader and, I hope, devoted fan, you'll be directed to visit that blogsite. After you scroll down a little ways during your visit, you'll find on the right hand side, a blog roll of sites that cater to those with an interest, in one way or other, in Italian culture.

Given a deeply spiritual orientation, one might then posit that blog roll as evidence for the possibility of a profoundly mystical bond between Jews and Italians. In fact, one so oriented might even allow that such is more than possibility, rather it's fact . . . and pretty obvious fact, at that . . . once more, intuitively obvious.

Being fairly well educated, I can occasionally reach into my memory, and pull up these neat quotes from Greek philosophy. Wood'jah (?) buh-leave! This is the place for one, and I'm quoting,

". . . the music that is unheard is stronger than the music that is heard . . ."

Because it's not so obvious, the profoundly mystical bond between this country and Israel is even more potent than that between Italy and Israel.

Please don't bother looking here for an explanation why so. My five doughnuts to somebody's three, whatever explanation somebody can adduce, it won't be so simple as, say, a crucifixion.

Some pundit or other could very likely refer to those fundamentalist so-called Christians. All in all, they're supposed to all hot and bothered about the Rapture that'll taken place, sometime after the Jews re-build their temple in Jerusalem. Maybe, that pundit would blame those fundamentalists for that bond.

So far as I can tell, albeit being adamantly adiaphorestic, that ain't it. The yearning of those fundamentalists for that aforementioned re-building is symptom rather than cause.

Some historians might claim the bond started with George Washington's letter of welcome to Jews, driven by poverty from Brazil. In the country that's dedicated to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, Jews were allowed to reach for the moon, if they so wished.

Quite frankly, I think it would make more sense to refer to how deeply African slaves in this country identified with the Hebrews in the Old Testament, yearning to be free of Pharaoh's yoke. In a way, the ensuing war between the Union and the Confederacy polished that profoundly mystical bond. And I'm advancing that hypothesis in spite of my being adamantly adiaphorestic.

Well, if there's an upshot to all the foregoing, it would be something like this. I almost feel sorry for those fools, bent on the destruction of Israel. If only they knew, what a big brother Israel has in the United States of America.

. . . oh, alright (!) already, I should talk. Until very recently, I was just as purblind as those fools.. . . oh, well, they had their chance and they blew it, as I write elsewhere in this blog . . . eYep, they blew it . . . for one point one billion of their co-coreligionists . . .

toodles
...../
.he who is known as sefton

. . . oh, darn, almost forgot, here's the hyperlink to
HEAR, O ISRAEL . . . incidentally, "Alexander Stella's Musings" under the "Blogs of Interest" heading is a hyperlink back to this blog . . .

EPIMETHEAN COMMENT . . .

. . . oh, br'dah, that Avram . . . no doubt about it . . . he grew on'ya . . . no, he was hardly one wild and crazy guy . . . still, whatever the government, the authorities found him a bit much . . .

Anyway, I realize now that this post contains way more of his temperament than it should . . . sorry about that.

For him, that alleged bond between Italians and Jews was an affair of spirit. For him, it was real. I mean "real" in the sense that shaving cream is real, that morning coffee is real, that a summer squall is real.

Back then and today, that alleged bond is instead, for me, a matter for psychology.

I've been accused of having an extremely snide component in my temperament. There's no denying that accusation. It's true.

Just how those profoundly spiritual bonds come to exist, so far as I can tell, nobody has ever been wise enough to disclose. For my part, I doubt anybody so wise as all that would be foolhard enough to do so.

For no particular reason, I mused about the situation, in which Pontius Pilate found himself. According to the New Testament, he could find no mortal offense in that religious proctalgesiac.

As the Roman procurator for Judea, it was his job to keep the peace in the province. A troubled province meant loss of tax revenue, whereas a peaceable one expedited tax collection. So, it's really small wonder he opted for crucifixion.

Just off the top of my head, I surmise Pilate accorded the people he governed in the name of Tiberius even less respect than he did maggots.

Had he but even suspected he was about to give people such as Avram license to posit a profoundly spiritual bond between those eternal maggots and the legatees of the eternal city, I wonder, would (?) that Roman procurator for Judea have made a far different decision . . . say, exile to some Roman outpost on the Black Sea.

In that situation, that religious proctalgesiac might have founded a movement, destined to fade into oblivion.

There really is precious little I may advance as a surmise about what Avram, were he around today, would say about the relationship between the two aforementioned profoundly spiritual bonds. Did (?) the existence of the prior one enable the forging of the later.

. . . well, that's speculation both way beyond me and way above my pay grade, which by the way is nothing. Truth be told, I have neither the credentials nor the training nor even the slightest ambition for it . . .

I still say, "It's a matter for psychology."