Tali Farkash’s Déjà Vu

by Schvach Yid

Tali Farkash - schlecht?
Original photo by Gabby Menasche
as displayed in the Ynetnews article

In an article posted on Ynetnews,(http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3389823,00.html), appropriately titled ‘Racists Among Us’, and dated April 20^th, 2007, Ms. Farkash related her personal experiences with racism while attending a girl’s yeshiva during her youth, and the rejection accorded her on the basis of her dark complexion. Nu, with a ponim like hers she’s supposed to be ashamed? All Yiddin should be so fortunate to look so good! But flippancy aside, the matter of the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisroel coupled with the distain we should feel toward racism is the matter to be considered. What do the Jewish religiously inclined think? Don’t they realize that when we lain Torah or study Chumash with Rashi that we are reading about ourselves and our antecedents, that Avraham Avenu, Yitzhak, and Yaakov were ‘Middle Eastern’, ie., dark; that the Kabbalists refer to Yaakov as Tiferes – Beauty! Does it ever occur to ask how ‘white’ Jews ever came into existence as Jews? My own small corner of Klal Yisroel, the Jews of Germany and Austria, named ‘Yekes’, coined the horrific honorific ‘Arabische Juden’ to label Mizrachi Jews. Chutzpadik!! If anyone is supposed to be ‘real’ Jews by descent, it is they, the Mizrachim. I’ve often wondered about myself as an Ashkinazic Jew. I look in the mirror and I see a face full of injected capillaries. To my mind, mine is not a very Jewish looking ponim. A Jew is a Jew; ‘love your neighbor as yourself’! Neighbor, not stranger. Tali is no stranger. She should not feel like one, and she should never have suffered that humiliating sense of rejection and estrangement doled out to her by her own people, and at a cheder at that, and by haredim – those stringently schooled in halachah and devoted to leading lives of Torah and mitzvot. A Lubavitch rabbi (not the Lubavitcher Rebbe) once told me 'every Jew is precious'. I can't think of more important words that could be spoken by a Jew about any other Jew.Those who have caused Tali to feel apart from Klal Yisroel should do a t’suvah for this, as should any of us who has or would indulge in violating the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisroel. Yasher koach to Tali Farkash for sharing this life event with the Jewish community - her community.