Where's the line?

Religion and culture-where does one draw the line here in Israel?

Does the line even exist?

I find myself struggling to gauge the diverging point between Jewish culture and Judaism because often times they almost seem interchangeable, but other times, their fluid substitution is not appropriate to me.

For instance, I will be studying in Ulpan for almost two months before I actually start my university classes in October. Ulpan is basically intensive Hebrew language classes designed for foreigners and immigrants making Aliyah to Israel, so that they will be able to better integrate into Israeli society. *Making Aliyah is when people of the Jewish diaspora immigrate to Israel.*

So far, learning Hebrew has been pretty easy for me since I use the same methods of learning it as I did for Arabic. And despite the long and many Ulpan school days, I guess it's pretty cool that I will be able to read, write, and speak Hebrew by the end of this semester.

Like any other language class, we also learn about Israeli culture. The manner in which we do that is by learning colloquial Hebrew phrases (many of which come from Arabic too-like "sababa", which means "cool") and we also sing national Israeli anthems and the book often makes references to historically religious figures and biblical stories.

Mostly, I really enjoy learning about the culture behind a language because a lot of times you can tie certain cultural aspects back to the language, which makes the language much richer within the context and moreover, it helps you remember words and phrases that may initially sound like gibberish by using mnemonic devices. This is why studying abroad for language immersion is so effective because not only are you surrounded by the language, but as cliche as it sounds, you're also experiencing it by seeing the way people interact with each other through the language in their daily activities.

Some examples of this include: the verb to sit "yoshev" in Hebrew; I remember this verb because I think of Yeshivas where students sit to learn, and I know the term Yeshiva from reading Philip Roth. Or in Arabic, I will always remember "yallah" because when I was in Morocco, everywhere I heard "yallah!" used to mean "let's go!", "hurry up!", "come on!", "come here", "start eating", etc. Pretty soon, it became a verb and I used to joke that all I did was "yallah around Morocco". Or how Japanese people always say "soo desu nee" and "soo desu ka?", which are phrases of polite agreement as an appropriate reply to almost anything (despite whether they agree or not), which reflects the legendary Japanese emphasis on decorum.

Back to the point-so yes, I fully appreciate and agree with learning a language by simultaneously learning the culture behind the language. But here in Israel, the culture seems so rooted in Judaism, and theAmerican obsession with separation of church and state does not exist. Furthermore, most American Jews I talk to tell me that being Jewish is more like being part of a culture embedded with religious traditions than being part of a religious group.

In class, I like reading about how a kibbutz functions and about famous Israeli historical figures, but I don't like when we read about Bible stories and my teacher doesn't understand how everyone isn't familiar with them (I mostly am because I grew up going to Bible study in church, but other non-Jews in my class mostly look around blankly). I don't like going to the auditorium to sing Israeli national anthems that my Jewish friends learned by heart in their American Hebrew schools. I don't like that our tour guides tell us that the Druze communities up north in the Golan Heights are better off being part of Israel than Syria because not only is Israel more modern, but it is also more tolerant. I find that hard to believe when the Israeli government is finding new excuses to discriminate against Ethiopian Jews trying to make Aliyah to Israel while embracing American and Eastern European Jews with open arms and free birth right trips. And I don't want to listen to Hebrew school rock on the bus during field trips with songs about Samson and that devil-woman Delilah.

I respect the traditional breaking of the Challah on Shabbat, but I don't want to be handed a sheet of paper to follow along with the prayers and chants in phonetic English-Hebrew before I eat dinner, not because I don't like things that are different than what I'm used to, but I don't feel comfortable even just humoring people and mumbling prayers I don't understand. I liken all these things to going to Catholic or Protestant school because when I went to St. James elementary school, we did all these things like good Christian lambs. We went to chapel and prayed and sang hymns; we had religion class and prepared for the annual Nativity play. But I feel at this age I shouldn't have to be put in these situations where I feel like the religion is being imposed on me because the majority of the students are Jewish. I understand that these are supposed to cultural experiences, and I really want to learn about Judaism because I don't know very much about it, but I want to be able to do it on my own terms without feeling like I'm going to traditional Hebrew school without my expecting it. And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way because sometimes in class, the other gentiles will ask the teacher, "Is this religion class?".

I guess having grown up in the States (meaning Los Angeles and going to Wellesley), I'm so used to people always being politically correct and especially sensitive about civil rights and liberties that translate into cultural and religious tolerance. Sometimes, I feel like this cultural and religious tolerance are so sacrosanct and placed on such high pedestals wrapped with miles of caution tape, that often subjects like religion are not even breached, while difficult and loaded questions are altogether avoided for the sake of not being flamed as a bigot and racist. But this is problematic too because instead of creating an embracing form of tolerance, it creates more feelings of "the other", which is both unquestionable and ultimately misunderstood.

I keep telling myself to take all this with a grain of salt. So what if they have you pray with them before eating on weekend trips? So what if you can now sing along to Hebrew school tunes? I keep telling myself to keep an open mind, and to relish every experience whether I want to be experiencing it or not. I keep reminding myself that this is how it is here, and I can learn to accept it. But this line has been a hard one to straddle because I can't find it, and I don't even know if it exists.

Do I even need to find it?

Can I just accept it for the way it is and stop questioning and fighting it?

What do you think?