Tuesday, September 23, 2008

"Settler" Humor

I do not like the term "settler".

I do not use it.

It reflects negatively on the historic Jewish endeavor to reestablish and reconstitute in the land of our forefathers, our ancient 3000 year old patrimony, a homeland as a renewed political entity.

I have selected another word, less pejorative, which is "revenant" and have explained here four years ago why I prefer it and why I chose it.

But, I like humor and when this came across my screen, I knew it had to appear at my blog, too. So, enjoy.

You Might Be a "Settler" If...

House / Neighborhood

You might be a settler if live in a bank but are flat broke.
You might be a settler if your electricity goes off at least once a week.
You might be a settler if your son does his army service near your house.
You might be a settler if “Little House on the Prairie” reminds you of home.
You might be a settler if your house resembles a tin can on a hill top.
You might be a settler if your succa looks better than your house.
You might be a settler if cable TV doesn’t come out to your parts and you’re thankful for that.
You might be a settler if you pick up your plane20tickets at the butcher shop, (since his wife is a travel agent).
You might be a settler if the local park bench attracts dozens of teens on a Friday night.
You might be a settler if you took out that damn park bench.
You might be a settler if your kids’ playground has concrete walls against snipers.
You might be a settler if you can sleep through loudspeakers blasting recorded prayers in Arabic.
You might be a settler if people borrow your house when you’re away for the weekend.
You might be a settler if on Saturdays you walk in the street and leave the sidewalks to the cats.
You might be a settler if you assemble to pray on a street corner instead of a synagogue.
You might be a settler if you have a minyan at the supermarket and pray you can pay the bill.

Guns

You might be a settler if your wife shoots better than you.
You might be a settler if you carry an automatic weapon into a bank but don’t plan to rob it.
You might be a settler if you wear a gun to synagogue.
You might be a settler if you have shot a menacing neighborhood dog.
You might be a settler if you think “going to the range” has nothing to do with golf.
You might be a settler if you don’t lock your door but you sleep with a Colt 45 under your pillow.

Car / Road

You might be a settler if your car has gotten stoned more often than you.
You might be a settler if the bus you ride has inch thick opaque bullet proof windows and stops at your settlement only when the driver feels like it.
You might be a settler if repairmen make sure they leave your house well before dark.
You might be a settler if you recite the prayer for the road when leaving home, and mean it.
You might be a settler if you don’t wear a seatbelt because you might need to get out quick.
You might be a settler if your car is plastered with faded bumper stickers protesting almost 2 decades of government policy.
You might be a settler if you share the road with mule powered vehicles.
You might be a settler if you have driven through=2 0a herd of goats on your way to work.
You might be a settler if you’re late to dinner because a family of wild boar was crossing the road.
You might be a settler if you hitchhike with your whole family.
You might be a settler if you have an orange ribbon dangling in your car.
You might be a settler if you teach your kids how to drive on unpaved security roads.
You might be a settler if your car was outfitted with rock resistant windows and you drive with them rolled down.
You might be a settler if you stop for hitchhikers.

Misc

You might be a settler if your wife says keeps your hands off the cake she just baked, because it’s for soldiers.
You might be a settler if your wife walks around wearing a baseball cap.
You might be a settler if your daughter wears a skirt over her jeans.
You might be a settler if your parents can hardly understand what your kids are saying.
You might be a settler if your kids don’t get hig h but are high on hill tops.
You might be a settler if you follow Moses but the Evangelicals support you.
You might be a settler if you get lost when you leave home because everything is called Rabin.
You might be a settler if your coworkers are afraid to visit you.
You might be a settler if your day job is guarding a kindergarten.
You might be a settler if you attend more than 10 weddings a year.
You might be a settler if you attend more than 10 memorials a year.
You might be a settler if you’ve been to Hevron and Joseph’s Tomb.
You might be a settler if folks in Tel Aviv, that you have never met, hate your guts.

Gov’t

You might be a settler if when you put up a shed it gets reported to the U.N.
You might be a settler if Bush and Rice don’t want your kids to live where you do.
You might be a settler if the senior politician mocks your American accent but calls his life work the “Pis Process”.
You might be a settler if your radio station was shut down.
You might be a settler if you don’t use your phone because it’s tapped.
You might be a settler if you’ve been arrested for demonstrating.
You might be a settler if you’re not allowed to go home during the olive harvest.
You might be a settler if the party you want to vote for is outlawed.
You might be a settler if your house has been declared a “closed military zone”.
You might be a settler if you’ve lived in your house while half a dozen governments have come and gone.

Outlook

You might be a settler if you think Haaretz is the place to live, Maariv is evening prayers and Yediot is a kind of toilet tissue.
You might be a settler if you take being called an “obstacle to peace” as a compliment.
You might be a settler if you think the security wall is to keep the rising oceans from flooding your house.
You might be a settler if you can’t sell your house, but that’s OK because you don’t want to.
You might be a settler if the government offers you money to abandon your home and you say “stuff it”.
You might be a settler if you’re told to go back to where you came from and you say: “I DID”.
You might be a settler if you think that God is not just your copilot but your Captain.
You might be a settler if you still hope and pray that this Rosh Hashana will herald our redemption.


Now, if anyone wants to claim authorship, please let me know.

6 comments:

Yechiel said...

"You might be a settler if you’re told to go back to where you came from and you say: “I DID”."

That's the best one, RIGHT THERE!

Esser Agaroth said...

B"H

I don't like the word either, but I think that I'd be willing to use it when Tel Aviv residents finally wake up and realize that they're settlers, too.

Settler implies we're where we're not supposed to be. I'm a Jew living in the Jewish Homeland. I have never seen a green line, nor purple for that matter, anywhere, thus I don't believe it exists.

Olmert proved that recently by proposing giveaways not including in this colorful territorial border.

By the way, this was from a year and a half ago.

Rednecks

rutimizrachi said...

Thanks so much for a pleasurable read. We would have only understood half the jokes a year ago. As we approach our one-year anniversary, we feel very much at Home.

aliyah06 said...

Great post! Thanks!

the sabra said...

tears in my eyes

so who IS the author?

YMedad said...

Dunno.
Either he/she is too humble or I need to be aggregated more.
Seems it went around over a year ago in one form or another.