Mini rant, because I can

[thesummerqueen]

I really don't have a point to this, and it's certainly not the end of the world, but I'm goddamn tired of it.

I've been badgered a LOT lately about going on my "birthright" trip to Israel because I'm about to turn 27, and 26 is the cut-off age for people to essentially pay for someone to go to Israel.

Even when I had a lot of time on my hands and was the perfect age to go galavanting around the globe on someone else's dime, I didn't want to go. Frankly, the Middle East scares me. When my mother got out of high school, she lived in Israel for an entire summer on a kibbutz. When I got out of high school, my dream was to go backpacking across Scotland. I didn't even have the money for a ticket there, so that dream has been shelved for a bit, but you get the idea. I like green places.

Now that I'm at the cut-off age, and quite open about my atheism to everyone but my family and coworkers (that's about 20 total people out of the rest of the world), I'm suddenly getting flack from all sides about not taking what amounts to a pilgrimage.

Do Catholics ever deal with this? In the past pilgrimages were made, but do they ever encourage people to do this now?

I've tried to stay polite and remind them that I wouldn't really get anything out of it. I appreciate my people's history, but not enough that I'd want to live with a bunch of strangers even for only a few weeks and have to participate in Jewish rituals.

Why is this REALLY irritating me? Because I'm being told I should do it just for the sake of world travel - because someone will pay me for an accident of birth to go outside of my country and visit a strip of desert with a bunch of other people who were accidentally born Jews. I don't know why this mix of snotty "well you should" and religious intonation and "be grateful" pisses me off so much.

Also, the other side of it is that I only get 2 weeks of vacation a year from my job. I don't earn it as I go. So I would lose my chance to go to England, to Vegas for TAM! and a few other things just for the chance to be paid to go to...Israel.

Did I mention that all of the people who are giving me shit about it are people who are aware of my "heathen" status and still seem to think I HAVE to go?

I suppose this is like the last ditch efforts of Christian family members trying to get a little lost atheist in their midst to come back to the fold. Maybe if I see the ruins, I'll go back to being fully Jewish! I'll connect with my heritage! God will reveal Himself to me in the..sand!

Not bloody likely.

Mostly, I would just like an opportunity I have already declined for the past 9 years to please STOP COMING BACK UP ALMOST EVERY DAY!

Besides, which would you choose?

England?


Or Israel and Hershel the Hobo?



But seriously, I think it's fucked up they spend money that way. Children starve instead of being fed by the price of those tickets.

PS - my sister's been there twice.