Culture Clashes

An Arab woman got on my bus today. I noticed her because I've seen her on my bus several times. She was covered, pretty much from head to toe. Long skirt, long sleeve shirt, head covering. However it wasn't what I would think of when I think of a traditional Arab woman's outfit. Her shirt was a button down, pinstripe. Black's and grays, which I'm pretty sure is her general color scheme.

But then it got me wondering where is she going? What is she doing. She rides the same bus as me at the same time, not daily, but on several occasions. When she got off, it was in a commercial area. I started to wonder, is she going to work? She seems fairly traditional (and we all know the traditional woman's role in an Arabic society).

Then I started thinking about the word Arab, in general. It's not a religion. Arab's are generally Muslim, although some are Christian. It's not really an ethnicity, since Arabs live in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco... just to name a small few. So I started to wonder who is defined as an Arab.

According to Wikipedia: "Arab people (Arabic: عربي‎, ʿarabi) or Arabs (العرب al-ʿarab) are a panethnicity of peoples of various ancestral origins, religious backgrounds and historic identities, whose members, on an individual basis, identify as such on one or more of linguistic, cultural, political, or genealogical grounds.^[11] Those self-identifying as Arab, however, rarely do so on their own. Most hold multiple identities, with a more localized prioritized ethnic identity — such as Egyptian, Lebanese, or Palestinian — in addition to further tribal, village and clan identities."

Thank you Wikipedia. So, what about the Jews that have a similar ancestral, cultural, political background? No need to worry, Wikipedia also has this covered...

"Jews from Arab countries – mainly Mizrahi Jews and Yemenite Jews – are today usually not categorised as Arab. Sociologist Philip Mendes asserts that before the anti-Jewish actions of the 1930s and 1940s, overall Iraqi Jews "viewed themselves as Arabs of the Jewish faith, rather than as a separate race or nationality".^[65] Prior to the emergence of the term Mizrahi, the term "Arab Jews" was sometimes used to describe Jews of the Arab world. The term is rarely used today."

Hard to imagine a time when Jews would have been comfortable calling themselves Arab Jews since today it seems like such an oxymoron.

And to end on a completely different note and explain the random picture of an Indian woman at the beginning of the post... At work, in the elevator, there are TV screens which play ads that McCann Erikson have worked on. On my way up that morning, it had to be an ad with Indian women, dressed similarly to the woman in the picture. After my long reflection of the Arab woman, covered head to toe (and a tangent I won't even get into about how Orthodox Jewish woman also feel the need to cover themselves in the same way), I found it interesting to see a culture in which the tradition was the complete opposite. It's appropriate to show skin and wear BRIGHT colors. I lean drastically towards the Indian mindset in this instance.