Seeing the world through leftist eyes?

February 3, 2007 - 6:58 PM by Sarah

David Bogner, aka Treppenwitz, finds out that his new glasses, pictured below, have associations among Israelis that he didn’t expect:

trepp glasses

the real eye-opener was the reaction I got from my coworkers when I returned to Israel. A few people confused me by asking me if I had ‘switched sides’. Another person jokingly asked if I had moved out of the ‘shtahim’ (territories). Still another asked rather bluntly when I had become such a ‘lefty’.

But the asimon finally dropped when a young Tel Aviv resident I work with (the sort of woman who makes middle aged men involuntarily suck in their gut when she passes) sat down across from me at lunch one day and complimented me on my ‘funkie Shenkin glasses’.

For those outside the country, Shenkin is much more than the name of a well-known street in Tel Aviv. It is the epicenter of a very specific liberal, sophisticated, ultra-hip Israeli mentality. This pretty young woman had taken what I considered to be stodgy, old-world frames and plunked them down in the heart of Israel’s premier café district. Suddenly, all the previous comments I’d gotten made sense.

I don’t think it is much of a secret to anyone living here in Israel that various religious and non-religious factions adhere to fairly specific ‘uniforms’. At a glance it is pretty easy to figure out if someone is religious/observant or not… and to what ‘camp’ they belong. One look at the type of clothing and hair style (or type of hair covering) gives away pretty quickly to the casual observer where the person falls along the religious spectrum… not to mention on which side of the green line they probably reside.

To some extent, accessories are also a dead give-away as to an Israeli’s political leanings. I accidentally found this out with my new frames… frames that seemed to be sending out confusing messages to the casual observer.

Apparently my check shirts, kippah and pistol clashed with my ‘Shenkin glasses’. Who knew?

People, both at work and at play, suddenly didn’t know quite how to pigeon-hole me. Personally, I couldn’t care less… I now have the incredible ability to read whatever and whenever I want. If this means that others have a little trouble ‘reading’ me… I figure that’s their problem. :-)

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