Dr. Lord Poetmonk Throatsinging Industrial Spyboy Bingo's Assessment Of Virtual Jerusalem>Act One

I am a former Internet chat-room addict…I gave it up last month after much self-concern that I wasn’t accomplishing anything within my own life and frittering away my time and energy arguing with idiots. I had been frequenting this chat-room for nearly a decade.

Not any old chat-room mind you, but particularly, a Jewish chat-room by the name of Virtual Jerusalem, www.virtualjerusalem.com In previous years it was called Jewish Chat and then Jewish Street before its current name. A chat-room chockfull of Jewish men and women chatting based on their faith alone, not how they practice it.

And the subject matters they discussed! Well, that’s another blog for another time. In previous blog entries, I have blogged extensively about some of the chatters who frequent this chat-room and their mannerisms.

But, let me back up. There are a lot of stereotypes that I’ll never understand, especially Jewish stereotypes. Sometimes. Sometimes I don’t understand these stereotypes at all and going into that chat-room, I got it from both sides, Jews snapping at my heels and biting my ears off, just for the simple reason that I had a difference of opinion. Imagine that; someone who has a brain of their own and can think.

In the past there were times I would be kicked out or banned by the moderators, due to my opinions and to the mere fact that I didn’t behave “Jewish enough.” Not Jewish enough? What the fuck does that mean!

Inside the chat-room, this is usually what I came up against:

Me: As young Jews, we get drilled into our heads about how Israel is our homeland, it’s not.

Chatter: You should visit it and support it financially.

Me: Give me one good reason why I should support a country that I’ve never been to?

Chatter: Um, ‘coz it’s your homeland.

Me: Um, sorry; America is.

Chatter: ‘Coz you’re Jewish?

Me: Dumb reason.

Chatter: Oh well, you have to support Israel as a country and support them financially.

Me: Oh no I don’t; why anybody does is beyond me. We need to support America first, before it’s too late.

Chatter: Well, then you must be a self-hating Jew.

Me: I don’t think so!

Chatter: Oh, but you are!

Me: And what pray-tell makes me a self-hating Jew?

Chatter: Because you don’t support Israel’s right to exist.

Me: What!?! Where did this come from?

Chatter: Well, since you don’t support Israel financially and you believe it’s not your homeland, therefore you feel it shouldn’t be a country that shouldn’t even exist! Why I bet you’re not even Jewish!

Me: What!?!

Chatter: Yeah, you must be an Arab or Muslim, you Anti-Semite Jew-hater! Why are you even in here? Get out of here! I’ll report and make sure you’re banned!

I’m lost, completely lost. And that, in a nutshell, is the mentality of the majority of people who frequent that Jewish chat-room. Most of the chatters there ganged up on me and called me all sorts of names, filled with hatred from a cause or purpose that perhaps they themselves don’t understand.

For one man to stand alone and to say what’s really on his mind is a scary thought for the packs of gazelles that graze on the stereotypical bullshit that grows all around them.

For one gazelle to leap from out of the packs and suddenly nod its head and agree that the man who stands alone may be partially correct, is an omission that someone else has a conscious within the gazelles.

To date, I’ve converted over half-a-dozen of those omissions to loyal friendships. Friendship is built on trust, not religion. And on that principle alone, I am winning the war on stupidity, assumption and good old-fashioned human values.

Thank goodness I’m out of that virtual madhouse!