'TRADITION! TRADITION! (and beautiful blue eyes)'

This very young girl belongs to a very conservative, deeply religious

group of worshippers in which heredity is very important and in which

Ukraine is almost the only country in the world where a minority of its

non-converted members are born with blue eyes. I was drawn to her

eye color which I felt is fabulously blue in this soft light. She is dressed

in traditional, very conservative religious garb while with her family,

caught candidly on a family journey, all on a city street. Your ratings,

critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly, very critically, or wish to make a remark, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment; please share your photographic

knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

Thank you for the compliments.

In fact this is just as much an environmental portrait as if the parents had hired me, but taken in no more than one or two seconds as she walked toward me.

Part of a series of about three, rest blurred because of subject motion. and very slow shutter speed.

Thanks again.

john

John (Crosley)

Maybe Ukranian Mennonite

Jewish.

john

John (Crosley)

Why surprised? All I can tell from the picture is that she is a pale Caucasion, blue eyes and reddish hair with lots of curls and knows how to smile for the camera. Cute kid.

Read the Request for critique and put the puzzle pieces together.

She is an incredibly cute kid; that's why her photo is here.

In her city is a restaurant where I like to eat that serves fabulous grilled pork chops. 

I found out the owners are Jewish and asked them if that represented an issue or conflict with their religion.

The answer:  Why, we're Ashkenazy?  No problem.  We eat them too.

I love my Jewish pork chops; best I ever had and always order them.

john

John (Crosley)

So you are saying she eats pork chops?

She might, but I strongly doubt it.

Her parents are Conservative or Orthodox.  (You can figure out for me which one based on clues; father had a black hat and a beard though young).

I sincerely doubt she will ever eat a pork chop in her life if her parents have their way.

The Ashkenazys who run the nice restaurant in city center in that particular city, however serve WONDERFUL grilled pork chops. 

Best I ever had, a trifle (just a trifle) pink in the center, when served, and the meat finishes cooking on your plate when served so it's perfect when you eat it.

Oh, trichinosis is rare; there were 13 cases of trichinosis in the entire US last year, and I doubt there were many in Ukraine either, in case you wondered from a public health standpoint.

I'd think in China in parts where pigs live with families and eat household garbage (and other things from fellow pigs) that disease might be an issue still, otherwise it's mostly considered eradicated or nearly eradicated in the Western world, enough so many modern cooks will say it's no longer in the US necessary to cook pork gray clear through. 

I am not so sure myself.

I knew a Soviet doctor who swears vodka cures trichinosis.  He said he had 60 men infected with trichinosis, and those who got drunk on vodka survived, but those who didn't died.

He said it in all seriousness, and I'm sure it's a true story.  (From wartime no doubt, he was 'long in the tooth' when he told me over a decade ago and much more so now.)

john

John (Crosley)

'Tradition!  Tradition', the words from the song of that name from 'Fiddler on the Roof' a song of Polish Jews, plus the words in the introduction about her being blue-eyed in a religion that produced few blue-eyed offspring, except in Ukraine and those were sought after (by certain male residents of Israel looking for 'blue eyed Jewish wives) as many had told me at the Kyiv airport in conversation.

It was the stuff of legend in Israel, I had been told, and I had written of it here before -- comments which I am sure you read.

Moreover, I e-mailed you about this photo before you posted, and I'd be surprised in the letter text if I didn't mention her religion to you . . . . so it looks like you've been entirely facetious in your comment about 'Ukrainian Mennonite' above.

Others would not know that background unless I pointed it out, and many born later are not aware of the song 'Tradition' from the musical play and movie 'Fiddler on the Roof' or that it's about Jews in nearby Poland, but I know for sure in my heart of hearts that you absolutely KNOW such things, being a very smart, educated and knowledgeable Jew who lived a long time in America and now lives in Israel and has taken it upon himself (yourself) to lecture me on things Jewish from time to time.

There's almost no way the words 'Tradition!  Tradition! cannot have rung a bell with you and said 'Jewish'.

And since you know how I think, such words would NOT have been placed in a caption accidentally.

You can fool the casual readers some of the time  (until I straighten things out) . . . . .

It's always something with you, isn't it? 

Signature phrase borrowed and adapted from Roseanne Roseannadanna character played by the late Gild Radner, 'Saturday Night Live'.

john

John (Crosley)

No, not facetious. It came to my mind that there are or were Mennonite in the Ukraine -being as she looks far from Jewish; and if you mentioned "jewish"  in the letter I had forgotten and there is no evidence in the photo that she is Jewish being as you did not photograph her parents.

I did not connect your caption to a song/movie. It was a long time ago....and it was tsarist Russia not Poland.

As for Israelis going to the Ukraine to find blue-eyed brides is like saying Africans go to Sweden to fuck white girls.

(except that there are twice as many Ukrainians right here in Israel as there are in the Ukraine.)

 John, you've been on Ukraine Dating sites too long.

As for pork chops and your comment "why we're Ashkenazy? No problem. We eat them (pork chops) too." Every jew in the Ukraine is "Ashkenzy" so they all must eat pork chops. This little girl and her parents must eat pork chops.   80% of the Jews in the world are pork chop eating Ashkenazy and the rest don't. Before the Holocaust it was 91%. That's like saying "Sunni muslims eat pork chops and Shiites don't. You can't get pork chops in Iran but you can buy them in Saudi Arabia.

So the sum total is that you  don't know what the fuck you are talking about or  "jewish pork chops" was meant to be an insult to a minority religion or both

It is only "something with me" when you invent stories and expect me to be so dumb as to believe them.

I've told you before that if your photo can stand on its own it does not need a story to sell it. What will you come up with next?

Or we're going to have to get that white jacket with the long arms until you can restrain yourself.

I told you in an e-mail she was Jewish, a few days ago, so calling your remark 'facetious' seems a more than fair comment.

You need to settle down and read what you wrote for the rest of your comment; sometimes you make sense, but this time you don't.  

I reprinted the place of 'Fiddler's' village without looking in Wikipedia, as it was printed in a review I read long ago, wrong of course, and gladly concede 'Fiddler' was set in 1905 Tsarist Russia.  I am happy for that correction, and that one only.

You do need a course in logic, but alas, I appreciate that your percentages probably are right, and of course the absolute numbers of Jews in Ukraine has declined horrifically, as in all Europe..  

There's a famous ravine in Kyiv Oblast that regrettably tells far too much of that story to me and the world now; just like Dacchau in Germany did to me personally on three or more occasions when I was a frequent visitor to Germany, including one snowy Christmas eve morning before dawn as I went to commune in the aloneness as the gates were opened just to reflect, even though those events occurred before my birth.

Yes, I'm a Gentile, but I am not unaffected, but also not blameworthy.

You have reveled in the comments here that often have been entirely irrelevant to the photo, so don't chastise me now for being 'off topic' or suggest the photo is either good or bad for the discussion. 

The discussion does not affect the photo one way or the other, as you well know. 

In the end the photo is the photo, and the comments are for community, when there are those who are willing to be civil.

As to those conversations, I recounted, no matter, I have actually HAD those conversations with quite a few male Jews arriving at Kyiv's Borispil (Borispol) Airport, and for you with no information to contest my recount of those personal conversations -- a fairly good number of them in fact -- is to court a letter of complaint to abuse@photo.net. 

I take care to write what I know truthfully. and if an error occurs endeavour almost always to correct it.   I will not have you impugning my word and recount of my personal conversations here, especially since you have absolutely no personal knowledge of those conversations let alone any contrary knowledge at all.

I am quite serious about what I just wrote, so be forewarned, these comments are for those who can behave.

If that term Ashkenazy excludes being Orthodox or Conservative. then she is not Ashkenazy but I am not well schooled in such things and actually fed the ball to you to answer the question of Ashkenazy with/vs. Conservative/Orthodox and/or/in rel:  Kosher diet, but you sidestepped it adding vitriol, unhelpfully.

A reasoned response would have played better.

Her father had a beard, black hat, and black coat plus long hair where sideburns would be in many males, indicating no barbering there.  

As I described it, that probably should have told you something -- perhaps he was Conservative or Orthodox? 

If so, which one?   

You are the knowledgeable one about such things.  And if so, does that exclude being Ashkenazy (A cup B or A cap B?)  

I think you surely should recognize the symbolic expression of the proposition.

And, as POPPA personally told me, they were Jewish, and dressed traditionally  every day.    My belief then and now was that excluded their being Ashkenazy, but perhaps I have it all wrong.  I feel certain, however, they kept Kosher meaning no pork chops on their table, ever.

Poppa spoke in clear, plain English, which he spoke quite well in our ultrabrief conversation.

So, Meir, settle down, and when someone is being polite to you, try not to foam so much. and then please consider trying to be polite back.

Even if it runs against your mercurial grain.

John Crosley

Photo.net Member