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South african etiquette
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Yehudis!




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 28 2007, 12:08 am
I think the OP has a great question and l've faced a similar situation in my marriage although we are all of us New Yorkers. Our solution was the "broken record" solution, where both my husband and I repeated the same exact thing over and over whenever any comment or question about our marriage was asked.
If a comment was made when both of us were present, we both said the same answer (agreed upon by both of us ahead of time.)
If a comment was made when just myself or just he were present, I or he said the same answer.
If a comment was made in front of our kids we had a similar but modified answer in deference to our children's naivete.
Finally the in-laws were so bored of the broken record answer they heard from both of us over and over that they decided to change the topic. It took more than a year but two good things came out of it, one that my husband and l were very unified in our marriage and two that we were able to maintain a level of kibud av v'aim.

By the way the broken record solution has worked great for me in other situations where I didn't feel it was my place to ask for a change in the other person's offensive behavior. e.g. the person was older than me, or l didn't know the person that well.
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shabbatiscoming




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Oct 28 2007, 11:08 am
su7kids wrote:
klotzkashe wrote:
my hus band isn't SA but grew up in an area whre nearlyh every Jew is SA'er (in aussie). anyway, he says that w/ sa'ers they all say flowering good positive things and then behind your back they'll rip you to shreds.

so he says you just gotta play their game and not take life so seriously. the thing is that you could be in this huge disagreement w/ a sa'er and if you see him in shule he'll come up to you and wish you good shabbso and tell you you look healthy etc. meanwhile you'r ein this huge fight.

they just want to hear the good - hera that it's all going it's all happy. they don't really want your opinion!


As a South African, I object to the generalization.

South Africans can be very clique-y, because we are close as Jews in that small country, and some people, South African OR NOT can be like that.

I think your husband has to meet more South Africans. We really are not all like that.

su7kids, I agree with you. I am married to a south african and I have never seen anyone be nasty about someone to their backs and then lovely to them in front of them.
also, I think that south africans in general are very very family and tradition oriented. I dont know how to explain it, but I saw when I was there twice and what I have seen with my husband and his friends (all lovely). there is something actually special, at least I thought, about the south african community (even ex south africans - like my husband) that they are very into their tradition and into their family and friends, in a way that I have never seen before.

just wanted to share something positive:)
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