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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

I spent some years with Greeks, became Greek Orthodox Christian, andlearned to speak Greek, but never felt accepted. I spent some years among Russian Orthodox, learned to speak some Russian, but never felt accepted. I spent some years with Guyanese Hindus, learned to sing hymns in Hindi, but never felt accepted. I am searching for the proper word to use for my next statement. "Xenophobia" omes to mind and, though it seems like there might be a more suitable word, xenophobia will do. Xenophobia seems to be a universal human trait, or shortcoming.

If you watch old Western movies, you will hear people say describe something as "outlandish", meaning ridiculous, I suppose. The King James translation of the Old Testament uses the word outlandish to denote people who are foreign, and therefore seem to do things in a ridiculous or improper manner. All they really mean

is that something is slightly different.

I did some on line thesaurus searches and came up with words related to

xenophobic:

http://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/Snobbish

affected, aloof, arrogant, clannish, cliquish, complacent, condescending, contemptuous, contumelious, disdainful, egotistical, elect, ethnocentric, exceptional, excluding, exclusive, exclusory, haughty, high and mighty, high-flown, high-hat, highfalutin, hoity-toity, inadmissible, insecure, insular, lofty, lordly, narrow, parochial, patronizing, pompous, potty, preclusive, prescriptive, pretentious, preventive, priggish, prohibitive, putting on airs, remote, restrictive, ritzy, scornful, seclusive, segregative, select, selective, self-important, self-satisfied, separative, smug, sneering, sniffy, snippy, snotty, stuck-up, supercilious, superior, toploftical, toplofty, uncertain, unconfident, unsure, uppish, vain, withering, xenophobic.

Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

Here is another thought regarding the reluctance to accept others based upon superficial differences.

There is a group in Africa who look every bit African, but claim to be Jewish by ancestry, and trace themselves back to the original twelve tribes. Some of them came to Israel and sought citizenship. The Israeli authorities were reluctant to accept their claim, and requested that they undergo ritual immersian in water (mikvah) to remove any doubt. The Africans refused ritual immersion.

Now, with the aid of genetic testing, it has been demonstrated that those Africans are without a doubt what they claim to be, namely descendents of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Genetic testing has also been performed upon those Jewish males who claim to be Cohanim, or descendents of the priestly tribe of Levi, on both the matrilineal and patrilineal side. The studies revealed that all the cohanim tested were indeed cohanim.

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