"It's a Small World:" Makom

Last week my family and I spent three days at Walt Disney World in Florida. Despite the global recession, it was very busy, and there were even a few non-Israelis there. Never able to escape my working life entirely, I was on the lookout for unusual angles on questions of Jewish identity and Israel engagement, and I found one in “it’s a small world” (and yes, it’s meant to be formatted that way, with a small “i”).

For the uninitiated, “it’s a small world” is a slow-moving indoors boat-ride through several rooms in which small animated dolls, dressed in national costumes from across the world, sing and dance (“there’s so much that we share, that it’s time we’re aware, it’s a small world after all”). The song is either catchy or infernal, and the ride is either charmingly life-affirming or incessantly saccharine, depending on your point of view. As an unreconstructed Disneyphile, I am firmly in the former camp.

What caught my interest was the way that Judaism and Israel are portrayed in the ride. Now, as I mentioned, the dolls that sing this catchy/infernal song portray pretty much every country in the world. There are 289 dolls total, according to Wikipedia. The British dolls are dressed up like Buckingham Palace “Beefeater” guards; the Italian dolls ride gondolas; the Japanese dolls wear kimonos; and so on.

There are no recognizably Israeli dolls. There are two Jewish dolls: an ultra-orthodox couple getting married under a traditional chuppah. He is dressed like a typical Chareidi Jew, with black pants, white shirt, and tzitzit flying. She is a modestly-attired bride. (See minute 2:20 of the embedded youtube video).

Let me count the ways in which this representation of Jewishness irked me.

Continue reading at the Makom Blog at Hareetz.com.