Story of the Day 7/ 3/ 2013

Apparently, July can be a tough month for kids heading off to college for the first time.
That is becasue they are learning who their assigned roommate is.

For one young man that we know, it inspired several long moments of panic.
He texted my daughter and said , "I think he is a Muslim!"

Now, we are Jewish and can be a bit nervous regarding being put with people of different religions.

You can end up with a religious evangelical Christian who keeps telling you that you are going to Hell, but he/she will keep praying for you.

Or you could end up with someone who is a religious Christian from a rural area who is so thrilled to meet a real live Jew that they have to call home and tell their Aunt Sue and their cousin Joe and everyone else they can think of- who all then want to meet the real-live Jew.

Or you can end up with a Muslim who may be very anti-Israel to the point of believing in following the admonishment by some Arab nation leaders to push all the Jews into the sea, and telling you that this is his goal, at least 5 times every day.

And, in case you want to know, I have a friend who had one of those experiences, and a family member who had one, I and had one , as well; so those things can happen.

But they usually don't.

Because you can also end up with people from a variety of different religions, including those mentioned above, who are totally fine and with whom you will end up having a rather good freshman year. And going over to stay at their home for Thanksgiving break.
In fact, this is the most likely thing to happen, unless your roommate, for no reason connected to his or her religion, is a jerk.


But, to get back to the current issue, this young man was ...scared.
He also isn't Jewish. In fact, worse than that, in case he gets a fundamentalist Muslim, he belongs to a different minority ( in America) religious group that is targetted for violence by extremist Muslims , in his parents' area of the world.

Sarah, at any rate, texted him saying, " Not all Muslims are bad." And she told him that the kid might be a good roommate.

She also asked him why he thought the boy was a Muslim.

"His name is Ben Worthington.*"


Let me see.....

Bin Laden.
Ben Ahmed.
Ben Worthington.


_________
*slight name change to protect the kid's privacy.