{"id":35571,"date":"2026-03-26T13:50:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T13:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/?page_id=35571"},"modified":"2026-03-26T13:51:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T13:51:20","slug":"what-sounds-right-versus-whats-real","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/what-sounds-right-versus-whats-real\/","title":{"rendered":"What Sounds Right Versus What\u2019s Real"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom, the founder and director of the International Center for the Study of Ethiopian Jewry at Ono Academic College, recently wrote an article in the Shabbaton newspaper, entitled \u201cBetween What Sounds Right and What Actually Exists.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Rabbi Shalom begins with what seems like a small question of Hebrew phrasing that relates to a previous article he had written. When referring to the Rabbinic law that unmarried men and women may not touch, should people describe this as being, \u201cshomer negiah\u201d (\u201cone who guards touching\u201d), or should they use a more \u201clogical\u201d phrase like, \u201cavoiding touch\u201d? He shares a short exchange with Avshalom Kor, Israel\u2019s national popular linguist of the Hebrew language, who notes that popular speech often wins out over grammatical precision\u2014and Rabbi Shalom uses that gap to introduce his main claim: what *sounds* correct, polished, and socially acceptable is not always what *actually exists* in lived reality.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

From there, he argues that the deeper issue is not language but fear. As people and societies feel less secure\u2014about values, identity, and status\u2014they increasingly split into two layers: an outward layer of \u201cproper\u201d talk and approved postures, and an inward layer of thoughts and feelings that remain unspoken. He frames this through the psychological idea of a \u201cpersona,\u201d literally a mask: a public self shaped by anxiety about rejection, criticism, and losing belonging.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Rabbi Shalom then grounds the argument in a painful classroom incident. A mother contacts him after her daughter is offended during a school lesson that quotes the biblical verse that is often translated as \u201cCan the Ethiopian change his skin?\u201d) Jeremiah 13:23( The discussion of the term (and its modern social charge) quickly turns into children ranking who looks \u201cmore\u201d or \u201cless\u201d like the stereotype\u2014creating an unspoken hierarchy of skin color inside a classroom that officially speaks the language of inclusion. The mother\u2019s question\u2014how to respond, how to protect her child, how to continue\u2014becomes the article\u2019s moral center.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

He widens the lens again with a contemporary example: a video posted to President Donald Trump\u2019s Truth Social account and later deleted, depicting Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as primates; it sparked public outrage, and the post was later blamed on an unidentified staffer.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Rabbi Shalom pushes back on the comfort of scapegoating, invoking the lesson of silence-as-consent, and asking whether the reaction would have been comparable if President Trump were mocked in an analogous way. The point is not only hypocrisy, but what our emotional intensity reveals about buried assumptions: who feels secure in their humanity, and who feels the image \u201ctouches\u201d a deeper social truth.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

He ends without offering a neat solution. Instead, he returns to the question that links every example: Who is afraid of whom\u2014and why?<\/strong> Are we reacting to words and images themselves, or to what they expose about the hierarchies we still carry beneath our official commitments to dignity and equality? He invites readers to pause, answer the mother\u2019s question for themselves, and write back.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The original article in Hebrew can be read here: https:\/\/shabaton1.co.il\/?p=45496<\/a><\/p>\r\n

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