Kill a Turk and Rest

[Violet_Crumble]

by Amira Hass
October 01, 2004
Ha'aretz

"Kill a Turk and rest" - a popular Israeli saying meaning "don't rush" - is not only a statement of doubtful political correctness. It is also the middle of a Jewish joke. But only the middle. In Israel it has a separate existence, which distorts the spirit of the original Jewish anecdote.

And here is the story, which was passed on by a Yiddishist father from the old country to his Israeli-born daughter: A Jewish mother says farewell to her son, who has been drafted into the Czar's army and goes to fight against Turkey in 1877. She is of course very worried about her son's welfare. While she is packing his knapsack, she says to him: "Listen, when you get to the front, kill a Turk, and rest. Kill a Turk, and rest."

"But Mother," replies the son, "what happens if while I'm resting, the Turk kills me?"

"Good God," says the mother, horrified, "what does the Turk have against you?"

A contemporary echo to the view of that same Jewish mother can be found in the reports in the Israeli media last weekend. They unquestioningly adopted the label "terrorists" applied by IDF commanders and spokesmen to the three young Palestinians who last Thursday killed three Israeli soldiers of their own age at the Morag outpost in the Gaza Strip.

"Terrorists" is a negative label, which testifies to a lack of legitimacy. Therefore, in the language of mass-circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth, the three were not simply killed in battle, but were "exterminated," as befits an inferior species.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=6338