Barney the Dinosaur

Barney the purple dinosaur sings never talk to strangers that's very good advice cuz you just can't tell if they're good or bad even though they may seem nice. After traveling to Israel over Thanksgiving I experienced a glaring difference between life here in the states and life in Israel. It is so embedded in our culture to be wary of strangers. Barney the dinosaur is indoctrinating our three and four year old kids to avoid any interaction with strangers as they are not to be trusted. Of course, this is necessary in our society as we are so disconnected with each other and bombarded with criminal activity every night on the news. It is a survival tactic that we learn at a young age. Contrarily in Israel, where people are interconnected by their religion, heritage, and nationalism there is much less wariness of strangers.

While traveling in Israel, for the most part, I traveled as a tourist. Stayed in a touristy hotel, went to touristy restaurants and went to historical sites visited by tourists. But I traveled by buses to get around, not by cabs, and this gave me a feel for life in Israel. Conversations take place on the buses between strangers all the time and sometimes get pretty heated. What struck me was when women with strollers would get on or off the bus there was always some stranger helping her with the stroller. My daughter who is studying in Israel tells me she would fall asleep on the shoulder of a stranger sitting next to her on the bus. She would wake up suddenly and apologize but the stranger would encourage her to put her back down and go back to sleep. Little children go on buses by themselves, something one would never see here.

Contrast that with public travel in New York. When I go on a subway everybody has their heads buried in a book being careful not to look up and actually look a stranger in the face. We become expressionless and dare not eyeball anyone in the subway car lest this lead towards an acknowledgment of another's presence. I do not recall ever seeing strangers helping each other as we are all too suspicious of each other's motives.

Life in Israel is tough but the interconnection between complete strangers is a benefit of living in a more uniform society. Life is easier here but we live in our little cocoons detached from each other. We live with constant suspicion of everyone and trust only our inner circle. They live with the threat of a bomb coming from an external enemy and we live with the threat of crime by our fellow American. Both locations have positives and negatives and I don't suggest that one is better than the other, just different.

Last week after I came home I saw a 3 year old black girl in the office who sang to me the Hebrew alphabet. She learned it from Barney the dinosaur and anyone with little kids knows that tune. By this little girl learning my culture Barney is creating connections between people but at the same time he is disconnecting people by warning about strangers. Seemingly a contradictory message.
Who knew the purple dinosaur was so deep and complex?