Risking sounding a bit arrogant, I'm the sort of guy that looks to challenge upcoming main stream ideas (a.k.a trends).  Sometimes I challenge them just because they're there, and sometimes because I really see problems up ahead.

Lately I've been coming across a new one of these Ideas (with a capital "I"): Jewish Peoplehood (with a capital "JP"). Yes, this nice, new term is used to describe, from what I understand, the sense of solidarity among the Jewish people, aiming at our widest common denominator.

However, the item that calls for attention is the celebration that this term is becoming.  It's only a matter of time until it'll be a real buzz word among everybody that wants to reach out to all Jews, from Aish to Walmart (sorry for putting both of those in the same sentence, no disrespect meant). I'm pointing this out as, in my opinion, Jewish Peoplehood is being *so* celebrated because we just ran out of everything else to celebrate, let me explain.

Well, it seems we are starting to run out of substance - You have a) Israelis/Zionists - no, they're either bad people for not waiting for the Mishiach to come, or bad people that colonized native lands and are mistreating / slaughtering the natives, b) G-d - well most of us grew out of that one a long time ago, c) Religion - duhhhh, stupid.  That lost ground after we ruled out G-d, possibly d) Family - well that's also out of control as I'm still figuring out how many directions are politically correct today to start one (marry: in/out, open/closed relationship, straight / not straight , temporary living situation / togetherness, share kids/share dogs,  etc.). So we're really left only with some shared historical events (most of which are related to killing jews), and those aren't drawing in young crowds anymore.

So we need something new - Peoplehood, it sounds nice.  And it means...well, it has good intentions, but really it's wide enough to hold everybody together without offending anyone. The only problem left is trying to get people to stick to something which is so smooth it feels like Teflon. (that sounds good in Hebrew…)

Finally, as I don't want to end on a bad note, I suggest we stick to what we do best - argue. Let's forget our similarities (which I just pointed out, it'll be hard as hell to figure them all out anyway) and concentrate on the differences.  Let's keep doing what we Jews do best, since the beginning of all this and fight - don't forget Israel is translated literally to arguing with G-d:

Isra = fight/argue +  El = G-d.

Rak Tov.