My Facebook Feed and I

By Susanna Calimani*

Last week I opened Facebook, it was already the third time that day. I check my newsfeed multiple times a day out of boredom: in the metro, in the elevator, while waiting for colleagues in the canteen. The pictures of a wedding, the first birthday of a friend’s kid, the 10km run of that friend training for a marathon, the political barometer for the coming Italian elections, a sunset from a Mexican beach, a snowy mountain, random posts, “A national concours has been postponed due to a Jewish holiday. Hurray for the lay state.”

Suddenly my sensor for “non Jews who make comments about Jews and related issues” started beeping.
 
A debate started about the right of having your own beliefs and holidays, about a lay state that respects the religious freedom of its citizens, rather than imposing laicism as a new religion.

A debate about how hard it would be to take into account all holidays for every religion. Although on Christmas there are no national concourses as far as I know. The was a stimualting little bit of everything in a Facebook discussion among highly educated people: the laic guy against everything, the religious libertarian, the enlightened secular who keeps thinking that Jews are untouchable, the moralizer, the young agitator who would like to be Jewish in the next life in order to have more holidays, the kindly open who prefers welcoming and getting to know everyone’s holiday rather than abolishing them all.

Finally, at last, the old wise came, to kindly remind us all, young and educated, that “intelligent people should choose with extreme care the words and the language used, because we are surrounded by non-intelligent people”.

My sensor stopped beeping, and I could get back to work.

*Susanna Calimani is a wandering economist currently based in Frankfurt.