Next week the Tribeca Film Festival will be premiering a film by Yoav Shamir called "Defamation" that is about anti-Semitism and the Anti-Defamation League. The latest Forward suggests that Shamir takes my line: that anti-Semitism is not an important factor in western Jews' lives.
In order to advance this conversation, I am today introducing the new Mondoweiss correspondent on anti-Semitism-- a gifted young writer in his 30s named Franz Kafka. Over the next few weeks (or as long as my Kafka obsession lasts), I'm going to run excerpts from Kafka's diaries and letters that describe his apprehension of anti-Semitism in central Europe between the wars, 90 years or so ago. This apprehension fed Kafka's writings; and of course the conditions that he and his Jewish friends observed built, a decade after his death, to the Holocaust that killed among others his favorite sister Ottla and his lover Milena Jesenska-Polak.
What does real anti-Semitism feel like? Our first report by Kafka comes from a letter he wrote to the writer Max Brod in 1921. At the time the dying (and yes, privileged) Kafka was going from one sanatorium to another in central Europe to try and cure his lungs of tuberculosis. Kafka was incredibly sensitive to his company. A loud neighbor, and he would move on to the next sanatorium. This letter takes up a new guest at the sanatorium in Matliary, in what is now Slovakia, a woman who sent Kafka back to his room "trembling almost physically from the painful aftereffects of mere contact."
You mustn't conclude, Max, from everything I have written that I suffer from paranoia. I have learned by experience that no place remains unoccupied and if I do not sit high on my horse, the persecutor will be sitting there.
"if I do not sit high on my horse, the persecutor will be sitting there."
Isn't this what Zionists instruct their young, as well? I suspect it's a mandate that goes back deep into Jewish history. Put on airs. Exploit every advantage to the maximum. Give no quarter. And yet, they still got Holocausted. It makes one question the true value of this advice.
The idea of the ill, dependent, bureaucrat-when-employed recluse-when-writing Kafka sitting high on any horse when this woman was announcing the coming destruction of European Jewry to his face is ludicrous. Dependent on a social contract European anti-Semites had no intent of honoring, European Jews from Britain eastwards faced harassment, calumny, and discrimination ("Blum eats from golden tableware." "Better Hitler than Blum." etc.) from the 20s to the great slaughter of the 40s. Kafka is a microcosm of European Jewish life, but not the way you think: introverted, sterile, secluded, excluded, dependent, and dead.
Zionism may indeed be overwhelmed, and anti-Semitism is eternal (see Ed above), but that is a question of power, and not morality, except for the moral failings of anti-Semites. It depends whether you think an end to the Occupation only bring more and deadlier war.
Thank you Ed.
It's good to have people like you prove that when Phil tries to convince his minions "that anti Semitism is not an important factor in western Jews' lives", you come along and prove, once again, that he is an idiot.
Please keep up the good work.
Oh, I get it, Eurosabra. Organized Jewish crooks behave atrociously due to their own fixation on racist religious mandates, they get their own and a lot of other Jews' asses kicked by non-Jews because of this behavior, and consequently declare "anti-semitism" an eternal moral failing of gentiles. How convenient for the Jewish crooks.
How many times does this cycle have to play itself out before honest Jews start kicking dishonest Jew ass themselves? You can start with those crooks on Wall Street.
In many ways, Phil is an honest Jew kicking dishonest-Jewish ass himself. Which is why he's so despised by Jewish crooks. Until guys like Phil are venerated by the majority of Jews instead of shunned and castigated, yes, there will always be anti-semitism.
Phil,
Again, thank you for providing a forum that refutes your contentions so elegantly. I don't know if it was a generational thing, but Kafka did indeed belong to Bialik's generation: "It was the flight of mice they fled, they died like dogs, and they were dead!" Except that Kafka LIVED like a mouse.
But don't worry, the Jews bring it all upon themselves.
Like the Zionists who collaborated with the Nazis, Eurosabra endorses expressions of contempt for the victims of the Holocaust as "mice" and dead "dogs." Jewish Communist crooks ratchet up the noose, and then blame those unable to slip it for their own hangings.
How noble.
Interesting point Eurosabra, but my chief rejoinder is that we're talking about a period 90 years ago. Imagine the U.S. electing a black president when Kafka wrote what he wrote. Unimaginable. History moves forward. Your militarist ideas are an understandable response to the destruction of Kafka's family, but today they're anachronistic.
You know what? I'm GLAD to see the pro-israel crowd cut down Franz Kafka (and Albert Einstein, too!)
I'm glad to know that they hold the luminaries of Jewish culture in contempt. I'm glad to know their sickening Nazi state has nothing to do with all the things that make Jewish culture worthy of veneration. I'm glad to know Israel is nothing more than a Jewish birth defect we will one day be rid of.
Euro's ideas are very contemporary. Just examine ED and rykart. Living proof that the american nazi party is still around and kicking.
They're not anachronistic when the two-state solution "imposed" by Obama breaks down with an unending Palestinian terror war against Israel. They're not anachronistic when the Lebanese and Palestinians seek more and larger rockets and use them. The thing is, it was the continuation of the war DEEP into Israel after both withdrawals, AFTER my neighborhood in West Jerusalem had been worked over by the 2nd Intifada.
Remember, Croatia got permission from the US to "straighten the line" after long-range rockets started routinely hitting its capital. From the Clinton White House.
Unlike most Israel supporters here, I believe that Israel CAN survive a general war for its survival brought on by a forced withdrawal from the West Bank. But I am sorry that it will have to destroy Palestine in that case, and sorry that Israel's possible destruction will return the Jews to their normal lives as mice and soap.
You live in a bubble of assimilated Jewish history in a bourgeois republic and mistake it for the successful resolution of the Jewish Question.
Looking at Lebanon, where everything had been settled by treaty, ordinance, law and statute and backed up by years of common life and (from 1830 to 1953, peace) and still went to hell anyway, makes me suspicious of a one-state solution.
The other thing is that I am really familiar with Islamist politics within Israel and the extent to which *their* ideology has been malleable compared to Hamas's "no recognition, 10-year-truce, no change to the Charter". I am afraid, however, that it is partly a function of lack of power–Israeli Islamists work within a democratic system they do not have the power to confront militarily. Functionally, they are conciliatory in a way that Hamas is not, and that can spark salutary cultural developments–if only they could be matched by the Jewish side.
I remember 2001 and remember the sudden spike in Israeli-Palestinian university enrollment. Backtracking from that was a mistake.
Great post Phil, thanks.
I don't know anything very clear about Czech agrarians, but if you look at the history of the agrarian and free-silver movements in the US, it is easy to see that small landholders are often going to have serious grievances with the financial and trading class.
In Eastern Europe, this would inevitably means that non-Jewish small landholding communities would be economically at odds with a mostly Jewish class. It's pretty predictable that the ethnic differences between these groups would only be magnified in this situation, and economic and anti-semitic critiques would become merged.
I notice, first, that Kafka seems totally unaware that the woman's views might have a basis in something other than irrational hatred for Jews. The idea that experience with other Jews might have given this woman, or the writers of the paper she reads, a legitimate reason for grievance never seems to occur to him.
I also notice that Kafka immediately takes on a hostile defensive stance, and plans to use the woman's confidence to trap her. It's rather interesting that he seems to be having trouble finding a statement that serves his purposes, as she seems willing to praise Jews who aren't like the ones she reads about.
This dynamic is very sad and familiar to me. The Jewish party never learns what might be causing the prejudice (and in Eastern Europe at that time, there was a lot), and the gentile party feels betrayed and misunderstood, and grows even more hostile and defensive.
David F,
So all middleman minorities everywhere bring it upon themselves? Or you can be like the Roma, and be oppressed and butchered for NOT being middlemen. I suppose Roma have significant conflicts of interest with the indigenous underclass, competing with them for menial jobs. Or they bring it upon themselves through crime.
Die Juden sind EUER Unglück, eh?
I'll tell you what, Eurosabra. Why don't you Zionists just accept the two state solution under condition of Jewish equal rights, take a small percentage of the billions that us eternal anti-semites shower onto Israel annually, and go in and BUY the West Bank up one plot at a time at a fair market price? In fact, you might even consider reciprocating equal rights in Israel just to smooth things out.
Or would all that be too uncomplicated, and incongruent with your persecution-complex fatalism and need for conflict-induced adrenalin?
WEISS: "my line: that anti-Semitism is not an important factor in western Jews' lives"
MY COMMENT: I concur. However, the FEAR of anti-Semitism may be an important factor.
Well, except for the tremendous terror war that a Palestinian state will inevitably unleash as part of the "phased plan."
Also, I am one of the few Israel supporters here who doesn't care about the aid, and thinks that the UN veto isn't decisive. Take the US aerospace industry down if you feel like it, just to weaken Israel. Seattle and Dallas-Ft. Worth could use a few fewer McMansions. A 2 for 1 deal since it'll give you unemployed grumpy American Nazis to let loose. Which is the point, isn't it?
You Zionists really are hoplessly paranoid and self-important.
(Ending aid to Israel is going to "take the US aerospace industry down"?)
News flash: the sun doesn't revolve around Jewish Zionism. You all seem to need an army of shrinks as much as you need an army of peace negotiators.
"…that anti-Semitism is not an important factor in western Jews' lives."
where is this thing named "anti-Semitism" an important or minor factor in jews' lives (not in their demented minds" ?
Again, propose a total cut-off of military aid. Then see where the lobbyists opposing it come from. You'll be surprised. Not that it's ever going to happen, unfortunately. I think Israel's defense would be much more secure without having to give the US aerospace industry a "sugar daddy" role.
You blame the USSR on "The Jews" "Organized Jewry" "World Jewry" because of Yagoda and MY being afraid of Nazis like YOU is "paranoia"?
More than Yagoda. Far more, and you know it.
But look,
The world has tried it all ways with you people.
It tried it the Christian way (convert 'em). It didn't work.
It tried it the Communist way (strip away ALL religions so they aren't singled out). It didn't work.
It tried it the liberal way (give 'em everything they ask for and more). It didn't work.
What the hell do you people want? A guarantee of perpetual security? World War III in your behalf? Armageddon? It's all never enough.
So it's time to do it the American way: Two states. DMZ Zones. Containment. For decades, if necessary.
Kiss your Greater Israel ambitions goodbye and be thankful for the peace of mind retiring that particular dream brings. It’s over. Shaking your fist and calling everyone Nazi no longer holds truck.
Two states. A Palestinian state simmering through a long terror war with rockets inching closer to Tel Aviv. Terror in Jerusalem and the Seam Line on the scale of 2001 and 1948 combined. Perhaps the US will try to hamstring Israel and restrain its response, which will bring India in as a major ally of Israel.
The US "imposed solution" in Yugoslavia didn't deal with the Military Frontier at all, and so Croatia was quietly allowed to "straighten the line" in the east. I imagine the US will be dealing with an angry Israel–with no US troops in place, after how well peace-keeping worked in Lebanon–that will be allowed to take land east of the Green Line for security purposes.
Eventually the Palestinians overplay their hand as they always have, either with gas or a nuke, that leads to the end of Palestine (gas) or Arab-Islamic culture (nuke).
Because containment has worked so well in Lebanon and Gaza. Sure.
Looks like you'll just have to turn management of the One World Government over the The Elders of Zion(tm). You've tried everything else, and it hasn't worked.
It tried it the Roman way. Killing us. Didn't work.
It tried it the Christian way. Killing us. Didn't work.
It tried it the Socialist way. Killing us. Didn't work.
It tried it the Nazi way. Killing us. Didn't work.
Do you think the Hamas way is anything new, to anyone?
Maybe the Ed way of killing us will be fascinating and new. Do you innovate much?
Ahem…like I said. You can't reason with these people. The solutions have to be imposed.
Ed!!
Stompin' some zio-turd ass!!
And only mentioning the liberal/commie angle once the whole time!
Nice.
"Exploit every advantage to the maximum. Give no quarter. And yet, they still got Holocausted(LOL!!). It makes one question the true value of this advice."
I almost fell off my chair when I read that. Not quite how I would have put it but Kafka would have been loved that, no doubt…
I don't think you can impose a solution on the Palestinians that doesn't allow them a genocidal victory over Levantine Jews. The Lebanese are far more tractable, and they still blew up the Marines and sent them retreating from Lebanon.
So you must be taking about imposing the Hamas version of victory.