Aaron Levitt, who was once a Chabadnik, went to a Sabbath dinner in Jerusalem for old time’s sake. Go to his blog for the full report (also picked up at JSF). I must say that Levitt’s experience with the invisible help was my exact experience when I visited a Chabad house one night. Excerpt:
Most of us were already seated and chatting when the soldiers arrived, carrying their automatic weapons. One of the Australians almost immediately asked a soldier, "Hey, can I use your gun to kill an Arab? After Shabbat, of course." I don’t remember the exact response, but the soldier certainly didn’t chastise him, and neither did anyone else. A few minutes later, I turned to the speaker and told him that I didn’t find his joke remotely funny. His only response was to say, "I wasn’t joking", at which point I told him that the joke wouldn’t have been funny coming from an Arab who was speaking about a Jew, it would be even less funny if the Arab were serious, and so it was in his case…
At some point, all the diners go to wash their hands in the kitchen, where a very petite, dark-skinned, "foreign worker" (maybe Thai, or possibly Filipino) is washing dishes.
I actually caught a glimpse of this woman earlier in the evening, but her presence has been so completely ignored by everyone else that I thought I might be mistaken. Presumably, hiring a foreign worker is better than employing a potentially ‘uppity’ Palestinian who might feel she has actually has rights in her homeland. I find it extraordinary that, in our round of thanksgiving, nobody (notably our hostess) has even mentioned this woman. I thank her, now, and it takes some time and a second attempt for her to even recognize that she’s being addressed, though she has a great smile when she does realize I’m expressing my appreciation for her work.
As dinner progresses, the soldiers actually turn the table to a discussion of sniping techniques, the relative merits of different automatic weapons, and whether the IDF should issue bayonets to its troops…
A bit later, my original companion asks me privately to explain something I mentioned to him about mapping work I was doing in the the village of Lifta. At this point, I am fervently wishing that I had never come, swearing to myself that I never will again, and the last thing in the world I want is to be subjected to a gang-bang on the supposed evils of Palestinians. Hoping I can still salvage some small positive from the dinner, however, I present my case: Basically, I say, I have come to perceive Israeli Jews/Zionists as seeing no inherent human value in ‘the other’ (in this case, non-Jews, and primarily Palestinians), but viewing them basically as a contaminant of the Zionist ideal, a ‘demographic time-bomb’, or what have you. They are hated and persecuted by some, ‘tolerated’ by others, but viewed as a vital and desirable piece of the tapestry by almost no one. This kind of world view led to the ethnic cleansing of Lifta, a large Palestinian village west of Jerusalem, in 1948. It is also, in my mind, the same thinking that lay at the core of Nazi atrocities against the Jews, and all the other persecutions of our people over the centuries. My hope is to show the beauty and history of the village, its life and its people, and use that beauty to remind Israelis/Jews of the humanity and inherent value of its inhabitants.
Israel is entertaining the idea of building work camps in the Negev for illegal foreign workers. There was an article in Ha’aretz yesterday.
Gee, that’s not ironic in the least.
Any chance it appears in the English version of Ha’aretz?
You bet:
link to haaretz.com
I wonder if the use of “work camps” instead of “labor camps” was intentional.
So at a dinner you attended where a non-Israeli said something nasty about Arabs and the soldiers did not respond in kind. Then, being soldiers, probably young ones who have not seen real war talk about what they do in the Army, suddenly the WHOLE country is racist and they are building “camps” in the Negev. Oh, and they have a foreign worker in the kitchen. Yup, perfectly illustrative of what Der Sturmer said about us Jews. I an’t believe you did not walk out right after Kiddush, why would you want to be with such disgusting people like us Israelis?
“Something nasty” is how you describe jokes about shooting Arabs?
Would you call it “something nasty” if they joked about shooting Jews?
And the project to build the camps originated in the Israeli Interior Ministry, not a Chabad dinner.
Typical racist Zionist.
It’s only a hateful/propagandistic if it has to do w/ the Juice. But if it’s Arabs or any non-Jew, it’s “something nasty.”
Keep living in your bubble, fascist.
Who cleans your house, Phillip?
Your assumption turns a lot of attention upon you, OJ. Who cleans yours?
Too easy Chaos, too easy. Yo mama!
So you’re, like, twelve, then? Shouldn’t you be asking your mother for permission before going onto the internet? I mean if she’s right there, cleaning your room for you…
Look, you’ve found the reply button, and told everyone else about it; your work here is done.
I was simply pointing out that Phil has a Mexican woman cleaning his house, so he has a lit of nerve implying that it’s racist when others do it.
The daughter of a very pro-Israel friend went to Israel last summer (something related to the Weizmann Insttitute). It was fabulous . Idyllic. I believe her. I also believe there are many people there who are just plain bloody nice – and are better people than me in many respects.
Still I had to think about a book I once read. The Picture of Dorian Gray.
No different than the English sitting on their lawn for tea discussing the restlessness of the natives of yesteryear. Just as callous, no “redeeming” quality.
Or like President Jackson, who during his dinner parties would unveil a glass case of various indigenous scalps to impress his guests.
Jackson was a genocide, and it’s a disgrace to the US that his face is on our currency.
It definitely was below-the-belt journalism.
What was the point?
How about a real question?
The point, for those who find the obvious to be a challenge:
What on earth was that supposed to mean. He seems to forget, at the end that death is the final argument. There is no recompense, no amelioration, no restitution for killing. He can decide for himself if he wants to break bread with murderors, ot those who advocate murder, or hope to murder when they get the chance. He ends up sounding like Witty.
It must be too challenging for me. I would have run like hell at the beginning. I’ve made it a longstanding practice, after a few telling incidents, to remove myself from any situation where weapons are displayed. You only go around once, and no ziocaine monster is gonna put a bullet in me cause he gets it up his nose.
Witty’ definition of “below the belt journalism”: Reporting what actually happened.
Of course, there’s “below the belt” and then there’s journalists like Phil, that have been “coerced” or “brainwashed” by the Palrstinians.
Are those quotes not accurate, Richard? Shall we go and check them? Should be easy to find, in the threads with the posts from Gaza.
Would you call completely evidence-free accusations of unmitigated jopurnalistis corruption “below the belt” Richard? Lovely the way you treat friends, Richard.
If that’s his way of treating friends, I’d rather not know how he treats foes.
This sounds like a horrendously nasty and racist dinner, with armed ‘soldiers’ discussing sniping techniques.
Where is this sniping going on? In the West Bank and Gaza, of course. Who trains a rifleman to shoot real people?
The really nasty bit, though, is about the ignoring of the ‘oriental’ kitchen help.
That says enough about the real depth of Israeli racism. Look at a few stories about how they treat Ethiopian Jews. Or about the latest idea to build labour camps in the Sinai desert for unwanted Africans.
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