Emma Thompson (credit: CC Caroline Bonarde Ucci, Wikipedia)
The Jewish problem of our times is psychological denial having to do with our relations to others: denial of our social status in the U.S., denial of human rights atrocities in Palestine.
Here are three sides of the same coin:
1. From a letter to Emma Thompson, the British actress who has endorsed a boycott of the Israeli Habima Theater, from an anonymous English Jew. I got it from an Israel lobbyist. This is pure craziness:
There is another aspect to your downright nasty and disingenuous call for a boycott. As Jews we remember another boycott started in 1933 in another country, when ugly mobs stood outside Jewish shops and Jewish performers were barred from performing. We all know how that ended. Tell me what is the difference between you and those previous groups calling for expulsion of Jewish performers? From where I am standing as an English Jew, they are one and the same.
So this person is accusing Emma Thompson of seeking the extermination of Jews because she wishes to protest human rights abuses in Palestine...
2. The other day a friend of my wife came to visit. She was big in print journalism, now she's got a new website. I was coming in and out of the house, at work on a project, but I stopped for a moment to have the pleasure of talking with her about the internet and all the new journalism issues involved: the writing style on the web, the relationship of a journalist to the readers and to other sites, and the degree to which one can or cannot affect one's reputation online.
Then I said, "Well at my website--" And she waved her hand and said, "I don't really want to talk about your website."
My feelings were hurt. But she is Jewish: she stands for the tribe, she is more conventional than I am that way. I forgave her, somewhat, by remembering my first visit to Hebron in 2006 with Breaking the Silence. The van was filled with Israelis, good Israelis. We had just seen videos of settlers stoning Palestinian girls walking to school and I said to my translator, What do Israelis think about this? She said, "They don't know about this." And two of the Israelis turned in anger. Both said, "They don't want to know about it!"
My wife's friend doesn't want to know what is being done in our name, for she knows deep inside, knowledge would demand action, would require too much rearrangement of social conditions.
3. Emerson understood the impotence of denial of gross injustice. He wrote the following in his journals in late 1859, reflecting on the hanging of John Brown in Virginia for the raid on Harpers Ferry:
The Resistance to Slavery. It is the old mistake of the slaveholder to impute the resistance to [anti-slavery leaders] Clarkson or Pitt, to Channing or Garrison, or to some John Brown whom he has just captured, and to make a personal affair of it; and he believes, whilst he chains and chops him, that he is getting rid of his tormentor; and does not see that the air which this man breathed is liberty, and is breathed by thousands and millions; that men of the same complexion as he, will look at slaveholders as felons who have disentitled themselves to the protection of law, as the burglar has, whom I see breaking into my neighbor's house; and therefore no matter how many Browns he can catch & kill, he does not make the number less, for the air breeds them, every school, every church, every domestic circle, every home of courtesy, genius, & conscience is educating haters of him & his misdeeds.
I need to repeat his words: You cannot personalize this to Emma Thompson. The air we breathe is liberty. And every home of courtesy, genius & conscience is educating haters of Israel & its misdeeds. Today that is Israel's problem in the world. I urge American Jews to wake up.
This reminds me of your post about Doris Lessing, as she grew up in white rule Rhodesia, how she was hated by the whites. Most of them weren’t bad people. They were just used to British imperialism. It had been so for their fathers and grandfathers. It was the world that they were used to. And they knew that if they took her words seriously, their world would fall down.
Of course, in the Jewish context it’s much more painful. By the time she came about, Britain had ruled the seas for centuries. The British people did not know true suffering(in relative terms, compared to the vast majority of nations in the world). And those who did suffer, at least, did not wind up on large mansions in central Africa hunting and relaxing.
In the Jewish context, the powerlessness and chronic weakness is the backdrop. Jews don’t know power. We’ve never really tasted it. Sure, you have a Rothschild here and there. But what did that help? Most of them cared more about helping the British empire than their fellow Jew. Some even renounced their Jewishness in order to blend in.
A lot of Jews do not know this today, but at the onset of the French Revolution, the Sephardi Jews who were at that time the highest-ranking Jews and some of whom had made names for themselves viciously attacked the vast Ashkenazi Jewish masses for being ‘not like them’. In fact, when they sought Jewish emancipation, they insisted that Ashkenaz and Sepharad were two distinct races alltogether and any Jewishness is more illusion than fact.
The french came to their senses and decides to give all (formal) emancipation, regardless of skincolor or ethnicity. But this should be remembered, how Jew turned on Jew. This is the end result of centuries of humiliation. This is what the early Zionists detested when they spoke of the ‘Diaspora Jew’. He who crowered in the shadows and sold out his fellow Jews, poor and huddled, for approval to his Gentile masters at whose steps he danced like a clown.
What happened as a reaction to this was an overreaction, as we can all see. But unlike European peoples, Jews have never tasted power. We cannot comprehend ourselves as oppressors of another people. It’s a new role for us.
So I think it’s a generational issue. The price to pay for Jewish normalization is that you have an older generation which is incapable of thinking of themselves as regular humans. Many Jews still think, deep inside, that they are frankly incapable of being racists – as crazy as it may sound. This is all a legacy of Jewish collective history.
But among those my age, under the age of 30, things change. True, in every population you will have racists and chauvinists. And unlike a white European Gentile, there’s no punishment for a white Jew to be a bit of a racist, because, frankly, there is still deep anti-Semitism in the world(although the West). Just look at the TV in a lot of Arab countries(of course, Islamophobia is growing in the West, and totally exploding in Israel).
But as I’ve become convinced of now.. the Jewish transformation will take generations to complete. And there isn’t that kind of time. That’s why I think it will be Gentiles who will do what will be needed. Beinart’s book was easy to publish. The pioneers in the American discourse were Walt/Mearsheimer. They weren’t the first, but they were the most comprehensive. They had all the right credentials and the high-powered intellect. But most important of all; they had to courage to write of what they wrote without beings Jews. They broke the barrier, despite the enormous backlash.
The people who ended Jim Crow were a large mix, but most whites, even in the North, did not mobilize. Jews had a special role in that. Not that we were inherently more moral, like some people still think. But because we as outsiders of the power structure understood the hypocrises and the corruption in the system, and we exposed it. The most bizarre thing in Jewish modern life is that in a record short timespan, we’ve switched places and become part of the corrupted establishment.
Now it is we that hold another people under oppression, and silence all who wish to write about it truthfully(because they have to deal with our political and media power, the latter of whom which not even Walt/Mearsheimer dared to step into).
And this transformation is a revolt against all our history. So that we are even having this conversation is itself a small miracle. And we shouldn’t perhaps be too harsh against the likes of your friend, while not forgetting to remind her of her cowardice.
“We cannot comprehend ourselves as oppressors of another people. It’s a new role for us.”
I’m sorry Krauss, but I lost my password to the Jewish mind cloud-computer site, do you know where I can get a new one?
Anyway, some people might say we had plenty of practice with Jewish women before we set about the Palestinians.
But with Witty gone, Krauss is the new Mayor of Unction Junction.
“I lost my password to the Jewish mind cloud-computer site”
try: “Holocaust”. If that doesn’t work, try: “Uniqueness of the Holocaust” or, “Holocaust denial laws”
here are a few clues to discovering the password and get into the cloud, Dostoievski gives us a clue.
“True, it is very difficult to learn the forty-century-long history of a people such as the Jews; but, to start with, this much I know, that in the whole world there is certainly no other people who would be complaining as much about their lot, incessantly after each step and word of theirs, – about their humiliation, their suffering, their martyrdom.” Dostoievsky
the only oppressed peoples ever, and forget about any other people ever getting killed during a war, there were only one people that mattered.
a time for peace- Just because Dostoyevsky was one of the greatest writers of all time, doesn’t mean he wasn’t a Jew hater. And just because you are quoting a great writer, doesn’t mean that you are not spouting Jew hatred.
wondering jew: Just because Dostoyevsky …
Where is all that “Jew hater” and “Jew hatred” you keep talking about? Tell me about your friends. What’s your cinema. What if you changed your newspaper? Where do you hang out?
There has never been only one “the” holocaust- just ask African Americans, Native Americans. the Irish, the Romany, the Cambodians,Australian aboriginal peoples….the too many to name all other races and religions that have suffered in our human history. It is highly offensive to only talk of one atrocity as it “unique”- what rubbish. And we do not see African Americans and all the other peoples who have suffered using their past suffering to hide present day atrocities- as is happening with Israel’s war crimes.
>> There has never been only one “the” holocaust … It is highly offensive to only talk of one atrocity as it “unique”- what rubbish.
The arguement seems to be that the Holocaust is unique not because it’s the only one, but because it’s “The Bestest Genocide Ever!” (TM). I can’t think of any other group that downplays – so frequently and so vocally, if at all – other genocides as second-rate compared to the one it suffered.
“And we do not see African Americans and all the other peoples who have suffered using their past suffering to hide present day atrocities- as is happening with Israel’s war crimes”
Watched an interesting program last night…the one that seeks out the ancestry of people, mostly featuring the ancestry of well known Hollywood or other public figures. Last night they had Condi Rice and several other prominent black Americans whose ancestry they had traced for them on the show.
As you can understand all their original ancestors in the US were slaves. But also interesting was the mixtures that appeared, Condi for instance had whites, blacks and Asians in her bloodline.
But what really struck me was the attitude expressed by these black Americans who aren’t that far, generation wise, from slavery…..so different from the ‘holocaust’ attitude of zionist. I can’t remember the exact words most of them used when talking about their families as former slaves and slavery in general….but it was to the effect that it’s ancient history for them now….they used the word ‘history” repeatedly….that it was a “bad part” in American history…..that slavery was ‘one’ of the historical wrongs that occurred in a imperfect world of sometimes evil people. When you consider what we did to blacks for a 100 years and that they don’t all have the lingering resentments and suspicions of ‘all of us as others’ in their community or consider their enslavement as the only one that ever occured or counted you see the difference in how blacks have moved on and coped and overcome and even forgiven for the most part in a way that zionism will not allow for the Jews vr gentiles and others.
A lot of times when I am out and about, in some store around town I will see some white guy yell out to a black guy or visa versa…’ hey how you doing buddy’ ….and you can tell by the conversation that ensues between them they were ‘friends ‘, maybe a connection from working together at some company or some social venue. I feel a small twinge of pride in this country when I see this. I felt a small twinge of pride when we elected a black president.
For whatever reason, blacks for the most part seem more able to live and go forward without bitterness and hatred of their former oppressors. Maybe their heritage of slavery makes them ‘old souls” as my grandmother use to say about some people…some sort of inbred wisdom and acceptence about the world, an understanding there is good and evil, but not letting the evil part dictate or dominate their life.
“We cannot comprehend ourselves as oppressors of another people. It’s a new role for us.”
What you mean-um “we”, paleface?
Anyway, it just shows to go you, if you know what I mean. Nobody ever, ever offered me anyone to oppress, and I’m just as Jewish as the next guy. Is that a benefit we are all entitled to? Oh well, I snooze, I lose.
I agree with Mooser. The problem is the “us.” Tell me which “us” you think you are part of and I will tell you what you think (most of the time). The problem is that so many “Jews” think of themselves as Jews first and human beings a distant second. In my classes on the US Civil War I show opposing views of the War, and ask students how they decide which is right. The answer comes down to who the students think they are.
“The problem is that so many “Jews” think of themselves as Jews first and human beings a distant second.”
Okay, I don’t know about Israel (thank God, I’m not sure I could visit that place and not die of shame) but here in America as I understand it many Jews are permitted(by the Jewish and Gentile “community) the pretense, the pretense of being “Jews first and human beings a distant second”
It is nothing but a pretense, and the facts don’t bear it out. As to why they find that pretense either permissible or desirable I don’t really know, and believe me, I am exceedingly grateful for that.
@ Mooser
“Nobody ever, ever offered me anyone to oppress, and I’m just as Jewish as the next guy. Is that a benefit we are all entitled to?”
Hey! When the fact that Gentiles were created to be servants of the Jews came up, I offered to be your servant. That would have given you a chance to oppress me. And I wouldn’t have touched your wine, either.
But since you snubbed me, offer withdrawn.
“The answer comes down to who the students think they are.”
Most of the time I think I’m me. (And I’m not sure how I could be anyone else.) The rest of the time I don’t think about who I am at all.
Mooser, as always you totally misunderstand everything.
I don’t know what mental demons you are fightning but don’t project them on me. You clearly understand very little of what I am trying to say.
I usually don’t try to feed the trolls, but I will note that I’ve never ever seen you post anything thoughtful or intelligent.
You so want me to be this demonic Zionist. If you even spent a few moments you’d see I don’t even believe in a 2SS anymore.
But of course, that requires mental effort. It requires seriousness.
It requires that one steps outside of petty trolling.
Too much to ask.
Fair enough, but IMO, some of your claims are absolutely ridiculous. Are you not familiar with Bolchevism?
Jeez Krauss, I know how much smarter you are than I. I mean, what the hell can I say to a man who knows everything, can read minds, and keeps both the past and the future in constant, perfectly focused view, and what is more, knows it.
So please, don’t beat me up for my manifold mental faults. After, all, you have no more advantage over me than you do anyone else here. Of course, if you intend it to stand as a warning to any other mental plebeian who dares to notice that you are, Zionist or not, a pretentious and quite offensively officious know-it-all, I understand. Pick off the weakest ones first, and the smarter ones will show appropriate caution.
Omniscience like yours is a hard act to beat, especially when it’s so goddamn pedestrian, to boot.
Wow, Krauss calls you out for intentionally misrepresenting his point in a sarcastic, demeaning way that makes light of who he is and what he believes. And you respond by sarcastically attacking him again as pretentious and a know-it-all.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
You use words mostly to tear people down and get the monkeys hooting in the rafters. Disgusting, as usual, to anyone not full of venom and bile.
“We cannot comprehend ourselves as oppressors of another people. It’s a new role for us.”
An appeal to compassion and understanding for the tyrannical dictators is hardly different from an appeal saying the Nazis believed they were doing the right thing.
KRAUSS- “In the Jewish context, the powerlessness and chronic weakness is the backdrop. Jews don’t know power. We’ve never really tasted it.”
“…during the whole of the classical period the Jews, in spite of all the persecutions to which they were subjected, formed an integral part of the privileged classes.” (“Jewish History, Jewish Religion” Israel Shahak)
Krauss- “We cannot comprehend ourselves as oppressors of another people. It’s a new role for us.”
“Jews also took an active part in the Dutch colonial slave trade; indeed, the bylaws of the Recife and Mauricia congregations (1648) included an imposta (Jewish tax) of five soldos for each Negro slave a Brazilian Jew purchased from the West Indies Company. Slave auctions were postponed if they fell on a Jewish holiday. In Curacao in the seventeenth century, as well as in the British colonies of Barbados and Jamaica in the eighteenth century, Jewish merchants played a major role in the slave trade. In fact, in all the American colonies, whether French (Martinique), British, or Dutch, Jewish merchants frequently dominated. (Rabbi Marc Lee Raphael, quoted by Jim Haygood, 12/23/10, Mondoweiss)
link to mondoweiss.net
“We live entangled in webs of endless deceit, often self-deceit, but with a little honest effort, it is possible to extricate ourselves from them.” (Noam Chomsky)
Thank you Keith! But for heaven’s sake, remember who you are dealing with! You wouldn’t want to end up with one of Krauss’s denunciations pointed at your head, would you. I’m still trembling, it’s like he got right inside my head, and found every defrect. I hope he packed a lunch.
People with privilege think of it as a “given”, not necessarily “deserved” but of long standing, dependable, and “theirs”. It hurts to hear it challenged, to contemplate losing it, to contemplate coming-to-believe-it-is-wrong. To be “conservative” in the usual political meaning is to seek to preserve one’s own privileges. Just as if they were deserved. Even to seek to preserve the entire structure of privileges, including one’s own and others’. Stick together, you privileged folks! For many people including the poor, “family values” means the husband rules the roost — has privilege over wife and kids. Privilege! that’s why they vote conservative tickets. (The enemy.)
As as a law school prof, teaching “Property”, said to his first class, his two-year old understood the basics of property law when he said of something, [Let go of that] “It’s Miiiiine”. Never mind how it got that way. (Prof forgot to remind us that “all property is theft”.)
Men want to dominate women, whites want to dominate people of color, Israelis and some Jews want to dominate Palestinians and other Arabs. Moneyed people want to dominate people poorer than they are, and don’t want to pay fair taxes (which they see as taking away their privilege as lords-of-creation).
And for Jews who adore Israel to learn FACTS about the occupation or the much-damaged democracy would be to begin a very hurtful process of undoing loyalties and surrendering privileges (including the privilege of feeling good when people who criticize Israel are called anti-Semites).
And unfortunately, being a function of power, “privileges” are almost never surrendered voluntarily or altruistically.
“Men want to dominate women”
Yes, but most of them haven’t met my wife. If they had, they would re-think that futile ambition.
“To be “conservative” in the usual political meaning is to seek to preserve one’s own privileges.”
This concept is behind the GOP’s appeal to American Jewish voters.
what disengenuous snark from ‘anonymous jew’. no, i’m certain that thompson has no idea about what happened in europe in the 1930s-40s, britain having come out of the war completely unscathed. thankfully AJ is available to educate and remind thompson that every criticism of israel is a criticism of ‘the jews’, and criticism inevitably leads to mass murder. the psychological problem phil describes is much deeper than denial. i’ll bring up Englander’s short story collection ‘what we talk about when we talk about anne frank’ again. englander half-jokingly refers to this parlor game in an interview, the point of the exercise, according to him, is to evaluate and assign virtuousness to gentile friends. which is the righteous gentile who would risk all to hide you, and who would turn you in? that’s not really the point of the game though. the subtext of the exercise, of course, needs no analysis: the point is that every gentile has to be treated as a potential murderer. what does that mean for englander and others who think like him, sitting at dinner, ostensibly having an intimate exchange with friends, and yet the fundamental question about the ‘friend’ holding a glass of chardonay, smiling at you, is always ‘is he going to turn me in, or [as the game goes] will it be his wife?’ can an authentically empathic relationship ever grow between people under these conditions? does ‘englander’ even want the possibility of that time of relationship? or do jewish-gentile relations necessarily lead to the next holocaust, as the ultra-orthodox jew in the title short story suggests?
Jew this Jew that…
One has to stand up for something when one sees injustice
John Brown is an interesting case
someone commented on the situation in Israel is similar to the American Indian…RUBBISH…
Everyone knows about the travail of the Indian/Native American…when one travels north on I25 out of Santa Fe and approaches the Pojoaque Junction to Los Alamos the freeway is ruled by the Tribal Police and payments for violations go directly to the Tribe and are never reported…after mixed policies now it is a choice sovereignty or inclusion
I count 16 Congressional Medal of Honor winners who were Native Americans who fought with the US during the Indian Wars of 1870…Jeremiah Johnson ate the livers of Crow but the Crow were with the 7th Cavalry and the Crow were with Custer at Little Big Horn….it is mixed bag with the American Indian who fought on ALL sides of Wars before 1890
(perhaps the greatest film ever made documents the racist Ethan Edwards who speaks Comanche and knows the culture…made by a bunch of conservative white guys…the brother Martin Pawley is Cherokee…link to youtube.com)
After 1890 the plight of the Native American has been well documented as have the exploits of Thorpe, Marine Ira Hayes, Code Talkers, Medal of Honor winner Marine Aviator Major Pappy Boyington (Sioux) leader of the Black Sheep Squadron in the South Pacific…
John Brown and his Army
400,000 Union Soldiers died to end exclusion because of race/culture and of that number 40,000 who died were BLACK Union soldiers…approximately one out of every 5 or 6 Black Union Soldiers
I think someone once said that All Men are Created Equal and Endowed by their Creator with certain Inalienable Rights, Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
WE all have a history and it is not tied to Israel or Sumerian Tall Tales the Jews borrowed…and it is sick for the USA to be dragged through the gutter while Israel violates the basic rights of a neighboring culture
link to youtube.com
Pete Seeger on John Brown
link to youtube.com
“Tell me what is the difference between Anonymous English Jew’s blather-by-free-association and the above parody of it?”
“I know, teacher! Call on me!” ( Mooser stands, blushes when the girl he has a crush on turns and looks at him, but shows the savior-faire he’s noted for, by scratching his butt before speaking): “It’s because one, no matter how meaningless, induces the ziocaine ducts to open, and causes a pleasantly self-righteous reaction, along with an intoxicating amorality, and the other doesn’t!” And then, of course, bidden by some long suppressed racial memory, he blurts out a shibboleth of obscure meaning but portentous implications: “And you try to cross that river on a chicken, and you’ll know viaduct!”
But wait, was the girl impressed with Mooser’s answer?
“But wait, was the girl impressed with Mooser’s answer?”
I ended up at the Principal’s office and earned a reference to the school psychologist, and my middle-school inamorata just cut me dead after that. I had received one or two half-smiles previously, but no more. And if you don’t think you can say “viaduct” with a sneer, you didn’t hear her, every time I walked into the class.
“And if you don’t think you can say “viaduct” with a sneer, you didn’t hear her, every time I walked into the class.”
This may explain Mean Girls’ Rachel McAdams’s interest in the screenplay- the Mooser subplot to “The Emma Thompson Story.”
Perhaps some girls are impressed with savior-faire.
link to thefreedictionary.com
Savior-faire? Oh that’s easy! “Savior-faire” is acting with complete grace, complete with a couple of bon-mots and mot-justes when you’re being crucified.
Such a beautiful quote from Emerson- thank you Phil. What a wonderful goal for partners & parents to strive for- to create a “home of courtesy, genius, & conscience.”
PHIL- “The Jewish problem of our times is psychological denial having to do with our relations to others….”
Yes, and this is a manifestation of a larger phenomenon which affects us all. By and large, people are rarely rational in regards to their core beliefs. Rather, they logically adhere to group mythology/ideology. This is what binds people together in communal solidarity. I’m not sure society could exist without some unifying mythology, and, if it could, what it would be like. But, you are quite correct to perceive that Zionist mythology cannot stand up to rational scrutiny, which is why diehard Zionists will continue to deny empirical reality, rational argument falling on deaf ears.
“The Jewish problem of our times is psychological denial having to do with our relations to others….”
You know, Phil, I think you might feel a whole lot better about that if you knew more Gentiles. You think they don’t catch it?
‘What do Israelis think about this? She said, “They don’t know about this.” And two of the Israelis turned in anger. Both said, “They don’t want to know about it!”
From the people that I know who have gone over to Israel and lived with Palestinians for several decades..they often say many Israeli’s are well aware of the situation and conditions for Palestinians. That many just do not care. That there are many racist Israeli’s.
cognitive dissonance* is what prevents phil’s friend from facing up to israel’s brutal treatment of palestinians, the discomfort she’d experience if she contemplated the reality of israeli brutality towards palestinians while at the same time clinging to her belief that the zionist entity can do no wrong.
*the discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs simultaneously
RE: “The Jewish problem of our times is psychological denial…” ~ Weiss
AS THE IRREPRESSIBLE STUART SMALLEY WAS FOND OF SAYING: “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt!”
P.S. LEGAL DISCLAIMER: Stuart Smalley is a caring nurturer, a member of several 12-step programs, but NOT a licensed therapist. Any suggestions made by Mr. Smalley are strictly intended as entertainment, and should not be considered professional advice or recommendations.
In the event you have mental health issues, please consult a licensed professional of your choosing.
And whatever you do, don’t go into a “shame spiral”!
I have always accepted the claims of WW2 Germans that they did not know about the camps, but thought the reason they did not know (since anyone who wanted to know could find out) was that they did not want to know, that they found it more comfortable not to know. I think you could say the same about most “Jews” in Palestine. The hardcore racial supremacists are another story, and they make up a larger proportion of the population in “Israel” than they ever have elsewhere, including Nazi Germany. The closest parallel was the Indian-haters on the American frontier.
Thanks, Phil. Your call is heartfelt and relevant. I encounter denial the whole time. It’s the prerogative of the powerful. “I don’t need to deal with this and I won’t.”
When I press on the issue, the response I get is irritation. And this is from nice, political, progressive Jews. They’ve gone all the way across the spectrum to J Street. They feel that should be enough to hold on to their Zionism.
It bears repeating that these are decent folks with good political commitments. They hate Bush, the Iraq war, support healthcare, oppose the death penalty etc. etc.
In their own words, Zionism solves a problem for them as a way of being Jewish. The almost monolithic organizational structures and concomitant mindset mean that in America today Judaism = Zionism.
Mondoweiss and other radical bases are just islands in this reality.
agreed, but Elliot, I was thinking today, do non Zionists have to offer a basis for Jewish continuity to be taken seriously inside the community? I mean, does it destroy my credibility, for them, that I’m intermarried. A lot of the folks in this community are intermarried.
Intermarried? I know, Phil, because you have said so, that you are married to a woman. What greater intermarriage could there be than that between a man and a woman? Moreover, I have always believed that the fundamental conflict in the world is between me and The Others, and I assume I’m not alone in my view. Compared to that, the conflict between Jew and gentile is trivial. It’s all a matter of perspective.
touche notatall
>> What greater intermarriage could there be than that between a man and a woman?
One between two consenting adults who love and respect each other.
a lot of folks in the mainstream Jewish community are married too. Since we are talking about mainstream Judaism, take the largest Jewish denomination, Reform. It would not exist without interfaith marriage. This piece of reality was recognized 30 years ago by the leaders of the Jewish Reform movement and they formally embraced interfaith unions.
The rot at the root of all this is the belief that there exists a place today which is all-Jewish. Judged against that, interfaith is lacking. Israel is all-Jewish (well, except for the Palestinians…) and Jeremy Ben-Ami famously held out that only Jews can be heard at the J Street table. Underpinning all that is the belief that all-Jewish was once the standard from which we have fallen. If anything, throughout history – including the Bible – it was the exception that proves the rule.
Zionism is at once a response to anxieties over the end of endogamy and is in itself an interfaith ideology. As proof for that, look at how the non-Orthodox Jewish community is defined by interfaith. And yet, it is overwhelmingly Zionist. So, we have a Jewish-Christian community that is dominated by Zionism. The shared Christian-Jewish Zionism is packaged disingenuously as a Jewish ideology, for Jews only. One of the pay-offs for this deception is to score another win in he censorship game: all you half-Jews have no voice in the all-Jewish game.
…of course, the first sentence that should read “intermarried too”
Elliot: “Israel is all-Jewish (well, except for the Palestinians…)”
Depends on what you mean by Jewish. The religious groups, yes. As for the rest, including the couple of million Russians, Romanians, etc. (the products of decades of assimilation) and the mostly secular Ashkenazis, what is “Jewish” about them except that they can be counted on to police the Palestinians?
notatall – sure the Palestinians – and the Israeli conflict with them – help define Jewishness.
The specific answer, however, is that state clerics rule on who is Jewish. They take into account assimilation and the like and come up with a determination: Jewish, Jewish on probation, not Jewish. The final status is recorded in the state’s population database.
My Israeli ID states that I’m Jewish. Therefore, in Israel, I am a Jew.
You may have read that last October the Jewish-Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk successfully petitioned the courts to not be listed as a Jew. He is the notable exception that proves the rule.
“The rot at the root of all this is the belief that there exists a place today which is all-Jewish.”
Gee, sorta funny isn’t it? That the ghetto, where Jews were forced to live by decree, law or fear, and which Jews left in droves as soon as they could is not promolgated by Zionists as the ideal Jewish existence.
More than anything else, what shocks me is the insult to the memory of the Jews who were indeed forced to live in ghettos and their suffering, by making an all-Jewish “community” (what a weasel word! Maybe worse than “progressive”. But then the right has so many weasel words, we need a few of our own) some kind of ideal.
Elliot,
There used to be courts in the U.S. to determine who was “white” — until the whole rotten edifice came down. The same should happen in the so-called Jewish state, and better sooner than later.
Phil – to answer your question, I don’t think so. If you show up as a Jew, you should be able to brush off those attempts to silence you.
How is this different from all the other arguments, such as:
-you are not Israeli
-you don’t live there
-you haven’t lived there
-you weren’t Barmitzvahed
-you don’t belong to a synagogue
-you don’t speak Hebrew
-you don’t speak Arabic
-you’re an intellectual, you don’t get Arab mentality
-you’re a traitor
-shut up
“I mean, does it destroy my credibility, for them, that I’m intermarried.”
Why, you thinking about getting divorced? Listen Phil, if you even have to ask yourself that question, you are halfway sunk. Next thing you’ll be wondering is if the Zionists don’t have more right to lead “the Jews” since they have blooded, sweated and shot-and-teared for us.
And unless you are either thinking of a trip to Reno, or looking for an excuse for disengagement, why even bother with the question?
So maybe if you were married to a real balboosta you could “redeem” American Zionists? Hey, you never know!
Phil, you’re not just intermarried, you have revealed that in your heart of hearts you feel that intermarriage is the best path. You chose the big pond of America and left the fetid shtetl behind. You waved goodbye to Jewishness and Judaism in your rear view mirror and while you were yelling “So long, sucker!” up pops Judaism/Jewishness like a monster in a movie (Terminator II), up ahead in the road, not a bridge to the future but a wall that you crash against. (That is the neoconservatives and their war in Iraq). They forced you to deal with Jewishness. You didn’t come to this issue as a Jew, but as an American first and foremost and as a world citizen second. Fine. All Americans and all world citizens should come and speak their minds. But don’t pretend you come to this issue from your Jewishness. It rings phony to me. Maybe those who agree that hatred of Israel is the result of compassion and genius, feel that your Jewishness is relevant. But it rings phony to me.
its true i came because of american stuff, iraq war. but i dont think intermarriage is the best path, or if i ever said it i eat my words. people marry other folks for a lot of reasons, marriage is hard, etc., and most people are tribal, etc…. wondering i do think you are close to making distinction between good jews and bad ‘uns, though. herzl was a bad ‘un along these terms. never went to shul… christmas tree… etc
>> But don’t pretend you come to this issue from your Jewishness. It rings phony to me.
With eee gone, it appears that wj has assumed the role of arbiter of who is and who is not a (good) Jew.
Do these guys ever have to present any credentials?
Phil- Whether a person is a good Jew or a bad Jew is to put it succinctly, between a person and the Creator. Nonetheless the category can be of some use to us creations as well.
I don’t think Herzl was a good Jew before he came to the Zionist idea. He dabbled in the idea of mass conversion to Christianity. (Herzl himself imagined himself at the head of the line of converts.) He at one time considered himself a German nationalist and it was only the reaction of the German fraternities (“You ain’t no German, get lost, Jew!”) which made him reconsider. So I really don’t think divorcing Herzl from his Zionism and then citing him as your prototype does you much good as an argument.
Will the Jews survive as a group? As individuals, Jews will survive.
As individuals, as long as they didn’t mind limitations on their culture, Jews could survive the Soviet Union. If they didn’t mind the line on their (internal) passports telling them they were Jews and then when they asked for Jewish things (matzos, synagogues, books, opportunities to study) they were told to go to Hell (Siberia). So would one say that the Soviet Union was good for the Jews (as Jeffrey Blankfort once asserted) because they got into good universities? (leaving aside the fact that Jews were in fact limited in their options because of the line on their passports that labeled them as Jews.) I would say, definitely not. Jews who are deprived of their books (and I don’t mean Kafka and I.B. Singer, although Isaac Babel and Vasily Grossman would be more appropriate to the Soviet Jews. I do mean Tanach, Talmud, Midrash, even Zohar, but especially Hagada and siddur as Jewish books.) If Jews are deprived of their books and deprived of the right to congregate to pray or assert their Jewishness without the presence of KGB, then they are not free as Jews.
Jewish continuity is an iffy thing. I think the attraction that you feel for I.B. Singer and Franz Kafka is a nice thing, but I think that this is to put it simply, not enough to keep the Jewish people going.
Granted, all humans should have the freedom to choose their mates. This does not make Jewish continuity any easier, but harder.
But let’s face it, when you wrote, I don’t remember what my bar mitzvah portion was and when you guys were studying Hebrew I was studying Emily Dickinson, you were saying, I chose something other than Jewishness. Does that make you a bad Jew? No. But it certainly makes you an indifferent Jew. And indifference does not suffice to keep the Jewish people alive.
To clarify: I believe that the major contribution of Judaism at this point in time, including the last 100 or so years in history and for the foreseeable future (unless Jews plan to get into the God game again, as they were in Jesus’s time, looking for converts) is to promote ethical behavior and as such, since you are promoting ethical behavior (or at the very least that is your intention), you are contributing to the good of the world and partaking of the Jewish contribution to the world. But that is not Jewish continuity. Jewish continuity is an iffy thing, that requires study, and practices that differ quite often from the urges of the individual.
Mearsheimer has already separated between righteous Jews and Apartheid Jews. If one instead wishes to leave the issue of I/P out of the equation, is there then no way to measure those who contribute to the continuity and those who do not. Yes, I grant you, calling someone a bad Jew is bad form. (As the subway ad says, New yorkers will tolerate all religions, but not ugly shoes) But isn’t it too p.c. to say that everyone is a good Jew and no one is a bad Jew? Yep, to me that’s too p.c. Those who wish to imagine some Jewish future 100 years from now usually demand some kind of imagination or action that will have the Jews survive as a group (and not as individuals playing instruments in churches). You are busy imagining the cessation of the oppression of Palestinians by Jews and if you (or even may I say “we”) are successful in eliminating oppression, you will have done a damn big mitzvah. But you have no credentials in caring about the survival of the Jews as a group and that is what Jewish continuity means.
WJ –
You assume a clear distinction between Americanness and Jewishness. That’s a distinction that most young American Jews don’t feel. Not only because so much of the mainstream American Jewish community is internarried, making the rest of us re-examine those boundaries.
In Israel and the Orthodox community in the U.S. – the two communities you know well – “Jew” exists as a stand-alone entity. Increasingly, that is not the case outside those communities.
As you know, so much of the conversation at Mondoweiss is about how those lines are blurred. Where does Jewish Zionism end and Christian Zionism begin? American empire and Israeli empire. Jewish political power in the US government and other institutions, and so on.
Let’s assume for a moment that we’re in the business of awarding gold stars for Jewish observance and commitment to raising Jewish kids. Well, I personally know many Jews who are married to non-Jews who are “better” Jews than many other Jews who married in the tribe.
Phil- I was thinking about my Jewish heroes, not the Jew-y Jew heroes, but people like Dylan, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, the Marx Brothers. The only really Jewish things that Groucho ever said were the cracks about never joining a club that would have him as a member and whether his daughter who was only half Jewish might not wade in the pool in the exclusive club if only up to her waist.
Dylan obviously is a bad example because of his contradictions, his appreciation and songs in salute of Jesus on the one hand and his “Neighborhood Bully” on the other. But when he speaks of himself in his early career he says, “i never looked back.” and further he said that he felt such a kinship with the country music he listened to as a kid that he felt like he was adopted. if that’s not a poetic rejection of one’s Jewish roots, I don’t know what is.
Almost 25 years ago when this current stage of the conflict began with the first intifada in 1987, woody published an op ed in reaction to yitz rabin’s “we will break their arms and legs”. He wrote about the JNF boxes of his childhood and his reaction was “C’mon guys, can’t you do better than we’ll break their arms and legs.”
Mel Brooks of course was even less political than Groucho. But he deserves mention for when Mel brought Anne Bancroft home to meet his mother, his mother said, “I’ll just be a minute, I have to put my head in the oven.”
Elliot- First to mention another outstanding nonJewish Jew- Wallace Shawn, who has been quite vocal in recent times in his opposition to US foreign policy and Israel’s policy as well. When he introduces the fact that he was Jewish he included the fact that he was born into a family that had a Christmas tree and never ever stepped into a synagogue. (If I have exaggerated, I hope Wallace will forgive me.) But he does not present himself as a Jew criticizing Israel, he presents himself as an American and a human criticizing Israel.
On the subject of intermarriage- I am too lazy at the moment to look up the numbers but most kids raised in mixed marriages are not raised as Jewish, most are raised with no religion. Citing exceptions is really besides the point. I’m not saying that most people who marry Jews are hyper conscious of their Judaism, but their children are less confused regarding their identity than children of mixed marriages.
But it could be that I am not understanding your point when you write, there is no clear distinction between Jewishness and Americanness. Maybe in regards to Israel, but in regards to Passover, Christmas, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Zohar, burial laws, circumcision and frying bacon, I cannot seem to see that the Jewish point of view and the American point of view are not distinct. I realize there are many Jews who view their primary religion as liberalism and all those silly holidays and forgoing a Christmas tree and snipping their sons’ dicks are just silliness and then for them indeed there is no distinction between Jewishness and Americanness. That’s because the only part of their Jewishness that matters to them is Abbie Hoffman and the Jewish lawyers of the NAACP. (I shep nachas from Abbie and the Jewish lawyers also, but the holidays are Jewish and Christmas is not Jewish and Easter is not Jewish and too many verses to mention of the New Testament are not Jewish and I don’t see how you can say there is no distinction. It doesn’t make sense to me.)
Intermarrieds who raise their kids as Jews are great. Let a thousand flowers blossom. But Phil is not an intermarried who is raising his kids as Jews. So I see how my narrow (Israel and/or Orthodoxy) view does not incorporate all possibilities. But Phil is a dedicated assimilationist, so I don’t see how intermarrieds who emphasize Torah and Torah consciousness is relevant to a discussion of those who have zero (or near zero) commitment to any form of continuity of Torah.
I am too lazy at the moment to look up the numbers but most kids raised in mixed marriages are not raised as Jewish, most are raised with no religion.
Religion is on the decline in America. See Robert Putnam. You might be interested to know that practice is down all round. Jews are less Jews and Christian less Christian than ever.
You set a standard of Jewishness based on a commitment to Jewish continuity. That seems to me like a desperate reach. Why shouldn’t the standard simply be: identifying as a Jew.
Plenty of parents who raised their kids with a desire for Jewish continuity ended up with non-Jewish grandchildren. And vice versa.
You should know that your self-appointed role as gatekeeper only has meaning for those within your compound. Outside, people don’t want to be in that camp anyway.
Elliot- You are less obnoxious than most of the commentators who interact with me, but that does not mean that you are trying to be civil.
I asserted the importance of continuity. Zionism is one path of continuity which this website rejects. I asserted that there is a need for a proposal of some alternate strategy of continuity in order to replace Zionism. That those who assert Zionism will probably still not be satisfied, but if one is proposing one’s anti Zionism not merely as something which is good for America but somehow good for the Jews, one also has to replace Zionism with some other strategy of continuity.
Now you assert that just because one has a strategy of continuity, that does not mean that the strategy will succeed.
Of course. Just because you aim to shoot someone in the head, doesn’t mean that you will succeed. You may miss and instead hit a pinata containing millions of dollars making the person a millionaire instead of dead. Certainly something as iffy as continuity is not a sure thing and no known strategy is foolproof.
But the essence here is that you have set your mind on being obnoxious towards me.
But I assert the follows. Today there are two (not foolproof, yet still proven) strategies of continuity: Zionism and observance. If one lights candles Friday night, even if one is married to a nonJew, this is both a way of expressing one’s Jewish identity or one’s belonging to a Jewish home and it is also a strategy of continuity.
Phil rejects Zionism because it is bad for America. Fine. Nothing left to prove other than it is bad for America. But if he wishes to present his rejection as a rejection because Zionism is bad for the Jews, he has two choices. He can assert that Jewish continuity matters to him and Zionism is a bad choice for continuity because the continuity implied by Zionism involves too much militarism and chauvinism to be a worthwhile continuity and an alternate continuity is preferable.
Or he can say he really doesn’t give a damn about continuity. The replacement of Israel with the theoretical Palestine might eventually cause millions of Jews to move away from Israel to the Diaspora, where they will assimilate and that’s no skin off his back because who cares if the Jews assimilate. (I don’t see a third possibility. Either one is pro continuity or one is indifferent or anti continuity. I asserted that Phil is not pro continuity. Do you disagree?)
An analogy. Herzl built the golem by writing “emet” (“truth”) on its forehead. Phil wishes to undo the golem by erasing the aleph and turning it into “met” (“dead”). Fine. But that is not enough for him. He wishes to assert that he is aspiring to something equal to Herzl’s accomplishment. Thus the destroyer of the golem is as important as the creator of the golem. Fine. Many people thought the golem got carried away and that it was better off dead than alive.
But those who care about Jewish continuity will not be satisfied with you merely killing Zionism and proposing that the Jewish people disappear. Which is what Phil and you, his defender, are in fact proposing. Unless your obnoxiousness is merely to attack me, but doesn’t represent your true position.
Now you assert that just because one has a strategy of continuity, that does not mean that the strategy will succeed.
actually what he said was he thought your strategy was a desperate reach and then he ask: Why shouldn’t the standard simply be: identifying as a Jew.
you didn’t answer. instead you are addressing something else. now there is a limitus test of 2 options. you also make claims about phil’s beliefs boiling it down on 3 or 4 words. and then you make an analogy, but you don’t support your analogy with anything but your hypothesis. plus, neither elliot or phil are ‘proposing that the Jewish people disappear’ which is your claim.
it’s all pretzel logic WJ, and spun out of thin air. why don’t you just answer the question?
Why shouldn’t the standard simply be: identifying as a Jew.
why?
WJ –
We agree that there is a need for a replacement for Zionism so that Jews can thrive.
I don’t share with you your paramount concern with continuity. It seems to me like such an abstract concept. Our mores are changing so rapidly. Who knows what families will be like next generation.
Since you are talking in language of assuring future results with an unknown audience, let me use a similar metaphor: you are focussing on marketing the existing product instead of developing an excellent product. If you love a product, you’ll recommend it enthusiastically to your friends. You might even form a nice community around it. But trying to engineer community and continuity artificially is doomed to fail. It sounds hollow to all but those who care already about “continuity”.
Anyway, none of this has anything to do with Phil’s or anybody else’s standing in the I/P debate. Neither you nor me have a privileged voice at the Jewish table because we lived in Israel or any religious association.
Oh, and sorry if you found my comment obnoxious. It wasn’t meant to be.
annie robbins- If someone identifies as a Jew, I accept them as a Jew. When someone never before identified as a Jew, suddenly when the topic of Israel comes up they suddenly say, oh, I’m a Jew, I take a pause.
When someone advocates the dismantling of Zionist Israel, I wonder what they think about the survival of the Jewish people/culture.
That is the angle and perspective that I come from. If this is pretzel logic, I’ll take my pretzel without salt.
If someone identifies as a Jew, I accept them as a Jew. When someone never before identified as a Jew, suddenly when the topic of Israel comes up they suddenly say, oh, I’m a Jew, I take a pause.
I’m hugely inspired by Jews, who, until now, did not have any meaningful attachment to being Jewish, prior to discovering I/P.
The one thing that can provide for meaningful continuity is a values-based Judaism. If continuity is justified on the grounds of continuity alone, you could end up with nothing. No continuity and no values.
Your position puts you perilously close to labeling anti-Zionist Jews as not really Jews because of their anti-Zionism.
>> Your position puts you perilously close to labeling anti-Zionist Jews as not really Jews because of their anti-Zionism.
He’s not the first – and he won’t be the last – Zio-supremacist to decide that some Jews aren’t “real Jews” or “Jewish enough” or “correctly/properly Jewish”.
Us radicals on I/P have one thing in common with the AIPAC crowd. It sets us all apart from most regular folk.
For us, Israel is a central issue. If we spend all this time hanging out at this website then the issue is clearly significant to our identity as Americans/westerners/Jews(where that applies)/our humanity.
Most people would rather not mess with all this. The success of “denial” rests on the combination of the power of the entrenched system and the lack of interest of most people.
Let’s join forces with the AIPAC camp to convince the public how important this issue is.
wow. interesting idea. it does happen you know. it happens when CAP tries to sweep stuff under the rug and both the neocons and us join to say, let’s talk about this, theyr’e sweeping it
also Elliot, neocons and us share an interest: dividing the Dem party over this issue. i think it’s worth the divide. the Dems fear it more than high triglycerides
I’m pretty sure you were being ironic when you referred to Mondoweiss as (a)”radical base”. But for me, there’s nothing radical about Mondoweiss. This is where most Americans stand; I would be quite willing to bet…
I wasn’t being ironic. I was referring to the mainstream , or organized, Jewish community and the mainstream political world.
I hope most Americans agree with us but how does that change politics?
De-Nile is a river in Egypt.