One of my pet peeves is when reporters for mainstream media regard non-Jews’ religious identity as worthy of being known by listeners but see Jewishness as something not to be named. I cited an instance of this double standard recently, on National Public Radio. Well, it happened again 3 days ago, on the same radio network.
Susan Stamberg did a piece about William Friedkin, the movie director, and had this to say about the woman who plays the voice of the demon in Friedkin’s 1973 film The Exorcist, Mercedes McCambridge:
STAMBERG: McCambridge, a staunch Catholic who’d quit smoking and fought her alcoholism with help from AA, knew what she would need to turn her rich, gravelly voice into Friedkin’s demon: two priests in the studio at all times and her hands tied behind her back.-
FRIEDKIN: She wanted to sit in a position of being tortured. She wanted to drink raw eggs. She wanted quantities of Jack Daniels and cigarettes.
Good to know, about a bit player in Stamberg’s story. But when it came to the actual subject of the story, Stamberg had lots to say about Friedkin’s personal life and never said a word about religion. In fact, Friedkin’s autobiography, which Stamberg was reporting on, says at the start that his parents fled pogroms in Russia to come to the United States and has many other references to Jewishness, including the problem of finding a synagogue in Barbados when he married movie exec Sherry Lansing.
My interpretation of the double standard is that it is significant of the changing status of Jewishness in our society: and the reporters are apprehensive about anti-Semitism. Jews used to be outsiders, and it was cool to say someone was Jewish. But today Jewishness has a more complex resonance. We have power, including in the media (cf Stamberg, Lansing and Friedkin), our community organizations support the occupation, and neoconservatives were major players in a disastrous blunder, Iraq. Not so cool. I imagine this is why Stamberg bit her tongue.
Maybe that’s because McCambridge religion had relevance to the subject at
hand you know the whole exorcism thing while Friedkin’s not so much.
You really should try stop nitpicking this is getting ridiculous…
Weiss: “But today Jewishness has a more complex resonance. We have power”.
This troubles me. What do you mean “we”, white man? (NB: I have met Phil, and it is my impressiion that he is a “white man” as that phrase is used. So am I.) True, a lot of Jews have power, and they may want to stave off anti-Semitism or some other sort of backlash aimed against that having-power by being quiet about Jews-having-power, whilst showing it constantly in various ways.
We know Stamberg wants to hide Jewish presence — and we know that because she DOES it. OK, that’s Stamberg. Weiss, OTOH, wants to call attention to Jewish power. OK, that’s Weiss.
Weiss and Stamberg are not the same. Grouping them as “Jews in America” or whatever is not helpful. Hence my objection to that “we”.
Maybe it is part of that sickness we’ve seen elsewhere of Jews feeling [1] they are one big family [2] they must protect everyone in the family whatever their crimes or other behavior, [3] if one branch — Israel — goes off a deep end, lines up and dives off a cliff, then it is the duty of the rest to follow and support, (and dive). Garbage.
We human beings, Jews among us, are moral creatures, not lemmings. When some of us behave badly, it is the duty of the rest to oppose, not to “support our family” be it human-family, personal-family, Jewish-people-family.
Were my parents supposed to support and defend Bugsy Siegel just because he was Jewish? C’mon! And are Jews supposed to refuse to prosecute Jewish child-molesters just because the accused were Jews (and not Catholic Priests), and also just because there were not two witnesses?
As to “being Jewish”, at least as to that aspect of “being Jewish” which is religious, my sense is — and I invite comments — that neither religion, nor Judaism CAUSED or even importantly PARTICIPATED in the Zionist project — on the contrary, religious Jews opposed Zionism — but that, contrariwise, the Zionist Project has to such a great degree hijacked Judaism — replacing it as a religion in the minds of many Jews and others — so that people get confused and think Judaism reduces to pro-Zionism and that anti-Zionism is anti-Jewish-ism and that being Jewish implies a duty to support Israel.
Let’s try always to clear away confusion.
This fear of criticism of US enablement of the tiny rogue foreign state of Israel’s policies or conduct as somehow licensing “anti-semitism” will be the on-doing of America as both a superpower and as a universal values model state for others to emulate. America is sleepwalking into a nightmare of its own making. Kudos to the weak character of our elected Gentile officials and the American political campaign finance system.
Pabelmont, whether you’re Jewish or not, you certainly are confused. Yes, originally the very orthodox in old Israel-the Old Yishuv and its rabbis-were clearly opposed to zionism, as they saw it, correctly, as a secular movement out to replace religious observance and beliefs, despite the small religious zionists group amongst the zionists. The reform Jews, largely German, were more vociferously anti-zionist because they saw themselves as faithful Germans first, Jews secondary. Berlin replaced the vision of Jerusalem as the ultimate home/city of the future redemption. Need I say Hitler, the Holocaust, and the miracles of the 1948 war changed that, so that the old Yishuv rabbis gave defacto recognition to the Jewish state. They couldn’t deny the obvious miracles (the late Satmar rebbe did; hard to understand) nor the message there-Jews are here to stay in the Holy Land. Our faith and adherence to Torah is our mainstay, not zionism. Zionism achieved its goal in 1948, the rest is now survival and maintenance. And contrary to your pathetic views, the Palestinians are anything but helpless or perpetual victims of Jewish greed. They could negotiate for a state of their own, they have many supporters in the world who will give them endless amounts of money and backing if they build up a normal country that is accepting to live alongside Israel, which is here to stay (with G-d’s help). Because they reject ANY Israel/Jewish state, and only believe that its their G-d given right to own Palestine without those dhimmi Jews, they play the victim role, and continue to make their peoples’ lives miserable, ad infinitum, until, they think, “the world” will push Israel aside for them. Ain’t going to happen, and they need leaders who are mature enough to realize Israel is not only going to stay, but it’s a good thing too. Let them negotiate; how many offers by Israel have they refused, even refusing to suggest a counteroffer?
RE: “Stamberg bit her tongue” ~ Weiss
A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT ‘LADY LIBERTY’ (AMERICA) “BITING HER TONGUE” WRIT LARGE: “Shadows of Liberty”, 2012, 93 minutes
SOURCE – http://shadowsofliberty.org/the-film/
Internet Movie Database – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1543807/
● THE DOCUMENTARY “SHADOWS OF LIBERTY” (1:33:14) CAN BE STREAMED FOR THE NEXT WEEK OR SO FROM – http://shadows.kcetlink.org/