Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 27 (since 2010-03-18 14:07:04)

evets

Showing comments 27 - 1
Page:

  • Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism
    • evets May 24, 2012 at 8:01 pm

      'I am not sure that “tacked on” is the right phrase.'

      I believe 'velcroed' would be more tasteful.

    • evets May 23, 2012 at 11:21 pm

      'As far as Hannah Arendt is concerned, why didn’t she just obt out of Judaism.'

      For one thing, it wouldn't have kept her from having to flee Germany.

    • evets May 23, 2012 at 11:19 pm

      'Was the universalist, humanistic interpretaion of Judaism an aberration? – Or
      - Is the Zionist, chauvinistic interpretation of Judaism the aberration?'

      I'd say neither. I think Rabbi Walt errs in implying that illiberal Judaism is somehow aberrant or inauthentic. It's no less authentic than his more liberal Judaism. The question is which of these valid interpretations will dominate. I'm rooting for his approach, but I'm not overflowing with optimism.

    • evets May 23, 2012 at 5:56 pm

      'I believe Judaism has to get back to this or there is simply no point in wearing those kippot.'

      I agree, and I wear one and sometimes it feels heavy.

    • evets May 23, 2012 at 5:49 pm

      As Y Leibowitz once said -- 'The messiah who comes is always a false messiah.'

  • Aharon Appelfeld's rage at the German language (and Arendt's need for it)
    • evets May 21, 2012 at 6:04 pm

      I think 'Jewish' is sometimes preferred because 'Jew' was often used as a slur (noun, adj or verb). 'Jew' acquired a derogatory flavor and hasn't entirely lost it.

  • Feeling the hate in Long Island
  • Walzer says Jews were on the left because the left supported Jews
    • evets May 17, 2012 at 10:26 pm

      But what Israel does will serve as a commentary on what Judaism is. It could narrow possibilities, close down paths.

    • evets May 17, 2012 at 10:23 pm with 2 replies

      I wasn't talking specifically about Israel, the hard Jewy center.

    • evets May 17, 2012 at 8:48 pm

      I'm almost certain Walzer still self-defines as a social democrat and liberal Zionist (in the Beinart ballpark). I don't think he's changed his stripes politically. I suppose he's no longer using the Biblical text as some kind of support for his politics; it doesn't sound like he'd consider that valid in general.

      As for "We have supported the people who support us.” -- I think he means that Jews have usually embraced the political side that helps their team. I don't think he's claiming that he forms his own politics that way.

    • evets May 17, 2012 at 1:53 pm with 6 replies

      I remember reading a book by an Israeli author (in Hebrew) about 15 years ago, which made an argument similar to the one Kirsch ascribes (maybe a little tendentiously?) to Walzer's new book -- that Jewish religious consciousness was so consumed by God that there was no room for politics, no template for secular governance. Can't remember the book title. Still, it doesn't sound like Walzer's quite reached the Podhoretz approach to the prophets, which strips them of any universalist intent.

      In any case, whatever the original intent, many have taken both conservative and radical lessons from the Biblical text. And it hasn't all been an exercise in finding backup for externally conceived moral/political notions. Though I suppose you could argue that much of it has been an exercise in creative misreading.

      I believe Walzer still defines himself as a leftist, regardless of how he now explains that orientation. I don't think he's saying that he himself sided with the left simply because it was good for the Jews. I think he's making a sociological not a prescriptive statement, that many Jews were on the left for reasons that had to do with self-interest.

      Anyways -- to get a little post-Biblical, I've always been struck by the fact that the first order of the Mishnah (the ground floor of the Talmud) is overwhelmingly concerned with redistribution of wealth and goods. Depending on your predilection you could say this is an instance of Jews looking out primarily for the welfare of other Jews, or you could try to extrapolate a bit, and say that Judaism argues for a society concerned with the welfare of all.

  • Peter Beinart's cognitive dissonance on 'threats to Israel's demographics'
    • evets May 16, 2012 at 12:04 pm

      I have little problem with what seafoid said. Politically we may be quite close. The original comment by American and some (not all) of the respondents to my question had a very different tone -- thus my remark about elders of Zion etc. I'm not sure how my response qualifies as hasbara. I wasn't trying to explain away anything. In fact, I complimented seafoid on a comment that was manifestly devoid of hasbara.

    • evets May 16, 2012 at 11:12 am

      OK -- that's a reasoned response. It doesn't conjure up images of the elders of Zion sitting in a basement and scheming, or intimate that there's some basic Jewish need to extract a pound of flesh.

    • evets May 16, 2012 at 11:08 am

      'he didn’t feel it necessary to call him a fascist'

      or Newclenchian

    • evets May 15, 2012 at 4:13 pm with 12 replies

      Do you feel that the Zionist movement was born out of greed and a desire for domination ?

    • evets May 15, 2012 at 1:16 pm with 1 replies

      I think Newclench makes some good points. I'm less optimistic about prospects for a deal, though I'd certainly be supportive. However, I'm equally pessimistic about being able to rewind the clock and achieve full justice as his detractors demand. Getting anywhere close would be a great achievement.

      BTW - Lerner challenged Beinart on some his basic premises in that interview, but he didn't feel it necessary to call him a fascist.

  • Liberal Zionists are afraid their parents will reject them if they come out
    • evets May 11, 2012 at 3:19 pm with 1 replies

      Not having been at a J Street conference I wonder if it's considered necessary to proclaim love for Israel, recount teen adventures, romantic evenings etc. in order to then have the standing to say something critical. Not that she said much that was critical in any detailed sense.

    • evets May 11, 2012 at 3:10 pm with 27 replies

      Shmuel -

      Out of curiosity -- when you were in your 'patriotism' phase, were you simply softening the opinions you express in the 2nd paragraph (so as not to offend, court rejection etc.)? Or did you change internally from critical patriotism to unlove?

  • 'NYT' exposes pattern of Ultra Orthodox community covering up sexual abuse, punishing accusers
    • evets May 10, 2012 at 4:35 pm

      Yeah but the article in general is concerned with something gone badly wrong in the ultra-Orthodox community. That's the thrust. That's the taste it leaves in the mouth. And that's the taste it should leave. But, to the extent that Phil Weiss focuses disproportionately on flaws in the Jewish world unconnected to the I/P situation, his case against Israeli actions can be construed as part of a general obsession with Jewish misbehavior. I don't think it helps his cause.

    • evets May 10, 2012 at 2:02 pm with 10 replies

      Fair enough, but you could argue that the Joe Paterno post showed he was concerned about injustice in all its forms. That would add weight to his concern about Israel's behavior towards Palestinians, make it harder to claim he was just going after Jewish malfeasance.

      This post makes it seems like he's mainly interested in injustice (or abuse) committed by Jews. It then undermines his concern about Israel's behavior towards Palestinians.

  • Why I Am Not a Liberal Zionist: A response to the Huffington Post's 'Liberal Zionists Speak Out'
    • evets May 9, 2012 at 4:20 pm

      'Minority groups in Norway can be Norwegian; minority groups in England can be English; even minority groups in Israel can be Israeli, but they can't be Jewish!'

      I'm surprised someone as intelligent as Walzer didn't see this obvious counter to his statement.

  • Publicly-funded Hebrew charter schools serve as 'vanguard' for Israel --Forward
    • evets May 9, 2012 at 2:08 pm with 1 replies

      From what I hear many (most?) of those pushing for these schools want alternatives to expensive, primarily modern Orthodox, Jewish day schools. In those schools the half-day of Jewish studies combines religious subjects with a celebration of Israel. Since the religious studies aren't permissible in a charter school, you're simply left with the Israel advocacy. It would be interesting to know how much this differs from other language-specific charter schools.

  • Beinart warns Jews that not talking to Palestinians and anti-Zionists 'makes us stupid'
    • evets May 4, 2012 at 9:49 am

      I suspect Beinart exaggerates the tribal element in his attachment to Judaism in order to show he's 'on the team' and thereby gain the ear of his target audience. It looks like he's trying hard to balance Judaism's particularist and universalist impulses, a difficult high wire act, but one which (I believe) authentic Judaism demands. Most religious Jews have simply chosen to reject this tension, toss out the universalism, and declare themselves (like Gordis) more authentic for doing so.

      I respect Beinart's efforts and hope he keeps his balance. It's tough enough to do in private, let alone in the face of a hostile public.

  • Dershowitz gets booed for warning Israel supporters not to boo Obama
    • evets May 3, 2012 at 7:55 am

      Glick's website bio seems to indicate that she wasn't brought up in a religious environment but rather in the frighteningly liberal enclave of Hyde Park in Chicago, a place she deems anti-American and anti-Israel and thus the perfect fit for someone like Barack Obama.

      She escaped, she says, as soon as she could.

  • Shmully and guilt
    • evets April 26, 2012 at 5:00 pm

      As for the dream, Phil -- I believe the Jets are about to undergo seven lean years and you are meant to save them.

      Please see what you can do.

  • If we dont run the media, we should, because we're better
    • evets August 11, 2010 at 5:22 pm with 1 replies

      Phil -

      Isn't this web site an example of Jewcentricity? I've often wondered why a universalist like yourself, so averse to all forms of ethnocentrism, focuses so fiercely on one ethnic group.

  • Katrina to Birthright to Gaza--a young Jew's progress
    • evets March 18, 2010 at 2:33 pm with 1 replies

      "With the Enlightenment and the reduction in Rabbinical control, it appeared that the Jews would assimilate into the surrounding Gentile communities, becoming just another religion. But then came Zionism...."

      The surrounding Gentile communities weren't, in the end, particularly hospitable. You might want to look into something called the Dreyfuss Affair and its effect on a young Austrian Jewish jounalist named Herzl, who had long espoused complete Jewish assimilation into the surrounding culture. After Dreyfuss, he reluctantly turned in another direction for a solution to the 'Jewish question'. He called it Zionism, feeling no need, as you do, to add the clarifier 'Judeo'.

      I'm somewhat sympathetic to the political positions taken by those who run this site, though I do have my differences. Responses like Keith's make me come here less and less. My feelings about Judeo-demonization seem to mirror his about Judeo-Zionism.

Showing comments 27 - 1
Page:

Comments are closed.