I'm glad for my dialogue with Ralph Seliger because while he hasn't convinced me of much–and I venture I've convinced him of even less–speaking selfishly, it's good to be reminded of my elders in my own community. We all have our communities, and I come out of the Jewish one.
So I'm thankful to Ralph for showing me the respect to call me out, and I'm sure he'll affect my tone, if not my arguments. That said, he's sure to be angry at me again, because I am not actively part of Jewish communal life and am alienated from Jewish organizational life, and that will not soon change.
Sorry if this sounds homiletic. My parents are here, I met some Russian Jewish refuseniks the other night, heard beautiful klezmer music last week just a walk from my house.
To the matter. Ralph doesn't like what Jack Ross said about him, and responds:
has to say here about a Hebrew-speaking state with all its citizens
equal before the law. Why Jack Ross should "roll his eyes" at the
notion of a Hebrew-speaking country is beyond me.
Also, we have Ross's bizarre notion that my combination of progressivism and Zionism means some species of "national socialism." I am sympathetic to social democracy but actually said nothing about socialism. And my "nationalism" is rather nominal and liberal.
I labored through the three 'antis' as he declares himself an
"anti-anti-anti-Semite"; it washes out to his being an anti-Semite. The
contempt and share hostility that drips from this guy's keyboard should
bother Phil. Instead, he gives him a platform.
I'll continue to give Jack a platform because he's a big universalist Jew who's studied history right to the glue on the bindings and has taught me a lot. (And yes, the Jew part is my security blanket.) He can be too fresh and impudent at times, but he's 23. He's struggling with how to be Jewish in this amazing new reality in which Israel has become an oppressor of Arabs under its control and Jews are empowered in the U.S. These conditions require creative thinking.
