The end of anti-Semitism?
According to one European respondant to my most recent post, Anti-Semitism: History and Denial, "except for a very small rabid core of lunatics, anti-Semitism has more or less died out in Europe. Nobody hates Jews simply because they are Jews anymore." Since he reads and responds to materials in The Jerusalem Post and acknowledges the European slaughter of its Jews today known as the Holocaust, he appears more philo- than anti-Semitic. So how explain the disconnect between his belief regarding the disappearance of European anti-Semitism, and recent studies indicating exactly the opposite? In February, 2009, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published the results of its survey, Attitudes Toward Jews in Seven European Countries. The study found that fully forty percent of those surveyed hold anti-Semitic views. Commenting on these results, Abraham H. Foxman, the ADL's national director, said, "It is distressing that there seems to be no movement away from the constancy of anti-Semitic held views, with accusations about Jew[ish] disloyalty, control [of press and finance] and responsibility for the death of Jesus." And while another ADL study reports a drop in the number of Americans holding such views, that number was still 30 million, a not very consoling statistic for our American Diaspora. These numbers describe the statistical spread of anti-Semitism in 2009, sixty years after the Holocaust. How do they compare to levels of anti-Semitic belief during the years of WWII? Or, put another way, is there a threshold at which anti-Semitism undergoes a transformation, from latent to lethal? The downfall of a cynic
While I was searching for the group of German and Israeli "Young Leaders" at the airport in Munich, I don't quite know what I was expecting. We were told by the organizers that we were "chosen" for an Israeli-German dialogue, which entailed spending one week together in Germany and later on, one more week in Israel. The Bertelsmann Stiftung, one of the most prominent media groups in Europe, had taken it upon itself the seemingly ambitious task of making young Germans and Israelis a little less cynical about life in general and one another in particular. During that walk, alone in the airport, I was beginning to revisit my reasons for choosing to apply to this program... What was I thinking of? How could I be so naïve as to think that one could compare a people-to-people dialogue between Germans and Israelis to one which may take place between Israelis and Arabs in general, and Palestinians in particular? So what if in both stories the two protagonists had/have enough historical baggage between them to make one's mind boggle? After a round of very polite introductions, we were marched off to our bus, to be taken to a little get-away about half an hour's drive from Munich - or in less diplomatic words, the middle of nowhere. We politely sat around the table - Israelis apart and Germans apart - and spent the entire evening getting acquainted with our own countrymen/women. What began in slow motion quickly turned into a Great Trek - one activity followed another. Early morning to late at night, and all throuought the day, Israelis and Germans ate, spoke, danced, participated in seemingly idiotic group-dynamics and laughed together. Oh, we laughed and laughed and laughed, each joke coated with a thick layer of cynicism, which made life and the Stiftung seem all the more funny. But slowly, something began to happen. The idiotic group dynamics turned into more serious discussions, as we began strolling through a seemingly uncensored path into German society-foreign affairs, the integration (or lack thereof) of foreigners, the structured method of German education, the makings of a national narrative burdened with history - and the impact thereof on "young German leaders." Little by little, we began to draw analogies and highlight the differences between our two societies. We tried hard to comprehend the complexities of each nation's so-called national characteristics. Intermarriage - straight talk or just more of the same?
The following is the selected post from this week writers' submission contest. Want to get published too? Give it your best shot Previously published posts: Human Rights Watch earns its pay Settlements were never the problem Gaza, Goldstone and Gallstones Is Obama ready to speak his mind? With a challenging title like "Time for Straight-Talk about Assimilation," I expected some real ground-breaking stuff from this article. Instead, it ended up being just more of the same; another sad "How 'Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?" lament about the disappearance of American Jewry in the face of assimilation and intermarriage. Albert Einstein is purported to have said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Another definition might be: asking the same question over and over again and expecting a different answer. Let's see if we can ask some different questions and perhaps come up with some slightly different answers. Are assimilation and intermarriage the fundamental issues confronting the Jewish people today? No. Both are simply facts of life in an open society. And if you perceive open societies to be a threat, then the solution is provided by the Ghettos and Shtetls of the Haredim and Hassidim, who by all accounts have a very low dropout rate. The reason why both assimilation and intermarriage (they are related but not identical) have come to be seen as threats is that mainstream Judaism fails to provide basic, relevant, satisfying and timely answers to the question "why be (or remain) Jewish?" It then largely fails to provide paths for those who choose or have a non-Jewish partner - but who wish to remain within the Jewish fold - to integrate him/her and their offspring into the Jewish community. The most noble prize
It's old news by now that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times suggested that the Nobel committee did the president no favors by awarding the prize prematurely, yet encouraged him to accept it on behalf of the American military, the world's peacekeepers. A day later, Ross Douthat argued in the Times that the president should turn down the honor. Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, an admirer and supporter of the president, admits that the Nobel Peace Prize is about "doing and not being." There is still time for the Nobel committee to redeem themselves next year: award the Nobel Peace Prize to me. Unlike the president, I am seeking it. I make peace daily. I hold bipartisan negotiations all the time. In fact, I regularly have tripartite summits, not all that dissimilar from the 2009 beer summit with President Obama, Professor Gates and Officer Crowley. Just yesterday, my son received some monetary compensation for folding the laundry and cleaning his room. His older sister was none too happy. She helps clean the house every Friday and gets no compensation. She sat on him, and he hit her. As with all conflicts in the Middle East, matters escalated rapidly. He touched her Ipod, she took his rock collection. All-out war loomed. Anti-Semitism, history and denial
According to one respondent to my recent article, Understanding the Holocaust: Shoah in Historical Perspective, Jews should "seek the causes (for anti-Semitism) in our own acts." Self-blame is not an uncommon response to tragedy. Rape victims come immediately to mind. But what motivates the idea that we Jews, by our own actions, invite anti-Semitism and are somehow responsible for the Holocaust? Several years ago, a prominent Israeli rabbi attributed the massacre of a busload of children by terrorists as divine punishment for the "sins of Israelis." As if god targets children, using terrorists to carry out his will. In the wake of the Shoah, seeking to somehow explain the inexplicable, some orthodox Diaspora leaders suggested that the Holocaust was god's punishment for the sins of our people in Europe. But as in the Israeli bus massacre, most of the Jews who fell victim to the European slaughter, during and for centuries before the Shoah, were mostly the pious and the poor, those least likely to be halachic "transgressors." And was the hand of god also present in the elimination of eastern Europe's famed Hassidic centers? The murder of orthodox communities dedicated to a life of learning and Halachic tradition? Jews have experienced anti-Judaism during most of our Diaspora existence, and at great cost in life. As I observed in my earlier post, one prominent Holocaust research center suggests that, had Jewry not been subject to two millennia of European persecution our numbers today would equal that of the entire British Isles! Since we had never before experienced anything on the scale of Shoah, though, we could not have anticipated, taken evasive or direct action to the emerging danger. Yes, there were those few, Jabotinsky and Abba Kovner, for example, who by intuition born of their Zionist background were more sensitive and alert to the unfolding events. But Martin Buber was more typical of general Jewish understanding and response: anti-Semitism was a pendulum that was now at its extreme. Germany would, he believed, sooner or later pass through that terrible period and life would return to normal for the Jews. Buber urged German Jewry to remain in place, to wait out the storm. Understanding the Holocaust: the Shoah in historical context
"One estimate suggests that had Diaspora Jewry not faced two thousand years of Christian wrath our present population would have equaled that of the entire British Isles." Anti-Semitism is called The Longest Hatred. Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and author, refers to the Shoah as unique and "mysterious." What purpose do such descriptions serve, what are their implications? If, for example, anti-Semitism has been around so long, is it a "universal," a culturally neutral response to Jewry and Judaism? Or is the phenomenon culturally specific, the belief system of a specific group at different points in time and history? Who is responsible for holding to, or acting on that hatred; Hitler, Germany, Europe, or Christendom entire? Is the Holocaust truly a mysterious and unique event in history? Or is it explicable, an event generations in the making, the dark heart of a religion of "love" and "forgiveness"? Perhaps the best way to distinguish anti-Judaism/anti-Semitism from pre-Christian prejudice is to ask how polytheistic, pre-Christian pagan society viewed their monotheistic neighbors. To the Greeks and Romans Judaism was certainly different and strange. But so, to some extent, were the various pagan belief systems strange to each other. Jews asserted a single, invisible deity and this, combined with dietary and other rituals, set them apart. But overall, Jews living either as a state among neighboring states, or in Diaspora among polytheistic neighbors, were just another people in the mix. In fact, within the Diaspora, and particularly in Rome itself, many of the Jews' pagan neighbors found Judaism attractive due to its one god and ancient history. In the decades before the destruction of the Temple many converted to the religion, while many others, the so-called "God-fearers," chose to live as Jews without taking the final step of conversion. The appeal of Judaism even reached into the Imperial Roman household itself, where history records several conversions. It was in the Diaspora that the new and soon to break away sect of messianic Judaism, future Christianity, was to take root. Modern anti-Semitism owes its origins to the efforts of that newly-emerging sect, a sect born in the despair leading up to and following the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. In an effort to distinguish itself from Judaism for purposes of legitimacy, and in competition for converts, nascent Christianity exonerated Rome for the crucifixion of Jesus and placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Jews. Hasbara needed in Argentina
"Put away the camera! Are you crazy? Somebody will see you soon and this will end very badly," burst out my Argentinean friend when I attempted to photograph some very visible anti-Israeli graffiti in the main square of Buenos Aires. The graffiti, which called for the end of the Israeli occupation, was sprayed on the front wall of one of the national museums. "Skinheads are everywhere, and they're just looking for someone to hassle," added Lionel, a young Jew who works as a programmer. The fear I saw in his face at that moment gave me food for thought with regard to Argentina's true identity - The one the average Israeli backpacker never encounters. The average Israeli traveler, who has just finished army service and is on a carefree journey in South America, is in fact protected - although he/she doesn't know it - by the language barrier, and by a limited social environment consisting of other Israelis. These two factors are the main reasons for his lack of awareness of the extreme incidents that often occur right under his nose. Apartment hunting in Tel Aviv
Shelter being one of the most basic necessities of human survival, picking the right apartment in Tel Aviv is crucial. Location, roommates, air conditioning and arnona (municipal tax) are all critical factors in the decision making process. I heeded the advice of some of my Israeli friends and logged onto Homeless.co.il and Yad 2. It seemed an easy enough task: choose a darling apartment from the hundreds of listings. What no one told me is the speed at which darling apartments are snatched up. To meet friends for a one-hour coffee break is to have missed out on eight apartments being posted and rented. But I managed to compile a list of prospective homes. I roamed the streets of Tel Aviv from the port to Florentine, seaside to city center. The cheap ones always came with an insurmountable flaw; no fridge, no windows, no door. And the expensive ones always came with a catch; no smoking, no friends, no fun. I encountered some of Tel Aviv's most colourful citizens. There was the performance artist whose room was wallpapered in Britney Spears posters. And the goth girl who painted spiders on every piece of furniture. The stoners who couldn't remember making an appointment for me to see the apartment. And the young lawyer whose fridge and cupboard were completely filled with different varieties of honey. I rode up elevators that could only accommodate delicately-boned children. And I walked down crumbling stairwells advertised as having that "original Bauhaus charm." The process was not only physically demanding (the walking, the walking back, the climbing), but egotistically draining. It is a job interview that not only takes into account your work history, but your age, physical appearance and propensity to party. To your question, Quentin
Quentin Tarantino arrived in Tel Aviv last month for the glorious premiere of Inglorious Basterds. "I am here to find out how the Jewish people might feel when they see my new film," he was quoted saying. Well, Quentin, without further ado, to your question. (Or: this is what a Jew might feel when she sees your film.) Of Inglorious Basterds. Were Richard Goldstone (of the UN Human Rights Council) to walk out of your movie, just a few days after releasing his bashing report against the Jewish State, he'd probably be saying to his wife, "See darlin', Quentin is as right as I was. These Jews are all about 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.'" Only while Goldstone has accused the Jewish state of purposely targeting the Gaza civilians during Operation Cast Lead, you, Quentin, have been slightly less imaginative, and contemplated a Jewish-American commando targeting the Nazis. Indeed, your ability to fathom and bring to life a concept as profound as Inglorious Basterds suggests that your decade's research of the Jewish psyche does deserve some serious acclaim. For, in a two-worded, typoed nick-for-a-nation, you have plunged a finger into one of our nation's deepest, bloodiest wounds. Is Obama ready to speak his mind?
President Obama's address at the United Nations on 23 September gave some indication that he would soon be releasing his own plan for achieving the creation of a new Arab state between Israel and Jordan - the so called "two-state solution" - that has avoided the best efforts of previous American presidents for the last sixteen years. In his carefully crafted address he made the following statement:
No doubt Obama had hoped that his fruitless trilateral meeting with Abbas and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu the previous day would have enabled him to tell the United Nations that negotiations were soon to resume. That was not to be. To compound his irrational stance, Abbas has now insisted that he would not enter into any negotiations unless their end result would be the withdrawal by Israel from every inch of territory occupied by it since the Six Day War in 1967. [Wafa Palestine News Agency 22 September 2009]. Netanyahu - and previous Israeli governments - have made it clear Israel would not be obliging Abbas in this demand. President Obama appears to have supported Netanyahu on this issue by pointedly not calling for an Israeli return to the territorial position that existed at 4 June 1967 - but merely an end to the occupation that began in 1967. Obama's insistence that Israel be recognised as a Jewish state also is completely at odds with Abbas' long standing refusal to accept such a proposal. Given the above, it is extremely unlikely that Abbas is politically strong enough to get off his high horse, lose face and resume negotiations with Israel without preconditions. Hamas - and Fatah, his own faction - will ensure this does not happen. His preferred course will be to employ the tactics of the past and engage in rhetoric accusing the Israel lobby of controlling Obama and Congress and totally ignoring the victims of the conflict and their ongoing suffering. |
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