end of day

Posted on

Being new to Judaism, and not quite a Jew, yet, I am also new to antisemitism. And so, I wasted a day being cranky about the items below. I’m sure I did the right thing, but such knowledge doesn’t always take the knots out of your shorts. So that, and a mild headache, are my day.

4 thoughts on “end of day”

  1. Aside from the blatant stupidity of bringing the Holocaust into a discussion about Disney movies as though the violence were in anyway comparable, I’d suggest to him that he replace the word ‘Jewish’ in his little review with the word ‘American’ and see if he didn’t understand then where it was offensive.

  2. Sorry, I meant that for the post below… as I’m sure you can tell.

    I learned to become squeamish at any generalisation which targets a group (although I make them myself, urggh) because sooner or later, about half the time, even among polite company, and I don’t know why it happens but it seems some kind of bizarre inevitability, someone is going to make a blatantly antisemitic comment and then look around quizzically with the “What, what? What did I say?” look on his face.

    And people are always freakin’ pulling the Holocaust metaphor into their speech at completely inappropriate moments (“No, I know times are hard, but standing in line waiting for your pink ticket was really not very much like waiting to see if you’d be chosen for the gas chambers”–which was my response to one example of a comparison I heard recently) as though it were a metaphor and not an historical fact.

    Ah, well. I’m glad the headache was mild. Take care.

  3. A friend whom I was discussing this with said that he’s looking for the next big wave of antisemitism to come from the Left, actually. This is initially surprising to me, but if you read Why the Jews?, which is over there in my little allconsuming.net list of books, it makes sense.

    And, tnr has not even acknowledged that I sent them a letter 😛

  4. Actually, leftwing anti-semitism wouldn’t surprise me at all, given that zionism makes a lot of lefties very uncomfortable, and sooner or later a criticism of Israeli policies is bound to degrade into a criticism of Jews.

    Of course, the left is very skilled at this. In some circles, Bush-whacking swifty reduces into a rhetorical swordthrust at the capitalist/white/male hegemony. Although, being a leftie myself, I’d say in the context of our (rich,white,male) political clout, such criticism is correctly postulated, even if it can go a bit too far at times.

    It gets a bit more complicated with Levantine politics. You can’t, I think, apply the same simple formulas without falling into traps.

    I’m sure there’s more to it. I can think of quite a few other things, but the book you suggest no doubt does a good job. If I see it, I’ll check it out.

Comments are closed.