Growing up, anti-Semitism was a constant topic of discussion. When I became a Rabbi more than two decades ago, I thought we were done. Jew hatred was the attention grabbing remnant of an earlier world. We had moved on -- Judaism was now about who we are, not about what others think. Foolish youth.
Reliably, once every few weeks there will be an issue in the news that casts anti-Semitic shadow. Most of the time it involves Israel, but often it is another issue -- the defacing of a synagogue, the banning of kosher meat in parts of Europe, the odious outburst of a Hollywood star or the anti-circumcision campaign marked by an ugly comic book with Jewish caricatures.
Again we are dragged into the morass I thought we had all left long ago. When I write something suggesting anti-Semitic undertones in these controversies, a chorus of oversensitivity accusers snaps unfailingly into action. Jews are too thin-skinned, we are told. Criticisms of Israel are not anti-Semitic. The synagogue was defaced by delinquents, not anti-Semites. Circumcision bans are about intactness, not antipathies. This predictable roundelay is repeated so many times that I feel as though I could just fill in the words and dance the steps for each side and be done with it.
But it keeps coming. Ugly speech is easy to find; there are examples high and low, from the university and the gutter. You would think the educated would be more delicate but cultural counter-examples abound: From Northern Irish poet Tom Paulin ("another little Palestinian boy/ trainer jeans and a white teeshirt/ is gunned down by the Zionist SS") to Caryl Churchill's widely discussed play in which the Israeli adult explaining how to portray the conflict to a child, says: "Tell her we killed the babies by mistake." The closing lines are: "Tell her I don't care if the world hates us, tell her we're better haters, tell her we're chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? Tell her all I feel is happy it's not her."
I choose these because they are the products of influential, educated, modern European writers. Anyone who monitors speech in the Arab world will find endless examples of Jews depicted as bloodsuckers, pigs, devourers of babies, etc. The specifics remind us of the shocking realization that deep, visceral antipathy toward Jews and Judaism is real and not confined to a single spot in the world. Judging by some of the discourse in Western Europe and especially Arab lands, the murder sixty-five years ago of one-third of the Jewish people did not eliminate or even diminish it. A Jew looking at the world from the perch of privilege, because certainly in America and in Israel Jews generally live very well, feels that the patina of self-confidence is layered over a fear not of what was, but of what is.
Anti-Semitism has never gone away. Still, how does one judge? When people clamor for justice in Israel but ignore massacres in Syria, Libya, starvation in North Korea, on and on -- are they interested in criticizing only if the malefactor is a Jew? Is it justice or hostility that the United Nations has censured Israel more than any other nation on earth, including nations where widespread rape, massacre and even genocide has been a feature of recent history such as The Congo, Bosnia and Rwanda? I understand the counter arguments. But I also know with a certainty that sickens me that in publishing this article there will be a flurry of hate filled responses. If I published an article on China, or Albania, or North Korea, or Ireland, or Russia or any other country on earth, there would be no cascade of hastily penned hatred toward its inhabitants.
Equilibrium is not easy when faced with relentless contempt and even homicidal rage. What would happen, I have often wondered, if the surrounding Arab nations had a superiority in firepower? Israel would face not merely defeat, but wholesale slaughter. Knowing that makes it impossible to dismiss the ripples of hatred elsewhere.
Of course not all criticism of Israel or even of Jews is anti-Semitic. In a tinderbox world, though, who has the confidence to dismiss the kindled match?
We would all like to believe that the ugliest parts of our history have been laid to rest. Each day furnishes consistent evidence to the contrary. So when Jews detect the whiff of anti-Semitism in campaigns that are ostensibly not about Jews (like the circumcision debate) is it really so irrational? Once you have faced a near-fatal illness, every twinge is a warning.
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There is a long and very interesting article in Wikipedia concerning circumcision and the law. Perhaps everyone should go read it before they get all hot under the collar and start making wild accusations.
I wonder how the author would feel if someone treated Israel exactly like they did countries with a history of brutality to their citizens? Does that change the character of the criticism?
Remarkably similar in look-and-feel to the story of the "Passions". Who talks that way? "I don't care if the world hates us"
In the "Passions" the alleged mob of angry Jews are purported to have told the Roman prefect Pilate: 'We don't care if he committed no crime, and we don't care if his blood be on our hands and all our offspring' . . .
That story likely started out the same way as the Churchill play . . . as an alleged paraphrase. Over time, it became accepted as God's perfected truth. In the case of the theatrical presentation, it only took months (not decades or centuries) to transform the story from a projected position to an alleged factually accurate one.
I told her I just look at it as a target rich environment.
BUDDHISM: If bad things happen, it isn't really bad.
HINDUISM: This bad thing happened before.
ISLAM: If bad things happen, it is the will of Allah.
PROTESTANTISM: Let bad things happen to someone else.
CATHOLICISM: If bad things happen, you deserved it.
ATHEISM: Bad things happen and religion is to blame for it.
AGNOSTICISM: We will never know why bad things happen.
SPIRITUALISM: Evil spirits cause bad things to happen.
MORMANISM: Too busy making children for bad things to happen.
JUDAISM: Why do bad things always happen to us?
"The specifics remind us of the shocking realization that deep, visceral antipathy toward Jews and Judaism is real and not confined to a single spot in the world. "
JUDAISM: Why do bad things always happen to us?
As far as the UN, we know that Petro run organization can never be objective, especially when it comes to Israel. Just look at UNSC Resolution 250 and the UNGA 3379 Resolution for examples.
"UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan admitted at the opening of the 61st General Assembly on September 20, 2006, that Israel is often unfairly judged at the United Nations. “On one side, supporters of Israel feel that it is harshly judged by standards that are not applied to its enemies,” he said. “And too often this is true, particularly in some UN bodies.”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/israel_un.html
but rather deflecting.
That is the law. The fact that, at present, it is applied only to female infants
does not negate its inherent power to extend equal protection to male infants.
There is something grossly out of proportion when of the ten emergency special sessions called by the United Nations General Assembly, six have been about Israel, and no emergency sessions have ever been called for the Rwandan genocide, ethnic cleaning in the former Yugoslavia, the invasion and destruction of Tibet by China, or the two decades of atrocities in Sudan – which together have killed over 3 million people -- never mind the atrocities committed by Iraq under Hussein or the terrorism of Syria and Iran. More than 1/4 of the resolutions condemning a state's human rights violations adopted by the UN Commission on Human Rights over the past 40 years have been directed at Israel. Has Israel perpetrated one quarter – or 1/100th or 1/1000th – of the human rights violations on this planet in the past 40 years?
Any reasonable assessment of the actions against Israel show a disproportion so blatant that some explanation, outside of Israel's actions, is necessary. And anti-semitism seems a very reasonable suggestion.
Stop your crocodile tears and be grateful for the patience of the UN. You're welcome.
I do recall several special sessions and resolutions with regards to Iraq, and if any countries constantly vetoed them, I would imagine that there would have been even more sessions about Iraq. I also believe that for much of the world that has lived under colonialism, there is something about the settlements that touch a nerve with the vast majority of the world that has lived under direct occupation and had their resources and land taken from them. We do have to remember that the occupation and direct military control of the West Bank is the longest current occupation so that may be a reason that Israel has garnered special attention.
I do think that bringing up anti-semitism in order to deflect attention from settlements has backfired, since being against settlements is a perfectly understandable, and quite frankly a moral position to take, in my opinion. Does anti-semitism exist? Of course it does, but I do feel that almost all critics of Israel are called anti-semitic(many of them unjustly) so that Israel does not have to bother looking into a solution.