I “insist”? Really? Well then kindly point out to me where, in that short post, I conflated Antisemitism and US/Israeli policies once; never mind the illusionary insistence you speak of. :rolleyes:
As for the topic of the film, it might do you well to actually watch the darn thing as opposed to going by whatever synopsis you appear to have read. For it basically breaks down into two intertwined parts. An irreverent* profile of Abe Foxman and the ADL in their quest to find anti-Semitism whether real or perceived, and a more somber look at the indoctrination (the “us” vs “them” siege mentality) the High School kids portrayed in the film appear to be under.
Looking at the former, Yoav Shamir gives us what seems to be a candid inside take on not just the obvious power of Foxman – the meeting with the Ukranian PM a clear example of that, as Foxman admonishes the man on the way Ukraine should deal with the The Holocaust – but also the motivation of some of its non-religious members, i.e. identification with Israel as both a ‘troubled but loved child’ and a ‘necessary refuge’ in (possible) times of need. This part of the film also gives voice to a number of dissenting Jews (some already mentioned, some not. Such as the Crown Heights rabbi, who expresses his disapproval of Foxman and the ADL ‘product’ with sound skepticism) as well as a number of black members of the community.
The part involving the kids, to me, simply questions if this is the right and/or only way to teach them about their tragic and recent past. It was both sad and hopeful to watch, as some of kids themselves question the methods used – a particularly poignant moment shows one one girl expressing frustration for not feeling angry/sad as she’s apparently supposed to. OTH and as already mentioned upthread, there’s a few of them that do seem rather hateful and distrustful of outsiders.
*Which is why I called the director “Moorish.” As in America’s own MM.
– bolding mine.
I suppose this is where I get to thank you for making my exact point. And Shamir’s and that of many others Jews depicted in the film…and obviously any of those that dare not toe the line dictated by the Israeli Government and their devoted American brethren.
No no no. It’s that, sure, we have centuries upon centuries of a recurring pattern where Jews get comfortable in a nation, make a life for themselves and then are used as a scapegoat and tormented by the majority.
But also, ya know, the Etruscan civilian fell and the Pict tribes were absorbed by other tribal groups.
So anti-Semitism doesn’t exist.
Good god man, does he have to draw you a map?
It’s as plain as the hooked nose on your face!
Oooh, with bonus Dual Loyalty insinuation. Neato!
Any time now Red, feel free to identify the reasoning behind naming every American politician who you can remember and whose names
‘sound Jewish’, and accusing them all of being potential Jewish Traitors.
Don’t worry, if someone named everybody they could think of with dark skin who ‘looked black’ and accused them all of being potential watermelon thieves, people would only say that was a racist accusation because of Israel. Of course.
Probably in the bit where you engaged in your normal song and dance about how any criticism of “all that’s Right with Israel” means that one is an “Anti-Semite and/or self-hating Jew”.
Ah yes, that “indoctrination”, since anti-Semitism isn’t a global problem and Israel doesn’t have two genocidal factions at its borders.
Luckily we have folks like you, looking out for what’s best for the Jews.
Ah well, darn those* Bad Jews* (not like the Good Jews**, who question whether they’re supposed to feel sadness about Ha Shoah), clannish and hateful and distrustful of “outsiders”.
Not, ya know, hateful of Nazis and their heirs and uneasy in a nation like Poland with a long, virulent history of anti-Semitism and a modern contingent of anti-Semites in politics as well a number of skinheads.
Surely, it’s the clannish thing, those hateful clannish bastards distrustful of outsiders.
Do you at read the posts you cut from? The world did not act to stop the genocide; countries responded to attacks against them and to the threat of future attacks against them. And while doing so they did nothing to stop the genocide.
You may be amused to know that in Israel itself the political demands of the ultra-orthodox to have social matters adjusted their own way raise great dislike against them … among Jews.
Point here is that they are an unrepresentative minority.
It may be subject for another thread, but in strictly military terms ignoring the Nazi genocides made perfect, if cold-hearted, sense. After all, the Nazi obsession with killing off sizable numbers of their own subject peoples was doing the Nazis nothing but harm - for example, tying up much-needed railway stock at a time where there was none to spare even for shipping vital war supplies. It was in their enemies’ interests that the Nazis be distracted by irrelevant self-harming idiocy like that.
Hilarious. I wonder if the Parti Québécois would dare to air that ad with “say no to money and the ethnic vote!” as the slogan. "After all, it ran in Israel … "
That’s why they took it off the air so fast it’s a wonder it ran all the way though. Not because people thought it was racist, but because it could be perceived as racist by outsiders. Plus, it made people think of Josef Goebbels, and not in a good way.
It’s interesting… through the first few viewings the impact is still obvious to me. Something like “We don’t like the ultra-orthodox having a legislative lock on the process due to swinging their votes in a block.”
But I guess to some it doesn’t look like “these are Jews criticizing other Jews for their politics.” but “Look at how Jews are!”
I don’t understand why nothing is ever analogous to the Holocaust. FinnAgain argues why it’s different from slavery–a notion that is so facile that I don’t know why he bothered. Analogies, by definition, are different. But why are the two not comparable? Why is this country’s history with black people not analogous with Jewish hatred in general?
The Shoah is something so painful and horrible that Jewish people feel as if they own it. And perhaps they are entitled to this feeling…I’m not passionate enough to argue for or against this. But to shut down ANY dialogue by saying it’s not analogous to this or that incident of oppression is to make people like me–folks who are very sympathetic to what Jewish people have been through–ANGRY. It is frustrating to be shut down like that. Just as it was frustrating watching Foxman be so condescending to the Ukrainian PM, who hadn’t uttered a single word about the Ukrainian famine as far as we could tell.
And Jewish people that I have encountered in real life have had no problems comparing their histories and lives with my people’s history and life experience. That’s why I have so many Jewish people in my circle…we tend to see things on the same wavelength a lot of time. It’s only on this board where I am met with walls of self-righteousy paragraphs about how Everything about the Jews is Different and Therefore Special. Usually written by FinnAgain. Parallels in experience exist. For instance, it stings when black people are told to shut up about racism. It stings with Jewish people are told to shut up about anti-Semitism. But one rarely hears about Jews playing the “anti-Semitism” card…at least in MY experience (and I admit that I may not have a sensitive enough radar.) For once in my life, I got to see Jewish people doing things that my people have been accused of doing by so many, for so long–playing the “victim” card. I do not think the filmmaker created these people out of thin air, although–as I have said repeatedly–I think he didn’t try too hard to show the full picture. But it was interesting to ME to see that they in fact exist…and it would trouble me if there is a possibility that they are guilting people into doing things that are against our country’s best interest.
No one has yet to explain why this is so improbable. The documentary certainly showed how it isn’t, so I obviously need to hear the other side and be, as they say, edjumacated. And apologies for my ignorance, but I don’t know Finklestein from Finklefoot. Therefore, I’m not impressed by the sweeping condemnation of him and the other controversial figures shown in the film. (For context, I was raised by a mother who taught me that the more controversial a person is, the more likely he or she is to be telling the truth. I don’t agree with my mother on a lot of things…but if all I hear from people is “Oh that guy! Don’t listen to him!” I can’t help but hear my mother saying, “Girl, you better listen to him!”)
You have my sympathies. Sincerely. I don’t know what it’s like to lose close family members to oppression. I imagine it is terrible.
The reason I snapped at Shmedrick is because he was going down that alley of “woe is us” that I didn’t want to go into. So the countries weren’t actively trying to save the Jews…I never SAID they were. I’m not a naive teenager who doesn’t understand geopolitics or the history of WWII. I did not need that particular lesson.
But I see a double-standard here. If I were to say the Civil War was bullshit because it wasn’t about freeing the slaves, people would be jumping all OVER me. I would be seen as an ingrate, or someone with a giant chip on her shouder, trying to be all controversial and junk. So even though people are always patting themselves(!) on the back for what the Union did for slavery, I say nothing. Because I know what I’d get in return. It’s not worth it.
So I was being petty and giving Shmedrick the same treatment that black people who talk about slavery get all the time. I apologize, Shmedrick. That’s usually not my style. But FinnAgain’s Holier-Than-Thou Approach to Jews and Everything Jewish really works a sista’s nerves.
I hear you, DSeid. And through your words, I hear my words. My frustration. My anger. My sadness. My desire to turn back the clock and have history play out differently. But it seems like it’s taboo around here for me to relay my sympathy to you because I might risk drawing “too many comparisons” between the black experience and the Jewish experience. And we can’t have that…even though in the 1960s, we didn’t seem to have that problem so much. What changed, I wonder? Why are we now on two opposite sides, rather than standing together?
You know, it’s funny that you would say this. Because I distinctly remember you calling me out for asking about the prevalence of anti-black racism in this country. It was during the Obama campaign, and I was venting my frustration at people’s readiness to call racism an over-and-done-with deal, when recent evidence in the media was showing that not to be the case. You told me all I was doing was ranting and basically dismissed the problems I was pointing out. But now you seem to be agreeing with me. A few decades ago both Jewish people and black people were treated just as good as mud. We both agree. So why does it seem like we’re always fighting one another when it comes to race discussions?
Yeah, that’s a pretty disgusting piece of fiction monstro, and you should probably retract that shit. It’s interesting that you’ve gone straight from the fact that Jews and blacks aren’t fungible, and the persecution they experienced isn’t fungible, and the Holocaust isn’t comparable with slavery… to making up bullshit about how anybody (let alone me) has said that “Everything about the Jews is Different and Therefore Special”.
You should try not getting ANGRY when the fact that two events aren’t analogous is pointed out to you.
“I want to compare these two things.”
“Well, they’re really not comparable due to…”
“HULK SMASH!!!”
It’s hard to credit you being annoyed by something that never actually happened and that you’ve made up. I’m now quite interested to find out what’s really “getting on your nerves” and causing you to talk bullshit about Jewish exceptionalism that you’ve had to invent.
Care to elaborate?
Rather disingenuous of you, don’t you think?
You tried to equate a possible narrative of slavery with the modern Jewish narrative of the holocaust. You were using blacks/Jews, and the Holocaust/slavery, and blacks’/Jews’ reactions to them, as if they were fungible. I explained that. And no, of course the two aren’t comparable. One was an organized attempt to wipe an entire ethnic group off the face of the planet, the other was the treatment of certain Africans and those of African descent as property. Being butchered by the Nazis is no more “like being a slave” than slavery was “like being butchered by the Nazis”. Just like slaves in Saudi Arabia now don’t know “what it was like to be in the antebellum South” any more than they know “what it was like to be in Auschwitz”.
Slavery and the Holocaust were both simply atrocities that happened, and were based on race. That’s about it.
You’ve been given the answer to that too. Cycles of acceptance/prosperity followed by backlash/persecution over centuries and in many different countries is different from the black experience in America. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
We had someone recently make this claim, too. However, all the major Holocaust museums and memorial sites, pretty much invariably, note that the Holocaust involved roughly equal numbers of Jews and gentiles who were butchered. It’s very interesting that you see that as “Jewish people” trying to “own it” and get “ANGRY” to the point where you make up stuff about how anybody’s said “Everything about the Jews is Different and Therefore Special”.
Because you’d be factually incorrect. The civil war was a war over slavery.
WWII, on the other hand, was not about helping the Jews.
FinnAgain and monstro: both of you need to have this debate without making comments about each other personally or suggesting the other poster is being dishonest.
I pointed out the facts, namely that “Everything about the Jews is Different and Therefore Special” was a fictional argument, one that monostro created, and one that she applied to me. Those are all facts. Honesty never entered into the discussion. For all I know, monstro created her “Special” claim, applied it to me, and then forgot that she was the one who created it, and not me. Who knows. I’m not discussing let alone suggesting what her intent may have been.
Edit: and the only personal comment was about her own claim that something that I didn’t actually say is making her “ANGRY”. She was the one who brought up her emotional state, not me.
Your last point first. Please re-read my posts in that thread. In NO WAY did I say you were ranting over nothing or dismiss the problems. I merely stated, clearly I thought, that we should not lump a woman’s perception that someone is watching her in a store together with someone who is the victim of a hate crime. I was unable to express myself in a way that made sense to you, and I regret that, but I was frustrated that you were understanding me to be saying something I had not intended. That same principle applies here. A teen ager imagining that someone is a Nazi is not the same “hate” as the firebombing of a temple. If you read my first post here I specifically note how I think anti-Semitism in America is pretty benign and hidden. The haters are mostly marginalized and underground. For both the cases of anti-Black bigotry and anti-Semitism the overt hater is more marginalized than in times past. For Blacks much more than Jews there is still a residual of institutional racism, not motivated by hate so much as by the effects of years of discrimination. The old school Jew hating is now only explicitly mainstream in the Arab world and imported back into the West from there. What Jews have to deal with is the fact that some are suspicious and resentful of their success as an American sub-cultural group and the unavoidable charges of clannishness and conspiricy.
Why analogize with great caution? Specifically we do NOT want to get into arguing whose oppression was worse. They both were awful and both very very different. Still some comparison is useful. Slavery and the Passage were horrific events and the treatment of Blacks in America for many years after not much better. And again racist attitudes persist and institutional effects will take even longer to correct. Few American Blacks however look at their history and reasonably conclude that Blacks may be made slaves again. OTOH any Jew who does not look at history and have some fear that his grandchildren’s or great grandchildren may again be labelled as “other” and targeted for mass murder in the future is, IMHO, a fool.
And indeed Jews are often accused of playing the anti-Semitism card … just look in this thread … even when the Jew hating is extremely overt. I for one try very hard to avoid calling a Jew-hater an anti-Semite … it is not worth it - it gives them the chance to accuse me of “playing the card” and I’d rather let them make what they are obvious to others themselves. You don’t see it? Maybe radar, maybe you just are not in those rooms at the time.
The Civil War wasn’t about freeing the slaves. At least not exclusively or even primarily. Some cared about that and it was part of the dynamic, but it was not why there was a war. And few in the North cared too much that Blacks were still functionally slaves after the war. Sure, you’ll run into some who ignorantly believe otherwise, and the ignorant do not appreciated being corrected. So?
Are there Jews who are like Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall, hearing slurs where none were intended? Of course. And teen agers in Poland may be primed to see it … for good reasons. I know my brother was imagining all kinds of things when we were kids visiting small towns in Germany. Are there Black women who imagine that they are being watched in a store because they are Black when actually someone was admiring a figure? Of course also. Neither informs about how much racism/anti-Semitism there really is and in what forms it is currently manifest. Neither informs about what each group worries about in the future based on their individual histories and with what justification.
"After all, it ran in Israel … "