One of the most dispiriting cultural downturns of recent years has been the recrudescence of the archaic prejudice of anti-Semitism. To mangle Brecht and Camus, the bitch that bore it is in heat again and the plague against which we’d hoped the Forties had proofed us, is sending forth its rats once more to die on the streets of a free city.
Some lowlights from an almost indefinitely extensible list: Offences against Jewish persons and property have been red-needling in Europe and the United States for some time now. In the United Kingdom alone (home to a mere 300,000 Jews) the year 2009 saw a reported 638 anti-Jewish hate crimes – a figure that has more than doubled since 2001. The word ‘yid’ is routinely screamed across football terraces, and shouts of “Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas!” have been heard on anti-Israel demonstrations. Synagogues and Jewish cemeteries unable to afford security arrangements have been trashed and daubed with the usual Nazi slogans and insignia. Even the only country on Earth with no tradition of anti-Semitic persecution (India) saw its Jews targeted in the recent Bombay atrocity, though not of course by Indians. (Sidebar – Sadly, not all Indians partake of the majority’s philo-Semitism; and I say “Bombay” because the name change to Mumbai was not so softly urged on us in by the far-Right, ultra-nationalist Shiv Sena party under the leadership of Hitler-loving Bal Thackeray. So, Bombay it is. And anyway, “Mullywood”, anyone? )
There are, I believe, two main reasons for this resurgence in Judaeophobia but before we get into that or become too dejected, here’s a joke and a partial clue:
One day Abe and Solly were taking their customary stroll together when they were arrested by the sight of a large sign outside a church emblazoned with the rubric “Jews for Jesus”. The deal on the sign was this: Any Jew who consented to enter the church and convert to Christianity would be given a thousand dollars in cash.
Abe surveyed the sign and at length said, “I’m having some of that.” Solly was aghast. “You can’t be serious.” “Sure I am,” said Abe, “I’m gonna do it right now.” “Well, should I wait for you?” asked Solly. “Sure,” said Abe. “I won’t be long.”
An hour later Abe emerged from the church. Solly said, “So?” and Abe replied, “I’m a Christian now.” “You’re kidding,” said Solly. “Nope,” said Abe. “I sank to my knees and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour.” A beat later a bewildered Solly asked, “Did you at least get the grand up front?” And Abe said, “It’s always the same with you people, isn’t it…?”
I know one should be wary of letting too much daylight in on the magic but let me take a spade to a soufflé and ask: Does this joke hate Jews?
In his brilliant Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture on the subject of anti-Semitism Christopher Hitchens cites this as a specimen of mild and more than mildly amusing Judaeophobia. Now, one hesitates to disagree with The Mighty Hitch, but is he right? It’s funny all right and it certainly plays with anti-Semitism but that doesn’t of itself make it Jew-hostile. Nor does it suggest that the blithe switching of allegiances for a quick buck is an exclusively or exceptionally Jewish trait. Sure, one of the Jews in the joke behaves precisely in that way but the other does not. (Similarly, in the case of The Merchant of Venice the fact that Tubal, a fellow Jew, disapproves of Shylock’s monomania for vengeance is enough to acquit the text of anti-Semitism) Like most Jewish jokes it’s a proper pearler and one that dares you take a mallet to a cherrystone and ask: what’s so funny? So, Is the joke’s target supposed Jewish cupidity? Or does it take aim at hypocritically projected Christian attitudes towards same? Is the gag celebrating an archetype or gunning for a stereotype?
There will always be some people who’ll laugh because well, them Jews are all about the money, aren’t they? They control the money markets as well as the media. It’s not just a Palestinian land-grab that interests them. Huddled in their back-scratching cabals they mean ultimately to Zionize the planet. Oh, they’re bright and busy, all right. Unlike differently-pigmented ethnicities they can rather sneakily pass. (Spike Lee told Howard Jacobson, “You can always get a nose job.”) And aren’t they bright and busy? They’re a restless, rootless cosmopolitan bunch of self-appointed consciousness-raising intellectuals forever upsetting the natural order under cover of agitating for social justice with their Lenins and their Marxes and their Trotskys. Didn’t old Adolf have more than a ghost of a point when he underlined the Judaeo in Judaeo-Bolshevism? And didn’t T. S Eliot say that the presence of too many Jewish freethinkers cannot be tolerated by a healthy society?
The above litany is but a selection of canapés in the banquet of hate that the Jewish people has long had stuffed down its throat. (Another familiar dish being the stranglehold the Zionist lobby is supposed to have on U.S. foreign policy; though it doesn’t seem to have got very far with, say, Saudi Arabia.)
Given the above, why the (mercifully) low incidence of Sinophobia? Why aren’t overseas Chinese called upon to pick up the tab for Beijing’s occupation of Tibet in the way that the Jewish Diaspora is often held accountable for the actions of Israel? It’s not as if an ascendant China is not in our future. Might that not count as a bid for world domination? Could the reason be that there are just too many of them to subject to intimidation? (Racists being natural bullies.)
Very well, then, let’s find a much smaller group to pick on. Why not the Scots? Again, not that I’m advocating it for one moment, you understand, but why don’t the Scots get the same treatment as the Jews? They too are a very small nation of brilliant overachievers who do well in exile. Consider any field of endeavour and ask yourself what it would look like without the tartan touch. Science (Kelvin, James Clerk Maxwell), Medicine (Alexander Fleming), Engineering, Literature (Peter Pan, Long John Silver, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Mr Toad and Sherlock Holmes are all Scottish inventions), Drama, Comedy, Music, Economics, Philosophy, Politics. The Scots too have impeccable Leftist credentials. Like the Jews, the Scots have also produced their titans of Capital in theory and practice (Adam Smith, Andrew Carnegie, Max Aitken). If thinkers of genuine subversiveness tickle your ear, why not try Thomas Reid or better yet, David Hume whose speculations have proved so fatal to religion and most unsettling even to the method of Inductive Reasoning. If conspiracy theories around media control turn your crank, let me lay before you just one name of Scots extraction: that of Rupert Murdoch, whose interests and holdings are so vastly tentacular it’s unlikely even he can grasp their true extent. Want more? How about world domination and that little Anglo-Scots condominium formerly known as The British Empire? And if any group could be said to be clannish…
Yet who would believe you if you said, “911? Holyrood plot. I just don’t think it’s a coincidence that not a single Scot turned up for work at the Twin Towers on that day.”
It has to be the Jews.
Elsewhere in his lecture Hitchens seeks to enforce a distinction between what is and what is not harmless in anti-Semitism. “Don’t make a federal case of everything,” he likes to tell Abraham Foxman of The Anti-Defamation League. And while it is true that antipathy towards Jews is probably and ultimately ineradicable, a low bourdon note of non-philo-Semitism can be tolerated as long as it doesn’t get too screechy.
And until very recently most anti-Jewish sentiment in the United Kingdom at any rate had indeed disclosed itself at the level of a bat squeak (to borrow Jonathan Miller’s phrase). You would catch it on the edge of a remark. “I expect he has plenty of free time on a Sunday.” Or “Moshkowitz: A fine Anglo-Saxon name”. Other examples include the late Ronnie Barker’s description of Ben Elton as a “Jewish insurance salesman” and Lord Snowdon’s famous outburst at Princess Margaret, “You look like a Jewish manicurist and I hate you.” (As it happens I met a Jewish manicurist once and he didn’t mind the comparison at all. Perhaps that’s an aria for another day…)
Some anti-Semitism is just plain perplexing. The strangest case Hitchens cites is that of Gore Vidal. According to Hitchens, there is a note in Thomas Keneally’s possession written to him by Vidal in which he accuses Keneally of doing the Jews’ dirty work for them in providing a disobliging notice of Vidal’s Lincoln. It’s hard to believe the champion of radical wit and author of Pink Triangle, Yellow Star capable of such a thing. It’s all the weirder since his companion of so many years – and the man with whom Vidal intends to occupy a parallel grave – was Howard Auster, whose name Vidal even suggested changing to “Austen” in order to circumvent anti-Jewish prejudice in the advertising industry of Fifties America. Vidal used to laugh off accusations of anti-Semitism by explaining he breakfasted daily with someone who increasingly resembled Golda Meir. It’s the little things in a relationship, isn’t it?
(By the by, those who are convinced of a Jewish plot to win global mastery may take what they will from the following anecdote which purports to describe the first meeting between Henry Kissinger and Golda Meir.
HK: Mrs Meir, I must tell you that first and foremost I am an American; secondly, I am the Secretary of State, and only thirdly am I a Jew.
GM: That’s OK, Henry. We read from right to left.)
So not all anti-Jewishness is frightening. All of it is stupid and some of it is just silly. But is this not already a concession too far? Hate speech is still hate speech. And other forms of anti-racism are not so relaxed. Two examples:-
A few years back a New York rabbi, alarmed by a sudden hike in the number of acts of intimidation and violence towards Jews, took it upon himself to offer his flock classes in self-defence. Russell Howard, a British comedian, found this terrifically droll and wondered on television if the rabbi shouldn’t in these racist days be nicknamed The Karate Yid. Around the same time the actor David Jason made a joke on radio about a Pakistani cloakroom attendant called Mahatma Coat. I know in neither case are we talking comedy gold here, and I also know that Mahatma is less of a Pakistani name than a Hindu honorific, but the interesting thing is that in Howard’s case the switchboards of complaint remained largely mute and dusky while for Jason they blazed with indignation. Racism is racism, it seems, only if its victims are seen to be weak or defenceless or dispossessed or downtrodden or brown or black. Could it be that Jews are seen to be too strong and too white to deserve our protection?
More recently we have seen a slew of flakier but no less intolerable incidents. Charlie Sheen’s name-calling of Chuck Lorre, Julian Assange’s invention of a Jewish conspiracy against him and John Galliano’s alleged Hitler-approving tirade flung at gaping diners of the Marais. (As if Nazis were above beating the frock out of gay dressmakers.) All of which is rather more serious for the perpetrators than for their intended victims. Saul Bellow thought anti-Semitism a psychosis and it’s certainly possible to detect in the steam coming off these ranters the afflatus of psychic disintegration.
The Galliano case is interesting. Though Dior is owned and run by Jews, it wasn’t until a Dior “face”, the Jerusalem-born Natalie Portman made plain her objections that Galliano was shown the door. Up until then Paris had offered a more indulgent face towards its wayward fashionistas. There’s a tradition, possibly apocryphal though I like to think not, that Coco Chanel, when accused after the Occupation of having fraternized with the enemy, acquitted herself with the line, “My heart belongs to France, but my cunt is my own.”
A particularly alarming development has been the abandonment of the Jews by their traditional allies and defenders on the liberal left.
Take, for example, (and this may stand synechdochally for a plethora of examples) the disgusting spectacle of Ken Livingstone, as Mayor of London, slobbering all over Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an Islamist cleric and anti-human rights theocrat who approves of female genital mutilation, thinks improperly attired women deserve to be raped, that gay sex merits the death penalty, and that pregnant Israeli women are meet for slaughter since they could be carrying future members of the Israeli Defence Force. What on earth Livingstone was doing fawning over such a character is perhaps a mystery too deep for the ages and cannot simply be explained by reflexive anti-Americanism, pro-Palestinianism or anti-globalization.
Livingstone’s love-in with his new best friend was embarrassed somewhat by the emergence of an open letter signed by 2,500 Muslim intellectuals (each and every one no doubt an Islamophobe and Zionist stooge) from over 23 countries condemning his new best friend out of hand. In the opinion of many, such antics helped cost Livingstone the mayoralty of London. One certainly hopes so.
And so we come to one of the main wellsprings (illsprings?) of modern anti-Semitism: The State of Israel. Martin Amis has noticed that there is a certain sort of bien pensant who is never more gorgeously at their ease than when attacking Israel. He or she is less troubled by the venomous eliminationism spewed out by Hezbollah and Hamas than by the many costly mistakes of some aspects of Israeli policy.
Now, I assure you, I could easily expend a further few thousand words detailing the many problems I have with Israeli history and its current policy towards the Palestinian people. But were I for one moment to couch my criticism in terms of Jewishness I would immediately lose the argument; abandon it in fact by changing the subject to that of Race. It’s a penny that never seems to drop with anti-Semitic critics of Israel: Racism is one of the very gravest threats to Palestinian justice. Those who hate Jews and Israelis more than they love Palestinians do not love Palestinians.
Those who have made race-based criticisms of Israel include Caryl Churchill whose Seven Jewish Children is a blatant piece of anti-Jewish propaganda that trots out the old Blood Libel as well as committing the vulgar solecism of conflating Zionists with all Jews. (The clue, as we now say, is in the title.) Paradoxical at first blush as it sounds – and again I’m indebted to Christopher Hitchens for making this point – the blunt racist mind is incapable of discrimination. It cannot tell an Obama from a Mugabe, or an Idi Amin from a Nelson Mandela. So it is with Jews and Zionists and Israelis. All Israelis are Jews, right? Obviously wrong. All Jews are Zionists, right? Wrong. All Zionists are Jews, surely? Wrong. But surely no Zionist could possibly be said to be anti-Semitic? This isn’t your lucky day, is it? Here are two examples.
The cynical and hypocritical support of Christian fundamentalism for Israel is given in the hope that the Jewish state will one day host an apocalyptic showdown that will raise the curtain on the Second Coming. Thereafter Jews shall be invited to convert or roast.
Then there’s the case of A. J. Balfour, whose eponymous Declaration famously looked with favour on the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. The reason it cast so favourable an eye was that it suited Balfour’s war aims to agitate German Jews against their own government and conscript them and their Russian counterparts into the project of replacing Ottoman with British power in the Middle East. There was another reason: Judaeophobe that he was, Balfour didn’t like Jews littering up the Home Counties.
He was opposed in Cabinet by the Jewish anti-Zionist, Sir Edwin Montagu, who considered himself British; who thought the Declaration anti-Semitic and who objected to mass emigration of Jews to Palestine on the grounds that it would seriously and unjustly disadvantage Palestine’s indigenous population.
A further tactic in the race-based critique of Israel is to describe it as an apartheid state. Such talk has infuriated some former South African anti-apartheid activists. Denis MacShane, MP for Rotherham, a former UK European Minister and a man who spent some time in South Africa in the Eighties agitating against its racist government, resents the comparison with Israel where an Arab Israeli is perfectly free to go about his or her business (which might include sitting in The Knesset.)
Some of Israel’s critics have used even more provocative language. When Brian Eno states that Israel “is creating a version of the Warsaw Ghetto” the glabrous sage rushes to congratulate himself on the gotcha of a historical irony and means to wound the Jewish people in their deepest anguish and to impute to Israel a race-based policy of exterminationism towards the Palestinians.
And so we turn with a heavy heart – or should that be with a patient shrug? – to the second of Judaeophobia’s main illsprings. The easiest way into the subject is to let me show you a few snapshots from the career of Mel Gibson.
On July 28, 2006 Gibson was arrested for driving under the influence. During the course of his arrest he said, “Fucking Jews…the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” He also demanded to know of a policewoman whether or not she was Jewish (duh..didn’t he know all cops were Irish?) To another policewoman he posed the gallant question, “What are you looking at, sugartits?” Bent as he was that night on licking the plate clean of any last scrap of political correctness or even decency, he reserves his nastier conduct for when he is sober. I refer you to his capolavoro of spanky gore-porn, The Passion of The Christ (or as it’s known in my house, Good Friday the 13th.)
This preposterous campstrocity of the film-maker’s art was not created in a spirit of mushy ecumenical consensus. Here you’ll find no clumps of flower children cherry-picking their way past a stern St. Paul to make a maypole of a tie-dyed hippy dippy Jesus. Nor shall you find a portrait of Jesus the Marxist revolutionary a la Pasolini. No, this movie was made according to a precise Catholic agenda (the inclusion of St. Veronica proves that). It means to show you in gruesome and protracted detail how Jesus was tortured to death and, by singling out one particular text from St. John in which The Sanhedrin calls for the blood of Christ to be on their heads unto the remotest generation, just who was responsible.
This one text – an early version of the so-called Blood Libel - has been the incitement to and warrant for every anti-Jewish pogrom there has ever been up to and including The Holocaust. (Mein Kampf has Hitler cooing over die Apodiktische Glaube – the strict faith – in obedience to which he means to cleanse Europe of its Jews.)
Naturally, the inclusion of the scene provoked an earthquake of protest that lead to the excision of the relevant subtitle. But when the film was shown in the Middle East the subtitle was restored. Since there is a strict interdiction on idolatry in Islam (of which Jesus is counted as a prophet), we’re left with the question: How did this film get a release in the Middle East?
Christopher Hitchens thinks Gibson should be asked the following question: “What are the origins of your furious, fanatical, decided hatred of the Jewish people?” He then leads us to a possible answer.
Mel Gibson’s father, Hutton, is said by his famous son never to have told him a lie. Gibson Snr denies the Holocaust and denies it in the usual thought-disordered way. You know the kind of thing: The Holocaust was a non-event but one the Jews had coming anyway. He also made an intriguing reply to a letter promulgated by the present pope back when he was a Cardinal in which Ratzinger spoke of the Jews as standing in relation to Christianity as an elder brother in Faith. Hutton Gibson’s reply was that Abel had an elder brother too. Maybe Sartre had a point when he wrote that anti-Semitism must always eventuate in murder.
There can be no question that the non-subject of theology has made and continues to make the lives of many Jews intolerable. Hitchens puts it with his usual force and clarity when he points out that the only people ever to have enjoyed face-time with both Jesus and The Prophet Muhammad were the Jews. And in both cases the Jews declined to subscribe. “Which is not about to be forgotten or forgiven any time soon.”
“Love is wise and hatred is foolish.”
Bertrand Russell
I pay you a compliment when I say: I believe you may be Mr. Stephen Fry himself (in disguise). Your prose is both compelling and commonsensical – a rarity! I am, however, slightly disturbed at the lack of word count directed to Mr. Gibson (not that I’m his publicist or fan) and of him I would say: qui multa reprehendere – cave idem.
Quite brilliant, sir – quite effing brilliant.
“The many costly mistakes of some aspects of Jewish policy”.
I’m afraid that is putting it far too mildly. Far, far too mildly. What we have in Palestine is a form of apartheid. That is plain to see. And no, it’s not anti-semitic to stand up and say it.
I don’t pretend to fully understand all that is written but continue to be very scared for the future when it seems the world never learns from it’s horrific history.
My mother phoned me a couple of weeks ago to depart her happy news that the family tree included Jewish relatives, so we were now Jewish. I really don’t mean to be ignorant but surely we’re talking about beliefs and faiths belonging to individuals rather than races? Am I wrong? If I am I apologise and would sincerely welcome a correction.
Thank you for getting this info “out there”.
Quite excellent, sir, you’re now added to my bookmarks.
Well said indeed.
you’re terrific sir.. i’ve hardly read any prose that matches such knowledge and use of words.
This is brilliant, an education in to anti-antisemitism and just another feather in my I hate Russell Howard hat.
I consider myself vastly more knowledgeable on the subject now, so thank you.
Extremely interesting read and whole heartedly agree especially with the final quote – perhaps once the global level of consciousness is raised it will eventually be realised and the countless atrocities the world has seen and experienced will finally desist.
One question I have, when considering jokes and their impact – is it not the intent with which they are delivered that determines the presence of racism e.g. the ironic delivery by member of the minority/stereotype in question? The one thing you can never control is how it is received by those with a prejudice filtered perception. Also, when considering the intent, can a non-member comment with purity of heart and it therefore be accepted and still amusing?
Shouldn’t it be Mummywood?
Prefer Liam Neeson to Mr. Gibson. Racism is racism, hatred is hatred. To deny or turn a blind eye to its existence is to be ignorant of the facts.
yes i agree with a few of you i think it Mr stephen fry himself good thro made a brilliant read .regards to all
Very interesting piece. I too must compliment you on your extensive and scintillating prose on a subject and viewpoint not given nearly the attention it deserves. As someone who has visited Israel and seen, with my own eyes, just how incredibly kind, forgiving, and peaceful most of the population is, it’s just a shame there are still factions and people in the world that think otherwise. Or rather believe that the Jews are somehow out to get everyone else.
When I ask myself why, your last statement quoting Hitchens makes all the sense in the world, “Hitchens puts it with his usual force and clarity when he points out that the only people ever to have enjoyed face-time with both Jesus and The Prophet Muhammad were the Jews. And in both cases the Jews declined to subscribe. “Which is not about to be forgotten or forgiven any time soon.”
Excellent piece.
Excellant piece. I look forward to reading you next article. One correction I believe Kelvin was Irish.
Thanks very much, great article.
How much do you think a perceived Pro-Israeli bias from the UN and the West generally in terms of not enforcing UN resolutions has contributed to the rise in anti-semitism?
Great knowledge and references. I enjoyed. More please…
Brilliant – both in delivery and content!
Jen – I believe that to be considered Jewish you need to have a Jewish mother. As I have a Jewish father (by race but not religion) and a Scottish/Irish mother I had reason to discover this. I believe, having a large Jewish family NONE of whom I’ve ever noticed to be religious at all, but all of which are proud to be Jews, that it is more of a race thing than a religion. Surely Judaism is the religion, but Jews are a race? Also happy to be corrected!
Hi Isabel, thanks for the reply. I find it all very interesting and would love to know for sure. Can anyone else add?
Many thanks.
Judaism is considered a religion, a race, and a culture all at once.
The ethnicity passes through the mother’s line (at least according to Orthodox Judaism) but it’s also possible to convert into the faith. And then there is “Jewish” food, humour, stories, music, etc. Although, truth be told, because Jews have historically been so geographically dispersed, different groups have their own variations, each typically a slight twist (often poverty/abuse driven) on the culture of their local. Eg the Jews of Eastern Europe have Klezmer, Yiddish, and a love of herring (and many other traditional foods, and so on and so on)and a certain anxiety and self-deprecating humour. While those who hail from Spain or North Africa, or Iran, or Central Europe each have totally different cultures.
Religious Jews will tend to view the religion as primary, while others view the culture or the Ethnicity as the most important. Anti-semites, of course, have never been fussy.
so who can we now discriminate against? I nominate over weight black, left-handed Jewish lesbians. After all, we have to have someone!
Compare:
“Now, I assure you, I could easily expend a further few thousand words detailing the many problems I have with Israeli history and its current policy towards the Palestinian people. But were I for one moment to couch my criticism in terms of Jewishness I would immediately lose the argument.”
with
“The State of Israel is the national homeland of the Jewish People and will remain so.”
and
“We need the Palestinian leadership to rise and say, simply ‘We have had enough of this conflict. We recognize the right of the Jewish People to a state its own in this Land.’”
and:
“The fundamental condition for ending the conflict is the public, binding and sincere Palestinian recognition of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish People.”
Who am I quoting? Benjamin Netanyahu (2009, Bar Ilan, Israel).
Perhaps Mr Harris could update Israel’s Prime Minister on the difference between being Israeli and being Jewish.
I also suggest reading the full text of Mr Netanyahu’s speech.
Good Friday the 13th. I’m stealing that.
Great piece of writing.
From everything I’ve read and heard (including this excelentpiece) I can only come to one conclusion.
There is a large probability that all this racist hatred directed at Jews and Arabs both (yes, Muslims get almost as much stick) leads me to believe that there’s some sort of consipiracy.
Lets face it, If the Jews and Arabs ever settle their differences, they’ll take over the world, in truth.
The ancient reason for the Jewish-Muslim antipathy is so mind-numbingly stupid (go google it) and embarassing that it would take very little for the argument to effectively end.
So there are people who are intent in not letting that ever happen.
As for Mr. Gibson.. he’s an actor, and not a very good one. I don’t care what he thinks and neither, probably, should you.
Far too much attention is paid to the opinions of people who are simply visible.
Opinions are like ar*eholes.. everyone has one.
Thank you for your piece. You are accurate in your challenge to the interpretation of the line of text spoken by the mob (for that was what it was) to the Roman officals at the trial of Jesus. Christian theology teaches that what Christ gave was on the behalf of others (there and yet unborn) however it doesn’t say anything of the kind for what the mob said. That is something that the hate-full mind has since created and sought to use as a justifcation for hate crimes.
This is superbly written, and you have very much been bookmarked. Very much.
On the word ‘yid’, this Jew laughed at Russell Howard’s joke. I take the point however that, in comparison to David Jason’s joke, few complaints were made. Could this be that there are fewer Jews to complain, or they’re too busy finding it funny? Meanwhile, the non-Jews don’t perhaps realise the word ‘yid’ can be offensive and therefore worth complaining about.
I say “can be”, because I know of Jewish Spurs fans who would shout ‘yid’ across a football terrace. I also know that it can be thrown back at them in a deliberately offensive manner. But when Jews are either using it, or laughing at it, the offensiveness of the word remains unclear. In this way, I (cautiously) suppose it is like the word ‘nigger’, in that it is acceptable to be used within a group, but not by outsiders, against them. The difference is that ‘nigger’ receives more exposure, so we’re all more familiar with when its use is unacceptable.
The reason its not anti-Scot, despite our phenomenal achievements for a small country of people, is quite simple I think: we’d batter ye
Next to the Mars bar
@Elliot Harris I think spurs fans use it in the same way other groups use derogatory terms, if we cloak ourselves in it how can you abuse us with it.
I’m an Aberdeen fan and we sing of being sheep shaggers because that is the abuse we got/get from people from the West of Scotland, doesn’t bother me, and we sing it loud and proud…
I hate to have to ask this, but Google is utter tripe and of absolutely no assistance in this particular situation*: why IS the word ‘yid’ offensive? The Urban dictionary (also utter tripe) suggests that it is not offensive because Yiddish is not offensive. Somehow I doubt that comment’s accuracy.
*as an aside, it is also of absolutely no assistance in most situations
I think it depends entirely on the tone. As one of the commenters above noted, “Yid” is just a Yiddish word for Jew (from Hebrew “Yehudi”, also the source of Jew/Judaic, as far as I know), but (like “Jew”) it can be used as a slur by anti-semites.
On a more facile note:
“…the only people ever to have enjoyed face-time with both Jesus and The Prophet Muhammad were the Jews. And in both cases the Jews declined to subscribe.”
I think Paul (né Saul) would beg to differ with that statement.
As would the other 11 Apostles (or 12 if you include Judas).
Well spotted!
Impressive and very interesting. I am always a bit wary of regular invocation of C Hitchens as I find him to be a little prejudiced himself- although perhaps with less vitriol than Dawkins.
I realise you are probably just highlighting a worrying resurgence in anti semitism but by suggesting that it is the more invidious prejudice by its relative acceptability to actual racism, you risk denigrating the latter. Racism is a deservedly touchy subject as its impact on society is far more pervasive and debilitating to society than anti semitism, there really is no debating this; it is simply a fact.
As a (non practicing) Jew myself, I get particularly irritated by the devaluation of the term anti semitism by its repeated and totally arbitrary exploitation by leading Jewish bodies to harangue those who dare to criticise the Israeli government.
Overall though, brilliant post.
Oops! Too many ‘societies’ in one of those lines, never mind!
Brilliant piece. Of course in my ignorance, I figured the answer was money. Learn something new everyday
Sir/madam
Now following you on twitter, insightful stuff.
Very well written interesting article, I’ve enjoyed it’s intelligent and thoughtful points.
Interesting article. I have two comments:
1. I believe that asking everyone who is fighting in justice for Palestine to switch to fighting for justice in Tibet or some other place, and accusing them of anti-Semitism if they don’t, is unfair. We could spend years trying to figure out which injustice on earth is the most deserving of our resistance; sometimes we just have to act. In any event, I could make the same criticism of your article, since (in the US at least, and I fear in Europe) hatred of Muslims is MUCH more prevalent than anti-Semitism. Yet you chose to write about anti-Semitism, does that reflect an anti-Muslim bias?
2. Your point about the word “apartheid” is completely misleading. No one is suggesting that the situation inside Israel proper is apartheid, it’s the situation in the Occupied Territories that fits this description, as MANY South Africans (including Desmond Tutu) agree, as does anyone who has visited the Territories with their eyes open.
Well said.
You are brilliant.
Superb! Sadly I feel that Sartre was right. Even if the Jew didn’t exist, the anti-semite would create him. And as you mention, Bellow believed the condition to be psychosis: perhaps a concept initially conditioned but given time (millenia) has evolved into something which has finally become innate? Someone at my Passover table asked whether we (as Jews) ever derive any benefit from anti-semitism. Is it necessary for us in any way at all in terms of existence, ego, ambition? Would we have a shallower sense of humour without it? I can’t categorically denounce it nor can I accept. Thank you for triggering some wonderful table talk this Seder night!
“The cynical and hypocritical support of Christian fundamentalism for Israel is given in the hope that the Jewish state will one day host an apocalyptic showdown that will raise the curtain on the Second Coming. Thereafter Jews shall be invited to convert or roast.”
This is not anti-semitic. The belief that people who don’t accept Jesus will go to hell is exactly as reasonable as any other religious belief. If you don’t believe that your religion is right and others’ are wrong what’s the point, really? Now, as soon as this manifests itself in the claim that because they are going to hell Jews (or Hindus or atheists etc) don’t deserve respect, good faith, equal protection of the law, etc. only then is it problematic. But to simply state that anyone who believes that unbelievers will be punished is anti-semitic is to paint with the same broad brush you rightly condemn. Otherwise, very good piece.
Magnificent. Thank you.
splendid, multi faceted article, how such a shame that so few of this kind of open ended yet challenging invective appears in the mainstream, it would be good to share wine with you.
one small note: “pregnant Israeli women are meet for slaughter”, clearly a typo *meat
Any rise in anti-semitism is largely down to the undue influence of Jewish persons in Western politics and thus in Western policy making. This manifests itself most obviously in the Wests reluctance to obey its own rules where Isreal is concerned where Arab States guilty of similar or even lesser misdemeanors find themselves promptly bombed to buggery in the name of peace. However and increasingly,Jewish influence also dictates that Jews have greater oppurtuinities in education,in business and even in the arts. There are very few Jews among the UKs long term unemployed. So however clever,however witty,however well crafted your article maybe (and it is all of those things) it also misses the point. Jews have undue influence in this world,that they are far from the first race to hold such undue influence is not disputed but it remains the reason that anti-semitism exists and will continue to do so.
Very good blog – Thank you
Your kissinger comment made me think though – as a gentile I have always found the whole Yiddish state of mind different – especially with regard to American Jews – they are , in my eyes, more Jewish than American and that dichotomy will offend many… And means that USA foreign policy will always be skewed
Isn’t the joke actually a very Jewish joke? My Jewish friends have often told jokes like this, very much like we Irish tell Irish jokes. There is a similar Irish joke where the youngest son of an English family is asked what he wants for his birthday. He says he wants to be Irish, and therefore wants an Ireland football shirt. His siblings start beating him up and calling him a thick Paddy. His mother gets really annoyed at his lack of English patriotism, throws his full English breakfast in the bin in a huff, and sends him to see his father who shouts at him and sends him to his room. As the boy sobs his way up the stairs, he turns and shouts “I’ve only been Irish for half an hour and I already hate you English b*stards!”
Similarly, I felt that the butt of the ‘Jewish’ joke was actually that the man who became Christian suddenly adopted a Christian stereotypical view of Jews, and that stereotype was the joke, not the Jews themselves.
Great write-up, thank you!
Your post is very interesting.
Vey nice blog post. thx
I see you have not released my comment yet, so I am still awaiting a response from you:
Your statement ‘Julian Assange’s invention of a Jewish conspiracy against him’ has me quite confused – I am not aware of Julian Assange having made such a proclamation, and I am curious as to your source for this. Tonight I spoke with Andrew Fowler who has spent considerable time with Julian,
(and recently published a book on this person) and asked him what he knew of this. He told me there was an assumption: because one of Julian’s staff was an ‘anti-semite’ it was assumed Julian was too. Surely you have not used this for the basis of your accusation? I look forward to your response, and enlightenment.
Since I am not religious, I’ve taken to calling myself Hebrew when referring to ethnicity. Just as there can be an Arab atheist, so there can be Hebrew atheists. Now that puts me in one position, which is that it is difficult to condemn anti-semites’ conflation of Zionism with Judaism when Israeli rightists often do the exact same thing. To take the apartheid comparison for example, I have often heard that reform school Jews are or were not allowed to marry in Israeli itself and had to do so in Cyprus, and I know there is a group called the Israeli Black Panthers, composed of non-white Jews who it seems are often treated badly by white Jews.
For stories of cynical European support for creating the state of Israel, I’m surprised you didn’t refer to Norm Finkelstein, who has said that there were Nazi Party officials who supported it because they thought deporting the Jews a more humane version of the “final solution” than what came to happen. And as for that, I believe I’ve heard Finkelstein opine something far more dangerous that even Holocaust denial: that not only did it happen, but happened to a far greater extent than it could have been because mainstream Jewish group leaders in the U.S. cared more to lobby our government to devote funds to Israel’s creation than to rescuing the Nazis’ prisoners.
Lastly, I read this as a notable and peculiar firefight is going on in the Gaza Strip. A minor faction of even more extreme nature than Hamas, in retaliation for Hamas’ capture of one of their leaders, themselves captured an Italian member of the International Solidarity Organization and threatened to kill him if their leader was not released. The Italian was murdered, and Hamas is now in open combat with this minor faction, described as Salafists, to arrest the murderers and their associates.
As anyone who has watched things knows, this is notable because this is about the first time I have heard of a ISO member being targeted by anyone other than… you guessed it, the IDF, precisely for notoriously trying to run aid-filled ships toward the Gaza coast through the latter’s naval blockade. After hearing that the early Hamas was given aid by Israel to be an internal competitor to the PLO, I myself am more than suspicious that the “enemy of my enemy” tactic may be in play yet again.
Oh, and lastly, my favorite nickname for that movie is “The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre”.
Beautiful article. Marred very slightly by an all too common spelling mistake in the fourth last paragraph: the past of the verb to lead is “led” rather than “lead”. (The latter is the metal that pipes used to be made of.)
Feel free to delete this comment after making the correction.
Great piece…
Well I have not read all the replies and so I assume I am not the only ‘sweaty’ to respond. Mentioned only as I am one of a prospective group to be picked on! LOL
Anger, Animosity, Hate, all negative emotions employed significantly by jingoists and biggots; all the best philosophies/religions seem to implore us {all of humankind} to turn away from the negative. The problem seems to be that turning to the positive, forgiveness, tolerance and generosity of spirit leads to a group of people who cannot or will not use force of any kind to exert themselves and so the bullies rise up again ‘sending forth the rats once more’.
So we the tolerant and sympathetic folk can only rely on our suffering to be the true redemption of our souls.
I wonder if there is another way?