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A Delusional Essay About American Antisemitism

 
Jews and Blacks

Rich Cohen of Tablet Magazine has a longish piece bemoaning the decline of how American Jews are viewed. He denies that the  change can be attributed to the reaction of liberal America to “the policies of Israel. “Israel is not the source of anti-Semitism, but a result. Before the Holocaust, it was said that the Jews in their statelessness were the cause of wars and disturbance…… After the Holocaust, it’s said that Israel, the Jewish State, is the burr under that saddle. Though the condition has changed—no state v. state—the conclusion remains the same: It’s the Jews. To me, this is the world settling back into the Jew-loving and Jew-hating equilibrium that was unsettled, for a time, by the Shoah.

To be blunt,  a large part of Obama’s ideas are Jewish and these ideas are precisely why the President and I find Bibi to be a disgusting Jew

An Israeli friend of mine, a friend who sees the Israeli turn to the far right as inevitable, sent me a depressing essay from the Tablet.  In the essay, Rich Cohen says the stature of American jewery has fallen not because of Israel but because America itself is intrinsically anti semitic.

Cohen ignores the harm we Jews have done to our own brand.   The  way the Jewish community supports Israel  is a huge part of the problem of loss of respect for our brand.   The ties between American Jews and the Republican right are based on Christian dreams of Armageddon.  How can a liberal, any liberal, support this?  The alliance with American Christian fundamentalism has driven an inevitable wedge between Jews and our traditional, American liberal allies.

How can anyone watching the repugnant way the Republicans are treating Bibi and HageePlanned Parenthood not associate that with Sheldon Adelson’s backing of ogres like Cruz and Rubio?  When Cohen bemoans Obama’s dislike of Netanyahu, why can’t Mr, Cohen see Bibi as I do?  Bibi is a tea party extremist.

This Jewish effort to destroy our traditions is not  limited to the right.  We

Mandela and Slovo

Mandela and Slovo

show no pride in our achievements between 70 AD and 1948 CE. We raise children who are ignorant of the Nobel Prizes, the writers, the businessmen, the artists  who have done do much to create what is best in the modern world.

 Ask any Jew about Nadine Gordimer, Mark Rothko  or Ed Fischer. Or about Joe Slovo. How many Jews know about the huge success of Anadalus or Alinsky? Who founded the AF of L?
 
Look at it this way .. I am atheist, yet both of my children are very proud Jews. Why do they await the Nobel prizes every year? 
 
Look again at Cohen’s absurd depiction of Obama vs Netanyahu. He buys into the idea that President Obama’s distaste of Netanyahu has something to do with Bibi’s Jewishness. Really?? Does Mr. Cohen understand that much of Obama’s career has been very Jewish?  Does Mr. Cohen understand Obama and Alinskythe historic significance of Jack Lew, a man who is openly an observant Jew, as Secretary of the Treasury?   Does Mr. Cohen understand the role that David Axelord and Rahm Emanuel played in Obama’s career?  Obama’s closest allies are Jews and his kids attended a Jewish day care.  Michelle’s first cousin, an African American, is a Jewish rabbi!  To be blunt,  a large part of Obama’s ideas are Jewish and these ideas are precisely why the President and I find Bibi to be a disgusting Jew.
 
My own synagogue illustrates Jewish self hatred,, a form of antisemitism that is easily communicable to the goyem. The Rabbi is buying into BLM and BDS. That is OK. I too oppose BOTH occupations .. the occupation of the West Bank and the occupation of Black America are very similar things. But both movements, not just BDS, are openly antisemitic. Black Lives Matters demonizes anyone with a light skin ..especially Jews.   BLM even had a small anti semitic demonstration vs. a Jewish businessman here in oh so liberal Seattle. The reaction of the Rabbi is to  go off on a Yom Kippur beating of the chest, decrying white guilt and accepting the guilt. I admire this rabbi, but would challenge him to show teshuvah rather than guilt.
As Jews we should ask how WE can end Seattle Apartheid, not just feign white guilt.  White guilt is a good thing, but blaming white racism on the Jews??? I see my own city as a ethnically homogenous place that practices social apartheid when it comes to African Americans who, .. like Cohen’s example of the cheredi man on an airplane, .. dress and talk according to THEIR culture. Seattle Jews who have these racist attitudes are wrong , but identifying the Jewish people as racists demonizes us as much as anything in Der Sturmer.
 
So, my friend, I suggest Mr. Cohen look in the mirror for the decline in respect for American Jews.

0 Comments Add Yours ↓

  1. theaveeditor #
    1

    from Mirel (the man who posted the Tablet essay.

    If this feeling is based on facts? Only an American Jew may answer. If Obama with his botched foreign policy contributes to this situation? As an Israeli Jew that abhors Netanyahu and his government, I may say that we never felt in the last decades so much antagonism against Israel as from this Obama administration and never a such strong feeling of treason as in this Iran deal.

  2. theaveeditor #
    2

    Yes they are very Jewish, especially American Jewish.

    Jews founded the American labor movement.
    Jews and Blacks founded the NAACP
    Jews have led the (American) revolution n genomics
    Saul Alinsky was a major mentor for Dr. King and for Mahatma Gandhi.
    Jews fought wiht Blacks to end Apatheid in South Africa

    And now we see Bibi allied with the repugnant, racist, sexist Republicans?


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