Is this anti-semitism?

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (5797 of them)

It's implied that a heller is very little:

With this he put his hand into his pocket, then counted out three hellers one at a time, saying, "There, you have a heller for each year. That is a large and generous reward. Only a few masters would pay you this much."

The good servant, who understood little about money, put his wealth into his pocket, and thought, "Ah, now that I have a full purse, why should I worry and continue to plague myself with hard work?"

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 04:00 (eleven years ago) link

Also interesting is the footnote that said the original story featured a Christian monk instead of a Jew.

nickn, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 05:56 (eleven years ago) link

Reading Child's Ballads it disquieting how many of the songs are anti-semitic, or have anti-semitic variations. It's not like Scotland was famed for it's huge Jewish population - so strange that all these fishermen chose to sing about such things.

the so-called socialista (dowd), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 06:30 (eleven years ago) link

some of the most anti-semitic places in the world have very few or no jews

people back in earlier centuries wouldn't even have thought of them as "anti-semitic" -- they're just like anything else, commonly accepted generalizations.

flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 06:39 (eleven years ago) link

Anti-semitic Child's Ballads? Never heard of that before.

Bees Against Racism (Tom D.), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 13:51 (eleven years ago) link

I think in some cultures "Jew" was something in between an archetype and a mythic creature, rather than a person you met on the street.

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 15:07 (eleven years ago) link

hurting i sent u webmail btw

Mordy , Tuesday, 18 June 2013 15:07 (eleven years ago) link

thx, don't check that address that much, will check

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 15:15 (eleven years ago) link

Interesting, well that's a new one on me!

Bees Against Racism (Tom D.), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 15:44 (eleven years ago) link

I think in some cultures "Jew" was something in between an archetype and a mythic creature, rather than a person you met on the street.

- but spinoza didn't believe in the holy trinity.

- spinoza was a jew.

- what's a jew?

- you never saw a jew before? here. i have some sketches.

- no kidding! do they all have these horns?

- no. this is the russian jew. the german jew has these stripes.

the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 15:49 (eleven years ago) link

x-post

Yeah, it's odd because of the universal 'lose a ball in someone's garden' idea - that house on your street you run past as a kid. Only this time it's used as blood libel.

the so-called socialista (dowd), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 15:49 (eleven years ago) link

lol dfl

temporarily embarassed millionaire (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:04 (eleven years ago) link

er dlh

temporarily embarassed millionaire (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 16:04 (eleven years ago) link

I like how the protagonist in these stories often unfairly provokes/tortures/maligns the Jew, only to have the Jew try to redress grievances, overplay his hand, and meet his "deserved" doom.

― temporarily embarassed millionaire (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, June 17, 2013 7:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

isnt this kind of the merchant of venice

we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:21 (eleven years ago) link

I think in some cultures "Jew" was something in between an archetype and a mythic creature, rather than a person you met on the street.

― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, June 18, 2013 11:07 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

such as the suburbs of toronto ime

we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:21 (eleven years ago) link

That stuff about pinkwashing upthread is interesting.

Jayson Littman, a New York-based organizer of social events for gay Jewish men who has led gay-themed Birthright trips to Israel. Last spring, Littman sent a proposal titled “The Myth of Pinkwashing,” which, along the line of Jonathan Miller’s, explained that the Israeli government’s advertising its gay life is primarily about tourism dollars, not propaganda.

I've been looking for Littman's article mentioned here and can't find it. However, is there really that secure a boundary between a country doing something for 'tourism dollars' vs for 'propaganda'? I mean it's not like, for Israel or for any country, money from tourists only goes into special, benign parts of the economy, is it? Large (economically significant) groups of people coming to spend money in a country, contribute that money to whatever that country is currently doing, including e.g. paying for someone's hotel or museum to stay open but also e.g. paying for that country's war effort.

This is also, of course, v. relevant to Saudi Arabia and indeed the US and the UK and their tourist industries.

cardamon, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 21:28 (eleven years ago) link

Yeah but starting from that premise anything does for tourism or exports would be ____washing. Is promoting christian holy sites "christwashing"? Is selling jaffa oranges abroad "fruitwashing"? I mean if you believe in complete boycott/divestiture, fine. But I don't get what is particularly sinister about Israel promoting openness to gay and lesbian culture.

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 18 June 2013 21:33 (eleven years ago) link

But I don't get what is particularly sinister about Israel promoting openness to gay and lesbian culture.

I don't know if there actually is anything sinister about it. At last when you put it in those terms.

But if pressed to 'find something sinister about it' ... a nasty part of me envisions a certain kind of stupid, materialistic person - who could be straight or gay, male or female - who likes traveling and partying and having fun. And this demographic doesn't give a fuck about, like, some oppression or like some war or something over in (wherever it is) because (wherever it is) has these great beaches, and cool nightclubs where you can drink alcohol, and take drugs, and have sex with attractive people!

Which seems pretty sinister. If these people exist. Sometimes I think they do, sometimes I think I'm being weird and hung up (cough and/or a massive hypocrite).

But Israel being 'open to gay and lesbian people', obvs only a good thing. When you put it like that, in idealistic terms.

It's more the party party fun fun we don't give a fuck culture I find sinister, really, and the way Israel (or, as should be made clear, literally any other country you care to name) can tap into that as source for money and a good image as a party party sort of place. Such that when that country bombs a few schools or whatever, people in the US and the UK think 'Oh, they're the party party place, they must have a good reason for bombing those schools or whatever'.

And the way that that party party let's all party culture is now absorbing something called 'being gay', at least in the UK, or well, at least in cardamon's nasty little box he possibly shouldn't have climbed out of today.

cardamon, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 21:55 (eleven years ago) link

You might find it interesting to know that I had a conversation with someone in Israel who actually works for the government sort of doing international PR as it were, and she had similar reservations but from the other side -- she didn't have any problem with gay rights, gay culture, etc., but she felt like it was kind of frivolous and inappropriate to be focusing on promoting gay party life.

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 19 June 2013 01:11 (eleven years ago) link

i don't really know enough about the state of lgbtq politics in israel to comment specifically on israel's potential pinkwashing, and lol this is probably totally the wrong thread for this, but i feel like saying that pinkwashing per se isn't such a bad thing because at least it's promoting openness or tolerance or w/e is kind of problematic. for me, "pinkwashing" connotes gay-friendliness that is only superficial. say, for instance, you have a large corporation that, like many fortune 500 companies, has policies that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, that provides benefits to domestic partners, etc. maybe they advertise in the lgbt community or actively recruit in it. they present a gay-friendly image to the public; perhaps they even donate money to an organization like the HRC or GLAAD. but what if they have investments in or otherwise profit from private prisons and the prison-industrial complex? you could say that this is a case of pinkwashing where they use their good works in the gay community to cover up or distract from their bad (or at least controversial) works in a different area. i think it goes deeper than that, though: lgbtq people are disproportionately affected by and subject to the criminal justice system; they're more likely to experience police harassment, more likely to be imprisoned, and more likely to be abused and raped (by both authorities and other prisoners) while in prison. they're also more likely to have special medical needs that may not be met while they're imprisoned. so in this (hypothetical but not unlikely) case, pinkwashing is being used to hide policies that disproportionately negatively effect lgbtq people beneath a veneer of lgbtq-friendliness. imo that's not a net gain for lgbtq ppl
also what cardamon said

1staethyr, Wednesday, 19 June 2013 04:08 (eleven years ago) link

it seems like a major moral failure to condemn positive developments in one area bc of lack of them in another, and an epic strategic failure for Schulman to keep reminding ppl that Israel is a democratic country that protects gay rights.

Mordy , Wednesday, 19 June 2013 04:26 (eleven years ago) link

it seems like a major moral failure to condemn positive developments in one area bc of lack of them in another

This. Unless there's a very, very clear causal link between the one and the other - cases where some good thing is only happening at the expense of some other, not only bad but worse thing. But such cases are rare, and I certainly don't think this is one of them.

cardamon, Wednesday, 19 June 2013 20:06 (eleven years ago) link

oh UN-paws: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/co/CRC-C-ISR-CO-2-4.pdf

Harmful practices
41. The Committee expresses concern about reported short and long-term complications arising from some traditional male circumcision practices.

42. The Committee recommends that the State party undertake a study on the short and long-term complications of male circumcision.

Mordy , Thursday, 20 June 2013 14:57 (eleven years ago) link

daily mail

Gukbe, Wednesday, 26 June 2013 02:49 (eleven years ago) link

they're just reporting a scoop from here:
http://www.amazon.com/Disinformation-Undermining-Attacking-Promoting-Terrorism/dp/1936488604

Mordy , Wednesday, 26 June 2013 02:50 (eleven years ago) link

it's not the scoop it's that the daily mail is reporting about propaganda against a minority.

Gukbe, Wednesday, 26 June 2013 02:55 (eleven years ago) link

ahahahah "a scoop". that book looks _real_ trustworthy there!

stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Friday, 28 June 2013 03:22 (eleven years ago) link

pacepa is an interesting dude

Mordy , Friday, 28 June 2013 03:42 (eleven years ago) link

more importantly tho, the general information about how nkvd invented 'anti-zionism' as a substitute for anti-semitism is historical record afaik so this really just fill in blanks - it doesn't need to be particularly trustworthy to be worthy of note

Mordy , Friday, 28 June 2013 03:44 (eleven years ago) link

don't need trustworthiness when someone is writing about the secret plot to ensure that all anti-israel sentiment is definitely anti-semitic

Gukbe, Friday, 28 June 2013 06:24 (eleven years ago) link

but really lol at the daily mail, perhaps the most racist national publication in the UK

Gukbe, Friday, 28 June 2013 06:24 (eleven years ago) link

i'm reviewing that nirenberg book (anti-judaism) for a local federation paper. it's really good - sections on ancient egypt, quranic islam and voltaire are all really strong.

i heard a funny joke at shabbat table this shabbat. two jews pass a church advertising $100 for conversions. one jew says to the other "hey, let's do it," and he goes in. a little bit later he comes out and his jewish friend is like, "nu? did they give you the money?" the new convert says, "you jews, it's all about money to you."

Mordy , Sunday, 7 July 2013 02:01 (eleven years ago) link

that's p anti semitic mordy

dj hollingsworth vs dj perry (darraghmac), Sunday, 7 July 2013 02:03 (eleven years ago) link

when u think about it like, i mean just look at what it's saying

dj hollingsworth vs dj perry (darraghmac), Sunday, 7 July 2013 02:03 (eleven years ago) link

well i posted it in the anti-semitism thread

Mordy , Sunday, 7 July 2013 02:05 (eleven years ago) link

but not in a sufficiently disapproving manner i feel

dj hollingsworth vs dj perry (darraghmac), Sunday, 7 July 2013 02:07 (eleven years ago) link

does the joke tell us whether or not his horns were gone when he came out btw

dj hollingsworth vs dj perry (darraghmac), Sunday, 7 July 2013 02:08 (eleven years ago) link

u might have to be jewish to fully understand the joke

Mordy , Sunday, 7 July 2013 02:09 (eleven years ago) link

.......

what makes you think im not jewish!

dj hollingsworth vs dj perry (darraghmac), Sunday, 7 July 2013 02:14 (eleven years ago) link

i'm with darraghmac. tsk tsk

Treeship, Sunday, 7 July 2013 05:25 (eleven years ago) link

i like this thread overall because i learned that adbusters was sincerely antisemitic, and not just trading in on lazy "arggh bankers!" tropes, and that gave me another good reason to dismiss them. more than that, i don't have to worry about my generation being the "dead end of civilization."

Treeship, Sunday, 7 July 2013 05:28 (eleven years ago) link

yeah that was the baby boomers

Gukbe, Sunday, 7 July 2013 05:33 (eleven years ago) link

it's true. and millenial hipsters are going to show us the way out of the labyrinth (subject of the next david brooks column)

Treeship, Sunday, 7 July 2013 05:40 (eleven years ago) link

as long as they're not muslim, as they're mentally uncapable

Gukbe, Sunday, 7 July 2013 05:40 (eleven years ago) link

So that article and general idea of Russia (?) constructing something called anti-Zionism as a cover for a no longer acceptable anti-Semitism ...

I sort of think some people on the ground might have had legit reasons for being anti-Zionism. Or are we to see Palestinians as a bit too stupid to understand the ideologies going on around them, the Russians need to weave a magic spell? Has to come from above, from the anti-Semitic powers that be, can't just be that Palestinians know what Zionism is and disagree with it on principle because it inherently means them losing their homes?

Or am I missing like millions of points here.

cardamon, Saturday, 13 July 2013 16:33 (eleven years ago) link

Is this anti-semitism?

Mordy , Saturday, 13 July 2013 22:17 (eleven years ago) link


This thread has been locked by an administrator

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.