Is this anti-semitism?

Jews in France are caught between secular republicans who find the idea of communautarisme a danger for the unitary Republic, Catholic and identity-centered right-wing anti-semites and left-wing anti-zionists who are highly influenced by the large Maghrebin population. To some extent they are also the victims of their own success, having assimilated relatively well and done well for themselves, they are a target of resentment from the petite-bourgeoisie.

this weeks' nyer story about the roma is interesting in the context of french xenophobia/bigotry/national identity. best thing ive read by adam gopnik who i usually hate

more Dieudonne - this stuff is all over my fb feed:

http://blog.thecst.org.uk/?p=4706

The worst thing about Dieudonné's anti-semitism is that he started his career working with Élie Semoun (a French Jew) lambasting racism in France.

it's funny that this thread is active today and yet no talk as of yet about amiri baraka

* nb I just wanted to mention that this is a canard - most assimilated German jewry was able to escape WW2 bc of their educational + economic advantages. The primary victims of the Holocaust were already-marginalized shtetl Jews in Ukraine + Poland who were certainly not assimilating, primarily the large chassidic community of the Pale

Not the case in this family, unfortunately

xp what do you think of amiri baraka, mordy?

any positive opinions i may have held about his innovations in improv poetry + performance have been long overshadowed by his frightening, paranoid hatred of jews

this is what i commented on a fb thread on the topic:

One thing that makes Baraka a bit more troubling than Pound or Eliot (or de Man, or Heidegger) is that those poets lived in the judenhass hegemonic context of 20th century Europe. Baraka had no such excuse plying these ideas in 21st century US (or at least not quite as much an excuse if you aren't as optimistic about the state of American anti-semitism as I am).

did you know his first wife was jewish?

i don't say that to excuse him but i find it an interesting fact

i did not. i'm really only familiar w/ his work and not his personal life.

he was a complicated guy, for sure

i put up one of my favorite amiri baraka poems of his on facebook, then thought a bit about the line "rape the white girls. rape / their fathers. cut the mothers' throats" and took it down.

also i feel like there's a big conversation yet to be had about judenhass in the black power + nation of islam communities that i imagine had an impact on baraka

https://evbdn.eventbrite.com/s3-s3/eventlogos/18281311/professorgriff.jpg

Hmm, let Griff ruminate on this a bit.

Crap, fucked up my joke! Try again:

http://evbdn.eventbrite.com/s3-s3/eventlogos/18281311/professorgriff.jpg

Hmm, let Griff ruminate on this a bit.

mordy when you're talking about the right not to assimilate, what sorts of things do you mean above & beyond religious freedom?

There are lots of cultural reasons not to assimilate.

I mean the right not to be coercively assimilated either culturally, religiously or politically: and that the rights of citizens should not be dependent on the groups assimilation.

I am curious how ppl understand assimilation, esp ppl who see it as a threatening thing. coercion & conditional rights seem obviously terrible, but I have always thought of 'soft' social assimilation as a good thing, tho not a responsibility.

assimilation into a not-terrible culture wd be ok i guess

In every country in Western Europe, nobody is allowed to not assimilate...

Complete assimilation is a threat to the Jewish people bc it erodes the Jewish community + population - some level of acculturation is to be expected in every community tho, so regarding that there's a sliding scale. I read American literature, listen to western music, go to movies, wear t-shirts and jeans, etc. But I'm also involved in my Jewish community, I have Jewish children etc. But I'm not really talking about either of these kinds of assimilation (complete or just acculturation) bc they're both by choice and I think ppl are allowed to decide how they want to live. I'm talking about the argument made by ppl who would otherwise not consider themselves anti-semites that they are not against Jewish ppl per se, only they think Jewish culture needs to be eliminated. This can sound palatable to otherwise ignorant ppl (sorry for the shorthand strawmanning here), but making ones acceptance into society contingent on their abandoning their culture/peoplehood is a historical form of anti-semitism. It at least goes back to the Greek ban on circumcision, Torah learning, etc and continues until today. It is also of a piece with "I'm not anti-semitic, I'm just anti-Zionist," which can very rarely be somewhat defensible but unpacked often means, "I'm not against individual Jews, I'm just against the national self-determination of the Jewish people."

genuine belief in multiculturalism means a belief that diversity is excellent for humanity, that diversity makes us stronger as a whole. every form of assimilation is to some degree antithetical to that

mordy does this mean you've changed your mind about this

the USA, Israel, and national interest

I don't think the Arab Islamic people are at any risk of losing their peoplehood.

Also, in that post I don't say that Israel should coercively destroy Islamic culture - I just wrote that I wouldn't mind if it became subsumed into a more Western discourse. In either case there's no risk of that happening any time soon.

More Dieudonne here: http://www.salon.com/2014/01/10/dieudonne_mbala_mbala_anti_semites_favorite_comedian_partner/

It's weird how between Dieudonne + Baraka it's shaping up to be black antisemitism day.

lol i was looking through that thread and one thing i've definitely moved from since then is my belief in the two-state solution. i'm totes pro-annexing west bank now + giving all palestinians in areas a-c the vote.

idk about how people are understanding these terms, or the distinction between acculturation & assimilation - mb i'm talking about the former. perhaps there's more of a sense of exchange & reciprocation. construction & preservation of identities can easily turn into policing & i have got whiffs in the past that my jewish friends have felt this pressure at times. i suppose i'm suspiscious of cultural purism & the idea of degrees of belonging

suspiscious

when i was in yeshiva, there was definitely a sense of not emulating the customs + culture of the secular (gentile) world. this is technically a very old idea in judaism - the relevant biblical quote is:

"I am the Lord, your God. Do not follow the ways of Egypt where you once lived, nor of Canaan to where I am bringing you. Do not follow their customs (be-hukotehem lo teileichu)" (Leviticus 18:1-3, cf. also, 20:23).

which the Rambam interprets as meaning that you should not assimilate to any customs of non-Jews. there are other historically relevant interpretations but this is how i think it is interpreted in right-wing orthodox circles today. not only is it not a great take on the issue, imo, it's totally false as well. chassidic jews wear the clothing + sing the songs of gentile cultures that they intermingled w/ in eastern europe. anyone to the left of extreme charedim don't really bother w/ this at all - it would be extremely hypocritical of me to say that jews should not acculturate - i'm super super acculturated into western society and i think it's a great thing. but that hasn't replaced my jewish identity - just enhanced it. i would see assimilation by contrast as a kind of displacement.

It's weird how between Dieudonne + Baraka it's shaping up to be black antisemitism day.

and here I thought you were a fan of Dutchman and AB's cameo in Bulworth.

(relevant follow-up re rambam + rashi interpretative disagreement here)

i do like Bulworth but like i said above any warm feelings i ever had about AB dissipated a long time ago

chassidic jews wear the clothing + sing the songs of gentile cultures that they intermingled w/ in eastern europe

one of the reasons their whole "original Jews!" schtick has seemed ridiculous to me. it's the same with menonites, etc. they just want to act like the historical clock stopped at a specific point

xxxxp that's very interesting, thanks. it's fascinating how ppl respond to the inevitable anxiety of a minority group about its own identity & the source of that identity, & the things ppl tell their kids is v revealing ime.

obv Baraka became rather hateful and stupid in his dotage, judging by the 9/11 spew (which came after he'd recanted earlier antisemitic stuff in a Voice article circa 1990).

He was often in the back lot of my apartment building when I was ten, leading demonstrations for a black-empowerment housing project in Newark.

The tension between native majority and immigrants is real and not just the fruit of mindless chauvisnism or intolerance. For a secular French person, the right to secular education and religious tolerance is a touchy subject; the loi Ferry only dates from the beginning of the 20th Century and the some times monarchist but always right-wing, Catholic reaction was a very real threat from even before Dreyfuss. The Wars of Religion are something that the French remember at a level that I can assure you, most Americans of either side of the political spectrum, don't.

Should Muslims be able to continue male polygamy in Britain? Should Westerners be able to drink in Muslim countries or eat pork? Can the majority in a non-Jewish country ban circumcision as an act of child abuse? These are not necessarily idle or racist polemics. I tend toward the American libertarian norm and deplore the ban on ostentatious religiosity in schools, on the ban on the veil in public, on the hate-speech laws in France and the pre-emptive (or at least preclusive) bans on Dieudonné's performances, but i am almost very mindful of the national circumstances in which French attitudes arise.

I don't know if I agree with you. I've heard this argument many times from certain types of républicain un peu parfois tres à droite. The Wars of Religion are a traumatic event, yes. Secularity is important in the western european context, yes. However, we live in a globalized word in which immigration is a deciding factor. The goal posts have moved, at least culturally, and when it comes to certain things, the french are so attached to their roots they fail to understand why large numbers of immigrants don't have the time or ressources to be mindful of those national circumstances. Usually, the french jews sit outside this conversation, it's another context that is equally complicated.

re. baraka:

I don't know his work as well as I should, and I certainly haven't followed the coming and going (and coming again?) of his anti-semitism. it does seem like he wrote and said some outrageous, inexcusable things both as a young(er) man and, sadly, more recently.

that said, the ADL's web page that describes Baraka's anti-semitism is like the perfect encapsulation of the ADL's techniques. (see http://archive.adl.org/anti_semitism/baraka_words.html#.UtCMVfRDvTo) there's a ton of stuff taken out of context (by definition I suppose). for instance, there are passages taken from Baraka's own essay of self-criticism re. his anti-semitism as evidence of his anti-semitism (when Baraka's original, explicit purpose was to distance himself from those views). above all, there's the easy conflation and intermixing of genuine, if not often that thoughtful or sophisticated, criticism of israeli policy with statements casting strong bias on Jews as a group.

now, I'm no dummy. I know that the line between those two things can be blurry. there are certain ways of criticizing Israeli actions or "Israel itself" (ambiguously as a metonym for its government) in certain contexts and to certain audiences, that are effectively dog-whistles to anti-semites. it's regrettable that this is so. but there are also many many statements, made by baraka and others who were much less "outspoken" (to use a kind word) than he, that to my jewish mind contain no anti-semitic language at all, buut which the ADL gleefully dumps in along with everything else as evidence of anti-Jew bias.

the mingling of criticism of Israel(i policy) with anti-semitism is common and regrettable, but the ADL has been very clever and devious in using that truism to lump any form of criticism of israeli policy in the general category of "anti-Semitic speech." the irony of course is that many statements by even centrist members of the knesset would qualify as anti-semitic in the ADL's overbroad "definition."

I'm an American Jew, in whose name the ADL pretends to speak, so this angers me more than it probably does others. but I think their work-- along with that of national Hillel organization and other "mainstream" (ugh) Jewish organizations--does real violence to the possibility of adult, civil, open discourse on the topic of Israel and Israeli policy. they take one of the knottiest situations and give it a few more knots.

sorry I know this has all been hashed out earlier in this thread, and I hope it isn't a total derail. but just wanted to get this off my chest.

brief autobiographical aside:
I was on to the ADL's approach since back when I was a teenager. my Hebrew school actually brought my class into the ADL offices in NYC to have a "discussion" with some folks there. which of course was just a one-sided presentation (about the ADL's origins in B'nai Brith, their allegedly prolific and effective "humanitarian" work evidence of which I have yet to really see) until I raised some of the issues I mention above. i remember my Hebrew school teacher (Ray, a hateful chauvinist and racist--he once explained that the Palestinians "breed like rabbits") blanched and gave me a talking-to afterward. he said I had "ruined the experience" for my classmates. Ray, if you're out there somewhere, fuck you.

btw my hebrew-school and other childhood experiences (e.g. in my extended family's congregations) gave me such a horrible view of (at least a few slices of) mainstream jewish-american culture with its horrible chauvinism and racism and materialism that I find it very, very hard to attend any jewish event like a bar mitzvah, a wedding, even a seder without feeling deeply uncomfortable. and i doubt I will ever give to a jewish institution, even a jewish charity, unless it is very clearly one of the "jewish left". i recognize, very clearly, that I should detach my feelings about elements of Jewish-American cultures from my feelings about judaism and jewish ritual/practice in general. and I also realize that lots of non-Jews have similar experiences in other social-religious milieu; in a sense it's probably more a curse of the American upper-middle-class than anything specifically Jewish. but I cannot fully sever the link in my mind, it was reinforced over and over again in my youth.

OK, big derail and probably too personal. but I wonder if other folks here have similar experiences.

i guess the thread title applies to my post. :)

I was at an ADL fundraiser once where AF was the main speaker. My gf's Jewish and her dad and stepmother are pretty conservative and I was at the back of a room, somewhat tipsy after one martini too many and getting paranoid that the assembly could tell that I am not Jewish and treating me some like kind of infiltrator or something. AF's speech was utter horsefeathers, btw. To respond to yr question, though, amateurist, it's never been my experience that upper middle class Jews were any worse than upper middle class goyim in this country. Au contraire...

ADL does not have a huge presence in my life -- really the only time I hear them is in an article about anti-semitism where Foxman offers a quote. Which is not to say that there's no chauvinism in the kind of Judaism I am regularly exposed to - racism is certainly a problem in the very Orthodox community (though my particular Chabad synagogue is fairly pluralistic + open-minded). But there is a kind of institutional Judaism, or like professional Judaism, that is really the worst way to affiliate. You get none of the communal / ritual context and all of the political context. 45% of Orthodox Jews voted for President Obama in the last election iirc which means that while the majority of Jewish institutional opinion is aligned w/ a right-wing conservative worldview, there is a huge minority that dissents to some degree.

Tho that won't really help w/ your considerations about the radical pro-Israel position in the Jewish community which really is very broad and across the political spectrum. Half the world's Jewish population lives in Israel so it's not surprising that diaspora Jews would identify so strongly with the country, plus you really can't ignore the fact that the land of Israel is one of the most important aspects to Jewish culture. It's not like it was invented in 1940 and it's a relatively recent thing. It's like fundamental tenant of religion/texts/peoplehood/history/etc.

I was thinking the other day actually about how it's kinda surprising that there's no mention of the afterlife/world to come in the Old Testament. the only possible indication of early biblical belief in an afterlife is euphemistically from the verse, "And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people." (Gen 49:33) by contrast the entire bible is basically a narrative about god creating the land of israel, promising it to the jewish people, and then the rest of the bible is the jewish people trying to get back to israel (which, my friend points out, is really the more fundamental element to judaism - not the living in israel, but the trying to return to it). by contrast the other major monotheistic religions heavily emphasize the afterlife and it is a major part of their theologies. idk.

my understanding was that the idea of an afterlife came relatively late to Judaism? within the context of the Bible i'm unsure as to whether any references in the OT to an afterlife aren't Christian interpolations of some kind. the Torah itself, as I know it thru the King James Bible, seems pretty solidly to be about the land of Canaan/Israel and not concerned with any rewards for faith after death

while the majority of Jewish institutional opinion is aligned w/ a right-wing conservative worldview

I'm not sure which Jewish institutions you're talking about. by "mainstream" I largely meant reform/conservative-(and some modern orthodox)-associated Jewish institutions/culture, not haredi/ultra-orthodox institutions.

w/r/t to "mainstream" jewish politics I think your comment is at best a grievous oversimpliciation, at worst just wrong. Jews are still, though less and less than in past eras, something like a Democratic voting block. only the most Israel-obsessed or otherwise politically coarsened of my extended family votes Republican, even on occasion. a few might be wary of Obama because they have bought the right-wing line that he is "not a friend of Israel" or whatever. but I'd say that most of them are vaguely left-of-center with a huge blind spot when it comes to mideast politics.

of course, one could argue that even the Democratic party effectively espouses a right-wing worldview and they wouldn't be entirely wrong. (personally, I think that's a little hyperbolic though it goes point to some essential truths.) but I don't think that's the argument you were making.

am I reading you right?