Is this anti-semitism?

seems about right.

in a dark half-acknowledged corner of our minds, that there is one state in the world—however imperfect it is in some of its particulars—where we and our children will be welcome

you couldn't pay me to live in Israel tbh. I'm cool with it existing - hopefully in some form different than its present one - but gtfo with that projection shit.

Abouaf insisted that I sit with him to watch a video that had spread widely after the incident, under a headline announcing that Serge Benhaim – the president of the synagogue – denied any attack had taken place. The video shows a young journalist, Julien Nény, repeatedly asserting in an interview with Benhaim that the violence had been instigated by the notorious Jewish Defence League; his questions to Benhaim focus on the reputation of the JDL for violence rather than on the events of the afternoon. Under Nény’s insistent questioning, the quietly spoken Benhaim repeats that “that version of events is wrong” Eventually, the spooling, repetitive question-and-answer becomes hard to follow. It was only after watching the video four times that I understood: Benhaim is repeatedly denying, in the same phrase, Nény’s repeated suggestion that the violence had been provoked by the JDL. His endlessly looping denial ends up being twisted by Nény’s bullying persistence into the opposite of what he is saying – it sounds as though he is denying that the synagogue was attacked. It’s an impressive journalistic sleight of hand, so successful, indeed, that it made its way round the world, written about by journalists who may have simply read the headline and not even bothered to watch the video – evidence, perhaps, of a surprisingly widespread taste for the notion that antisemitic violence is a chimera, faked by Jews and supported by the government as part of a strategy to demonise Muslims in France and elsewhere.

I've never heard this story before. So fucked up.

I normally hate the Guardian but this article seems remarkably fair:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/jan/15/-sp-threat-to-france-jews

http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/188423/jews-lose

Last week, the Community Security Trust—the institutional body primarily responsible for the safety of Jews in Britain—released its preliminary figures on the number of anti-Semitic incidents that had occurred over the course of 2014. The news was not good. Anti-Semitism had hit an all-time high, with a particular spike occurring in July during the course of renewed hostilities between Israel and Gaza. Another poll found that nearly half of all non-Jewish Britons held at least some anti-Semitic views, and for their part British Jews expressed unprecedented feelings of fear and vulnerability. More than half of the Jewish community stated that they feared for their future in Great Britain, and a quarter claimed to have considered leaving the country.

Because I am a lawyer and law professor (albeit not a British one), my natural instinct in these circumstances is to appeal to the law for protection. Anti-Semitic harassment, intimidation, violence, and discrimination are illegal, and a primary purpose of the courts is to provide a shield for vulnerable minorities. Unfortunately, when it comes to Jewish litigants coming to the English courts with allegations of discrimination, doctrine, precedent, and case law all fall away at the hands of one simple rule: Jews lose. They lose consistently, they lose badly, and they will often be humiliated in the process. In her magnificent 2011 book An Unfortunate Coincidence: Jews, Jewishness, and English Law, English law professor Didi Herman concludes that—since the passage of the Race Relations Act of 1976—a Jew has never won a reported discrimination case against a non-Jewish defendant.

Things are better in the United States—but not by as much as one would hope. In terms of raw numbers, Jews are the third-most common victim of hate crimes in America, behind African-Americans and gay men (per capita, they rank second). Yet in his own examination of American First Amendment jurisprudence, University of Wyoming law professor Stephen Feldman found that Jews had never successfully won a Free Exercise challenge before the United States Supreme Court (they also have not, to my knowledge, won a Supreme Court case under the primary federal statute providing for religious liberty, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act). Free Exercise and RFRA cases typically concern the asserted need for an exemption from a generally applicable legal rule that conflicts with a person’s religious obligations. Christians certainly do not always win these cases, but they do sometimes—most recently (and notoriously) in the Hobby Lobby case about insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act. Jews, by contrast, have enjoyed a constant string of defeats before the high court.

whole thing is worth reading tbh

Despite this history, the same tropes discussed above—that Jews perpetually cry anti-Semitism, that discourse about anti-Semitism is so ubiquitous in America to the extent that it squeezes out other important discussions—are prevalent here as well. The far left and far right unify around the idea that Americans need to struggle against “Jewish privilege.” Moving closer to the mainstream, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt devote an entire section of The Israel Lobby to the idea of “anti-Semitism” as “the great silencer” (they suggest that while “the charge of anti-Semitism can be an effective smear tactic, it is usually groundless”). They are in grand historical company—in 1941 it was Charles Lindbergh who complained about the “smear” of anti-Semitism in the course of assailing Jewish desire for the United States to intervene in World War II and indicting “their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.”

The point is not to oversell the peril of being Jewish in America. Rather, it is to stress that even where Jews are well-integrated these stereotypes about the Jewish position—Jews are dominant, Jews are hyper-powerful, Jews have infinite political sway and influence—remain active and distort our view of the world. When talking about the role of the “bad faith” response against claims of anti-Semitism at an academic conference this past November, I was asked about AIPAC—AIPAC really does use “anti-Semitism” cynically and opportunistically for political ends, right? Well, wrong—AIPAC actually refers to anti-Semitism very rarely. It isn’t a substantial part of their political playbook. Yet it is so ingrained in our collective psyche that Jews of the AIPAC sort deploy anti-Semitism incessantly, even recklessly, that we “know” about AIPAC’s malfeasance in this regard even though they really don’t participate in the discourse at all. One does not have to be a backer of AIPAC to be alarmed at the distorted, even mythic, role they play in discussions about the status of Jews in American life. (I get similar shivers when I listen to conservatives talk about George Soros’ links to progressive organizations, a discourse which has a distinct undertone of “… backed by the Jewish money you didn’t know about.”)

More than half of the Jewish community stated that they feared for their future in Great Britain, and a quarter claimed to have considered leaving the country.

On a purely anedoctal level, as a UK Jew, this stat is a massive heaping tablespoon full of bullshit, unless they mean leaving the country for a retirement flat in Portgual

or maybe yr anecdotal experience isn't definitive?

Quite possibly! That's why it's anecdotal.

ok fair enough, "massive heaping tablespoon full of bullshit" just seemed over-the-top for what was essentially a comment that read "not in my experience."

I think the bigger question is what it means by "considered" leaving the country. I mean, I've "considered" living in other countries before.

sure, but even if you ignore that stat you're still left w/ "More than half of the Jewish community stated that they feared for their future in Great Britain," and "Anti-Semitism had hit an all-time high," and "nearly half of all non-Jewish Britons held at least some anti-Semitic views, and for their part British Jews expressed unprecedented feelings of fear and vulnerability." seems odd to focus on that one bit.

But if you can't trust that stat, can you trust the others... just saying like.

^_-

My sister lives in England, in Leeds, and I think may be in some degree of denial, in that she's always harping on about how secular it is in the UK across the board, and how Jews are pretty low-key, etc. Though to my ears it sounds like the same as my other family in Australia: totally secular man, once you discount Christmas celebrations and Easter parades and all sorts of Christian stuff built into everyday life except no one *really* takes that at all serious. Like, my sister talks about Jewish friends she has who have Christmas tree, because nbd, it's just what everyone does.

Sort of reminds me of folks in the UK who are progressive and thoughtful and friendly and totally defensive about golliwog dolls.

i have no doubt that life is better for jews in the UK than it is in most other places

Sort of reminds me of folks in the UK who are progressive and thoughtful and friendly and totally defensive about golliwog dolls.

You own a time machine I take it?

josh even though you provide value as one of ilx's most consistently entertaining and voluble idiots you might want to do some research about how many people in the uk like golliwog dolls, and whether or not they would describe themselves as 'progressive'

Mordy might have a poll to hand.

idk what that means, is it an englishism?

xpost Man, everybody is in a snit on ILX this morning. I just mean that you can still find them in shop windows in some places. In my limited experience.

No idea, I'm not English.(xp)

so just incoherence

the poll results are interesting, certainly if one wants to know how people feel rather than how they ought to feel, although the statistics about emigration wishes and fear of the future need to be read alongside the general levels of things-are-a-bit-shit-really cultural pessimism of the uk as a whole ('two in three families surveyed want to emigrate due to the economy, weather and a loss of national pride')

the more worrying figures are the 94% rise in antisemitic hate crimes in the uk coinciding with the recent palestinian conflict, similar to the second intifada period and set against a high proportion of those crimes being committed by muslims even during relatively calm periods in the middle east (links to the relevant cst papers in here)

there also seems to be a pan-european movement towards non-muslims sympathizing with palestinian victimhood in order to add moral lustre to their extant antisemitism, evident in the popularity of dieudonné in france extending well beyond the banlieues of paris and marseille

I'm a barmitzvah'd Jew who owns Christmas trees -- did I do something wrong?

well, i assume u don't worship jesus so probably no biggie

the christmas tree elements of josh' post also makes little sense because the ubiquity of christmas trees etc in the uk does not derive from secularism, which is a positive ideology favouring the quarantining of religion in public life, so much as the very pronounced tendency towards irreligion here, certainly compared to america but most of europe too

christmas as enjoyed by most people in the uk owes very little or nothing to abrahamic religion any more than nordic trees themselves do, though it does owe a lot to the traditional practises of northern europeans adapted to high latitude winters, fattening, celebratory drunkenness etc

i have split feelings. on one hand, since it's originally a pagan custom and not christian that means that having a tree isn't really paying homage to jesus and therefore isn't such a big deal. on the other hand, judaism frowns on pagan costumes even more [somewhat - christianity is like pseudo-pagan] than christian costumes so i'm not sure that makes it better. in conclusion, i don't really care if jews have a christmas tree tho i'd never have one myself.

costumes lol

the 'christmas is, actually, a pagan solstice festival' claims of tryhard neopagan types are mostly vapid, removing the christian observance does not make it revert to some latent form it just emphasizes the same climactic and geographical conditions that have always obtained

it's true that context is important + normally i'd agree but there are special laws in judaism about not deriving benefit from objects of pagan worship and i'm not sure that its disuse for centuries as a pagan object of worship helps matters. (iirc there's a type of tree in the talmud that you're not allowed to derive benefit from for similar reasons - and the reason jews aren't supposed to drink wine w/ gentiles is bc wine drinking used to be a part of a pagan ritual -- so even post-context some kinds of obligations still apply)

that's a shame because gentiles have all the best wine (with exception of the rothschild chateaux)

obv this is all theoretical since no jew who cares about Talmudic prohibitions is going to own a tree in the first place

I don't really care how anybody celebrates anything, or what and why they identify as one thing over another. But it is called a Christmas tree, pagan roots or no, and I grew up seeing it as a symbol of conformity. I mean, I understand there are Christmas trees and celebrations all over, say, Japan, and that fits the mold differently. It's not a largely Christian country, and the holiday is celebrated as a secular thing (which I define as non-religious). But in a largely or overwhelmingly Christian country, I can't see the trappings and traditions of Christian holidays as anything less than religious, at least not until I see other religious traditions being celebrated, too.

My younger daughter this year - she's 7 - was upset, asking why everything closes for Christmas, and everyone gets time off, and everyone puts up decorations and sings songs, but they don't do that for Chanukah. I could only say, first, that Chanukah is not that important, but also that there are not many Jews, period, so Jewish stuff is not that important to anyone else.

(Maybe not Japan, but China?)

Only Jews think Christmas is about Jesus.

pretty sure there are at least a couple religious christians who think it's about jesus

We're there stats around how that poll was conducted? There were about the other poll of non-Jewish opinions4u on Jewish people but I didn't see the working behind the emigration survey at the time.

This suggests not: http://www.jpr.org.uk/newsevents/article.1012

from the author of the piece i posted this morning, an addendum on the theme:
http://dsadevil.blogspot.com/2015/01/jews-lose-big-media-david-edition.html

pretty sure there are at least a couple religious christians who think it's about jesus

We don't have a whole lot of those in Britain anymore.

we have A LOT of those in the US

Yes, but Josh's original (pre-golliwog) post was about Christmas in the UK, which he hasn't experienced, unlike his sister whose opinion he seems to prepared to dismiss.

...one to too many

unlike his sister whose opinion he seems to prepared to dismiss.

Duh, she's my sibling, of course I'm prepared to dismiss her.

Ha, right!

My younger daughter this year - she's 7 - was upset, asking why everything closes for Christmas, and everyone gets time off, and everyone puts up decorations and sings songs, but they don't do that for Chanukah. I could only say, first, that Chanukah is not that important, but also that there are not many Jews, period, so Jewish stuff is not that important to anyone else.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, January 22, 2015 10:35 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was pretty mad about Christmas around that age, then I got over it for a long time, and then recently I've started being mad about it again. My parents went through a lot of effort to come in to school every year for the early part of elementary school to share Chanukah traditions or make sure the winter concert had a Chanukah song in it or whatever (I was one of I think two Jews my age all through elementary school, and my sister was younger).

having an xmas tree is the one "Christian" tradition my wife has insisted on maintaining, and it has nothing to do with Jesus to her so I don't really care. I do sort of enjoy needling Christians about their ignorance of their own traditions when it comes to Xmas (which is p striking/common, at least in the U.S.), that's good enough payback for me. You can have your silly pagan ritual that you don't even understand, what do I care. At least Hannukah has some kind of consistent logic to it.

also, more fire