Anti-semitism thread: onwards from 2023

Yeah, I think of "forked tongue" as a Biblical reference, the Garden of Eden and all that. I'm also not aware of it as specifically antisemitic — and a quick Google bears that out — but it is ascribing Satanic characteristics that feel close to horns etc. I would think best avoided under the circumstances, but I agree it's not a blatant invocation.

fwiw I'm not sure anyone was trying to be funny. Just acknowledging the lineage and persistence of the tropes. But fair points.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Thursday, May 16, 2024 7:05 AM bookmarkflaglink

tipsy, thank you.

I said "I wonder" since I wanted to leave open the possibility of mere thoughtlessness. You answered that.

What for you is "just" hypothetical abstract, language is for the target, when repeated, circulated, and shared online on a massive scale, especially with "we" and "them" in-group-out-group signaling, something that causes real psychological and emotional harm. It's dehumanizing language which has been used for centuries to justify violence against Jews. It's a mark of privilege that you don't need to consider it after you made your post whereas here I was carrying it around a week later wondering whether it's worth the typical ILX knee-jerk backlash to register my objection.

Antisemitism is in the air we breathe. It wears a deep groove in the history of Western thought. Antisemitism offers many pleasures: the lure of tradition, the thrill of transgressiveness, the high of moral superiority. I understand a lot of this is passed on thoughtlessly or without conscious bad intent. The way to respond is to make people aware of what they are doing and ask them to be more conscious.

You'd think lawyers would have evolved, but this is the crap we are still dealing with in my profession:

Two ex-Lewis Brisbois partners were pushed out of the boutique they started after their former firm released racist, sexist and antisemitic emails the partners wrote while employed there.

The remaining leaders at the boutique, which was formed by John Barber and Jeff Ranen, will start a new firm, said Tim Graves, chief executive officer at the operation that had been named Barber Ranen.

“Effective immediately, the firm has requested and accepted the resignations of John Barber and Jeffrey Ranen,” Graves said in a statement Monday. “The remaining equity partners express their disappointment and disdain for the language Mr. Barber and Mr. Ranen used.”

The partners’ former firm, Lewis Brisbois, shared a tranche of emails spanning more than a decade that show Barber and Ranen making disparaging remarks about female associates, clients and others, as well as using racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ slurs.

“We are resigning from Barber Ranen effective immediately in order to allow our friends and colleagues to continue on without the cloud of our conduct hanging over them,” Ranen and Barber said in a joint statement.

They added, “We are ashamed of the words we wrote, and we are deeply sorry.”

Barber and Ranen were California-based leaders of Lewis Brisbois’s labor and employment group until last month, when they broke off from firm and took nearly 140 lawyers with them.

Lewis Brisbois opened an investigation into the two partners after receiving an “anonymous complaint” following their departure, the firm said in a statement Monday.

“Because the vast majority of these emails were sent in private between John Barber and Jeff Ranen, neither the Lewis Brisbois HR department nor the executive committee were made aware of their behavior until after the anonymous complaint first came in,” the firm’s statement said.

In one email, after Ranen complained about a female colleague’s overtime request, Barber told him to “kill her” through a sexual act. In another, Ranen mocked the religious practices of a Jewish attorney who asked not to be emailed during the sabbath.

Many states have training mandates for lawyers that require them to complete continuing education courses to topics related to ethics and bias. California requires lawyers to complete at least 25 hours of training every three years.

Emails from Barber and Ranen demonstrate the little quality control that state bar associations perform on these trainings, said Rima Sirota, a Georgetown University law professor.

“This kind of stuff is unethical,” Sirota said. “Most companies wouldn’t want to be associating with a firm with that kind of atmosphere.”

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/ex-lewis-brisbois-partners-quit-firm-after-racist-sexist-emails

These weren't some white collar criminal defense attorneys. They were leaders of the labor and employment law group.

It really pains me to see this being taught to younger generations.

Yep, totally hear you. My own comment about drinking blood was a shorthand nod toward the way QAnon has updated and recirculated blood-libel slander and that all of these things are connected. But I realize that things that sound one way in conversation can scan differently in text. The point of all it being that antisemitism remains endemic in our social and political rhetoric.

The point of all it being that antisemitism remains endemic in our social and political rhetoric.

Thank you. And my point is we don't need to see a demonstration of the dog whistling to see that antisemitism in the air like wild yeast.

You can refer to "blood libels" and tropes, like the N-word, without inhabiting the role of a person who says slurs yourself.

I hear and affirm.

I am glad that we can all be gracious about this. The jokes actually did make me feel uncomfortable in the context of this thread… says the goy with a Jewish best friend

curious about this author, haven't read this one, plot summary gave me pause
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Hallows%27_Eve_(novel)

reminded me of weird antisemitic tropes popping up in Chesterton's (who I don't otherwise like) "The Man Who Was Thursday" (which was still v entertaining)

a Jewish magician, born in Paris at the end of the 18th century, with an urge to master the world

truly vintage reaction

what can I say, the peculiarities and specific manifestations of UK anti-semitism often take me aback.

but obviously it's basically impossible to imagine a context where valiant Christian theologians combatting an evil Jewish magician bent on world domination is not anti-semitic

one of the things The Algorithm is feeding me is videos by this guy named Dave Hurwitz, like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=344ySyAbp94

he's got lots of videos, he's got lots of lists. doesn't have the production values or the camera presence that means that every video by rick beato gets millions of views. anyway, i like classical music but i don't listen to a lot of it. it's one of those types of content where i only watch it in private videos, because i watch too much of, i start getting recommended really hard right-wing shit. i had some trepidation about clicking on his videos, because, i mean, old white guy talking about classical music, you don't know what you're gonna get.

except in the context of classical music fandom, he doesn't get seen as an "old white guy" the way i see him, he gets looked at as _jewish_. i mean to be clear i'm a total goy, i just happened to grow up in new jersey, is all. all hurwitz being "jewish" means to me is that i have less hesitation in watching him because he's less likely to suddenly start saying nazi shit the way a lot of classical fans do. i'll be watching a video about one of the Great Composers, because i _do_ like a lot of the Great Works by the Great Composers, i'm basic that way, and all of a sudden the person will start dog-whistling. that's really unpleasant. i really feel taken and and gross and disgusted when someone who's knowledgeable about something i'm interested in outs themselves as anti-semitic.

his demeanor is a little boomerish but idk he's kinda fun to watch, he's kinda the stuff i like about older folks (even though honestly he's maybe not even _that_ much older than me, haha). he's really opinionated but i also know enough to know that he's really knowledgeable. when he starts dunking on, like, celibidache, i'm right there rooting him on, cuz the celibidache i've heard, it's fuckin' tedious. i don't have the musical knowledge to have an informed opinion on this stuff, but in general i feel like this dude has his head screwed on right when it comes to classical music. like even when he's saying "controversial" stuff it's not _that_ controversial, something like "kleiber's recording of beethoven's fifth is overrated", i mean, it's hard to do something that acclaimed and _not_ be overrated. it's like when something is acclaimed as the Best Wine Ever, is it really _that_ much better than the Second Best Wine Ever? no, but all anybody wants is The Absolute Best and nothing else counts for shit. that's capitalism, baby!

anyway the thing i like about this video is his talking about the anti-semitic crap he faces and where it comes from. and a lot of it is from the celibidache fans. i mean celibidache is the closest i can think of to an _actual_ zen fascist. not a literal fascist - in 1945 he replaced furtwangler while he was being "de-nazified" - but the fucking bullshit he pulled on abbie conant, because, horror of horrors, she's a _woman_... it's so appalling. and hurwitz doesn't even _talk_ about that that i've seen. mostly he talks about the recordings, which he says often sound pretty boring. and then people come at him with anti-semitic crap and _then_ he takes a break from talking about the music to talk about celibdache's "cult".

it's kinda fascinating because in his case i'm listening for, like... i'm almost hearing reverse dog-whistles. the way he's _not_ calling out furtwangler's fanbase as being only interested in the nazi 9th because they're wehraboos. which is like... i mean, i don't have the depth of classical listening knowledge that hurwitz does, but i listen to that and honestly, i can't imagine people being interested in it for simply musical reasons. it's the narrative around it. i'm guilty of that myself! there's some recordings i love mostly because there's a good story around them. i'm not gonna claim to be "all about the music". i don't just like martha argerich because of her performance skills. i like her because she's _temperamental_. i'm _temperamental_ myself.

but what hurwitz says is that celibidache supporters are _more_ anti-semitic than furtwangler fans. i think that's really interesting. because he also goes on to say that everything furtwangler stans say to him is some sort of apologia for his support of nazi germany. well he rips apart that apologia, but _doesn't_ say that those arguments are anti-semitic. that interests me. because when i hear him describe the arguments furtwangler apologists make, those arguments _sound_ pretty anti-semitic to me.

generally i'm not a huge fan of videos of some old white guy talking to the camera about classical music i haven't heard, but i admit to having enjoyed the videos of his i've seen. he's cranky in all the right ways. like at the beginning of the video he goes off on this rant about how hard it is for him to offer critique of classical recordings because when he tries to present excerpts of those recordings one of the major conglomerates goes off and files a copyright claim, which isn't about the money for him _directly_, but the knock-on effects. one of these companies files a claim and it fucks up the entire channel. like to me i see something like that and my response is "death to capitalism" and some really cute emoji but he's not like that, he's just trying to do his job, which is talking about classical music. it's not something i often get to encounter on the internet, and it was cool to spend a little time hearing his perspective.

Kate, have you seen his website? I can’t stand video reviews but I sometimes check out the website.

that guy is pretty hilarious. and i never really knew anything about Celibidache's life or career but i do like some of his Bruckner recordings on DG

Kate, have you seen his website? I can’t stand video reviews but I sometimes check out the website.

― Are you addicted to struggling with your horse? (Boring, Maryland)

i probably should check out the website. i got an old penguin guide that i never use and that's getting increasingly obsolete...

i'm the kinda weirdo who prefers the oct 12 1978 live kleiber/chicago beethoven's fifth

could i tell the difference from the studio version in a blind test? no. do i care? no.