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In Search of Anti-Semitism
By Shai Ginsburg / August 4, 2009
Yoav Shamir’s 2009 documentary Defamation is the one must-see film at this years’ San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. This is not to say that it is the most artistically successful of the current festival lineup. Nor is the reason behind this endorsement Defamation‘s fast-growing reputation, alongside Simone Bitton’s controversial documentary about the late Rachel Corrie, the logically-titled Rachel. Defamation‘s notoriety stems from the fact that the documentary takes as its subject matter Jewish preoccupation with anti-Semitism. Defamation is contentious, malicious even, to some, because it’s director refuses to accept at face value the belief that Jews are always victims of racism, and sets out to find out who makes such claims today, and why.
The question of anti-Semitism, Shamir notes, has always seemed rather remote, almost irrelevant, personally. As an Israeli, he has never experienced anti-Semitism first hand. In interviews, the filmmaker points at comments made by an American Jewish critic who, in response to Shamir’s first documentary Checkpoint (2003), accused him of being both anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic, citing these attacks as the impetus for Defamation. However, in the film itself, the motivating factor seems to be Shamir’s bafflement by the preoccupation of the Israeli press and politicians alike with anti-Semitism, an obsession that Shamir readily links, rightly or wrongly, with the obsession of American Jews with the subject. Shamir goes on a "personal" road trip to figure it all out. The emphasis here is on the personal, because Shamir explores his own attitude towards it, as much as he focuses on other persons’ engagement with the prejudice.
The outcome of Shamir’s investigation is complex, defying any easy ideological categorizations. Indeed, the director, who is responsible for the cinematography and has also provided the English narration (albeit with a clearly Israeli accent), does not conceal his political convictions. Shamir does not hesitate to comment directly on what his subjects say, and does so not only in the form of asides to the audience, but as direct challenges to their views and opinions. Shamir repeatedly gives up any pretense towards objectivity, and becomes an active participant in the debate created by his seemingly naĂŻve questions. At the same time, Shamir avoids a summary judgment of his interviewees—a common pitfall of political filmmaking—a judgment that would have alienated his audience. On the contrary, he ultimately seems empathetic to those he interviews, irrespective of their opinions.
Shamir’s journey is, in fact, several separate journeys. The film begins with a visit to the editorial staff of Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s biggest daily. There, Noah Klieger, the journalist in charge of covering global anti-Semitism, and a Holocaust survivor himself, assures the director that every country—including western liberal democracies such as the US, Germany, France, the UK—is anti-Semitic to the core. Later in the movie, Shamir finds out from one of Klieger’s apprentices that whereas a rise in anti-Semitism is considered newsworthy, this is not the case for a decline; hence the paper throws into relief news items that would reinforce one’s impression that the former is the case, and suppresses items that would contravene it. Be that as it may, Shamir finds out that in its coverage of anti-Semitism, the paper relies not on its own reporters, but on data provided by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Next, Shamir travels to the New York offices of the ADL, where Abe Foxman has granted him unprecedented access to its operation, and even allowed him to join himself and members of the League in a tour of Europe and Israel. Shamir looks for an anti-Semitic incident that he could follow and explore in full as a centerpiece for his film. Notwithstanding the officers’ alarm in the face of what they portray as a significant increase in anti-Jewish incidents, they are unable to provide Shamir with a single incident to explore. Because, as the Israeli director quickly finds out, the vast majority of incidents registered come down to overhearing racial slurs, or complaints about being denied days off on Jewish holidays.
Finally, Shamir discovers a noteworthy incident, in which African-Americans have stoned a Jewish school bus. A local Jewish journalist assures him that Jews in the neighborhood do suffer from the anti-Semitism of their African-American neighbors. A street interview with three African-American residents who readily quote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion appears to confirm this. But to Shamir’s great surprise, he also encounters Rabi Hecht, one of Abe Foxman’s critics. Hecht warns of viewing every incident in which Jews and African-Americans are involved as racially motivated and moves to harshly denounce the work of the ADL as counter-productive. One shouldn’t trust, he says, someone who makes a living out of anti-Semitism to provide an impartial account of the phenomenon.
Indeed, as though in agreement with Hecht, Shamir becomes ill at ease when members of Foxman’s coterie tell him that they became active in the organization as a way to consolidate their own Jewish identity. The director finds even more troubling their affirmation that they look at Israel as their insurance policy, in case Jews become unwelcome in the US. Are they acting in Israel’s best interests, Shamir asks, or in their own? Yet, as he follows Abe Foxman in his meetings with politicians and heads of states around the world, it becomes clear that notwithstanding their difference of opinions, Yoav Shamir cannot stop himself from believing in Foxman’s sincerity, and admiring his inexhaustible energy in pursuing what he believes to be best for world Jewry.
Shamir’s Foxman seems quite sympathetic in comparison with the filmmaker’s troubled portrait of one of Foxman’s nemeses, Norman Finkelstein. Shamir travels to Minnesota and interviews him both prior to and following his dismissal from DePaul University. One would have assumed that Finkelstein’s claims that the State of Israel and its American stand ins, such as the ADL, make cynical use of the Holocaust to justify their immoral politics vis-Ă -vis Palestinians would meet with approval. Yet, notwithstanding the merits of Finkelstein’s claims (Shamir does not assess their merit) he emerges as a troubled figure, obsessed and haunted in ways upon which, at least in the film, he refuses to acknowledge. As Finkelstein takes leave of Shamir, he states "Heil Hitler." The director is baffled. Wouldn’t such a provocation undermine Finkelstein’s credibility? Finkelstein insists it is his absolute right to do so, particularly given the immorality of those he criticizes.
Yet, the most troubling journey Shamir takes in this film is not to the US, but to Auschwitz, with a group of Israeli high school students. 30,000 students take this trip each yearm. Shamir follows their preparations for the trip, and their tours of the camp. Two things become manifest through Shamir’s interviews with the students, and as his camera captures their interaction with their teachers and guides. First, the trip is not designed to yield a historical understanding of the Holocaust but, rather, to elicit an emotional reaction that would reinforce the students’ identification with the State of Israel. Such an emotional reaction is deemed the basis for their realizing that Israel is the only place where a Jew can live free of the fear of persecution. Second, in order to elicit such a reaction, the students are repeatedly forewarned that the local Poles are still anti-Semites. They are thus forbidden to interact with the locals, irrespective of circumstances.
The fear instilled in the young students reaches its climax in a very brief, yet disturbing scene. Three elderly Polish men address two Israeli female students. Whereas the students speak Hebrew and some English, the men only speak Polish. They proceed to ask the students where are they from, and whether they are indeed Israelis. Not understanding Polish, the two students infer that the men are speaking ill of Israel, and say that the two are bitches. The girls quickly step away. Later, they repeatedly recount the story of their encounter with this example of local anti-Semitism.
The reaction of the students, Shamir suggests, is not simply the product of adolescent silliness. Notwithstanding the best intentions of their trip’s organizers and the worthiness of their educational purposes, the incident is a welcome one. Logically, none of the accompanying adults bothers to dispel the students’ misperceptions. What, then, is the outcome of our obsession with the Holocaust, Shamir ultimately asks. Even if we do not accept Uri Avnery’s assertion in Defamation that anti-Semitism does not exist, this does not exempt us from questioning how it effects our view of the world, and, most importantly, the way we raise our children. For this reason, we should endeavor to emulate Yoav Shamir’s example, by asking these very same questions.
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First, some disclosure. I’m not Jewish. I was raised as a Methodist in central Louisiana. If my background colors you opinion of what I write so be it, but it can never be said I was not forthright in this regard or pretended to be something I’m not.
I saw "Defamation" at the Tribeca Film Festival and would strongly recommend it. Shai has written a very good synopsis but there is more to the film that is best revealed in viewing it. The one point that Shai missed in the initial synopsis but covered in the comments is the distinction that the director tries to make in separating the Jewish faith from the state of Israel. He explores whether criticism of the actions of the state of Israel directly equate to anti-Semitism. I couldn’t help thinking about the US and our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Frequently those who spoke out and expressed concerns about our governments policy were subjected to charges that they were not true American patriots. It’s a "you’re with us or you’re against us" jingoism that has been used to various levels of effectiveness to quiet opposition without more involved discussion or any examination of the complexities of the region, its culture, or its history. In the case of Israel it’s all that plus religion, the tragic history of the Holocaust and the involvement of extra-national Jews on behalf of the state of Israel.
The point that I came away with is that the director thinks sometimes it is good to separate the Israeli identity from the Jewish identity. Many of the issues that seem black and white to the likes of Mr. Foxman are much more complex when you live with the consequences on the ground. And that’s not to imply that Mr. Foxman is not acting with the best of intentions. I think he believes that he’s doing the right thing, but he may not always get it right.
And the storyline on the youth trip to Auschwitz is enlightening and heartbreaking all at once. That story arc alone is worth a viewing.
Peace.
I read with amusement the previous comment: "But what can you expect from the San Francisco self-hating Jewish film festival?". People claiming that the SF Jewish film festival is self-hating are anti-Semites ;-) But saying so would make me a paranoid self-hating anti-Semitic Jew obsessed with anti-Semitism. Damn it ! :D :D :D
Even as an American Jew, I certainly have had first-hand experience of antisemitism. Â None of it has been life-threatening, but it would be foolish to claim that these particular instances of harassment and provocation directed towards me, or at a group in which I may have taken part in were not motivated by antisemitism– some of it being classic <i>Protocols</i>-style conspiracy theorizing, some of it Holocaust denial, and some of it the old-fashioned anti-Judaism that most Christian churches used to teach until only a couple of generations ago.
My experience is that the conflation between Israel and Jews is pretty common in the West– even amongst pro-Israeli or philo-Semitic (and yes, they aren’t always the same thing) goyim. Just last night I was having a friendly conversation with a neighbor of mine, who clearly supports Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, who kept referring to the State Israel as "your people."
That said. there is a grey area and not a sharp demarcation between critique of Israel and antisemitism. Â A non-Israeli gentile being a critic of the settler movement’s activities in the West Bank or the allocation of water resources between Israel and Palestine, isn’t necessarily anti-Semitic (and if their critique is so narrowly focussed, then they probably aren’t) but that’s a far different than positions like "Israel isn’t entitled to use force to defend itself" or "Jews are not entitled to a sovereign state in the Middle East" which are not critiques but dogma.
The point is that if one is very clear in their critique and they aren’t motivated by antisemitism, then the antisemitism label won’t stick anyway. The people who complain loudest about being labeled antisemites, at the most charitable estimation, probably spoke thoughtlessly before the label was applied.
Shai:
In the Arab world no difference is made between Jews and Israelis. Israelis are usually referred to al Yahud (The Jew) and anti-Israeli cartoons feature the classic hook nosed Jew. As far as the west goes, criticism of Israel is certainly valid, however, to me, this obsession with criticizing Israel (as evidenced by the UN) is evidence of ant-semitism. For example the last war in Gaza, despite the fact that Israel had been subjected to several thousand rockets, was heavily criticized in the West. Meanwhile the war in Afghaistan is viewd as a good war. The US is attacked by a small terrorist group and this somehow justifies toppling a regime on the other side of the world and raging a war at the cost of tens of thousands of civillian lives.
Disco-Stu
Indeed, Shamir tries to wrest the criticism of Israel from being conflated with anti-Semitism. As he convincingly shows in the film, the two are conflated in order to silence criticism and censure of Israel and deflect attention from what Israel is doing in the Occupied Territories, by arguing that Jews are still (mis) treated, their priveleged status in most "first-world" coutnries notwithstanding.Â
In this, the ADL collaborates with the Israeli government (and it doesn’t matter who’se government it is, whether Likud or Labor) to reinforce Israeli control of Palestinians.
I think it is of the utmost importance that we differentiate anti-Semitism from criticism of Israel, less we force all critics of the Jewish state into the anti-Semitic camp and thus feed that camp. Â
The question Shamir raises, I think, is whether American Jews, as the most successful ethnic group in the US, can truly claim to be suffering from anti-Semitism. It seems to Shamir, and I am in agreement with him on this point, that much of the Jewish discourse about anti-Semitism in the US has less to do with actual race-based discrimintaion and persecution and more with an attempt to cling to a Jewish identity that has little else to give it content: after all, many American Jews are not observant in any meaningful way, and so have lost touch with much of what historically defined Jews as Jews.
If Israeli Jews and American Jews–the two major Jewish concentrationsat the present–cannot be said to be truly suffering from anti-Semitism, that means that the majority of Jews do not suffer from anti-Semitism; then one has to ask why are they still so obssessed with it.Â
The problem as I see it is that "antisemitism" is an arcane word that is used to describe everything from Europe’s recent dispossession of its Jews and marching them to the ovens to opposition to settlement policy.
It’s my understanding that the term itself was coined by a 19th Century German who was proudly antisemitic and wanted a term to describe his attitude. The term ‘semite’ was created by a German using Noah’s son Shem as the root. Considering where German musings on the nature of Semites led them two generations later, it seems their phraseology should be the last thing we should use today. But, here we are.
The problem with the one-size-fits-all nature of the term ‘antisemitism’ is not only that you have people describing anti-Netanyahu/Lieberman sentiment as antisemitic, but that you also have people who routinely describe Israelis as the new Nazis or describe US foreign policy and media as being controlled by a cabal of Zionists, and these people say "I’m not antisemitic because I don’t believe in rounding up Jews and putting them in camps, I’m merely opposed to Zionism".
“The question of anti-Semitism, Shamir notes, has always seemed rather remote, almost irrelevant, personally. As an Israeli, he has never experienced anti-Semitism first hand.”
This really is the key to Shamir’s entire attitude. The majority of the world’s Jewish population is not exposed to anti-semitic attitudes. It is a lot easier to doubt the existence of something one has never experienced.
That said, I think that Jews should do everything in our power to extricate from our narrative the victim identity. It no longer reflects reality.
The ignorance described in this film is amazing. You want to see anti-semitism; look in the newspapers of any Arab country and find blatant anti semitism. The Palestiaian president’s PhD thesis is a refutation of the Holocaust. You want anti-semitism at Aushwitz look at what was said during the controversy about the erection of a cross there a few years ago. You want anti-semitism in main stream journalism-look at what is going on this week; Two arab families evicted from a house in Jerusalem that the supreme court decided wasn’t their’s is front page news for days in the Western press, while hundreds of Nigerians killed by an Islamist group is in the news for one day and then gone. But what can you expect from the SF self-hating Jew film festival.
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