Shortly before the beginning of seventh grade, when I entered the public school system for the first time after spending my earliest formative years at Nebraska’s only Jewish day school (student body: 37), my mother came to me with a warning. It wasn’t her intention to scare me, she explained, but she wanted to make sure I was prepared for some of the challenges that lay ahead.

“What challenges?” I asked. “What do you mean?” I wasn’t expecting the schoolwork to give me any trouble, and my grandmother had recently furnished me with several new back-to-school ensembles from the Limited that I was certain could at least partially smooth over my problem of not having any social skills.

My mother paused for a very long time before she spoke. “It’s possible that you may have to face some…anti-Semitism.”

Anti-Semitism. It wasn’t precisely clear to me what a Semite was, but I knew what it meant to be anti one. It meant you hated Jews and wanted them dead.

The existence of such a prejudice was hardly news; the bookshelves in my room groaned under the weight of solemn tales of the Holocaust and the pogroms, stories festooned with grim illustrations of terrified children laden with bundles, peering helplessly through pen and ink fence of barbed wire. My parents had their own stories: anti-Semitism was the reason my immigrant grandmother refused to let her children go swimming with the non-Jewish neighbors, why my father had been beaten up several times a week on his way home from junior high by roaming gangs of feral Gentile children.

But that was years ago.

“I’m not saying it will happen,” she continued, “but I want you to prepare for it if it does.”

As I had not yet learned that my mother’s general pessimism towards the human race was not always based in tangible reality, her warnings filled me with a consuming, atavistic sense of dread. When would the assault come, and in what form? Would I be shunned in the cafeteria or disinvited from birthday parties? Would I be physically attacked: trapped in lockers or forced to gather change from the floor as a gang of Esprit-clad Aryans mocked the parsimoniousness of my race? At the very least, I assumed I would be taunted verbally with cries of “kike” and “yid”; “heebie” and “hook-nose” and “Red Sea pedestrian” and other racial epithets I learned from Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.

“You forgot sheeny,” said my mother.

“I thought that was an Irish person.”

“Nope. You’re a sheeny.”

As time passed, I would hear all those words and more. What my mother didn’t tell me is that they would mostly come from other Jews.

Everywhere, young Jews are eagerly, even gleefully appropriating the traditional iconography and language of anti-Semites faster than you can say “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.” We howled with laughter at Borat, at the grotesque puppet in “The Running of the Jew” laying its “filthy Jew-egg” as Sacha Baron Cohen spewed der Sturmer-worthy invective in pidgin Hebrew. We read publications with names like Heeb and Jewcy, and cheerfully throw around terms and stereotypes that would have sent previous generations straight to the local ADL office. Recently, I was watching TV at home when I received a phone call from a co-religionist friend.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m at home, watching The Jewish Americans on PBS.”

“Yeah? What’s happening?”

“Oh, I guess this episode is on Leo Frank. But as far I as can see, the whole thing is mostly about how we’re ugly and everybody hates us.” We dissolved with laughter.

There are a number of possible reasons for this change in attitude. The age we are living in is a peculiar one, equal parts irony and genuine turmoil. Festering internecine and tribal hatreds have once again become a very real part of how the world operates; as a result, political correctness has died an unceremonious death, while multiculturalism is dying a somewhat more tortuous one. At the same time, overt intolerance has become nearly obsolete, to the point that one can perpetuate almost any form of prejudice with the implicit understanding that if the speaker is of a certain social class or education level, he or she cannot possibly be a bigot. On a strictly Jewish level, I think my generation has simply lost patience with our Hebrew school educations, with the constant focus on victimhood and hardship, and the sometimes reactionary politics of the Jewish establishment—with the powerful lobbies and their professional outrage, the shell-shocked parents and grandparents ever at the ready to pick up a phone or file a formal complaint the second a Jewish child is made to sing “Silent Night” or assigned a biology midterm on Yom Kippur (I speak from personal experience here.) There are better things to do with one’s time than to be constantly on guard against closet Nazis. Or maybe after 5000 years of the being on the wrong end of the world’s general shittiness, we’ve just stopped taking it so personally.

But to borrow a phrase from David Mamet in The Wicked Son, his provocative and occasionally infuriating book on the subject, “The world hates the Jews. The world has always and will continue to do so.”

Fine.

In this, my mother was right. All of our mothers were right. My generation, we American Jews in our 20’s and 30’s, may have missed having taunts and dirt clods thrown at our heads as we waited for the school bus, but you don’t have to look very far to find our people held in general contempt. In fact, don’t look hard at all—just look in the comments section of any major internet blog that so much as mentions the State of Israel, the Holocaust, Steven Spielberg, or boiled chicken.

So welcome to The Protocols, named of course for the famous (and forged) Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or as I like to think of it, the book that started the international craze, the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone of twentieth century anti-Semitism. Here, I’ll strive to answer the important questions—not so much “Why do they hate us?” but “So what if they hate us?” I’ll look at how Jews have, for better and for worse, internalized the tenets of anti-Semitism and turned them inside out, how Jews judge other Jews, and what it means to be a self-hating Jew (as opposed to a Jewish self-hater.) I’ll examine anti-Semites through history, anti-Semites in the news, and once every few weeks or so, anti-Semites we love. (And yes, I’m taking recommendations.)

My qualifications for this mighty task, taken on by everyone from Moses Maimonides, Mark Twain, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Adolf Hitler? None whatsoever; except I’ma writer, I’m a Jew, and I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of my life worrying about who doesn’t like me.

So, my fellow filthy Christ-killers, if you can stop counting your golden ingots and draining your neighbor’s kids of their blood long enough to actually read something, I hope you’ll join me. We may not win any hearts and minds, but in the words of the immortal G.I. Joe, knowing is half the battle.

And after all, we’re supposed to be so smart.

A Neo Nazi group in Germany recently launched a website that expresses its solidarity with Israel. According to Ynet:

"A strong nation is worthy of life; an ailing nation deserves death," it said, before detailing an ideology sporting the traditional Nazi concept of purity of the race on the one hand, and calling on National Socialists to let go of their hatred for Jews and support the Jewish people's right to their own homeland on the other.

"Deportations, pogroms and inquisitions were all understandable acts which were carried out by nations merely trying to defend themselves," said the website of past persecution of Jews.

"That is also the context in which the event called the 'Holocaust' must be viewed… This does not justify it. Instead of destroying the Jews we should have taken every measure possible to support the Zionist movement."

The group goes on to harshly criticize the Nazi regime as the cause of the "unnecessary rivalry" between Germany and its "brethren neighbors," and slams the current leaders of Germany's extreme right as "cowardly reactionaries."

The group is called National Socialists for Israel, and among other things, they’ve started Reinhard Heydrich, "The Blond Beast": big Zionistdistributing stickers in Berlin with Israeli soldiers on them and the words, “A 2000-year struggle for survival. Respect those who have earned it." Another sticker has a picture of senior Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich, and under the words, "As a Nazi, I'm a Zionist."

Though some bloggers doubt the veracity of the group, it is getting the attention of anti hate-group activists who are scratching their heads and expressing milder than usual outrage.

It’s possible to see this as some kind of silver-lining, I guess, but a group that openly sympathizes with the Nazis is not the kind of friend Israel, or any Jew, needs. As far as I can tell this group is embracing Zionism precisely because they see it as racism, which isn’t exactly a compliment. Plus, forced emigration to Israel is not an idea most Zionists would support. Also, “Respect for those who have earned it”? How did we earn it, exactly? By fighting for our lives while Nazis persecuted us? The logic is mind-boggling.

Thanks, National Socialists for Israel, but, um, the Jewish people and the State of Israel are really busy tonight/forever. We have to wash our hair.

What can we learn from this painting?: The marriage portrait of Charlotte von RothschildThe Israel Museum, home of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a fantastic collection of art, has a well-deserved reputation for hosting world-renowned art exhibits. Particularly in the realm of Jewish art -- that is, art created by members of the Jewish community -- the Israel Museum most often provides a vibrant, honest experience. However, its two most recent exhibits, "Looking for Owners: Custody, Research, and Restitution of Art Stolen in France during World War II" and "Orphaned Art: Looted Art from the Holocaust," leave much to be desired.

"Looking for Owners" features pieces that the Nazis looted specifically from French Jewish communities during the Holocaust, while "Orphaned Art" features works of art looted from other European Jewish communities that were discovered in various hiding places by the Allies after the war. The art in both exhibits was collected by various organizations, professors, and graduate students who did years upon years of research in order to determine the owners of each piece and their countries of origin. An effort to return the uncovered pieces to families with legitimate ownership claims would have been an important endeavor, but instead, the entire project served as means of creating various exhibits to simply display the artwork.

Both exhibits consist of largely unrelated pieces of work that were simply owned (not created) by well-to-do Jews before the war. This alone does not establish a cultural contribution to the world of art by the Jewish community, nor do the works themselves tell us much about the lives of this portion of the Jewish community (upper-class European Jews). Instead, they merely serve as a rather mundane display of the wealth of their owners. The majority of the paintings displayed were either portraits of well-known families, such as the Rothschilds, or mediocre oil paintings of all things gold, shiny, and generally superfluous.

There are still many significant cultural contributions from pre-war Jewish communities that have yet to be salvaged from the remnants of the Holocaust. A people that, since WWII, has established a state and arguably redefined communal resilience, warrants the exhibition of more than a mere display of what was taken from them.

Photographic evidence: Santa gives the Nazi saluteI know it’s almost May, and Christmas isn’t exactly around the corner, but I’d just like to go on the record and say how fed up I am with Santa Claus. I saw someone yesterday in a Santa suit (I didn’t ask why) and it got me thinking about how completely perilous Santa is and always has been.

When you think about it, Santa’s a lot like Hitler.

• He lives far away and so doesn't really seem like a direct threat.
• He keeps slaves of a lower caste to do the labor he needs.
  
• He steals into people’s houses late at night when they're least expecting it.
  
• He discriminates, makes lists (and apparently checks them twice), and has some eerie way of knowing who’s naughty (Jews, ahem) and nice (informers, possibly?)
• He wears a strange uniform.
  
• He has at least half of the world’s children under his thumb.
  
• Oh yeah, and he saturates the media with his own likeness, ideas, and philosophy.

Does anyone else think this might be dangerous? And don’t give me any crap about him having anything to do with Christmas—show me where it says Santa in the New Testament. Show me the nonsense about cookies and milk and Rudolf. Give me chapter and verse and we can chat. Until then, keep Santa away. Santa is an anagram of Satan, and as far as I’m concerned, Santa-themed sweaters might as well have big black swastikas on them. Mark my words: One of these days "Heil Santa" will catch on as a holiday greeting. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Mosely: If you click on the video link, you can see him naked!Proving once again that sex scandals are more entertaining in Europe, Formula One head Max Mosely was recently caught on film acting out a Nazi–themed orgy with five hookers, and then relaxing with a nice cup of tea. (Seriously. There is tea in the video, as well as nudity and a really unsexy striped concentration camp uniform. Not that a sexy one would have been any better. Actually, it almost certainly would have been worse. But I digress.)

It’s creepy, though not criminal, that Mosely gets off on Nazi fantasies. It’s significantly creepier when you realize that Mosely’s parents were two of the most prominent British Nazi sympathizers. Hitler came to their wedding, which took place—for some reason this is the detail that really gets me—in Joseph Goebbel’s drawing room.

Naturally, Britian is totally up in arms about this, as are some Jewish groups. Should Mosely step down? Is the UK’s answer to NASCAR permanently besmirched by its leader’s penchant for pretending to be both a concentration camp inmate and a guard? (If you watch the video, which I strongly recommend you don’t, you’ll see him in both roles.) Hilarious, crotchety British writer Howard Jacobson takes a clear-eyed look at the scandal, asking

why a man shouldn't indulge in a bit of retro-Nazi sado-masochistic role-play in the quiet of a house of ill-repute in leafy Chelsea when the fancy takes him, provided no one gets seriously hurt in the process – other than, one hopes for his sake, himself.

Jacobson is less repulsed by Mosely’s fetishes and more repulsed by his upper-crusty excuses:

The only reason he is to be heard speaking German, he insists, is that two of the five prostitutes he hired – at least one of whom is seen in a striped uniform reminiscent of those worn by prisoners in the camps – are German speakers. In other words, what we are watching is not depravity but good manners and a cosmopolitan education.

Oh, and also race car driving. He is also repulsed by race car driving:

I would prefer him to have owned up to depravity and told the News of the World to go hang. But he has his job as president of FIA to think about….Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Formula One dedicated to the promotion of the sale of killer cigarettes, the wanton spillage of expensive champagne, the encouraging of easily excited rich young men (and that is not an oxymoron) in their pursuit of acceleration, exhaust noise and extruded showgirls?

Jacobson concludes, in a logical flourish both utterly implausible and kind of brilliant, that Mosely must have been acting out some kind of Freudian destructo-urge aimed at both his father and Hitler. S&M is always parody, after all, he explains:

Certainly, if I were a Nazi I wouldn't appreciate Mosley's travesty of my beliefs and uniform. I put it to you, anyway, that it is not impossible he is avenging himself, now upon his Führer-fetishising father Oswald, now upon his Goebbels-glorifying mother Diana, once a Mitford "gel".

Lady Diana Mosley's biographer, Anne de Courcy, guesses that Max's Nazi romp in Chelsea would have shocked her deeply. "Even though she admired Hitler, she deplored any form or depiction of violence and cruelty." Drink deep of that. The monstrous hypocrisy of the genteel. Get the whips out more often, is my advice to Max. The more you parody the violence your parents were in awe of, the less of a sucker you'll be for it in reality yourself.

Herr Slinky: This is a pretty non-intimidating swastika“120 Funny Swastika Cartoons” certainly sounds like an oxymoron, but who knows better how to turn beets into borscht than the Jews? In We Have Ways of Making You Laugh, New Yorker cartoonist Sam Gross takes what is arguably the most reprehensible symbol in history and turns it on its head by making it silly and commonplace. The outcome? A woman performing oral sex on a swastika, a mermaid learning to goose step and white mice with a Nazi flag above their mousehole. Gross’ idea is that by making such a loaded image ridiculous, we strip it of its power. As he says in his afterword, “If something is humorous, you can’t get angry at it; nor can it inspire fear.”

Gross’ drawings run the gamut from goofy to bawdy to inscrutable in that way New Yorker cartoons can be. Some evoke spontaneous laughter while others just elicit a perplexed “huh?” But no matter your reaction to the drawings themselves, it’s hard to deny the effect of seeing them as a whole. As I viewed Gross' cartoons, the swastika lost its ability to turn my stomach and make the hairs on my arm stand up. Looking at a kitty cat with swastika-shaped whiskers really did somehow make it less terrifying.

Not everyone loves what Gross has done, of course. HuffPo's Doree Lewak says, "There's tacky and then there's poor taste. The category for this book fits several pegs below the latter." And the ADL's national director, Abraham Foxman, worries the book could be an affront to survivors (like him). The Jewish Week article about the book features both Foxman and a rabbi (the author of a book called Taking the Shoah on the Road) who thinks humor is necessary to healing. It's hard to fault those who find Gross' book offensive or think making fun of something as repugnant as the swastika is simply not something we should do -- or worse, that trivializing it somehow puts us in harm's way. We can only hope that Gross is right -- that our resilient laughter is far more powerful than the swastika could ever be.

Want to see more of the cartoons? Radar has a gallery.

Seems like Hollywood's only just shaking the Oscar-party confetti out of its hair, and already there's talk of next year's awards contenders. Defiance, directed by Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai), is generating lots of buzz. It's the story of three Jewish brothers (Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell) who escape from Nazi-occupied Poland and band together with Russian resistance fighters in the Belarusian forest to fight back. The action-packed trailer, in theaters now, promises an inspirational story of unity and humanity while delivering plenty of eye candy in the form of Craig and Schreiber (and Bell if you're 15). Sounds like enough to put the stereotype of the nebbishy Jew to rest.

Defiance is scheduled to hit theatres in the fall.

Looks like our favorite neocon fruit loop is at it again. Righteously indignant about a comment on The Huffington Post suggesting Nancy Reagan should go ahead and die in her tub (the comment was in response to a story on Reagan's recent fall), Bill O'Reilly declared that Arianna Huffington is no different than a Nazi or a KKK member. (It should be noted that Huffington, the co-founder and EIC of HuffPo, is not the author of the Reagan-targeted comment.)

Really, Bill? A Nazi? Yes, he so deftly reasoned, because they "both want people to die." Oh, Bill, you slay me. (Not like how the Nazis slew 6 million Jews, but in a funny way.)

Even Bill's O'Reilly Factor guest, treify conservative blogger Mary Katharine Ham, ended up defending Huffington, all the while seeming to quietly acknowledge that Billy boy had finally flipped his fucking lid. Click here to see the clip in all its unhinged glory:

Congratulations! You’ve managed to get through the first 2.5 weekdays. To help you get through the second half of your week, Jewcy is happy to present you with Hump Day Art. Think of it as an opportunity to devote your attention to the more cultural things in life, or at the very least, to zone out at your desk for a few minutes while you look at some pretty pictures.

This week's Hump Day Art peers into the fantasies of Israeli-born artist Ophrah Shemesh by way of her eerie series of paintings "I and Thou," currently on display at the Freight + Volume gallery in New York. Based loosely on the film The Night Porter, Shemesh's work takes on issues of sexuality, power and femininity in ways that are both disturbing and beautiful.

Between Thou and It

The Man To Whom I Say Thou

I

Last week: The Colorful World of Maira Kalman

 

The Counterfeiters, the Austrian film based on the true story of Jews forced to work as counterfeiters in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, took the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film Sunday night.

In his acceptance speech, director Stefan Ruzowitzky said, "There have been some great Austrian filmmakers working here, thinking of Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, Otto Preminger. Most of them had to leave my country because of the Nazis, so it sort of makes sense that the first Austrian movie to win an Oscar is about the Nazis' crimes." So suck it, Nazis.

Now go see the film, which opened in New York and LA on Friday. Here's the trailer:

A few weeks ago Jewcy broke the story that a viral e-mail, directed at Jewish voters, accused "bigot" Sen. Barack Obama of "hating" Jews and sympathizing with the Nation of Islam. Many prominent Jewish leaders condemned this slander, but some readers might remain convinced. Eli Valley takes their hysteria to the next level.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Happy Jewish Family?: could be!Think it's cute to call someone a "Member of the Tribe"? Sure, it turns "otherness" into exclusivity, but it's also a misnomer. In fact, it can be downright destructive. Case in point: When I worked as a docent at the Museum of Tolerance (MOT again, OMG!), I repeatedly found myself arguing whether or not Jews are a "bloodline" with tourists from Arkansas, Utah, Austria...you name it.

"Actually," I'd interject, as yet another vocal visitor explained to his or her compatriots that Jews were a race, "Judaism is not a race. It's a religion. You know, like Christianity, or Sikhism."

And without fail, I'd find myself in the midst of a totally futile debate about race, bloodlines, and tribes.

"It's a bloodline," my interlocutor would almost always declare, not hearing a word I'd said. "They're a tribe. A race."

Explaining the differences between race, ethnicity, religion, and culture was lost on these particular visitors. What wasn't lost on me, though, was the problematic nature of a seemingly harmless nickname. The Tribe. It made my skin crawl, because it misrepresented us so enormously.

The concept of a Jewish bloodline was actually exploited and manipulated by the Nazis, who went to great lengths to define Jews first and foremost as an impure, genetically inferior race.

The truth, as Douglas Rushkoff explained it, is that "Jews are not a tribe but an amalgamation of tribes around a single premise: that human beings have a role." Get it? Jews originated as a bunch of people from different tribes who came together around a set of ideas. It's why people can convert to Judaism, but can't convert to "Asianness" or "Blackness." I can go from Jewish to Sikh, like my pal Gurudhan Khalsa did, but I'll never be Latina.

So the next time someone asks you if you're a "MOT," tell them "No, but I'm Jewish."

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hits theaters in May, and the new Vanity Fair has a long, oddly bloggy article about how very rough it's been for George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, two of the highest-grossing filmmakers of all time, to make the first Indiana Jones movie since 1989's Last Crusade. Yes, it's been a long, trying process for filmmakers and stars alike -- Harrison Ford, at 65, says he hadIt was 97 degrees in the New Mexico desert that day: Movie stars' jobs are hard! trouble getting back into Indy's psyche, not to mention his uncomfortable outfit. “It’s a very bizarre costume, when you think about it ... It’s this guy sporting a whip, who’s off usually for someplace really hot in his leather jacket.”  Also, they're pretty sure everyone's gonna pan the movie: Lucas says he knows the critics "already hate it. So there’s nothing we can do about that."

Crystal Skull is set in 1957, so the villians are now Russians instead of Nazis. But -- nerdgasm alert!-- the film might also feature a more exotic breed of bad guy.

  "No one outside of the filmmakers will know for sure until May 22, but it would be pretty cool if it turns out that Emperor Palpatine had dropped a crystal skull on Earth. Or maybe one was left behind by the skinny dudes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Or maybe it’s, like, E.T.’s cell phone. :)"

Star Wars meets Indiana Jones! Also, emoticons meet Vanity Fair! Weirdness.  

 

 

Speaking of zaftig: Beyonce looks good in greenAs someone whose occasional bouts of self-loathing have nothing to do with my relatively normal-shaped body, I didn’t think I’d be susceptible to the pull of the weight-loss-obsessed website Elastic Waist, but watching their video on the derivation of the word “zaftig” really did make me a little bit bulimic.

Zaftig, the host explains, is Yiddish for “juicy,” a phenomenon about which we feel profoundly ambivalent these days—just ask poor Jennifer Love Hewitt, who was roundly trashed in the tabloids this week when shocking photos revealed that her bottom half is as jiggly as her top. Helpfully, the Elastic Waist video goes on to offer a handy guide for how to react when someone calls you zaftig. Apparently it’s a “fat euphemism” (so it’s an insult) which describes the kind of body you’d see on a Greek statue (so it’s attractive); it translates roughly to “pleasantly plump” (so it’s bad) and can be used in sentences such as “Pamela Anderson is quite zaftig after being injected with all that silicone” (so it’s good, or at least it’s considered attractive enough that people pay money to emulate it and also to look at it naked in old issues of Playboy.)

All of this could, I suppose, leave a girl unsure whether she needs to go buy some Snackwells or a push-up bra—or, duh, both—but the video derails these consumer urges with a sharp right turn into total insanity. Meet Frau Zaftigheimer, “the world’s zaftig expert.” She’s a Teutonic dominatrix, she’s built like a brick house, and for her, being zaftig is “a global movement” aimed at combating “the bony-ass models, anorexic celebrities and the media.” Frau Zaftigheimer explains all this while whipping her “2 o’clock” (because fat activism alone doesn’t pay the bills). Then she turns to the camera, and, as the Wagner swells on the soundtrack, says the following: “We shall create a master race of zaftig!”

Targeted by eyepatch–wearing German dominatrixes: Keira KnightlyGot that? If, like Frau Zaftigheimer, you’re a little worried about the way the media—like, oh god I don’t know, random example here, maybe websites about weight-loss?—perpetuates unhealthy body images among women, then maybe, like Frau Zaftigheimer, you are a Nazi. It’s rare for women-aimed publications to prove out Godwin’s Law (the rule that as discussions get longer and crazier, someone will invoke Hitler) but then again, they’re only just starting to take hold on the Internet. I’m sure that as publishers figure out how to make money off of women online, we’ll get used to hearing all sorts of fashion- and body-related stances being conflated with Nazism all the time.

What makes this really mind-blowing, though, is that ostensibly the whole thing is a Hanukkah-themed video, Yiddish being the language of all those Hanukkah-celebrants who were systematically murdered by the same kind of Wagner-loving fat activists who tried to take over the world in order to rid it of Keira Knightly and her ilk. (Typing that sentence made my head throb.) Um, and a chag sameach to you too, guys!

Castro Says He Warned Chavez About US

Castro, the survivor of many C.I.A attempts, warns his friend Hugo of the United States wishes. The two men and their nations have strengthened ties since the collapse of the Soviet Union, where Venezuela has picked up the economic slack from Cuba’s loss of Soviet sponsorship. A vote on Sunday could greatly increase the Socialist powers of the South American state.

Why Putin Does it?

Putin is taking Russia back to a strongman format and the world yawns. Putin, tired of being pushed around (as he sees it) is ready to have Russia re-emerge as a super-power. He starts by suspending a treaty limiting the number of troops on European soil.

Olmert: Jerusalem Israeli Issue Not Jewish

As more and more Jewish groups vocalize about the need to not give up Jerusalem, Olmert decries “American” Jews who wish to bully the state. It seems that Olmert has really “gone native” is his quest for history. Shas states that it will bolt if the city is even mentioned.

US Withdraws Mideast Resolution at UN

The U.S. Withdrew a resolution supporting the agreements reached at the Annapolis Summit. It seems the text had not be cleared through the Arabs and Israelis before it was submitted to the Security council. It is important that there be a non-binding resolution if there has to be one at all.

Nazi Archives Saving names from the Lost

The archives have finally been opened and researchers and families will be able to track names of those lost in the Shoah. The archives have been closed since after the war and it has taken many years to finally get the archives opened.

Enlisted with the Marines at 61

Dr. Bill Krissoff has been commissioned a lieutenant commander in the Navy reserves, wanting to serve since one of his sons was killed by a roadside bomb while serving. During a meeting with President Bush, Krissoff spoke of his desire to join the service and help. As an accomplished physician, the good doctor was taken in and plans to give back by caring for wounded military.

Thanks, Will.

 

Kristallnacht: Night of broken glass. Today, November 9th, is the commemoration of Kristallnacht –the night of broken glass. On this day, in 1938 the broken and vandalized windows of homes, shops, synagogues and schools throughout Germany became a terrible symbol of the great shattering that was to become the Holocaust. I woke up this morning with this image in my mind: a street strewn with heaps of broken shards of glass, empty except for one woman walking slowly, looking at the broken pieces reflecting a bright blue sky. She is pregnant. In some ways this image is related to the historical date, to this week’s Torah portion - and to what’s happening right now in the lives of the people who are a part of the Storahtelling community– so I wanted to share a brief thought that elucidates this haunting image and will hopefully be meaningful to all of you who are, in so many ways, part of my family.

Rebecca is the pregnant woman, and as this week’s portion, Toldot – Origins, begins, she is pregnant with twins. These are the first twins in history, and they are kicking in different directions, and Rebecca is confused and troubled – what is happening inside of her? She asks the first existential question in the Torah – ‘if this is so – who am I?’ And she is the first person in Jewish history to seek an answer, to investigate life’s challenges – so she goes to find God. The answer she receives is a complex blessing: she will become the mother of two boys, and they will become the fathers of two nations at war, two opposites who will fight for supremacy.

Jacob and Esau are born into struggle. The younger baby grabs the heel of the older one, already trying to grab the birthright, and so he is named ‘the heel grabber’ or Jacob. The older one, Esau, as told from the eyes of Jacob’s descendents, is marked as a hairy hunter that defies the gentle pastoral life of the Semitic household, he is ‘other’.

Fast forward to what Jacob and Esau will come to symbolize to future generations. In Judaic mythology, Jacob becomes Israel, and Esau becomes Edom, and then Amalek– later on identified as the Roman Empire, becomes Christianity, and Nazi Germany. Rebecca is walking down a street strewn with the fragments of war created by her children, then and now. What a haunting and hopeless image.
So what of the fixing? How do we avoid this grim prophecy? Where is the hope of healing and repThe Holocaust: Is there a way to heal this historical pain?air?

Perhaps the hope for repair, like this story of despair, is inside each one of us. I am reminded to read this saga the way we have read so many other biblical tales at Storahtelling – as a mythic allegory that is meant to give us insight into our inner struggles and that enables us to contemplate the difficult but basic truths of our lives. Each of us is Rebecca, carrying conflict and twin desires that sometimes clash, hurt others and hurt ourselves. And we are each Jacob, and Esau, and the sum of their struggle. If we read this passage as an invitation for personal growth, not as a historical and political justification of struggle, perhaps we can heal the historical pain by remembering and honoring the past, and we can commit to reducing the hatred between us that impacts our future.

Nazi and Jew, Israeli and Palestinian, Democrat and Republican, militant Muslim or fundamentalist Christian– and many others that are against each other in the fight for survival and supremacy: can the story be told differently? Can we tell this inherited story differently to as many people as we can? Can I recognize this story inside of me? Who is my Jacob, grabbing the heel of my inner Esau, where is my disquiet, what is the seed of my struggle to survive – and how does this stop me from being at peace with myself and other people?

So, yes, this is beginning to sound like the D’var Torah… a reflection that ends with a call to action, a charge. Writing to you – friends and family members of my Storahtelling tribe- I am reminded that this is precisely the core of sacred work: our goal is not to simply clarify and dramatize obscure biblical images but to actually address the burning issues of the day, to ‘translate’ the deeper meaning of this, or any other biblical story, into the inner life of each of us.

This weekend I will be presenting Maven at a synagogue in Boulder, Colorado, telling the tale of Jacob and Esau’s birth (and I think I just got my opening story..), and tonight Brian Gelfand, Naomi Less, Jake Goodman and Emily Warshaw will lead a Ritualab for the Tribeca Hebrew community in downtown NYC– focusing on the story of Rebecca’s search for meaning. At the same time, a team of Storatellers will premier the newest version of our show ‘Becoming Israel” in Philadelphia— about Jacob wrestling to become Israel. This show, marking Israel’s 60th year of independence asks some hard questions – how does this legacy of wrestling effect our modern identity and affiliation with Israel? Under Annie Levy’s directorial hand, Franny Silverman, Shawn Shafner, Melissa Shaw and Katie Down will become Israel this weekend – and I hope you will all see this show as we will begin touring soon. And as soon as Shabbat ends, Naomi Less and Jake Goodman are heading down to Nashville to represent Storahtelling at the UJC General Assembly —a whole other kind of struggle… what a packed weekend—one of many— where we get to share this new vision of the power of story with a world thirsty for new visions.
Israel: When will this struggle end?

So, on this very personal note –thank you all for joining me on the journey of fixing the broken glass of our heritage. I hope we all get to walk down the streets and see the reflected vision, in each shard, of a bright future, where Jacob and Esau, hand in hand, are walking down the same street, and behind them, a smiling Mother of All – ‘the mother of the sons is happy’ as it is written in the Psalms.

THEIR KIDS NEED SHRINKS

THE NEWS:
Children of Holocaust survivors are suing Germany to pay for their psychotherapy. [Jewish Telegraph Agency]

THE CHATTER:
The suit brought by the conservative Fisher Fund. [YNet]

Baruch Mazor, the fund’s director, acting on behalf of “the Israelis, calling themselves second-generation Holocaust survivors, say the scars of the Nazi genocide on their parents have crossed generations. Many still live with an irrational fear of starvation and incapacitating bouts of depression, the lawsuit claims.” [Time]

But what exactly is the psychological damage? I mean, specifically? “Others of the second generation say they cannot ride buses because it reminds them of the transports their parents took to the concentration camps, or they fear dogs because they were used by the Nazis to control crowds.” Can’t ride buses! Fear of dogs! To overcome these fears, the psychotherapists are planning immersion activities such as taking the bus and visiting the pound. Better idea: the German-Jewish kiddos head to Kalamazoo, Michigan and heckle outside of Hal Turner’s Jew-hating radio show. It would be like when your mother told you to punch a pillow instead of your little sister. Same thing. [Media Mouse]

 

JEWS ON ICE

THE NEWS:
The first World Jewish Ice Hockey Tournament is being held in Metulla, Israel. [Jewish Telegraph Agency]

THE CHATTER:
Taking after the earth-warming brains behind the indoor ski mountain in Dubai, let’s play ice hockey in the desert. Brilliant! [SkiDubai]

Even in the icy air-conditioned rink, few fans came out and the play was uninspired. But the U.S. beat France! Oh wait, it’s hockey, nobody cares. [YNet]

CLUBBING 101: NOW, YOU PUT THE TABLET ON HER TONGUE…

THE NEWS:
Project Rabinovich holds Jewish dance parties at Moscow's hottest clubs to bring together Jewish youth outside of shul. [Jewish Telegraph Agency]

THE CHATTER:
But can they land MC Rebbe, the Rapping Rabbi, for their Moscow ragers? [MCRebbe]

After brunch the next day, there will be a screening of the newest Jewish lesbian comedy. They’re pricking interests in Hollywood. [AlDatingNews]

Speaking of educating our adolescents, Jewish youth camp serenaded by “Puff the Magic Dragon.” [Jewish Telegraph Agency]

In fact, what all of these cool Jewish youths really want is to be first in line for the release of the new Harry Potter. Too bad their country is up-in-arms over its Sabbathical release date. [Newsvine]

 

A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO HIJAB AND TZNIUS

THE NEWS:
Unlikely alliance of Orthodox Jewish lawyer and African-American Pentacostal Christian woman and the right to religious dress in the workplace. [The New York Times]

THE CHATTER:
Ms. Tahita Jenkins was fired by the MTA on May 31 because, according to NYC Transit spokesman Charles Seaton, Jenkins could put the passengers in danger by taking her hands off the wheel to adjust her skirt. [The New York Post]

A blogger agrees that skirts could be hazardous in the public-safety workplace. [Jewess]

The MTA had offered the culottes option to Ms. Jenkins which she dubbed “just wide pants.” [New York Press]

 

ISRAELIS TURN AMISH?…NAH, JUST A LITTLE DRAFT-DODGING

THE NEWS:
Rising draft-dodging rates in Israel point to a growing weariness with Israel’s constant state of war. Is this the end of Zionism? [Haaretz]

THE CHATTER:
Maybe, but at least it’s not the end of acapella Jewish hip-hop! [Arutz Sheva]

Speaking of war, Iran supposedly has 600 planned targets in Israel for missile strike. Like that’s thorough or something. 600. I can count twice that high. [Haaretz]

Maypole Dancing: La la la la laToday is May Day!  Wheeeeeeeeee! 

Now, what the hell is May Day?  I have some vague sense that it involves either Communists, or little girls with ribbons and poles, or maybe Communists with ribbons and poles…. Not to mention Bunny-free Easter Baskets.

Well, it turns out I’m not too far off.   

May Day was first a Pagan/Celtic holiday.  The beginning of summer, and a chance to get naked and romp around in the woods. 

But also, it is celebrated as International Workers Day, and often coincides with public protests and demonstrations.  Important to note that the workers of the world did NOT just rip off the Pagans, but rather chose this day to honor martyrs of the Haymarket Riot: 

On May 1, 1886, Chicago unionists, reformers, socialists, anarchists, and ordinary workers combined to make the city the center of the national movement for an eight-hour day… Then someone hurled a bomb at the police, killing one officer instantly…Police made picketing impossible and suppressed the radical press….eight anarchists, including prominent speakers and writers, were tried for murder… The jury, instructed to adopt a conspiracy theory without legal precedent, convicted all eight. The trial is now considered one of the worst miscarriages of justice in American history. 

Which is very interesting… And I could stop typing now, because there are obvious connections between Judaism and Socialism, and that would be enough (I think) to make a Jewish understanding of May Day meaningful (since many Jews have celebrated May day as International Workers Day). 

But there’s more!

It was the Nazis, not the social democratic parties of the Weimar Republic, who made May Day a holiday in Germany, calling it the "day of work", which is its official name in the country. Through this proclamation, the Nazis tried to take up the connotations of International Workers' Day, but did not permit socialist demonstrations on this day. Instead, they adapted it to fascist purposes. Then, on May 2, 1933, the Nazis outlawed all free labour unions and other independent workers' organizations in Germany, which subsequently formed their own secret amalgamation.

Lovely.  Ribbons and maypoles and baskets full of treats… and martyrs for the eight hour day… and Nazis.

Happy May Day, everyone!

David Bowie survived his period of sieg hailing on stage more or less unscatched, I'm sure Bryan Ferry will be forgiven these twittish remarks:

"The Nazis knew how to put themselves in the limelight and present themselves. I'm talking about the films of Leni Riefenstahl and the buildings of Albert Speer and the mass marches and the flags – just fantastic. Really beautiful."

Spoken to Welt Am Sonntag in praise of the Nazi aesthetic. Ferry also admitted to that gazette that he's named his London recording studio (which might be located on the site where Luftwaffe bombs once fell) the Fuhrerbunker.

Well, it took Marks & Spencer, the posh clothing line whose duds Ferry hawks, no time at all to consider bidding Auf wiedersehen to the former Roxy Music frontman, even as England's Jewish leaders swiftly and commendably accepted his apology, which came with the explanation that he in no way was endorsing the ethos of National Socialism. (Say what you will about the architectural cohesiveness of nihilism, Dude.)

Now I happen to dig Ferry's music and even more his style, and I'm a firm believer in the odd case of verbal diarrhea not unmaking a lifetime of pleasant accomplishment. (Imus was different: his case wasn't odd and there was clear malice in what he said.) Furthermore, I understand Ferry's point while still appreciating how idiotic it was to air in an interview with the German press, which I'm surprised even printed the quotation.

In the underrated 2002 film Max, the Jewish Weimar-era art dealer Max Rothman, played by John Cusack, comments on the allure of the deranged young painter Adolf Hitler's kitsch daubings. Hitler regurgitates the military uniformity of imperial Rome for the age of anxiety. On canvas, his work seems more like a modernist cartoon: undifferentiated Aryan soldiers parading around a gleaming industrial metropole. This kind of artwork was the inverted image of socialist realism, and would have gone the same way as that unsmiling genre -- into ridicule and then postmodern celebration -- if the Third Reich hadn't turned its parody-ready symbolism into practicable ideology. Ferry was 70 years too late to make a judgment of "taste" with respect to Nazi iconography; taste has been overwhelmed by the moral indecency of what the icons stood for.

Ferry's type is pretty well recognizable. He's a glam-rocker channeling the leisure class wastrel. His stage presence has always been about rumpled evening wear and a carefully mussed forelock (where the hell do you summer, Robert Palmer?). He appreciates the finer things in life, like Bollinger and a well-tailored suit and the novels of P.G. Wodehouse. In keeping with those almost self-perpetuating characteristics, Ferry can be expected to have feathers in his head when it comes to grasping the horrors of history, or grasping how to talk about them, anyway. Wodehouse, remember, paid a high price for his notorious broadcasts on German radio as an involuntary guest of the Gestapo. The creator of Bertie Wooster knew evils of fascism not at all; it was the old feudal spirit that got him going in the morning.

Ferry was once rejected from the recherché Courtauld Institute of Art, a biographical fact that puts me instantly in mind of his intellectual better in pop music: David Byrne, graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, haunter of Arts & Letters Daily, and PowerPoint virtuoso. Byrne would have known better.

So for the singer of "Avalon" and the bedder of Jerry Hall, I think it can be firmly stated that his frivolous ways got the better of him. He was in the birthplace of Bauhaus and philosophical idealism and wanted to sound profound. He ended up sounding pretentious and sinister instead.

Remember when you were in high school and you had huge screaming matches with your parents for not letting you go to a Dropkick Murphys concert? And when they wouldn’t back down you stomped up to your room and slammed the door while screaming, “It’s not FAIR! I didn’t ASK to be born!” Remember that?

Well, today’s news has some insight on kids who were born into awkward and/or unpleasant situations. In fact, our own Laurel Snyder is quoted in an article about choices that kids from intermarried families have to make. There’s a lot of discussion of families where some kids chose Judaism and some didn’t. And there’s the inevitable ‘do I go to church with my dad if I’m Jewish?’ debate. All of which makes it clear that while it may not be fair, it’s hardly impossible to negotiate.
A Lebensborn Birth house: Being Born Just Sucks
(Dear Every Rabbi Who Ever Taught Me in High School, Guess what? It turns out intermarriage isn’t the end of the world! You can move on with your lives! I know, I’m totally psyched. Love, Tamar)

If you think intermarriage is problematic you’re going to just love this article from the Times about children who were conceived under a Nazi plan to try to make lots of pretty Aryan looking babies. “They were conceived because of the desire of invading Nazi troops to create an Aryan master race to rule the world — and now they are demanding compensation because of the stigma and discrimination it has caused them.” Apparently, these next gen Nazis (who are mainly Norwegian) were part of a plan cooked up by Heinrich Himmler called Lebensborn, which means Fountain of Life. Many of the kids (who are now, of course, well into their seventies) were subject to discrimination and harassment, and some were “deprived of their original names and identity.” I don’t actually understand what that means—they weren’t told their parentage and background or were lied to about it?—but it certainly sounds like it sucks. The article mentions a few specific cases of these children being called Nazis and then being cruelly punished for their parentage.

Norwegian courts are holding hearings now to decide whether the kids have a case and aren’t expected to make a decision for months.

In a way this is a chilling reminder of how completely insane the Nazis were (and how exactly was this plan implemented? Did German soldiers get postcards that said ‘For A Good Time Call Marta at 867-5309’?) but there’s a lot of serious questions to be asked about lessons we clearly haven’t learned from the Holocaust. Like, say, tolerance. I mean, it takes a certain amount of insanity to call babies Nazis. We like to hear that everything worked out fine, and that the good guys won and the Nazis were killed, but in reality we left things pretty messy. Which is way less fair than not being allowed to go to a Dropkick Murphys show (although I maintain that is still uncalled for).

Master Face: Iggy Pop's less totalitarian showmanshipIggy Pop and the Stooges are releasing an album tomorrow – the first by the band since their swansong in 1973 – and I’m frightened. After all, the reunion route is a fraught one. There’s the possibility of disappointment. But more than that, there’s the question of the band’s meaning in the first place. Sure, they helped birth punk. But is that entirely good? Especially for the Jews?

Mr. Pop, as the New York Times might have it, is today remembered as the mad id of rock. Along with core members, the brothers Ron (guitar) and Scott (drums) Asheton, he helped create a kind of Three Stooges of punk, full of raw power and heroin-induced funhouse antics.

People forget how these punk progenitors also helped create a fascination with Nazi imagery, which inspired David Bowie's even more forgotten Nietzsche-quoting, Sieg Hail-ing post-Ziggy Stardust act. The Hitler Youth uniforms of Joy Division – a band named for the squad of sex slaves used to pleasure SS officers in concentration camps – were practically stitched together by the Stooges, who wore swastikas during some of their performances.

Just listen to the Stooges' live bootleg, “Metallic K.O.” in which the Igster kicks-off his rendition of “Rich Bitch” by dedicating it to all the “Hebrew women” in the audience. Or check out the testimony of Asheton in the reissue of Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk where he says, “[Iggy] had this whole thing of hooking up with rich Jewish girls … He was using [them] … so I ended up using them and their limousines.” He can't really have been post-PC before there was political correctness, so what to make of this smirking aside besides the obvious?

Of course, if it weren’t for the Stooges, there wouldn’t have been a Jeffry Hyman [sic] or Tamas Erdelyi, better known as Joey and Tommy Ramone. Tamas, the mastermind behind the lanky, caterwauling quartet from Forest Hills, nearly didn’t exist: his parents survived the Holocaust in Budapest through the help of some non-Jewish friends. Did that stop "Blitzkrieg Bop" from happening? Of course not.

From Iggy to Tommy n’ Joey to Chris Stein and his Nazi memorabilia collection, to the five Jews in The Dictators and their Springtime for Hitler-like “Master Race Rock,” the nihilism that leads one into the true belly of punk is littered with Hitler iconography co-opted and warped beyond ideological recognition by punks. So perhaps there was always more going on with the Stooges than mere Sturm und Drang hooliganism.

For one thing, their acting-out was too inchoate and primal to be taken seriously. Cast-offs in the rusting fields of Henry Ford’s Detroit, the Stooges were driven by the belching factory smoke and even sootier excuses for massive industrial lay-offs. The Motor City titan who peddled “Protocols” blood libels in the Dearborn Independent left a legacy of antisemitism that couldn’t help but seep its way into roots of local tradition. It was only a matter of time before daring young ruffians ripped them out and made everyone uncomfortable.

Tear it up and start again. Like the Jewish punks who followed them, the Stooges wanted to exorcize their demons by mocking their parents’ oppressors, even if, on some level, they identified with the kitsch of absolutism. It was never supposed to be pretty.

I really really REALLY hate it when people bring up the Holocaust as a trump card. I have a huge respect for everyone who died in camps, and on death marches, and in ghettoes, and everywhere else during World War II, and that’s why I cringe whenever camps, ghettoes and death marches are brought up in political conversations. It seems disrespectful, and it also often seems whiny. And then when people start calling Jews Nazis for any reason whatsoever I just turn my back on the conversation entirely, because it seems to me that there’s NOTHING to be gained when you call someone a Nazi, and when that person is Jewish, you’re gonna get your tush kicked by someone’s Israeli soldier cousin, or the ADL, depending on who “you” are.
British Muslims Have Their Houses Searched for Explosives
But I have to admit, I didn’t know what to think when I saw this headline on an article in the London Times: We’re victimised like Jews by the Nazis, says Muslim leader.

On the one hand, all kinds of alarm bells are going off in my head right now. On the other hand, the article presents some pretty compelling evidence. There are nine Muslim men being held without charges in British prisons, and Mohammad Naseem, chairman of the Birmingham Central Mosque, is understandably pissed about it. Muslims feel like they’re being “picked on,” he says, and feel that they’re being made the scapegoat of a terrorist witch hunt.

I think those are legitimate sentiments. I mean, when 13 Jewish men were randomly accused of espionage in Iran, the Jewish community completely freaked out.

Clearly, though, the British Muslim community is producing some terrorists who are committing acts of terrorism (like 7/7) fueled by a certain understanding of the Q’uran. And those people are causing all the negative response. But in Nazi Germany I’m pretty sure there was a blatant disregard for facts one way or another. The government was going out of their way to be explicitly anti-Semitic, more interested in broad strokes than making scapegoats of particular people (and if I’m wrong about this, somebody please correct me).

I guess what I’m saying is, I think the Nazis solution was generally just to fabricate things completely, and wait until some random case came along that happened to uphold their view, and then to glorify that case. And in Britain it seems like people are just scared, so they’re taking the little information they have and applying it way too broadly, which results in the demonization of Muslims. This isn’t helped by an inept and insensitive government (but what is?).

Just when I was ready to write off the Times article as useless and over-the-top, I came across this penultimate quote, by Sir Iqbal Sacranie, former leader of the Muslim Council of Britain: “I wouldn’t have used the Nazi reference but I know from the number of calls that we are getting that people are really disturbed by the onslaught on the Muslim community.”

Well, yeah. That’s pretty reasonable. But if you’re looking for something really helpful, check out this article from The Guardian about how eerily parallel the treatment of Jews and Muslims has been in Britain. Pretty much left my head spinning.

Someone help me out please.

Who's Your Nazi, Baby?Kirk Douglas apparently airs far too many intimate details of his sex life in his soon-to-be-released memoir, "Let's Face It: 90 Years of Living, Loving, and Learning" {emphasis on the loving).

Below is one of multiple fantasies Douglas describes in his book. Feel free to purge both before and after ingesting it.

He talks about sleeping with a "big, tall blond" German stewardess. He shares that they had enthusiastic sex sessions in which she would scream, 'I'm a Nazi!' -- which was his cue to slap her.

Not that every adolescent Jewish boy's libido hasn't gone there, but can we refrain from referencing it to a 90-year-old stroke victim?

Hogan's HeroesSomething funny happened on the way to researching my last post. I discovered that two of the regular cast members fled the Nazis in the 1930's, and one of them is a survivor of Buchenwald.

Werner Klemperer's (Col. Klink) father was Jewish. Otto Klemperer, the famous conductor and composer, fled Germany in 1933 and sent for his wife and children after securing a job. Werner went on to play various Nazis in film, perhaps most notably in Judgment at Nuremberg. He only agreed to play Klink if the colonerl was portrayed as a fool who was constantly outwitted by the prisoners.

John Banner (Sgt. Schulz) had the good fortune to be out of his native Vienna on tour during the Anschluss. He made his way to America and became an actor, portraying Nazis during the war. All of his relatives in Austria died in concentration camps.

Robert Clary (Cpl. LeBeau) was deported to Buchenwald at age 16, with 12 other members of his family. He was the only survivor, however, some of his siblings remained in France. He wore long sleeves on the show to cover up his tattoo. In 1980, he discovered the need to talk about his experiences in Buchenwald and worked with the Simon Wiesenthal Center's outreach program.

One of my aun