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| Human-headed, winged bull from the throne room of King Sargon II, at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures at the University of Chicago. Sargon, king of Assyria, conquered Samaria in 721 B.C. and dispersed the Jews living there. |
Driving to the dedication of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie in April 2009, I remember thinking: Do we really need another Holocaust museum? There’s already a big one on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
And then I saw a knot of Illinois Nazis, in uniform, protesting. Ah, yes, right — that’s why we need another museum. Because people like this are still here.
American Jews had been souring on Israel, with its Trump wannabe president deforming the judiciary simply to keep his ass out of prison, splitting apart the country, causing massive turmoil. It left many here wondering: What’s the point of having a Jewish state if it’s going to be like this?
Then, Oct. 7. A thousand civilians slaughtered. And the world is reminded, yet again: that’s why there’s an Israel. Because people exist who will murder a baby because they don’t like her government. Which, if you think about it, and they never do, the baby has not yet had a say in. Hamas thought it was striking a blow against Israel. When really, with grotesque eloquence, Hamas held a master class in the urgent need for Israel. Because there are always people ready to kill Jews — or shrug off the killing of Jews as the only right and moral thing to do.
Because Jews are guilty, not for killing Christ, of late, but still for the crime of being Jews lingering on a spot of ground where Jews don’t belong which, if we look to history, is almost anywhere Jews happen to be. Juden raus! the Germans said. “Jews out!” The fact that they had been living there for 1,500 years didn’t matter.
When I passed the Illinois Nazis on that day in 2009, I was tempted to pull over and hear their view of life. But then I was afraid I’d start talking back, and that wouldn’t end well. Though the only thing I really have to say to neo-Nazis is: You do know, this whole Nazi business did not end well for the Germans, right? Proud and powerful in 1933, with a refined culture of Rilke and biergartens. A dozen years of Naziism later, Germany was an expanse of rubble and the scorn of the civilized world. Hatred blows back on you, eventually.
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Hatred has blown back already, and it has leveled Gaza. Now what?
ReplyDeleteAs you pointed out, Jews have been and will always be attacked whether they have their own country or not. Bigotry and hatred will always be there. It’s part of the human condition.
ReplyDeleteHad Great Britain put we Jews on reservations rather than giving them their own country like we did with the Indigenous Peoples, maybe we wouldn’t have what we have now. Okay, preposterous but worth a thought.
Not enough listening and not enough foresight happened when the Balfour Declaration was proclaimed. Maybe it’s time to revisit that.
I was doing some reading about finding a homeland for Jews I read that Napoleon was trying to do that. I am still not sure how it was decided that half o what was Palastine should have been given to Jews for a state Was it based on something in the old testament. After it is not like Arabs and Palistinians also didn't live there as well. The area is an was most likely occupied with Christians as well. Norman Finklestein calls Gaza a concentration camp. No doubt the government would like them all to leave. But where are they supposed to go. It was horrible thing that happened. But over time I would bet anything that Israel is responsilbe for more deaths over time than Hamas was on one terrible day.
DeleteI don’t get it. I never have. Jews have enriched the world and human life. What’s the problem?
ReplyDeleteSo have members of all other faiths. The problem lies in how Israel became a country. The vagaries of the Balfour Declaration created where we are now.
DeleteIt originated before WWI was over and wasn’t enacted until after WWII when the interests of competing powers left things very unbalanced.
It was predictable but the powers at that time decided to let it ride. The fighting began before Israel became a country and it will continue.
Much, much wiser men than me have been unable to see a way out.
It has absolutely nothing to do about how Israel became a country!
DeleteOr have you forgotten that before Israel was a country, Hitler & the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews?
That the Catholic Church spent over 1900 years vilifying Jews? And many members of that church still do!
The Catholic Church even took the best & the brightest out of their gene pool for centuries by making them celibate priests, thus dumbing down the general population.
The Romans before them hated the Jews.
But during the Middle Ages, when Europe was an intellectual backwater & was persecuting Jews, the Muslim countries welcomed them.
They & only they are the ones that have become fonts of Jewish hatred since Israel became a country & that has spread to the extreme left & extreme right in this country, South America, Europe & Asia since then.
Neir DeGrasse Tyson gave a TED talk years ago in which he mentioned that the Arabs & Muslims have exactly one Nobel Prize, in literature, while Jews, who are a fraction of the numbers of Arabs & Muslims, have received 25% of all the science Nobels. That's why the US was able to build the A-bombs in the Manhattan project & the Nazis went nowhere in their quest for it.
In fact, the few remaining nuclear scientists left weren't even allowed to use certain scientific things because the Nazis had banned "Jewish Science"!
,No, Les...not "What's the problem with Israel"...what's the problem with Jews?
DeleteMe too. I just don't get it-why? Never understood it and never will. Maybe it's how people are raised. I was taught all thru my early years and school thru grad school to live accepting all religions, all races, all people. Days like this just make me sad and angry that we still have to deal with such ignorance.
DeleteExcellently put Clark! And Les. Are you kidding?
Delete"The Catholic Church even took the best & the brightest out of their gene pool for centuries by making them celibate priests, thus dumbing down the general population."
DeleteHaving lived 6 decades witnessing various ways of bashing Catholics and the Catholic Church (particularly in the last 30 years, for reasons that we are all aware of), I don't think I've ever come across that particular aspersion before. Even among the many who find the practice of celibacy ridiculous. Congrats, Clark St., you've done it again!
Not really kidding but trying to point out that the US dealt with the Indigenous People by sticking them on reservations much in the same way Israel is doing to Palestinians.
DeleteI'm a member of a Facebook page that exists merely because people love and care about cats. It's based here in Cleveland, but its membership extends far and wide, well beyond Northeast Ohio...over 25,000 strong. I'm now rethinking my membership. Even after only a few months, I can no longer bear to see the endless stories of cruelty, torture, abuse, and death. You can donate, and you can foster. But it's never enough.
ReplyDeleteFor many years, I have asked myself: "Why do some human beings enjoy hating and torturing felines? I still don't know or understand why. And they do it for what seems to be one reason only: Because they can. Cats are intelligent. Cats are loveable. Cats are beautiful to look at. It was DaVinci who said: "The smallest feline is a masterpiece."
But their friendliness and approachability to humans also makes them easy targets and easy victims. Simply put: Cats are the Jews of the animal kingdom. And Jews are the cats of humankind. This is not being said to offend either cats or Jews. It's just being said by a lifelong cat lover. Who, when all is said and done, is also a cat.
So it's more than lingering on a spot of ground where Jews supposedly don’t belong, Mr. S. Jews are simply guilty of the crime of being Jews. The haters of Jews sometimes seem to be everywhere. Why? Who the hell knows? Kill all the haters in Gaza and the West Bank, and new ones will arise to take their places, all over the planet. Even Israelis can't kill that fast.
Neil. Have you read David Baddiel’s “Jews Don’t Count” ?
ReplyDeleteNot yet, but I love the title. I like to say we've had our minority card revoked.
DeleteI hear ya. To be a Jew is to truly not belong. Your existence is your crime, the terra firma beneath your feet is for everyone except you. Anywhere you go, you’re not accepted, everyone else a roiling cauldron of anti-Semitic hatred, and they all just want you OUT….I recall reading about the pogroms of Highland Park, NYC, Miami Beach, the Hamptons, and Beverly Hills. So brutal, so unfair.
ReplyDeleteI never read about any of those. Please elaborate.
DeleteI think this guy is being sarcastic Grizz. He has the same name as a guy who directed a documentary called Defamation that downplays the prevalence of anti-Semitism in the world.
DeleteI was being snarcastic, too. Sounded like a chain-yank to me.
DeleteI believe Shamir is engaging in hyperbole grizz
ReplyDeletePowerful Neil. Sending love to you and all Jewish people.
ReplyDelete