January, 2012 // Posts published in January, 2012
Inglorious Basterds and Sandy Koufax
I got into Newark from Tel Aviv at 5pm on a Friday. Too late for the Haredim, which meant fewer babies. It was one of the more peaceful plane rides from Israel I’ve been on. Nevertheless, I can’t sleep on airplanes, so I watch movies. And in the case of this trip, somebody (somebody who either knows exactly what they’re doing, or somebody who really has absolutely no idea what they’re doing) decided that one of the choices on the flight back from Israel should be Inglorious Basterds. Every time there was a scene that was decked out in swastikas, I worried just a little that a survivor might be looking over my back, but when I turned around nobody seemed to be paying attention. My viewing of Inglorious Basterds was somewhat of an exception to the way I normally...
The Dreyfus Revival
Herzl was wrong. Zionism did not put an end to anti-Semitism and now wildfires have sparked outrageous theories of an international Jewish conspiracy to take over southern Chile. When Theodor Herzl began covering the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in 1893 as Paris correspondent of the Neue Freie Presse, he suspected that the French army officer charged with treason was guilty of the crime for which he’d been arrested. A devotee of the promises of Enlightenment and Emancipation, it was difficult for him to accept that the French republic – born of the belief in liberté, égalité and fraternité – was capable of fabricating the web of lies that would result in the public humiliation and imprisonment of a loyal French officer. Ultimately, however, the affair would have a dramatic effect in propelling him toward the conclusion that the Jews...
It’s Hard Out There For A Liberal
It’s no secret that Zionism and the American Left don’t play well together. We’ve known this for some time. It’s also no secret that the majority of American Jews are being raised with American, Liberal values at the same time as being taught to love Israel. As many people have pointed out over the past few years, 2 + 2 = identity crisis. In order to explain this phenomenon, I want to define two things on a deeper level than most people have ventured to define them within the context of this debate – The American Left and Zionism. I think that doing so will elucidate some as to why this crisis is occurring and as to why the answer is neither simple, nor pleasant. Let’s start with the American Left. The American Left can be divided into two main...
Zionism is…
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