Backdated hyperlink number three
Jonathan Freedland calls on people of conscience on the liberal left to full-throatedly condemn anti-semitism. Once more, I agree with him. I personally have not done enough of this.
I have, personally, defended and praised Islam time and time again in the face of people who would claim it is a violent, dangerous religion because certain of its members do things that are violent.
In the current climate, however, I take more time carefully distinguishing anti-Israel stances from anti-semitism than I do condemning anti-semites, loudly and absolutely. I do think it is valid for me to do the former. But the latter needs doing as well.
The sort of violent attack Freedland describes is unquestionably abhorrent. It's quite easy to condemn attacks on places of worship and innocent families. But the same people who do so may well make anti-semitic comments, or say things with anti-semitic implications, and think they are perfectly right in what they say. So it needs to be said that stereotypes and caricatures are also abhorrent. So too are snide comments saying anything negative about "Jews" as a whole. So too are references to making money, owning Hollywood, controlling the American government. So too is this (which is totally unrelated to the Gaza conflict, but still disgusting).
Also, some words about what about Judaism I think is cool, and (some of) the things that have prompted me, at the few times in my life I have been so prompted, to think, "Maybe I wish I was Jewish!" (Not that Jewish people, I am sure, need to be told why Judaism is cool. Presumably they are well aware!)
Ancient traditions appeal to me. I've been at a Passover seder and I could really appreciate how much more venerable a tradition that is than any of our new-kid Christian stuff. The oldest-feeling Christian rituals are the ones we stole from Jewish tradition!
A lot of the opinion pieces written by Jewish people that I've read recently have asserted the trope of Jewish-people-as-intellectuals. Thinkers, wrestlers with ideas, talkers, analysers. If this is a generalisation that most Jewish people would accept, then that is a description that cannot help but appeal to me.
Resilence. Milennia, milennia of adversity, discrimination, displacement, unequal treatment, pogroms, the Shoah, and on and on and on, and still there is a vibrant, diverse, international community. Come through everything and hopefully, just about out the other side.
The whole situation of being both a religion and an ethnicity seems to me to knit the community that much closer. It really makes of Jewish people a "people," in a way that doesn't apply to any other people I can currently think of.
Matrilineality. OK, yes, there are feminist issues with Judaism as with any other patriarchal religious tradition, but SRSLY, it is something that is passed down by the mother!
Bagels and latkes. Nuff said.
Regina Spektor, currently, but she's getting her own post.
I have, personally, defended and praised Islam time and time again in the face of people who would claim it is a violent, dangerous religion because certain of its members do things that are violent.
In the current climate, however, I take more time carefully distinguishing anti-Israel stances from anti-semitism than I do condemning anti-semites, loudly and absolutely. I do think it is valid for me to do the former. But the latter needs doing as well.
The sort of violent attack Freedland describes is unquestionably abhorrent. It's quite easy to condemn attacks on places of worship and innocent families. But the same people who do so may well make anti-semitic comments, or say things with anti-semitic implications, and think they are perfectly right in what they say. So it needs to be said that stereotypes and caricatures are also abhorrent. So too are snide comments saying anything negative about "Jews" as a whole. So too are references to making money, owning Hollywood, controlling the American government. So too is this (which is totally unrelated to the Gaza conflict, but still disgusting).
Also, some words about what about Judaism I think is cool, and (some of) the things that have prompted me, at the few times in my life I have been so prompted, to think, "Maybe I wish I was Jewish!" (Not that Jewish people, I am sure, need to be told why Judaism is cool. Presumably they are well aware!)
Ancient traditions appeal to me. I've been at a Passover seder and I could really appreciate how much more venerable a tradition that is than any of our new-kid Christian stuff. The oldest-feeling Christian rituals are the ones we stole from Jewish tradition!
A lot of the opinion pieces written by Jewish people that I've read recently have asserted the trope of Jewish-people-as-intellectuals. Thinkers, wrestlers with ideas, talkers, analysers. If this is a generalisation that most Jewish people would accept, then that is a description that cannot help but appeal to me.
Resilence. Milennia, milennia of adversity, discrimination, displacement, unequal treatment, pogroms, the Shoah, and on and on and on, and still there is a vibrant, diverse, international community. Come through everything and hopefully, just about out the other side.
The whole situation of being both a religion and an ethnicity seems to me to knit the community that much closer. It really makes of Jewish people a "people," in a way that doesn't apply to any other people I can currently think of.
Matrilineality. OK, yes, there are feminist issues with Judaism as with any other patriarchal religious tradition, but SRSLY, it is something that is passed down by the mother!
Bagels and latkes. Nuff said.
Regina Spektor, currently, but she's getting her own post.