phil weiss likes a giant jew

Phil Weiss betrays his assimilationist tendencies in his quote from Kafka and his preference for big Jews.

Kafka said that going to a Zionist meeting made him feel like a wooden clothes rack, "pushed into the middle of the room."

The apparent quote re:Kafka was available on Google in "Kafka- The Decisive Years" by Reiner Stach. In a passage regarding the Eastern Jews who came as refugees to Prague at the beginning of WWI and the incomprehension of the Western Jews (Prague Jews) towards the poor Eastern Jews:

"But the best one is the little fellow, who has nothing but book knowledge, with a sharp voice incapable of amplification, one hand in his pocket, the other incessantly stabbing toward the audience and instantly proving what he intends to prove. Voice of a canary. Fills out labyrinthian grooves etched to the point of torment with the filigree of his discourse. Tossing of his head. I, as if made of wood, a clothes rack pushed into the middle of the room. And yet hope."

Seems to me that the "I" is a bad translation of what Kafka wrote, since nowhere else in the passage is there a reference to Kafka himself and he is in fact referring to the little fellow and not to himself, that he looked like a clothes rack pushed into the middle of the room. And yet filled with hope.

Kafka had feeling for these little Jews from Eastern Europe.

Maybe indeed the little Jews from Galicia that Kafka encountered in Prague deserved a degree of respect that the little Jews represented on the panel that Phil Weiss observed did not deserve respect. But what we see here is the preference for big and not small, which are external virtues and not essential virtues. As Phil continues:

"Charney Bromberg was next. Just to stay on the shmegegge theme, I'd note that he was the only big guy on the panel. I like a big Jew. I like a big redheaded bearded squarejawed barrelchested Jew, which is Charney Bromberg. He's a giant."

Phil likes a big Jew. Not the Jews who looks like shmegegges, deserving the mockery of himself and Max. Not the tiny little Jews, but a big Jew. Since the external virtue of bigness is matched by the essential virtue of openness to the suffering of the Palestinians, it is inferred that it is the scrawny Jews who oppress the Palestinians and the big Jews who have no need to oppress.

But this inference may not be the point. The point is that Phil and Max sit in back and mock the small Jews and he likes a big Jew, who goes against the stereotype of the small Jew. This is the Phil who married out, who paid no attention to Zionism until a few years ago, who would have preferred never to have been awakened from his comfortable assimilated life and has now been bothered to pay attention to the Jews. And for this fact of dragging him away from his comfortable life he has the minor compensation of laughter at the little shmegegge's and the wish that all Jews were giants.