Jewish frontiers 2010- israel and continuity

there are two battles to be fought in this day and age for a jew: one is the battle for continuity. as an artist I'm not sure what role I will play in this. (if my art gets published, there ain't no telling where it will go.) i have participated in the families of yaffa, tova and pnina, but again what does the future hold for me and them. there is a long shot chance of producing a baby or two, but long shots are not to be discussed here.

then there is israel. tough to tell where that battle will go. the unsustainable status quo, the worrisome one state solution. the two state solution permanently out of reach?

Oliver Stone's mediocre analysis

Oliver Stone's mediocre analysis.

This blog views itself as a corrective: No need to mention Gilad Shalit when the rest of the world knows his name and ignores the Palestinian prisoners and thus also: No need to criticize Oliver Stone, when so many others criticize him.

The question that Oliver Stone was dealing with in his hard hearted statement was: why the emphasis on the murder of six million Jews when more Russians than Jews were killed. The answer that soft hearted Oliver offered was that Jews control Hollywood. The effect of his answer was to denigrate the Jewish dead and not emphasize the Russian dead.

In fact there are other better answers that reflect history and storytelling rather than the power of Hollywood's Jews.

First: history: The Nazis' cruelty towards the nations to their east: including the Poles and the Russians is well documented history, if not represented adequately in American cinema. The Nazi hierarchy consisted of Aryans on top, Slavs as slaves and Jews as vermin to be exterminated. If once lacks the historical sense to differentiate between the attitude towards the Slavs and the Jews, then one might become a filmmaker rather than a historian.

Second: storytelling: The single mindedness of Hitler and the Nazis towards the Jews is well documented and does not deprive those killed by the Nazis in the course of their conquest of their attention because of special treatment by historians or fiction writers, it is because war as destruction (kill every human in our path) has one storytelling value (meaning value as a story device) and killing as selection: find the Jew and kill him has a greater storytelling value. A tank rolling through a town and crushing everything in its path is different than a knock on the door and a request for "Any Jews here for us to kill?" True both people end up dead and killing is killing and a person is a person, but fictionally there is a different weight to the intentional gathering of the Jew rather than the indiscriminate destruction of a killing machine.

There are many more films about the deaths of the Jews in concentration and extermination camps than there are films about the deaths of Jews to einsatzgruppen, shooting squads. This disproportion does not reflect the fact that the Jews in Hollywood have a special attachment to those killed in camps rather than those killed by shooting squads. Again it is the narrative value of the process involved in the death camps rather than the lack of narrative of the process involved in the killing squads. The Holocaust, particularly the knock on the door, "Are there any Jews here?", the train ride, the selection, the camp with its workers next to the chimney expelling the ashes of millions has a storytelling quality that the killing of the death squads and the deaths of the Russians does not possess.

But it is much easier to blame it on the power of the Jews in Hollywood than to attempt to dissect either the history or the intrinsic story values of the history.

Arab vs Jewish populations/ Uri Avnery

IN a recent column these were Uri Avnery's statistics: 5.6 million Jews and 3.9 million Palestinians. This includes Gaza, Israel, east jerusalem and the west bank.

(m64) The fall

a little girl is told a tale by a man in a hospital. the little girl is russian (7 or 8 years old( and the man is an american stuntman who seems to be paralyzed below the waist by a fall during his work). the man uses the little girl to get him pills so he can kill himself. the story he tells her is about a variety of men or semi/men who have to return from an exile to take over the kingdom and avenge deaths and recover lost loves. it is extremely beautiful (the story part of the film) designed by someone with a great eye for dance, movement, colors and shapes, but without a very firm sense of narrative. (since the story is being told extemporaneously by a man in a hospital in order to endear himself to a little girl, this makes sense in terms of the situation, but hurts when we are not enticed by the story itself and only by its colors and contrasts.)

B/B-

response to kylebisme in mondoweiss

kylebisme asserted in a post by mark braverman regarding Presbyterian engagement on I/P creates new rules for relationship with the Jewish community.

that there had never been a mainstream Jewish majority support for Zionism until after WWII and this was because the Nazis had let the Zionists live and killed the antiZionists. I took offense.

kyklebisme- Germany had the highest survival rate for Jews of any country that the Nazis occupied, annexed or ruled. That was because from 1933 Germany made clear to the Jews that they weren’t welcome. Those who could afford it, left. Most of them went elsewhere besides Palestine. It may be true that those who ended up in Palestine survived and those who escaped to the Netherlands (for example) ended up dead, but that was not because of the Nazis preferential treatment of Zionists.
In any case, Germany was never the great home of Zionism. Eastern Europe (particularly those lands ruled by the Czars from 1790 until 1917) was the great home of Zionism. And in Eastern Europe the Nazis didn’t differentiate between Zionists and nonZionists or antiZionists. They killed them all, or at least all they could get their hands on.
Post WWII Jewish mainstream support for Zionism did not have to do with the Nazi selections. It had to do with the fact that the universalism that was at the core of the Jewish secular belief system previous to WWII was shattered by the Nazis, their collaborators and the world’s apathetic onlookers. Maybe that shattering was a mistake. (Maybe in fact the world could be trusted to take care of its Jews? No. That assumption is fallacious. The world cannot be counted on to protect anyone. Rwanda’s Tutsi’s found that out 17 years ago.) But that may be beside the point. Maybe despite the fact that the world looks away when it is convenient, universalism is still the best philosophy around. It might be shitty from time to time, but it may be better than nationalism when we get down to cases. But in the aftermath of Auschwitz few Jews were in that state of mind. Their state of mind was: we have to worry about ourselves. The world doesn’t give a shit. That was what was different after WWII, not the population of Zionist Jews based upon the Nazis selections. (Read Isaac Deutscher, who obviously felt that this abandonment of universalism was regrettable and hoped that the Jews would recover.)
(I find your theory regarding the post WWII mainstream Jewish pro Zionist opinion to be ignorant and offensive.)

tisha b'av

i ate this year on tisha b'av, but i went to the kotel to witness and walked back the hour plus walk. (I intend to be in america next tisha b'av, so might as well take a look this year.) I saw micha who kicked me out as a friend and also steve, who is a potential future friend. (I have dismissed the idea of calling the woman i met at micha's almost two years ago, this is a change, not necessarily a positive one, but a change.)

the kotel was not inspiring after midnight although the jaffa gate with streams of people was inspiring.

tisha b'av is another black hole in the calendar to go along with yom hashoah. yom kippur is worse than a black hole, because i find that not fasting is worse than fasting and fasting leaves a 24 to 48 hour post fast impact. and it is not yet 24 hours post tisha b'av and i'm feeling better, although not 100%.

I engaged in intermarriage arguments on mondoweiss yesterday and mooser treated me like dirt again. it certainly raises the advisability of participating there. shmuel has been absent for a while. maybe he's on vacation. phil weiss is not a positive voice on jewish identity, by any stretch of the imagination.

i saw a movie "girl with the dragon tattoo" and it was decent and stuck in my mind. i need to return "tokyo story" it was decent and did not stick in my mind. I chatted via gmail with danny yesterday. he mentioned that joya had been at jew camp. she is destined to marry a goy, unless she goes to brandeis.

intermarriage (mondoweiss)

As an individual it seems quite probable that intermarriage is natural for Jews living in an open society. Between the fact of the wider availability of nonJewish mates and scientific data pointing to the attraction to those with somewhat similar genes (the scientific equivalent of Mooser’s “I don’t want to marry my sister!”: The sweaty undershirt test reveals the preferences of women when given sweaty undershirts to rate their attractiveness: A 2002 study found women prefer the scent of men with genes somewhat similar to their own over the scent of nearly genetically identical or totally dissimilar men.) it seems safe to say that intermarriage is natural. To stop, prohibit or sanction those who intermarry is to squelch their individuality or their natural inclinations.

Intermarriage may be preferable to the wider American society- blurring lines of ethnic separatism might create a more perfect union. (I doubt that if we are taking the world as one community that the intermarriage of Jews who make up such a small percentage of the world would make much of a difference.)

Intermarriage is decidedly against the interests of Jewish society. It is not in the interest of Jewish society to limit the number of Jews being born or to increase the odds that those Jews who will be born will have a Christmas tree in their house or be confused about whether they are Jewish or not. It is conceivable under certain circumstances that bringing new genes into the Jewish tribe would be a positive, but given the present inability of Jewish society to educate even those who marry in, Jewish society is in no shape to compete against the predominant society and to expect positive things to happen to Jewish society from this development seems ridiculous.

To prefer the natural tendencies of the individual over the needs of the Jewish community/tribe/people/civilization is an acceptable reaction, especially given the importance our society gives to individualism and we as individuals value our individualism. To prefer that which is better for America over that which is better for Jewish society is an acceptable choice for someone who values their American identity over their Jewish identity. To pretend that there is no clash of values here and there is nothing to be lost by Jewish society seems dishonest to me.

(As for those who wish to see the Jews disappear, that there should be fewer people who look Jewish and so Jewish nepotism will be weakened, I think it is clear that this is an anti Jewish attitude. If this can be explained some other way, please enlighten me.)

In the argument regarding the future of Israel, the Jews of the Diaspora who wish to make their arguments heard by the people of Israel, those words might be better heard by those who value Jewish society. (See Yair Sheleg’s column on Tisha B’av in today’s Haaretz.) By not valuing Jewish society your comments regarding the future of Israel will be seen by Israelis as coming from a stranger with totally unJewish or anti Jewish values rather than from a friend.

(M63) man of the west

gary cooper near the end of his career and lee j. cobb (with a special dustin hoffman like performance by arthur o'connell). gary cooper is a baal teshuva, who once was an outlaw. he travels by train (bound for fort worth, where he never arrives) to hire a school teacher for his little town (which he refers to by two names; one of which is good hope). he is carrying money for a year's wages for a teacher and while on the train he says this in too loud a voice. a train robbery is attempted and foiled, but cooper, julie london (a former schoolteacher and a present tense barroom singer) and o'connell have fallen off the train. they need shelter to survive the cold night and cooper leads them to the home of his former gang, led by lee j. cobb, with a prominent member- jack lord. he had left lee j. cobb in the lurch many years ago and he was lee's finest pupil and lee felt betrayed. jack lord forces julie london to do a striptease, despite gary's assertion that julie is his "girl". this creates friction and jack lord and o'connell end up dead in the ensuing fracas. they are supposed to rob a bank in lassoo and lee sends gary and one other up ahead. in fact lassoo is a ghost town (cooper to lee in climax scene: "it's a ghost town and you're a ghost. your day is over.") gary kills the guy who accompanies him and two others who are sent after him. he returns and finds that julie london has been impurified. he kills lee j. cobb and rides off with julie london. (julie knows that gary's married and they have no future, but she has at least tasted love and she wouldn't change anything for the world.)

B- the story, good but not great. cooper a bit too old for the role. always great to see lee j. cobb, even in heavy makeup.

Visit the Gush

Amital died last Thursday and Friday he was buried in the rocks. I am beginning to try to think of it as the death of the high priest, cohen gadol, which frees the accidental killers from the cities of refuge. Today, arranged weeks ago, I met dov for lunch in the Gush. The place looks quite different from/than 20 years ago, let alone 36 years ago. 36 years doubled leaves us on the eve of World War II, so we see how long ago that is.

On the way there passing through the settlements of Neve Daniel and Elazar I appreciated the land conquering impulse and came up with the following analogy: conquering the land is id, putting the brakes on is superego. we need id to live, although we need brakes to define the limits. Decent analogy.

Dov sparked thought and I stole a lunch and didn't say hello to Wolf the friend of Kenny's and didn't stay to hear Rav Amital eulogized. "All those years ago" by George Harrison and "diamonds and rust" by Joan baez. "you tell me you're not nostalgic, you who are so good with words and in keeping things vague. well, i need some of that vagueness now I see it too clearly, I love you dearly and if you're offering me diamonds and rust, I've already paid."

Mondoweiss comment:

Off the topic of taxes, but on the topic of settlements and occupied territory.
I’ve been living in Jerusalem for about 3 and a half years now. Certainly from an American point of view I visit occupied territory often. I visited Sheikh Jarrah twice for purposes of demonstrating/observing a demonstration. I walk through the neighborhood adjacent to Sheikh Jarrah once in a while, because it is a more interesting route from my parents’ to where I live. I go to a doctor in Gilo. I visit the Old City once in a while, for it is the most interesting part of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem aside and one visit to a cousin for a Sabbath stay, my sole sojourn into occupied territory has been to visit my sister (in pre 67 Israel) near the city of Beit Shean, where the shortest distant between two points is not quite a straight line, but includes a sojourn through the Jordan Valley which is occupied territory.
Today I went to visit my alma mater, Yeshivat Har Etzion, located in Gush Etzion, specifically Alon Shvut. The route is different than it was 20 years ago when I last visited. At that time one passed through Bet Lehem and the Dheishe refugee camp to get to the Gush. Since then they have dug a tunnel and shortened the ride considerably. When the bus passed through the settlements of Neve Daniel and Elazar I was attracted to the rural atmosphere and wondered how to reconcile my attraction to these settlements and my opposition to the settlement movement.
I proposed the following analogy. The urge to settle is an urge of the id. (Those who reject the Jewish attraction to the Land, will not agree.) Just like the id is necessary to keep the species alive and interesting, so the id is essential. (Without a love for the land, Zionism is bloodless, merely a refuge, which could have taken place in Madagascar except for circumstances.) But man does not live on id alone. There is also the superego that needs to put the brakes on the id. To tell the id that there is more than id in the world, there are others in the world- laws and other humans to consider. But superego does not make the world go round. It is not the lifeblood. It is the brakes. Superego alone is lifeless, bloodless. For Israel to function it needs to have both superego and id in consideration and negotiate with the world through the ego.

Arab israelis. comment to donald on mondoweiss

Most American supporters of Israel realize that even if a two state solution is reached, there will still be a problem regarding the large Arab/Palestinian minority, the foremost problem of which is the potential for them to achieve majority status through large families. As such many Jews would wish for those Arabs to move out. How many of those who wish for such an outcome would express this in terms of policy or in terms of considering it a realistic political expectation, I don’t think it’s really that many. (In fact the two state solution, which in 1995 seemed just around the corner, is considered by most to be an unrealistic expectation, so much more so an agreement that would entail forcing the Palestinians living in Israel to consider their citizenship forfeit.) Unlike the right wing Jews in Israel, many of whom labor under illusions regarding the realities of the situation and prospects for the future, I think most right wing American Jews harbor fewer illusions regarding what is and is not achievable in terms of US foreign policy specifically.

I find my discussing these issues to be a bit strange: reflecting my understanding of pro Israel stances that include elements that I disagree with, rather than vociferously advocating my own position and considering anything to the right of me to be ridiculous, fascistic, unacceptable (choose one). My own position fluctuates reflecting sometimes my wishes and other times the reality. Take Obama. If Obama succeeds in getting Israel and the Palestinians to sign an agreement (a peace agreement certainly and an agreement on eventual borders would also be a plus in my opinion) I think it would be great. But one has to consider the odds slim. If no peace is signed, then in all probability Obama will have eroded Israel’s position in the Democratic party specifically (and maybe in the American public’s mind generally). (Certainly one could blame this more on Israel than on Obama, but I think for example a President Biden would not have eroded Israel’s position in the Democratic party to the degree that Obama will have done so if he serves his full 8 years without achieving any progress on the Palestinian Israeli front.)

Regarding my own position regarding Arab Israelis. (I use this term, because that is the term I use to think of them and so that is the term I use to describe my own thoughts about them.) They’re not going to move away from Israel. Would I like them to? Maybe. It would simplify certain matters. But I don’t expect them to and so underneath a web name like wondering jew I’m willing to reveal that it would simplify life, but my wishes are hardly relevant to the reality.

I live in Jerusalem and there are Jews who dream of a day when all the Arabs will move out of Jerusalem. Personally I don’t. I consider the Old City to be the “coolest” part of Jerusalem and the Old City would look mighty strange without any Arabs.

As I wrote in another comment a little further down on this post I consider the Arab Israelis in tune enough with the existence of a Knesset and general issues like free speech that I do not consider the growing Arab population inside Israel to be a mortal danger. I think discrimination by Israel (regarding education specifically) of the Arab sector is stupid. The more educated they are, the more the economy of Israel as a whole would hum, the more they would be in tune with democracy and the ship of state would run smoother. The worse the education, the worse the economy of Israel as a whole, the worse the economy of the Arab villages in particular, the greater the attraction of Islam, the larger the families would be and the greater the danger.

I realize that there are elements of patronizing that are involved in my discourse and if I were talking in person to a Palestinian I would try to figure out how to say the same thing in a more polite manner. Although most of the participants in the comments section don’t deserve honesty (don’t deserve much at all), in general I think you do, and so I have tried to be honest. Two elements that are necessary in a discussion on the I/P issue are curiosity about the other side (compassion would be best, but curiosity is the minimum requirement) and honesty.